By Brian Langone

Internet censorship is essentially a method
used by corporations, governments and others
in order to filter what a user can view on the
internet.



Businesses use censorship to ensure their
employees are not distracted online.
Families may use censorship in order to limit
what sites their children can access.
Governments use censorship to prevent
citizens from:



Viewing political pages that are against the ruling
party
News pages that would inform citizens of
demonstrations or conflicts.
Pages they would deem obscene.

There are a number of ways to employ censorship.
They include:

Software such as Net Nanny and CYBERsitter. These
programs use a “blacklist” that has a number of sites
deemed offensive.
 These programs also look for keywords on a site and if they
are found it will block access to the site.

Firewalls can also be used, they block what goes in and
out of a network.
 Many businesses rely on firewalls.
 Countries also use firewalls in order to limit what their
citizens can view.

Some countries even have physical surveillance systems
such as cameras at computer locations.