What Is Internet Censorship And How Does It Work?

In the modern world, we have lots of sources of information which contributes to our work and daily needs. Also, there are risks that people find ways to attack their competitors via the digital world.

And how can we protect ourselves from reading scammed sources of information on the Internet? The answer is Internet censorship! So what is internet censorship? Read this article and find out!

What Is Internet Censorship?

Internet censorship is the restriction towards accessing specific sources of information from governments, authorized organizations, or even an individual. It means internet users are unable to reach websites that have either violent or sensitive content.

A few common types of internet censorship technologies are Internet Protocol (IP) address blocking, Domain Name System (DNS) restricting, and computer network attacks.

IP (Internet Protocol) address restricting: Prevent access from a specific location
DNS (Domain Name System) restricting: Preventing accesses to the domain name
Computer network attacks: By attacking the network system of the computer, the whole computer will be unable to reach and exchange information with other network locations.

Besides the above techniques, to implement Internet censorship, traffic shape is less commonly used to mislead or delay access to some websites. IPSs (Internet Service Providers) are also applied to easier manage Internet users. IPSs are often private companies relating to governments, or in some countries, a government-owned company.

Internet Censorship Pros and Cons

Everything has its pros and cons, so is internet censorship. Internet censorship pros and cons will help Internet users understand further about positives and negatives aspects of a virtual world and know how to protect themselves from online risks.

Internet Censorship Advantages

Identify illegal activities. There are many traps in the online world that you can fall victim to at any time and have your data breached. Due to the search mechanism and the trace from your internet use, authorities can easily track back to people’s location.

Reduce a certain number of fault results found online. When Internet users use keywords to search for information, they will get millions of searching results.

These results can be made by humans (around 60%), and results made either by bots or other forms of technology. Thus, having control of Internet censorship will let only the top searching results containing keywords and created by humans emerge.

Create a fair-play business. Some companies may hold the business secrets of their competitors. Implementing Internet censorship will prevent companies from sharing their opponents’ business activities as a way of marketing for themselves.

Maintain national culture and navigating cultural exchanges properly. Some countries apply Internet censorship to keep inappropriate information or life aspects which are not suitable to their cultures out of sight.

Therefore, their citizens won’t be affected by unsuitable cultural flows. For instance, in Muslim countries, the advertisement of women in bikinis are banned to watch due to their cultures and laws.

Internet Censorship Disadvantages

Limit the privacy of the population. By helping the government to control every activity of citizens to prevent future protests, terrorist plans, internet censorship has limited people’s privacy. No privacy means people can’t share their own opinion freely.

Internet censorship can quickly figure out offensive tweets, posts, and block it. Restricting people’s opinions helps prevent negative thoughts from influencing society.

Control the flow of news. When Internet censorship works to control the flow of news, users will have fewer options in collecting information sources. An outstanding example is China, China has its versions of social media instead of Google, Youtube, Facebook like Baidu, WeChat, and Weibo.

All these versions will create their platform of information within China. The government and authorities can easily manage the flow of information which are allowed to read and share, which are not on their platform.

Require a lot of money to remain in its system. Implementing and maintaining the Internet censorship system requires a high cost, as well as a qualified labor force. It also means the cost of Internet censorship is taken from taxpayers.

How Does Internet Censorship Work?

Though Internet censorship sounds a bit complicated, its working principle is quite simple. The censorship works through a plethora of tools and strategies to block the sources of information to reach users.

It can emerge at any point of the wireless circuit and manages the system as an information filter, a digital wall aiming to either a large area (national zone, city zone) or specific individual websites.

Internet Censorship At Home

Many parents worry as their children can be exposed to inappropriate content online. However, they can’t control their kids all the time.

Therefore, using a web filter or installing a firewall can help parents to solve this concern. If a web filter works with blacklists and keyword restriction, a firewall is like a wall that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing networks.

Thereby, when you install a firewall, it helps to block untrusted networks to invade your children’s computers.

Internet Censorship On The International Level

The restriction of access to online content is different from country to country.

If some countries manage Internet access by law (in America and several European countries), others control it stricter or even not allow any access to the wireless system.

For example, in Cuba, private wi-fi at home and business is legalized; to access the internet, you have to go to some public places.

Internet censorship at the international level can be filtered by four categories: social, political (pages related to political violence), conflict-security (pages relating to war, violence), Internet tools (google search engine in the US, Yandex in Russia, Baidu in China).

See more: Are VPNs Legal or illegal?

The bottom line!

Though having many pros and cons at the same time being implemented, Internet censorship is very essential in our daily life. Through this article, we hope you understand more about “What is Internet censorship?” and how internet censorship works.

You also can try to set up an internet censorship system with your home computer to protect it from the invasion of untrusted networks, spams, scams.