Pillars are Just Crutches

This is a report I had to do for school on whether the Internet should be censored … the short answer is no. The long answer is:

Introduction
Never, in all of human history, has so much information been so readily available than today, all thanks to the advent of the Internet and companies, such as Google, whose whole mission statement is the compiling and easy access of world information, whether that information be books, blogs, numbers, spreadsheets, art or pornography. Google’s mission statement is made on the first line of their company corporate page: “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (www.google.com/corporate, 2008).
Google has made information so accessible and useful in fact that the United States, India and other countries have had serious security concerns about it’s satellite image application, Google Earth (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6331033.stm, 2007) and it’s ability to give terrorists an advantage if they ever wanted to go after a ‘desirable’ target. Google has agreed to talk with those countries which are concerned and reduce the quality of the images in question.
The Internet also deals with other, more nefarious, types of information as well. One lobbyist for the Canadian Recording Industry Association is quoted as saying, “The Internet is a highway of stolen goods and child pornography that goes into the bedroom of every kid in this country” (http://p2pnet.net/story/8785, Angus). This, of course, is a gross exaggeration (if not demonizing) on the state of the Internet as to coerce the Canadian government to enable more controls in order to stop the use of P2P and torrent downloading of copyrighted material through the Internet.
Which leads us to the question of censorship on the Internet. Copy written torrent/P2P downloading, pornography (whether in writing or pictures), misinformation, security threats, and violence (whether through song, words or pictures) are all available for consumption to whomever wants to find it through the Internet. Does all this mean that we should censor the Internet? Whichever answer that is given to this question only raises more questions – but as we’ll see, censorship is not the answer, not only does it leave the door open to organizations and government potentially violating others freedom of speech and expression, it is also largely impractical and ineffective as there is always a technological work around. Censorship should only be applied in the most sever of cases.

Why Censor?
There are a number of reasons why people would want to censor material whether it be in the movies, on television, in music or on the Internet. They range from moral to governmental. Malcolm Muggeridge while speaking about the largest media influence of his day, television, said, “It is a truism to say that the media … is incomparably the greatest single influence in our society today … This influence … is … exerted irresponsibly, arbitrarily and without reference to any moral or intellectual, still less spiritual, guidelines whatsoever” (1977, p.23). If you think that this quote could not possibly apply to the Internet it would be prudent to note that one of the most popular websites on the planet, Myspace, is owned by Fox Interactive Media which is owned by News Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/myspace), the world’s largest media conglomerate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation).
One popular reason for censorship is that the contents have gradually degraded our society as a whole and therefore all of society would benefit from it if the material was not easily accessible (Medved, 1992, p321).
According to Marjorie Heins the main reason given in support of censorship (particularly for the Internet) is to protect children from stumbling upon offensive or damaging images or information (http://w2.eff.org, 2001). The ‘commonsense’ position is that if children find such information they could be permanently scarred, therefore we as adults should protect them at all costs.
Businesses, when they can, have delved into censorship as well. Apart from major Internet websites giving into the demands of countries that want to heavily censor the Internet (Google, for example) (www.cnn.com), Telus has been reported as censoring a website that it deemed harmful to the company from its subscribers. The BCCLA had to use a proxy to view the site because their Internet connection was with Telus (http://www.bccla.org/pressreleases/05telus.htm).
Another reason for Internet censorship has not been seen in Canada (to the author’s knowledge), and that is government-controlled censorship to avoid the public from finding out viewpoints other than that of the government. China is becoming renowned for this! CNN reports that:
The Chinese government blocks Web sites of some Western media outlets and human rights organizations — and any it deems politically or socially harmful.

Chinese people trying to access information related to Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, SARS, opposition political parties, and anti-Communist movements will find themselves out of luck.

Information about any group that can organize large numbers of people is considered threatening. Any Web site with information on the Falun Gong spiritual movement, for example, is blocked. (www.cnn.com)

Lastly, and likely the most understandable area of censorship are the areas in which the content that is to be censored is already considered illegal. The case that gets the most press in this regard is child pornography.
So, if we allowed for one of these areas of censorship to take place which would it be, which governing body would be assigned to censor the material and how would they decide or determine a criteria for such censorship. None of these questions are easily answered.

Who Would Censor What?
As can be seen from the list of examples of censoring, there are wide opinions on what should be censored and who should be doing the censoring. Communist China takes the most liberal view on the matter and censors anything that is a threat to the government. This is where the problems start, no one will ever agree on one organization to do the censoring and no one will ever come to terms with what should and should not be censored.
The atheist will not want the Christian censoring the Internet as much as the Christian would want the atheist censoring it. If Christians started censoring it some may advocate that teaching about evolution or ‘safe’ sex be censored while the atheists may censor anything that says homosexual acts or abortions are sinful. Either way, the free speech rights of one group would surely be trumped by the other. Although the case does not have to do with the Internet, John H. Tietjen tells an interesting story on the lengths some will go to make their case for censorship:

The confrontation in the State of Washington took place because of a request of the Moral Majority for a list of borrowers of the film, “Achieving Sexual Maturity.” The Moral Majority wanted to make use of the information concerning borrowers to bolster efforts for legislation calling for closer parental and community control of sex education in the public schools. The confrontation was avoided when, after taking the Washington State Library to court, the Moral Majority asked for the case to be dismissed without prejudice, which means it cannot be tried again. So there was no definitive decision. Yet the ingredients were all there: freedom of information, freedom of speech, right of privacy, and lurking over it all the specter of censorship.

