The Human Right to Information

Since the creation of the Internet, the world has entered into an age of communication and information unprecedented in the history of the human species. With the click of a few buttons, one can explore the depths of any topic regardless of the subject. With the invention of this new tool, humans around the world are in a position to develop and further themselves at a rate unmatched by past generations. The Internet was created as a free-flow of information in which anyone could access information about any topic. However, sometimes the free access of is contrary to the interests of an authority. Without proper justification, the authority may simply decide what may or may not be viewed on the Internet, or that using the internet is a waste of time. In the relatively short history of the Internet, Internet censorship is an important issue that every country must decide on in the coming years. The individual’s right to information is arguably a fundamental human right, the suppressing of which could be considered a violation of international human rights. This paper explores the development of the Internet, the various attempts that have been made to censor it and the consequences of both free and censored Internet. It is hypothesized that a society with leaders that value self interests higher than people’s interests will go out of their way to limit the access of information to the general population to keep them unknowing. In order to critically analyze Internet censorship, the brief review of the Internet’s short history is in order.

The creation of the Internet begins recently in the early 1950’s with the connecting of two electronic computers in the 1950’s. It is an integration of all modern forms of communication including the telegraph, telephone, radio and television. With the Internet, a person can send an electronic message to someone else connected to the Internet all the way on the other side of the world and have it received in an instant. It makes the transfer of information instantaneous! The barriers that separated our societies such as borders, governments, travel and expenses become virtually meaningless, as one person is able to video chat with family in another country. The scholarly articles published at a medical research institute in India are instantly made available to doctors in the United States. This free-flow of information is transnational and supersedes the jurisdiction of any single national entity. As some regimes are still accustomed to pre-modern practices and standards of living, the leaders of these regimes may act in desperation in fear of using their power. For this type of selfish reasoning, some leaders deem it necessary to censor what can be viewed on the Internet in their country. When times become really desperate, the leaders may even decide to shut it off completely. There are times where some type of censorship may be necessary. There are also times where censorship can be used excessively and unreasonably. What exists is a spectrum between appropriate suppression

Censorship is defined as the suppression or proscription of speech or writing that is deemed obscene, indecent, or unduly controversial (“Censorship”). This is a very precise definition and can easily be mistaken for unjustifiable suppression. In this case, censorship refers to any type of expression that strongly violates moral and ethical values of a specific standard. The specific standard vary from country to country. In the U.S. it is common to see a model in a bikini in a commercial whereas the same commercial would be a strong violation of cultural values. Therefore, censorship refers as the suppression of expression that is deemed obscene or indecent by the party in power. The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of speech (“Constitutional Topic…”), but any law textbook will explain that this freedom of speech never protects obscenity, fighting words and expression of the sort (Clarkson et al.). It is understandable that there are certain situations that may warrant for the censorship of the Internet.

Since the creation of the Internet, many people have tried to abuse its advantages for personal gains. These issues have taken each country by storm and have changed the lifestyles of families all over the world. Limewire and similar online services made it possible for anyone connected to the internet to download audio and video content illegally for free. Due to the mass of how many people are connected to the Internet at once, it was impossible for the government to control at first. However, after years of persistence, legislation was passed and the operators of such services became subject to prosecution and heavy violations. The same is true for Megavideo, once known as the biggest online video search engine for watching exclusive content usually paid for. These services violate other individuals right to intellectual property and because they are a violation of other people’s rights, their censorship is warranted. Another example of warranted censorship is in child pornography and minor seduction over the Internet. The nature of these acts warrants for their censorship. It would not be beneficial to society to have images of such acts deemed unnecessary to society to be readily available for viewing. However, seeing clear examples of how the censorship of certain content is needed, justified censorship can quickly be turned into unjustifiable suppression.

