Chapter 3.3 Content Censorship

Content Censorship: Definition and History

"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Juvenal, Satires)

If universal access is counterfactually assumed as an idealized expression of technologically mediated communication and information, then questions of content is a logical and secondary elaboration. The operating proposition is that individually and collectively, the rational capability is best served by providing every individual the capacity of communication with other individuals. Where two or more individuals are engaged in communication propositions from any of the individuals concerned may be tested or verified along the criteria of orientation and world relations. Assuming that participants are engaging in acts of intentional semantics rather than deliberate of deception, then the individuals concerned will, through a process of falsification and reevaluation, raise their general degree of rationality. The greater the range of participants or accessibility, the greater the potential universality of the grounded propositions.

However, as acknowledged in the previous subchapter, limitations and distortions exits due to the difference in natural language, the global distribution of technological infrastructure and income, the implementation of character encoding, diversity in the physical abilities of individuals and systematic and structural distortions of social groups, albeit in some instances with problematic discrete boundaries. In this subchapter these limitations and distortions are temporarily screened from discussion, (with the exception of the horizonal instance of total technical censorship), in favour of systematic attempts to regulate the content of expressions on the Internet and the effects that such regulation has. Whilst the first subchapter challenged the counterfactual claim of the Internet as a democratic and democraticizing influence with the empirical evidence of access, this subchapter further challenges the counterfactual claim of the Internet as an arena of free and unfettered discourse.

The concept of censorship can be examined on mutiple levels, with the Latin origin censere meaning "to assess". With an constantive orientation this "assessment" is evident in the word and practise of the census, the accounting of human societies. In reference to the Internet this concept has already been covered with the empirical statements of access in the previous chapter. A second concept of censorship is primarily psychological and subjective, that is, individual acts of self-censorship, whereby the agent motivated by individual standards of morality and with a normative orientation, considers an act adverse to their sense of the generalized other regardless of their own sensual predilictions. Such a situation need not be social, even if it derived from socialization (e.g. the censorship of the self in a private or self-regarding act). Nor however is such self-censorship necessarily rational or justified, and in fact in the majority of cases it probably isn't. Individuals censor themselves on the basis of the unconscious and conscious structure of cultural norms embedded in the individual psyche, reflecting pre-rational and irrational censorship. Likewise, individuals may engage in practises that are verifiably harmful yet are part of a cultural or sub-cultural norm. A significant number of psychological studies have confirmed the irrational influences of group conformity, subservience to authority figures and personal relationships on potential costs and benefits, a particularly dramatic and insightful example being the oft-referenced obedience study (and subsequent confirmations) by Stanley Milgram. [Stanley Milram, Obedience to Authority, Harper and Row, 1974]

Cultural anthropologists and social psychologists have provided substantial information concerning the weakening of agent self-censorship through Internet-mediated communications. The general consensus is that computer-mediated communication is more prone to expressive assertion due to the lack of non-linguistic social cues and the relative anonymity where a participant may screen or modify identifying features (e.g., 'race', sex and gender, age etc). The lack of physical presence alters the social presence and individuals are far less inhibited in their expressions. Actual empirical evidence that quantifies the divergence of computer-mediated communication from physical-presence communication is however largely lacking; anaecdotal evidence from Elizabeth Reid suggests, for example, that where social cues are made explicit, amplified versions of cultural mores are evident especially in matters of gender relations. Evidently, whilst relative social anonymity may serve as a route around pre-exitsing prejudice it is by no means a replacement for it, that is, whilst computer mediated communication has less conscious and instrumentally rationalized social censorship it does overcome pre-conscious or unconscious prejudices and cultural mores, although it does provide a means where even the most extreme social taboos may be introduced as a topic of conversation through anonymous (or pseudo-anonymous) mechanisms. [e.g., Kiesler, S., Siegel, J. & McGuire, T. W. (1984). Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication. American Psychologist, 39, 10, 1123-1134. Elizabeth Reid (1991), Electropolis: Communication and Community on Internet Relay Chat, Honours Thesis, Department of English, University of Melbourne, 1991 Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-Mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyper-personal interaction. Communication Research, 23, 1, p 3-43. "The Self and the Internet: Variations on the 'Illusion' of One Self." Psychology and the Internet : Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal Implications. Edited by Jayne Gackenbach. Academic Press: 1998.]

