Tuesday, March 24, 2015

General Assembly Topic: Freedom of Expression vs Internet Censorship

In Order for us to debate during the class we will consider the next topic: 

Freedom of Expression vs Internet Censorship among the World. 

St. John's students must find a possible resolution among countries to have an open media as possible for all people within countries and out to share, express and acquire the knowledge to take decisions for what would be best for them. 

the next material was selected to make your research easier and for you to develop your countries opinion in the matter as near from the reality as possible. 

Good luck and see you in Class. 


Right of freedom of expression, violence and censorship of the media

   Freedom of expression is one of the most fundamental rights that individuals enjoy. It is fundamental to the existence of democracy and the respect of human dignity. It is also one of the most dangerous rights, because freedom of expression means the freedom to express one's discontent with the status quo and the desire to change it. As such, it is one of the most threatened rights, with governments - and even human rights groups - all over the world constantly trying to curtail it.
   The United States, probably like no other nation, has recognized the importance of freedom of expression to safeguard democracy and grow as a nation. However, this does not mean there are no efforts to try to curtail it. The internet has often been the target of this efforts, as it provides practically everyone with the ability to communicate their ideas to wide audiences and escapes the ability of the state to control it.
T  his page is just being born, but in the future we hope to provide you with thorough information about what freedom of speech means, why it is important to protect it and what are the attempts to curtail it. Meanwhile we hope you find the information we do offer useful.
   Countries defending the right of freedom and expression
   Mainly USA, French and Germany are the ones who mainly protects this article.
    Countries violating the right of freedom and expression
   Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville,
Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon,
Laos, Mauritania, Rwanda, Togo, Tunisia, Vietnam, Angelia, Arabia Saudi, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia y Tunes

    Sources of information and research
·       Human rights. Page consulted on February 28th. At:http://www.derechos.org/human-rights/speech/
·       Right of expression. Page consulted on February 28th. At:http://issues.tigweb.org/expression
·       UNHRC session resolutions. Page consulted on February 28th. At:http://www.ifex.org/sri_lanka/2012/02/28/unhrc_session/
·       Violations to the right of expression. Page consulted on February 28th. At:http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4f4b6bf92.html
·       Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 2010 - Report of the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. Page consulted on February 28th. At: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain?page=search&docid=4daeab852&skip=0&query=violations%20of%20the%20freedom%20of%20expression










 Privatization of the internet and censorship of the media
     Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. The legal issues are similar to offline censorship.
    One difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can find it on websites hosted outside the country. Conversely, attempts by one government to prevent its citizens from seeing certain material can have the effect of restricting foreigners, because the government may take action against Internet sites anywhere in the world, if they host objectionable material.
    Barring total control on Internet-connected computers, such as in North Korea, total censorship of information on the Internet is very difficult (or impossible) to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the Internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Freenet) allow unconditional free speech, as the technology guarantees that material cannot be removed and the author of any information is impossible to link to a physical identity or organization.

    These are the countries that are against the internet

    In 2006 the organization Reporters without Borders published a list of the 13 "enemies of the Internet" these countries only show certain information filtered to their population limiting their knowledge of information from the world
    These aren´t the only countries that filter the information before it arrives to their population many others countries also do it but in less scale than the countries previously mention.


   Level of privatization of the internet
   There are different levels of censorship: Pervasive, Substantial, and Nominal. Below are the countries that fall in the different categories.
   
  
    Pervasive

      Cuba

Iran 

Maldives 
Myanmar 
North Korea
People's Republic of China 
Syria 
Tunisia 
Uzbekistan 
Vietnam

    Substantial

      South Korea

Saudi Arabia 

United Arab Emirates 
Yemen
Qatar

    Nominal

      Australia

Brazil 

Canada 
Denmark 
European Union 
Fiji 
Finland 
France 
India 
Israel 
Italy 
Morocco 
Norway 
Pakistan 
Russia 
Singapore 
Sri Lanka 
Sweden 
Thailand 
Turkey 
United Kingdom 
United States of America



   Sources of information and research
·       Enemies of the internet. Page consulted on February 28th. At:http://www.multilingualarchive.com/ma/enwiki/en/Internet_censorship#13_.22Enemies_of_the_Internet.22
·       Internet censorship. Page consulted on February 28th. At: http://www.internet-censorship.com/
·       About Internet Censorship. Page consulted on February 28th. At:http://www.vpnaccounts.com/about-internet-censorship.html
·       Internet censorship. Page consulted on February 28th. At:http://www.princeton.edu/~csl/internet-censorship.html
·       Internet censorship. Page consulted on February 28th. At:http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/issues/internet-censorship.htm



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