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The internet. It's a thing that most people say they could not live without.
Social media, music sharing, video sharing, a lot of shopping, and a bunch of other things
depend on it. About 76% of the US population uses the internet.
That's roughly 274 million people. The internet was one of those things that
developed over time with a lot of people adding a lot of details to it.
The idea is credited towards Leonard Kleinrock in 1961. Later, JCR Licklider and Robert Taylor
gave out more details to the new idea in 1962. They eventually released the ARPANET, the
world's first packet switching network. The ideas kept building up until in August
1969, the first piece of equipment was released, called the IMP.
The same year in October, the first message was sent. The message was "LO", which was
suppose to be "LOGIN", but the message didn't send clearly.
The internet was opened to the public in 1992, and then until now, so many websites have
been added, I think Imight have a hard time listing them all.
SInce then, the world has been able to access many different things. In some countries however,
the internet is heavily controlled by the government. This is called internet censorship.
Today, we'll mostly be comparing the US and China's internet censorship, and its affects
on the citizens. The internet is a *** place. Different people
can share different thoughts on subjects, and if the chat isn't on private, everyone
can see the comments. In the USA, sharing thoughts in public is
gladly welcomed. About anywhere, politics and other sensitive subjects will likely be
discussed. This is called "Freedom of Speech", also known as the first amendment in the US
Constitution. In China however, it's different. Freedom
of speech is not welcomed, and there's even consequences on doing so.
An example of this is in early September, and sixteen year old boy in the Gansu Province
had posted two short messages commenting how the police handled a mysterious death. He
was arrested a few days later. There is a "fire wall" in China. And it's
not a wall totally engulfed in flames. That would be pretty cool though.
It's a thing that blocks certain web pages or things that have to do with words that
the Chinese Government does not want people to learn about.
The topics that are blocked can range from certain events, to some politicians, to a
religious cult, and even some news websites. In the United States however, the people are
able to search freely to a point, as long as it doesn't violate any of the laws.
There are a lot of laws to using the internet in the United States. The recognized ones
are the ECPA, the CFAA, and the TPPA. The ECPA sets the standards on how to government
can access digital information of the citizens, like emails.
The CFAA makes it illegal to access and share protected information, such as if there is
personal information that a citizen would rather not share.
The TPPA deals with digital copyrights. This makes it illegal to copy things like music
or movies. There are times when certain internet pages
should be blocked, and other times where it shouldn't.
An example of this is almost all the social media websites that we have here in the States
are blocked in most areas of China. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even Google Documents
are blocked. This limits the freedom of learning about the rest of the world, or communicating
with others. Other times, it is appropriate for the internet
to be blocked. For example, if a person has information that they would rather not share,
they would put a password on it. This protects the person from others knowing about their
personal things. China does have social media, and it's growing
very wide. In "Understanding Social Media in China", Cindy Chiu states that "China's
social-media users not only are more active than those of any other country but also,
in more than 80 percent of all cases have multiple social-media accounts."
There are rights to using the internet, and there's also responsibilities.
A right is a freedom that's protected. One of the rights to using the internet is to
have knowledge about world events, and communicating with others. In China, because of the firewall
that I mentioned earlier, some topics are blocked, meaning it limits the knowledge of
current events or history. A responsibility is the state of duty to deal
with something. A responsibility of using the internet is to use it wisely. This means
to respect ourselves and to respect others, and to not break any laws. This goes the same
with both countries. The United States will likely take over a
bit more control of the internet in the future, and China will likely decrease on the internet
censorship. The Chinese may have a bit more freedom, and
the US will likely only control the internet enough that important information cannot be
seen as easily. The reason why I think this for the US is
because lately, there has been a lot of discussion over the National Security Association looking
over the activities of the people, like collecting phone data from thirty percent of the citizens.
For China's reason, I think this because China had some-what been lifting some bans on censored
websites. Twitter, Facebook, and the New York Times censorship have been lifted in the Shanghai
free trade zone. This was to help Western travelers feel more welcomed.
In conclusion, if the governments still controls the internet access, they must must do so
for the citizens to still have the knowledge of world events, and to be able to fulfill
their needs.