In many countries outside of the U.S., certain rights and freedoms are not so consciously protected. There are many different systems of government around the world than the idealistic rights oriented representative democracy practiced in the western societies. Other regimes include authoritarian regimes, totalitarian dictatorships, communist based democracies etc. Whereas western democracies rule by the popular sovereignty of the people, these other regimes are the rulers of their peoples. There are many benefits to being in power such as money, a higher standard of living than most of the population and major decision-making power. Therefore, it is in the best interest the people in power to stay in power. After all, who wants to give up money, a higher standard of living and decision-making power? Because it is in their interests to stay in power, keeping certain information out of the hands of the population becomes the seemingly appropriate course of action. The desire to stay in power is not a sufficient justification to the censorship of the Internet because there is no greater value of one person or entity over another. Where the Declaration of Independence states, “all men are created equal” and frees people from the unjust rule of their king, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow attempts to do the same for liberating the Internet from the unjust rule of governments. However, this movement has generally failed because more often than not, the government controls the infrastructure required for the Internet to exist (Murdoch). With the physical control over the Internet, what can and cannot be seen is left entirely up to the hands of the government in power. In a representative democracy, there may be some minor issues that are resolved through public policy change, but in lesser-developed authoritarian countries, the problems become much deeper. 

Problems with Internet censorship can even in the idealistic freedom based political culture of the United States. Professor Robert J. Borns from the Department of Electrical Engineering Technology at Purdue University discusses the issues currently under debate. His article The Internet: Privacy, Censorship , The First Amendment, and Transnational Communications; What’s At Stake? raises social concerns regarding the censorship of the Internet and its implication on people’s rights, inside and outside of the United States. Recognizing the Internet use has grown to over 160 countries and 60 million users, the author establishes a discrepancy in which we would like to value the unlimited right to freedom of speech but some speech needs to be protected from reaching the hands of minors (Borns). And whereas society would like to think that Internet blocking services fully protect what children see, simply blocking the word “sex” from Internet results could prevent a student from learning about sexually transmitted diseases. Therefore, it has been established that Internet regulation is a bit more complex than it may seem. Nonetheless, it can be agreed upon in a democracy like the United States that there is a certain level of protection for all speech even on the Internet. For example, a person can post on a political blog knowing they are safe from the government barging into their home and arresting them immediately. The same cannot be said for other countries around the world. 

Most recently, countries all over the Middle East underwent revolutions collectively known as the Arab Spring of 2011. After years of corrupt practices by their government, people of these countries were made aware of the political discrepancies through the Internet and quickly resolved them. The discrepancies were generally a large amount of money that was made by the country’s leaders yet not evident in the average living standard of the population. It was then concluded that each population has been victimized by years of corruption and embezzlement by the government and closely related business corporations. More importantly, as developed countries came as customers for the country’s natural resources, major macroeconomic deals were made with a majority of the profits going into back into the regimes. This takes place for years, since the conclusion of WWII, with no way of the people to see what takes place behind the closed doors of government and politics. As mass media and political participation begins to blossom in developed societies such as the U.S., countries like Egypt and Libya led by the government centralized around their presidents, continue to be abused and exploited. As the internet slowly comes to existence in the 1990’s early 2000’s, there is not much of any significant information to cause worry for the regimes and their leaders. But, due to the exponential growth and use of the Internet, enough political and other types of information from more advanced and developed societies flow in at a tremendous rate resulting in a literal awakening of the civil societies in each of these countries. The first move by these governments during the uprisings was to quickly shut off the Internet in order to stop the flow of information among the population. But by then it was too late, the people had already been made aware of what has taken place and were not ready to let it go (Krakovsky). The obvious injustice made it impossible for the leaders to politically recover. Some leaders like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt stepped down before a full-scale revolution broke out. Other leaders like Muammar Ghadafi in Libya refused to back down without being killed. Other regimes like the Assad regime in Syria have yet to be removed from power and continue restricting the people’s rights, not only to information, but the right to self-determination as well. A keynote observed from the Arab Spring of 2011 is how quickly information can spread amongst an entire population of people. 