While on the other end there are people like Marjorie Heins, author of the book “Not in front of the Children”, who say that not only is this type of viewing for children/adolescence harmless but is actually beneficial because it gives them a variety of experiences from which to view life (http://w2.eff.org, 2001).
The range of opinions on the matter is truly endless.
So, what would be harmful? A film on “Achieving Sexual Maturity” may very well help some people, and it might be harmful to others, but does that mean it should be censored from everyone? Is there anything that is indecent and should never be allowed to be seen or heard by anyone?
Alan Borovoy expresses the difficulty in defining what could be harmful just in the area of hate-speech, let alone the world of pictures and movies:
[It is impossible to devise] a prohibition so precise as to nail genuine expressions of hatred without imperilling (sic) a lot of other speech. The criminal code, for example, makes it unlawful to wilfully (sic) promote “hatred” on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity. But “hatred” is a vague notion. We know that free speech is sometimes most important when it expresses strong disapproval. Where does strong disapproval end and “hatred” begin? Not surprisingly, this anti-hate provision has been used against a variety of legitimate activists and materials … Although these cases ultimately cleared the speech in question, the harassment certainly caused damage. Legitimate free speech is not viable when those who engage in it have to worry about facing legal sanctions. Moreover, there is no way to know how often people have censored themselves because they feared such sanctions. (http://www.ccla.org)

Even if the intentions of the censor are good, biases still leak into the system. For example, multinationals have no problem with the United Arab Emirates blocking pornography sites, however, they don’t stop at pornography, lots of their censorship is politically based too. The BBC reports:
From the UAE, attempting to access sites like www.uaeprison.com or www.arabtimes.com (published in the United States) brings up an apology for the site being blocked and an explanation; it is “due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk)

It does not end there though, sites like Skype, and Internet telephony services, are also blocked and many believe for economic reasons. If foreign workers living in UAE cannot access the site then they have to pay the UAE telephone companies for international calls (http://news.bbc.co.uk).
Imagine a scenario if the Canadian government starts censoring the Internet where one of Canada’s telecommunications companies complains to the government that they are loosing money because of the popularity of such international services and asks the government to block the service so that Canadians and tourists were forced to go through them thus bringing them out of the red and, of course, strengthening the Canadian economy. These are the kinds of implications that starting down the road of censorship can have!
It would be impossible to find a suitable censor and possibly even harder to agree upon what should be censored and what should not, still within keeping of our free speech rights. But when it comes to the Internet, even if we could agree on all this, is it even possible to censor it?

Can Censorship Work?
Censorship is not a new concept, it has been around for as long as there have been ideas that people do not like. The early Church had their books burned by the Roman government and then the church turned around and burned the books of the early reformers, both attempts (obviously) never stopped the impending movements to forge ahead.
Some may argue that censorship has worked in the past. In the 1930’s the ‘Hay’s Office’ had set up a production code that regulated all movies that were shown on the big screen. This code lasted until 1966 when it was finally removed in the name of better movies and artistic development. However, it is widely agreed upon that having no code never produced the desired results (Medved, 1992, p.281-283).
However, when the Internet is in question, censorship just simply will not work. In a Canadian example the website www.demonoid.com, a Bittorrent tracker, moved to Canadian soil after it was forced to leave the Netherlands. Pressure from the CRIA forced Demonoid to block all Canadian traffic in order to avoid a potential lawsuit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonoid), however, a simple proxy (whether website or computer based) would immediately give any Canadian access to the website again in a matter of minutes.
Even the communist government in China has trouble with individuals breaking its censorship laws! And with new software from people at the University of Toronto it is going to be incredibly hard to stop anyone from seeing anything they want on the web. The University of Toronto news reports that:
Deibert is developing software to subvert these oppressive laws. One tool he helped create is psiphon, an Internet censorship evading software application. People with friends and family in censored countries download the application onto their home computers and forward the unique connection to those living in the restricted areas, allowing them to surf sites over an encrypted channel. The system is virtually undetectable by authorities.
More than 130,00 (sic) unique copies of psiphon have been downloaded. To keep users safe, the program keeps no record of their location.
…
“Internet censorship is growing in all nations,” said Deibert. “Even in developed countries, governments are turning to filtering content to solve social and political problems.”

