Censorship in general is stupid

Internet censorship is the most pointless form of censorship as has proven in many cases not to in fact work. It is easy to get round, there are twelve year olds in my school who can get round my school’s internet censorship to access blocked pages. I believe that the government shouldn’t be allowed to decide what its citizens can access on the internet, proving that it isn’t breaking any laws. Most people campaigning about internet censorship seem to be focusing on porn (to ‘protect children’), while neglecting the fact that the internet isn’t a pervert, you get out what you type in. If you are actively searching for porn, you’ll get porn. Granted that some children do access porn accidentally, many teenagers search for porn out of ‘curiosity’ or to ‘educate’ themselves on sex meaning that the number of teenagers watching porn would decrease with better sex education, not by banning websites. This is show in this extract from Children Commissioner’s a report that there is evidence “…indicating that young people are dissatisfied with the sex education they are receiving and that they are increasingly drawing on pornography, expecting it to educate and give information regarding sexual practices and norms. ” This proves we need to improve sexual education if we want fewer children to watch porn. In addition if parents don’t wish for their child to be exposed to pornographic images there are methods of preventing this such as putting filters on computer children use which prevent them from accessing these sites in the first place. There is no need to block these sites for everyone else and restrict what they can see on the internet. As for child porn, it’s illegal and needs to be removed but it’s not like a child could stumble across it accidentally as some argue because it’s hidden too well. Greater internet censorship would only strengthen the ‘Deep Web’ making it harder to find criminals distributing drugs, porn and other things illegally on the web while not actually solving the issue that these crimes are committed. Filters used to censor the internet can also be extremely faulty, the one on my computer even blocked a UK Knife crime charity. Other activist sites for example those campaigning for drug reforms have also been blocked, while those supporting the government-backed war on drugs weren’t. Whether or not this censorship was intention or not, this show how censorship filters can infringe the right of freedom of speech, political education and activities of citizens. More worryingly, in 2013, BT allowed users to block “gay and lesbian ‘lifestyle’” content to prevent their children accessing information on what could be their own sexual orientation. The examples above are all extremely worrying. China is an example of the problems of allowing internet censorship as people have been arrested for expressing their freedom of speech especially when campaigning against the censorship itself among other things. While it’s unlikely that censorship in the West would get to this level it still displays how censorship can be a threat to human rights. China’s censorship method is the one which works the best out of all of the other countries which censor the internet because it is so repressive, less strict censorship policies are domed to be aborted by governments in more ‘free’ countries as people can more easily campaign against them, for example the 2014 Turkish anti-censorship protests. Paradoxically China’s internet censorship is also a great demonstration that ultimately, internet censorship is doomed to failure. As they get more strict, more find ways around the barriers, not to mention the fact monitoring equipment is already being pushed to the limit by the sheer number of people using the internet to express views making it near impossible to check and censor everything. Now imagine the difficulty with doing the same here, seems unlikely to work. The internet is an important resource for accessing knowledge and information; a place where people who normally never speak out are given the freedom to express their views, which is obviously a good thing. Censorship takes this away from us. The ‘Right to be Forgotten’ has already received 250,000 "Removal" Requests to remove “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” this definition is very vague and partial subjection. UK governments ISP filter plans included blocking ‘esoteric material’, (something that is largely hidden from the public by claims of ‘censorship to protect children’) and could block alternative spirituality websites, thus violating the Human Right to freedom of religion and the ability of people at being able to think freely. There is also a filter for “web forums”. Both these definitions are worryingly vague and show how much of a threat censorship posse to freedom and essentially they could claim. The internet is an essential toll in everyday life, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has stated he personally believes "… you cannot build a modern knowledge society with that kind of behaviour. ” In referring to Chinese censorship. This view was shared by a majority of people questioned in 2013 as part of a Pew research survey which showed “Majorities in 22 of 24 countries surveyed say it is important that people have access to the internet without government censorship,” To conclude, the internet is too important an asset to be restricted by censorship filters which according to blocked. com block nearly 20% of the internet, in many cases these sites pose no threat to children or anyone else for that matter. Sources: . http://bishtraining.com... . http://www.theguardian.com... . https://www.newschallenge.org... . http://www.huffingtonpost.com... file:///C:/Users/lisbl_000/Downloads/Basically_porn_is_everywhere_Final. pdf . http://www.bmj.com... . http://www.theguardian.com... . http://www.theguardian.com...