Whilst reduced levels of agent self-censorship makes computer mediated communication in a many ways an advantageous means of communication, this is primarily a concern of cultural anthropology and social psychology and a secondary concern for sociological analysis, with an axiomatic statement for a social theory of the Internet remaining true: Honest expressions from individual agents is preferable to dishonest expressions that are internally silenced by the prospect of social condemnation. However, rather than an emphasis on ego emancipation, a particular emphasis on this chapter is with a third definition of censorship, that is the institutional and systematic enforcement of prohibition or alteration of communication or of communicative technologies. Historically this type of censorship has differing structural content in primitive, traditional and modern social formations with new challenges being raised by the introduction of the Internet. The definition provided by the Colombia Encyclopedia is succinct:

"[O]fficial prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. It may be imposed by governmental authority, local or national, by a religious body, or occasionally by a powerful private group. It may be applied to the mails, speech, the press, the theater, dance, art, literature, photography, the cinema, radio, television, or computer networks. Censorship may be either preventive or punitive, according to whether it is exercised before or after the expression has been made public." [The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.]

Censorship in primitive social formations takes the form of an extreme version of the unconscious structure of cultural norms with an explicit correlation with the mythic mode of consciousness. The interpretations of classic social sciences provide some elucidation; the notion that cultic practices are sacred (Durkheim) and the food-sex taboo in totemism (Freud). Each of these propositions has particular problems. In reference to Durkheim, differentiation between the sacred and the profane cannot be rationally established if the former has priority over the latter. Freud's elaboration of the food-sex taboo, which gives priority to the sexual aspect, overlooks the primary necessity of avoiding interclan cannibalism, which surely must have prominence over incestuous sexual relations as a mechanism to ensure social stability. Despite these problems of interpretation and justification, the empirical element - censorship according to according to cultural mores and forbidden practises and group-endorsed punishment - provide not only the foundations of both rationalisable, rational, irrationalisable and irrational legal practises but also the foundations for the notion of group membership and system stability.

From what little available evidence is available however, censorship in primitive societies was invariably limited to acts, not expressions. Of course, making expressions that suggested violations of taboo were an invitation to social rejection and the individual would be marked as walking a very dangerous path - as Sigmund Freud points out, the word alternative means 'sacred', 'consecrated' or alternatively 'uncanny', 'dangerous', 'forbidden', 'unclean'. Notably however, when an individual violates a taboo, they become taboo themselves, that is, the taboo is contagious. Arguments in censorship of expression have utilized this neurotic justification throughout history, claiming that particular ideas frustrate or eliminate the capacity of individuals to engage in rational evaluation or more commonly, because they are contrary to legal or cultural norms; the possibility that it is the legal or cultural norm that is irrational is rarely examined in favour of arguments of social stability. [ Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Sage Publications, 1986, FP 1912] Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980 FP 1913 see also Evelyn Reed, Women's Evolution: From Matriarchial Clan to Patriachial Family, Pathfinder Press, 1975 ]

With the development of the traditional society, the concept of censorship requires more particular definition, as it can no longer be directly related to cultic norms. To be sure, the legal system and the state censors particular acts and activities and like the primitive societies previously, acts and activities is interpreted to include expressions and opinions. Plato's Republic for example advocates a comprehensive system of censorship, particularly of the arts, on the presumption that the State stability and state determination has proirity over free expression. "The poet shall compose nothing contrary to the ideas of the lawful, just, or beautiful or good, which are allowed in the State; nor shall he be permitted to show his compositions to any private individual, until he shall have shown them to the appointed censors and the guardians of the law, and they are satisfied with them".