So, not only is censorship dubious on a practical level in general but also on a technological level specifically. A single country simply cannot effectively censor the Internet.
Harmful to Minors
In her book, “Not in Front of the Children”, Marjorie Heins goes through the history of censorship in America and seeks to battle the most common argument used for the case of censorship today, the protection of children. In her introduction she cites a US Courts of Appeals judgment which used the following excerpt from Plato’s Republic in order to justify its ruling:
A young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. (http://w2.eff.org/Censorship/)

She argues very accurately that the reasons for censorship in Plato’s utopia and the reasons people fight for censorship today are completely different. Plato was not interested in protecting children from the wickedness of the world, he was interested in indoctrinating the youth into society. Not only would Plato have censored ‘indecency’ but also “‘other creative arts’ and of all music that did not promote temperance and military courage” (http://w2.eff.org/Censorship/). His ideology of indoctrination would be an affront to anyone who took their freedoms seriously.
She goes on to talk about Anthony Comstock, who she believes is the pioneer of the protection of children defense. He persuaded Congress to ban obscene material from the mail. George Bernard Shaw would later coin a label for mindless censorship, “Comstockery”. She insists that Comstock laid the roots of the modern argument for censorship and did it out of moral conviction rather than with evidence to support his claims. The rest of her book goes on to show (like the case cited above) that the case for censorship to protect children has gone through the system very much like in Comstock’s day, with little to no evidence to support that these materials were harmful to minors.
Although it may seem that Hein’s would have children view anything they wish without any worry, this is also not the case, she says:
The argument here is not that commercial pornography, mindless media violence, or other dubious forms of entertainment are good for youngsters or should be foisted on them. Rather, it is that, given the overwhelming difficulty in even defining what it is we want to censor, and the significant costs of censorship to society and to youngsters themselves, we ought to be sure that real, and not just symbolic harm results from youthful pursuit of disapproved pleasures and messages before mandating indecency laws, Internet filters, and other restrictive regimes (Grossberg, 2001, p.595).

Although Heins may have a strong point in regard to evidentiary material pointing to harm in minors, to achieve such evidence has proven to be very difficult. Ethically, of course, a lot of research cannot be done, even in cases of the effects of pornography on adults, let alone children. Deborah Baker says that the argument that no research indicates that any harm is done by pornography is a smoke screen because no research can be done (Anderson, p.102, 2005).
However, a number of statistics suggest that pornography is detrimental to society including rises in rape instances in countries that have a liberal view on pornography, while countries that have restrictions on such content have declining reports of rape (Anderson, p.103, 2005). It should be noted that the study that Anderson cites here was done in 1986 (see page 224 for the endnote), well before Internet pornography became widely available. And as we’ve seen from above, government censorship and criminalization has little effect on the availability of these materials to those who have any competent computer knowledge.

If Not Censorship, What?
As of the writing of this paper there is very little censorship of the Internet by Canada. Only “Project Cleanfeed Canada”, which is a completely separate entity from the ISP’s involved and the Canadian government, censors child pornography sites and is one of the few instances where Internet censoring is prudent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Canada).
In regards to general censorship in Canada of other medias, we are generally more liberal than our southern neighbors. After 9 p.m (through to 6 a.m.). television stations are allowed to air swearing and nudity, because children are less likely to hear or see it, while there are some other stations that air softcore pornography after midnight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Canada). Censoring the Internet for the protection of children would seem like a double standard in Canada, because of the nature of the Internet it’s hard to stumble upon unwanted images unless they are being looked for. Over the course of researching for this report for example, the author, while searching for things related to pornography over the Internet never came across any indecent sites.
If, in general, the Internet should not be censored what are we to do about some of the material that presents itself? Parental attention to what a child does on the Internet is first and foremost, the most important thing. Programs are widely available for screening people’s surfing habits, plus computers have all sorts of passwords and securities to ensure that children can only get when a parent is present or nearby.
Lastly, illegal activity needs to be dealt with at its root, not at its ‘consumption’. Not to lessen the crimes of those who view child pornography but the people who make and distribute child pornography need to be stopped first, and it’s good to see that progress is being made in stopping these heinous acts! (http://www.cyber-rights.org/reports/child.htm, http://www.cyber-rights.org/reports/uscases.htm)

I discovered this show from ramblings over the internet, hopefully more people will discover it over my ramblings …

Here is the premise of Flight of the Conchords:  2 New Zealand guys are living in New York trying to ‘make it’ as a 2 man band under the name, you guessed it, “Flight of the Conchords”.  They have 1 apartment, 1 manager, 1 fan, and 1 stalker.  The 1st episode follows them as one of the band members attempts to date the former girl friend of the other band member.  Although the premise may sound like it’s been done on every sitcom since Sienfeld, it’s presentation is what puts this over the top!  This is one very very funny show!

I won’t say too much because part of it’s humour is it’s ability to catch the viewer off guard, which also helps make it very different from other comedies that are on tv.  In one moment the show has almost a deadpan sense of humour – the characters don’t really know that they’re funny, and they’re definitly not trying to be – and in the next moment, well, you’ll have to see it to believe it, I have yet to see a comedy do what this comedy does!

It’s nice to see some originality in a show!  My only concern would be that what makes the show funny could become nothing more than a gimmick.  I hope that doesn’t happen, because this has really potential!

So, Flight of the Conchords, check it out.