• Control or suppression of publishing or accessing information on the Internet
• Legal issues
– Moral
– Military
– Political
– Religious
– Corporate

• Censorship has been around for many hundred years now.
China and Israel used it in the 400's as a legitimate way to retain moral and political power.
• It was even around during Ancient
Roman times in 440
BC. Socrates was sentenced to drink poison in 399 BC because he talked about the existence of other divinities.

• Since those times, censorship has played a very important role in history and is currently doing the same.

• Nominally censored
– United States, United Kingdom, France, India
• Illegal sites
• Obscene content (i.e. pornography, graphic violence)
• Rebel sites
• Heavily Censored
– Republic of China
• Tibetan independence, Taiwan independence, blog sites, certain international news sources
– Iran, Cuba, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, North Korea
• Small percentage have access to internet which is heavily regulated by the government

No Censorship
Some Censorship
Under Surveillance
Internet Black Holes (most heavily censored)

• Does it violate one’s individual rights?
• Does censoring certain material in fact provide an incentive for people to access that censored material?
• Does censoring better society?
• Can censorship be associated with communism, the very type of government we try to avoid?

• Censorship is needed to a certain extant
– Obscene material
– Pornography
• As long as human rights aren’t violated
– Blogs
– Information