Net Neutrality

Internet is a broad source of communication and information. Now a day you have access to internet everywhere in the world. People use internet for many purposes such as communicating with family and friends all around the world, students and researchers use internet to do intensive research and internet is also used for intensive advertising. Through internet the concept of “Net neutrality” derives. Net neutrality is an internet based problem that not many people are aware of. Net neutrality means that there should be no restrictions on accessing internet sites by internet provider or governments. The deontologist position regarding net neutrality would be to allow access to all sites and their content without any restrictions and a utilitarian position regarding net neutrality would be to restrict sites and their content to the internet users. The way internet is used today, it is necessary to restrict some sites on internet because of the explicit information it contains.
There has been a major issue about how facebook is been used in Pakistan. A Pakistani court recently banned the facebook site in the country till May 31st. The reason
for the ban was due to the creation of facebook page named” everybody draw Mohammed day” . This page encouraged users to post inappropriate pictures of the Pakistani prophet. In this case, it was necessary to restrict this site because there had been a lot of humiliation of the prophet and the government did not want anyone in the country supporting that kind of an act.
Google controls almost two-thirds of the world’s search results.
Some material over Google has been restricted in some countries such as Turkey, Germany, France and Poland and also Thailand for political and historical reasons. Some content of Google has been censored in China. As China is a communist country, the government of China does not want the citizens to have abundant access of various websites. They have a censoring policy for search results or the hosted content, like videos, for the citizens where the content and material is illegal. The censoring policy in China is better for the citizens because the role of the government for any country is to look for betterment of their citizens by censoring the sites the Chinese government is protecting the citizens from getting into any sort of illegal activities or
trouble.
For many years there has been issue of accessing and using blogging sites in India. The government of India has been blocking many blogging sites such as *.blogspot.com, *.typepad.com and geocities.com/ not only that but for the past 6 years the government of India has blocked over 100 blogging sites and are still blocking more sites to avoid fights between religions. The reason for blocking the sites is also because nowadays terrorists are using blogs to support anti- nationalism. The government of India is trying to protect the citizens from these terrorists’ activities by blocking the blogging sites. Terrorist can find their way through blogs to instigate the citizens by saying absurd things and also they can find their way to extract information about the country. In this situation it is very necessary for the government to take action and think about national security. By blocking the sites the government is looking out for the citizens and trying to avoid future invasions by the terrorists in the India.
In conclusion, even though internet is a great source of communication and information there are some issues that can be dangerous for the country or in general for an individual. In today’s generation where everyone has a right of speech and freedom it becomes very hard in terms of what sites and content a government of country can block, ban or restrict. All individuals want to have full access to internet but sometimes it can be harmful if you look through cultural and political perspective or personal perspective. The parents would not want their child to read or watch explicit information or watch explicit videos; they want to protect their child from getting into any sort of trouble. If we compare that with the government of the country, the government of the country would not want their citizens to read, watch or have access to illegal and explicit information. They want to protect their citizens for terrorists, they don’t want their citizens to carry out any illegal activities or get in any major or minor troubles. I agree with the utilitarian approach of net neutrality because the government do worry about the consequences at the end. They want to see their citizens safe and happy. By restricting some explicit sites or by censoring them they are looking out for the citizens and their betterment.

Bibliography:
1) Dogar, Babar. "Facebook banned in Pakistan". The Star. June 4, 2010 <http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/811422--facebook-banned-in-pakistan>.
2) Goldman, David. "Banned.. by Google". CNN Money. June 4, 2010 <http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/18/technology/google_china_censorship/index.htm>.
3) Venuke, "Blog sites blocked in India". Online Diary. June 4, 2010 <http://www.venukb.com/2006/07/19/blog-sites-blocked-in-india/>.
4) "Indian government banned dozen of sites". SFC. June 4, 2010 <http://www.seoforclients.com/hr/gov-bannedblogs/>.