The government has imposed certain restrictions on the usage of the internet. As the number of people using the internet is increasing, safety and protection have been decreasing. Several countries are restricting political content, putting bloggers to imprisonment, and imposing a limit on their internet usage. Thus, it makes the content not available in your country.
In this blog post, we will look into the three ways Government restricts the use of the Internet.
1. Technical Censorship
Governments are using different technical ways to prevent the access of the public to unwanted resources. All the methods have diversified effectiveness, side effects, and costs.
- Blacklists: With the help of keywords, domain names, and IP addresses, Governments are blocking certain pages and websites. It includes obstructing IP access, monitoring and filtering URLs, DNS poisoning, and resetting connections.
- Control Points: The government imposes censor-nominated technologies to control the use of the internet. For example, the manufacturers or vendors are required to install censorship software on the personal devices of the users.
- Over And Under Blocking: It includes obstructing the server of the IP address to exercise control on the website access instead of blocking those content that is deemed offensive.
- Commercial Filtering Software: Government uses off-the-shelf filtering software to block sensitive content on the internet.
2. Non-Technical Censorship
Apart from technical censorship, the Governments of several countries impose a non-technical limit to internet usage. For instance, the content on the internet is subject to the restriction on requests or directly if the content is offensive. The laws and regulations owing to such offense are contingent to arrest, civil lawsuit, fines, imprisonment, or criminal prosecution. These laws apply to the authors, publishers, and ISPs that pose threats, attacks, beatings, and even murder. Moreover, the government restricts access to search results owing to specific search terms. If the user violates the terms set up by the search engines, the content is liable to be excluded from the web. When the government allows the search engine to function in a new geographical area, they must accept the censorship standards of that area or country.
3. User Censorship
The Government also imposes censorship of users by online service operators.
Elimination Of User Accounts In Case Of Controversial Content
The removal of accounts owing to controversial content by the government is known as Deplatforming. In this method, several speakers are banned or suspended from all the social media platforms and other platforms that give way to the freedom of speech. The banks and financial institutions do not grant services to controversial users of the internet.
Official Statement Of Different Online Platforms
The Terms of Service of several social media platforms are as follows:
- Facebook: Facebook doesn’t allow content that is full of hate, threaten, violent scenes, and other offensive content.
- Google: Google removes or suspends the content if they found it to be suspicious.
- Twitter: Twitter terminates the content or user in case of a law violation.
- YouTube: YouTube imposes copyright infringement on times of a violation of the Terms of Service.
