Week 11 - Implications of Online Censorship and Internet Privacy

Online Censorship and Internet Privacy

The freedom of Speech is imperative to a functioning democracy. However in Authoritarian Regimes, free speech is threat to their political power. As many people are familiar, China has the "Great Firewall" which blocks youtube, google and any other major website serving news and information.

Behind this Virtual Brick, Chinese people consume pre-filtered and approved content which praises the Chinese Communist Party and frames the existence of the political party indistinguishable from their own country.

Like Russia, the capital outflows of the Chinese Elite has inflated housing bubbles in major cities of Canada,USA and Australia. However, the over reliance of Chinese international students as university tuition funding and infiltration of political parties and media companies has led western institutions to self-censor the atrocities of the Uyghur Genocide and human rights abuses.

Due to the information bubble, many Chinese nationals clash with the local people of their host country due to bad behavior and difference in values. 

In one such case, one member of a German Academic delegation has been banned from entering China due to her criticism of China's ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs.

 

As we look east not far away from Ukraine, the crisis has global implications beyond censorship and privacy, it is a fight in the value of Freedom.




References:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/01/china-great-firewall-generation-405385

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/technology/china-internet-police-twitter.html

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/28/germany-china-censorship-universities-confucius-institute/

https://share.america.gov/beijing-s-attempted-censorship-in-europe/

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