Internet has brought about a major change in our learning process; we can easily enlighten ourselves with the help of internet, as just about everything is one click away! It’s absolutely mind-boggling to see the amount of information present in internet. Generation Y and Z are all the more blessed to have been a part of Internet, because we have the liberty to gain knowledge and access websites that we want to. However, the privileges might not be available to everybody. just like how internet is not available to a lot of people in few parts of the world.
For all intents and purposes, internet might seem as a blessing in disguise. But because it is a tool of freedom, it poses a great threat to entities such as government, who firmly recognize internet as a threat. So far, the aspects of internet might seem as a collaborative scrunch of contradicting conclusions, it is very much sure that these aspects are no surreal. Countries and government across the globe are bargaining the technology as opposed to technology itself; all because they want to chop off the public spat and their common attitude. In this article, you will learn how internet censorship affects four countries of the world.
Internet Restriction in China
China is very strict and adamant on a whole lot of fronts. So it maintains laws, rules and regulations regarding internet access as well. China, being the way it is, does a lot of dissension to put off the opinions. In fact, the government has even established control units for the various internet service providers. As far as reports are to be believed, China has the biggest number of journalists and cyber protestants that are imprisoned. Why are they behind the bars? Because they wanted to bring an end to the corrupt ways of the government, oppose their orthodox ways, signed up online petitions and contacted various foreign groups abroad.
Apart from the various mandatory rules and regulations, China also exploits the most rigid internet laws in the world. They would block domains, websites and if required, then monitor the internet activities of the individuals in depth. The biggest fear creeping in the minds of people is the fact that government can very well keep a track of all the internet activities. Following are the internet restrictions in China:
Banned Internet Content:
- Discussion boards and forums
- Social media
- Political opposition
Methods of Blocking Internet Content:
- VPN blocking
- URL filtering
- IP blocking
- Packet filtering
- DNS redirection and filtering
- TCP connection readjusting
Internet Restriction in U.K
UK practices some of the most controlled and fuddy-duddy ways of internet censorship. They filter the content with absolute disagreeable objectives. However, the country’s government blocks those particular content as well which might be of illegal nature, such as websites which run off the copyrights, laws, sites which instigates terrorism or hosts child pornography. The only problem with this kind of censorship is the fact that it is every day becoming more and more dominant. While government tries to take care of the negative effects that may rise from such freedom, people on the other hand are resisting these measures since these pose a danger to the freedom of information, protection of privacy, and freedom of expression.
ISP’s throughout the UK are using some advanced filtering technology that helps them to block content which might be labelled as:
- Violent
- Extreme
- Pornography
- Suicide
- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Terrorist
- Obscure
Internet Restriction in North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea keeps a high intensity of internet censorship, and certainly don’t believe in the liberty of media and press. They carry out extreme restraints and confinement of all sorts of communication channels, which helps them to maintain their hype and deceit the viewpoint of citizens. As a matter of fact, all the media outlets are managed, controlled and owned by government. Moreover, accessing internet is illegal. Country’s citizens can only access a private internet, called Kwangmyong, whereas only a handful of government officials can access internet via a secret Korean-Chinese network. All form of internet content is blocked in North Korea.
They block internet content by constantly surveying and managing their private internet network. Also they penalize the internet access.
Internet Restriction in Iran
Iran is a religiously orthodox country, driven by religious laws and practices. Therefore, internet censorship is highly based on a combination of religious and regional rules. Everything there is prudish and rigid, that is formidably grounding and straightens out the socially respectable behavior. Iran is, at the most distant end of the internet censorship, making government the sole possessor of the media and communication channels.
In order to get started, every ISP must get an approval from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and Telecommunication Company of Iran. Also there is a software named “SmartFilter” that basically blocks access to most of the forbidden content such as porn websites, gay and lesbian, news etc. Almost every websites is labelled as “nefarious” and “immoral” because of one or more reasons, and because the country practices some rigid filtering technology, Iran’s network stays as a country that is extremely restricted. Following are the censored content in Iran:
Banned Internet Content:
- Political opposition
- News & media
- Pornographic content
- Gay & lesbian
- Kurdish Wikipedia
Methods of Blocking Internet Content:
- Internet communication monitoring
- Internet traffic routing via state-run telecommunications authority
- Internet speed restrictions
- Data packet inspection
Internet censorship and surveillance across the globe makes it a different spectrum for people from access internet, especially from the content blocking to complete internet ban. While UK’s internet filtering and content blocking might have annoyed the citizens, it is definitely poor in front of the aggravated filtering and monitoring technology of China. Whichever country it might be, internet restrictions based on any lame reasons puts the information flow to a great risk and communizing the knowledge!
How To Bypass Internet Censorship & Filters?
For every rule made, there are certain rule breakers! People are very much grateful for the presence of technology and internet, because due to them there are simple ways to bypass internet censorship put by either your ISP or government. The best way to avoid internet ban and access any website you want to, is by using a VPN software.
VPN technology is advanced and robust that lets you get through any website you want to, through the help of a server which is in a remote location that has complete access to the internet. This remote VPN server easily gives you the requested content via a secure tunnel. With the help of VPN, you can unblock YouTube, unblock any website that may have been blocked by your ISP or government. Moreover, with its help you can browse web anonymously and protect your online identity and privacy!