ESL114 Section G
Ryan Salvador
May 3, 2012
Should the Chinese government ban the internet censorship?
Since the birth of internet, people have been bombarded with different kind of information every day. Internet is a network that connects the data of different private computer networks and organizational computer groups from people or organizations around the world (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). As a result, people are looking forward to having access to any kind of websites of their interest, and receiving the latest information about what is happening around their countries or around the world. However, things cannot be as perfect as expected. It is noticed by many people that many countries have set barriers to the internet in their own areas. China, which has the largest population of web users among the world, has created the most advanced surveillance system for internet monitoring (Rohde, 2011). The system is known as “Great Firewall”—also called “the Golden Shield Project”, and is designed to sift out pornography and commercial frauds, but simultaneously blocks certain search terms for the government’s own purposes (McDonald, 2012). However, nobody is satisfied to be a frog in a well which can only perceive scenario above the wellhead but nothing beyond. So the internet censorship has provoked a fierce controversy in the society. Many people including some groups of experts argue for humans’ equal rights to know true and latest resources of information around them. The Chinese government should no longer conduct their censorship program because every person has the right and freedom to know what is going on around them. If the Chinese government insists on this project, people would be trapped in a vicious cycle because the continuity of information blocks would affect the next generation which doubles its effect on people’s ignorance and it would do nothing but fool its own people.
First, in China, people’s words online are carefully
References: Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (n.d.). Internet. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/internet Hornby L. and Le, Y. (2009, December 22). China to require internet domain name registration. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/22/us-china-internet-idUSTRE5BL19620091222 McDonald, M. (2012, March 13). Watch your language! (in china, they really do). New York Times. Retrieved from http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/watch-your-language-and-in-china-they-do/?ref=internetcensorship Rohde, D. (2011, November 18). China’s newest export: Internet censorship. Retrieved from http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2011/11/17/chinas-newest-export-internet-censorship/