Some governments, more advanced than others, have taken the proper precautions from before the Internet. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and China were able to incorporate the Internet into their societies without undergoing some type of revolution or major political shift. These countries, do in fact however, use Internet filtering software. In 2008, Reporters Without Borders ranked Saudi Arabia 161st out of 173 countries in the category of “freedom of the press”, and with good reason. Under rule of King Abdullah bin Abdulazis and the royal family since 1932, there has been much money to be made from the masses of oil reserves underneath the countries ground. As a result, it has been in the best interests of the major oil consumers, the developed westernized countries, and those with political power in Saudi Arabia to maintain their holds on power as years of trade were undergone, in which both parties would make enormous profits. The people living on the Saudi land, the rightful heirs of the natural resource the land provides, do not see of the profits nor does it reflect in their standard of living. Instead, they are fed propaganda of how generous and giving their king is. Because of a very strong restriction of information in Saudi Arabia, the regime was successfully able to avoid having a revolution during the Arab Spring of 2011. 

The stories of China and the United Arab Emirates are different. China is one of the fastest growing economies in the world currently. Founded on strict economic principles by Mao Zedong after WWII, information made available to the people has always been controlled. The government in China has deemed it necessary to the interests of the 1 billion people in China as a whole to limit the amount of information made available to the people to prevent riots and uprisings. Such civil unrest would disturb continuous economic growth and hinder the unification efforts of the government. In this case, the government had some sufficient justification when deciding to limit the information made available to the people. However, the contrast in this case opposed to the case of Saudi Arabia is there are significant differences being made in the living standards in China. The country is rapidly modernizing and becoming one of the world’s great powers. 

Finally, the United Arab Emirates has a unified censoring policy nationwide. They are able to do this because of the government owned monopoly, Etasalat. Etasalat is the only company that provides mass communication services to people in the U.A.E. and it is operated by the government. As a result, the government strictly censors any website it deems unfit. Due to the strong Islamic culture embedded in the society, pornographic websites, gambling websites and other websites containing explicit material are blocked on the Internet. In addition to ideals against Muslim values, any political websites that may cause a threat to the government are also blocked. But unlike no proper justification for Internet censorship like in Saudi Arabia, the native population of the United Arab Emirates is 10% of the population (“Central Intelligence Agency”). Therefore, an overwhelming majority of the population consists of citizens from outside of the Emirates. Due to the diversity, it is unlikely that immigrants coming into the country from around the world are going to hold the same values as the natives of the land. However, because they are the natives to the land and they have the right to self-determination, they do have a right to enact any policies they deem necessary to protect their identity and interests (“Internet Censorship in Dubai and UAE”). But whereas the U.A.E. government protects them through censorship because they are severely outnumbered by a wide variety of different cultures, the government in Saudi Arabia faces no such threat. The only justification backing their censorship is the opportunity to make more money and that is not sufficient justification. However, the biggest injustice of all is the source of these internet monitoring and blocking services.

An article titled Future Web: Exporting Censorship by Xeni Jardin discusses one of the most ironic findings in the history of the internet. Created in America as a tool to access limitless information, the same country that embraces the ideals of freedom of speech and expression, press and the right to access that press, is the same country that sells Internet monitoring software for foreign regimes! The author of the article is a co-editor of a blog called boingboing.net. It is a website dedicated to the casual exchange of ideas between people about whatever topic is of issue. Well, as co-editor of the blog, Jardin was surprised not only to find that their website was blocked in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but some of the censoring devices used are produced by American technology companies as part of a security metrics package. The specific web filter she encountered was called SmartFilter and it was a content filtering product from a firm called Secure Computing based in Silicon Valley. Wrongly classified as a nudity site, the website was easily blocked by any web filtering software on the market. The firm would not share information on who their governmental clients were but data gathered by researchers with the Open Net Initiative about how censorware is used in different countries around the world to control the service providing of the internet. The data shows SmartFilter, an American product made by an American company, has been used by state-controlled ISPs in Kuwai, Oman and Saudi Arabia (Jardin). Surprisingly, each of these countries is located in the Middle East and each of these countries contains some type of abundance in a natural resource. Each of these countries has significant figures almost strategically put in place, like a single king or single sultan, and has significantly positive relations with the United States. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in the first Persian Gulf War in 1991, the United States quickly came to aid the small country and pushed the Iraqi forces back within their borders. Whereas the Internet censorship products and exporting may be entirely coordinated by independent companies, it is possible that there is some level of government coordination with these private companies in order to promote the bests interests of those making the decisions.

