This document discusses censorship and controversy surrounding it. It outlines strategies for censorship like blocking software and ratings systems. Ratings can be used by closed groups, communities, individuals, or imposed by organizations. There is a tension between freedom of information on the internet and pressure to control or restrict access to certain content, particularly for concerns around inappropriate influence on children or reduced productivity. Education is important to raise awareness of these issues from a global perspective.

1. Censorship and Controversy
Dr. Varun Kumar
Dr. Varun Kumar (IIIT Surat) Lecture-20 1 / 8

2. Outlines
1 Censorship Strategies
2 Ratings
3 Freedom
4 Pressure to Control
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3. Censorship Strategies
Popular systems for censoring sites
⇒ Blocking Software
⇒ Chines software/apps banned by Indian Government after Galwan clash.
⇒ Some censorship may be genuine and someone may be political or
intentional.
⇒ Google also take responsibility for allowing and blocking software on its
platform playstore.
⇒ Ratings
⇒ Moody’s and Fitch → Ease of doing business over the globe.
⇒ FATF → Involvement of a nation in terrorist activities.
Two rating based approach
⇒ Syntax for defining labels:
A website could have labels describing the levels of Language, Nudity,
Sex, and Violence.
⇒ Syntax for labeling content:
Rating classification itself for each of the labels. Ex- Thesis evaluation
in front of DSC committee (PhD program)
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4. Continued–
⇒ Service Providers
⇒ The ISP can then run the appropriate software to block access to sites
based on the user’s access level → Block lists or site ratings.
⇒ Browsers and search engines
⇒ Some browsers and search engines directly allow for censorship.
⇒ Some search engines allow for user feedback to provide information
used to decide if a site should be removed from their index.
⇒ Social Methods
⇒ It is important that users are educated as to the implications of their
actions.
⇒ There is a moral responsibility associated with data access, and those
who have the ability to control it need to be aware of the issues
involved.
⇒ Education plays an important role in raising awareness, and this has to
be addressed from a global perspective.
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5. Rating
Ratings usage can be grouped into the following categories
⇒ Closed group:
The ratings given depend on the criteria set up by the raters.
A religious organization would tend to be stricter than a secular
educational institute.
Therefore the accepted ratings would depend on which rating
organization was utilized to perform the rating.
⇒ Community:
Net Shepherd (a ratings organization) claim that rating community is
A virtual, online community of people who represent the Internet’s
general population.
These people may not be representative of the world’s population.
Internet users are more affluent and educated than non-users.
The internet user community is self-selecting.
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6. Continued–
There are many groups of user to which ratings may be applicable:
⇒ Individual users:
There is no single, familiar labeling system.
This can make it complicated to learn the various labels attached to
different websites.
Again, this brings up the issue of which group to trust.
⇒ Imposed:
The individual might not be given the option to choose.
Restrictions can be placed by a company or by a government that
regulates the Web servers in its country.
National ’firewalls’ are implemented in China and Singapore, blocking
certain types of material.
Firewalls also exist to ’protect’ the computer networks of many
institutions around the world, such as universities and local government
organizations.
Note: Ratings may not be representative of the majority of the
world’s population.
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7. Freedom
⇒ Freedom is possibly a very useful philosophy and certainly worth
remembering.
⇒ Freedom may have a completely different meaning to different people.
Freedom for a child to cross a busy road on his/her own may place that
child in danger.
A parent will educate the child as to the nature of such dangers until
the child can take responsibility.
⇒ Tim Berners Lee has said; the World Wide Web was to allow any kind
of information to be published and accessed.
⇒ There are many people advocating the freedom of the Internet.
⇒ The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http:// www.eff.org/ ) was set
up to ’work in the public interest.
To protect fundamental civil liberties in the arena of computers and the
Internet.
Dr. Varun Kumar (IIIT Surat) Lecture-20 7 / 8

8. Pressure to Control
⇒ The pressure to clamp down on the freedom of the Net comes from
concern.
⇒ Not all material published is educational or beneficial.
⇒ Websites with ”inappropriate” content might adversely influence
children, and possibly many adults.
⇒ Employees surf sites that have no connection to their tasks as
employees, reducing office productivity.
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