What are the best interests of those making the decisions. When the United States was founded with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the most important interests were that of the individual. Protecting the undisputable interests of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were the most important national interests at the time. It took decades before a comprehensive system was placed to protect these rights. And as these rights began to fade away as big businesses and factories came to rise, democracy was able to adjust itself and continue forward in the interests of the people. With television and other forms of mass communication, individual participation and involvement in the process of democracy has risen to an unprecedented level. But as conditions become more free and equal on homeland soil, it can be clearly seen that the same rights and ideals are negligently violated in other countries around the world. And where we like to pretend that our country stands for peace, justice, equality and the equal protection of human rights around the world, evidence shows that it is in fact ourselves that supplies the contradictory tools to development to other countries such as internet censorship capabilities and weapons. The only evident motivation behind such an irrational decision is money. It is when money is valued more than the lives of innocent, unknowing people that the decision to limit a societies right to limitless information that a true injustice has taken place.

In conclusion, the Internet places the world at a frontier unprecedented in human history. The communication of information from one entity to another from any two places around the globe has become instantaneous! This has made it possible for people to share ideas and coordinate efforts at a level of efficiency unlike that of any other time. The common assumption that such a great tool would bring limitless growth and potential to the global society is held untrue, as specific authorities have the incentive to go out of their way and limit the people’s access to limitless information because it violates their self interests. While some deep national interests such as national growth or protection may warrant for such limitation, many of the times the self interest is simply money and the unjustified suppression of information takes place. It is not only surprising to see the manner in which the internet is censored in other countries, but the fact that the strongest Internet filtering software used by governments around the world are produced by companies from the United States themselves. Although it may not necessarily be a violation of law to prevent U.S. constitutional rights from taking place in other countries without these rights, it most certainly raises ethical dilemma and questions as to how this issue should be addressed and resolved in the years to come. As Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia states, “One of the grave concerns facing the Internet today is the apparently increasing censorship by repressive governments around the world. I remain cheerfully optimistic, though, that such efforts are destined to fail and will seem quaint in just a few years’ time” (Wales). 

Works Cited

Borns, Robert J. "The Internet: Privacy, Censorship, The First Amendment, and Transnational Communications; What’s At Stake?" Department of Electrical Engineering Technology Purdue University, n.d., http://archive.fie-conference.org/fie96/papers/402.pdf

"Censorship." West's Encyclopedia of American Law, 2005, http://www.encyclopedia.com. 

"Central Intelligence Agency." CIA - United Arab Emirates, 2019, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ae.html

Clarkson, Kenneth W., et al. Business Law: Text and Cases : Legal, Ethical, Global, and Corporate Environment. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012. 

"Constitutional Topic: The First Amendment." US Constitution, 3 Jan. 2011, USConstitution.net

"Internet Censorship in Dubai and UAE   Addthis_pub = 'dubaifaqs';." Internet Censorship UAE, n.d. http://www.dubaifaqs.com/censorship-uae-internet.php

Jardin, Xini. Future Web Exporting Censorship. Taylor and Francis Online, n.d.

Krakovsky, Marina. "Garbage In, Info out." Garbage In, Info out, n.d., https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/9/154581-garbage-in-info-out/abstract

Murdoch, S. J. Index on Censorship. Vol. 36. Oxfordshire, England: Routledge Journals, 2007. 

Wales, Jimmy. Future Web Setting Knowledge Free. Taylor and Francis Online. n.d.