In the Roman Republic the censors were responsible for evaluating the moral character of Senators and in the year 70 AD expelled sixty-four for corruption. In the Christian tradition, heresy and icolonoclasm was severely punished and ownership of prohibited works - such as Arius' writings onwards - was a capital offense. With equal enthusiasm, South East Asian traditional societies also established regimes of censorship. In China, the censor had particular power to enforce official policy, including criticism of the ruling class and even the emperor, albeit more typical functions were scrutinising the bureaucracy. The emperor Shih Huang-Ti, the first to consolidate rule over most of contemporary China, receives special opportune mention for ordering the destruction of all written works in 213 BCE. Korea and Japan also adopted contextually-specific models. In Korea, the relative strength of the aristocracy ensured that the office mainatined a direct criticism of imperial rather than local policy. In Japan, especially during the Tokugwa government who were particularly famous for their suppression of printed material (especially foreign), the censorate (metsuke) estabished in the seventeenth century caused many local diamyos to lose jurisdiction.

The technological and systematic changes from primitive to traditional social formations altered the material and procedural scope of censorship and the change in mode of consciousness altered the scope of content. The introduction of the written word and the classes which derived their systematic powers from codified laws and accounting generated the prospects of censorship of those time-binding expressions in addition to time-specific actions, often with extreme punitive results (e.g., Ãesop being flung from a high rock by the priests of Delphi for sacrilege). The pseudo-democratic censors as a check on the elites of traditional society was of satirised by Juvenal in the oft-quoted "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (who watches the watchmen?) whose concerns would reach new empirical validity with the formation of the Inquisition by Pope Gregory IX in 1235. Thus whilst the content and scope of censorship changed dramatically from the transition from primitive to tradional social formations, the justification (and effects) remained the same: stability of the social formation and opportunism for the use of political power.

Whereas the block-printing methods first developed in China tended consolidate existing traditional power expressions, the development of movable type printing in Europe decentralized and diversified, causing a crisis in existing claims. Within fifty years, the printed book became familiar, with an estimated 1000 printing shops in Europe, producing 35,000 titles and 20 million copies. As could have been expected, the most significant challenge revolved around the competing theological claims to knowledge and their claims to political power, the use of venecular languages and nation-states. The rise of printed media was significant enough for the Roman Catholic Church under Paul IV to issue the first formal Index Librorum Prohitorum in 1571, a list of literary, scientific and theological works which were expressed "dangerous ideas" that could undermine the earthly authority of the papacy.

Modern societies characteristically have censored acts of sedition, like their traditional forebears, under the claim of system stability. Revolutionaries of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were particularly prone to prosecution, even if the basis for such prosecution seems particularly obtuse. For example, in 1798 the Congress of the United States of America passed various 'Aliens and Sedition' laws specifically aimed at French revolutionaries; despite the fact that many of these people had been inspired by the US revolution. Similar laws remained and were developed over real and imagined conflicts, culminating in the Subversive Activities Control Act that demanded disclosure by Communists, which was eventually declared unconstitutional in 1967 (Supreme Court, In United States v. Robel 398 U.S. 258).

An extreme version of sedition censorship can be illustrated when modern system and technical capacity is combined with a traditional moral orientation and in this particular example, the targets of censorship were not people who were a seditious threat to the regime, but a minority whose ideas were perceived as dangerous. Fascist censorship began with the burning of twenty-five thousand volumes by Jewish authors at the University of Berlin, with following demonstrations at other German universities and in Austria. The rest is well known: Censorship on the basis of religion was soon coverted into the psuedo-science of 'race', which led to dispossession of that race, their imprisonment and their "final solution", the ultimate censorship. The experience was so utterly antithetical to modern rationality, that it seemed to capture the world by surprise. Intellectually it did not seem possible that once established modern consciousness could regress to premodern justifications. Yet it did so, and also with modern technical development, like a spoilt child with an assault rifle. In the shadow of Auswitchz, the implicit unity of progress is forever shattered.

As juxtaposition it is appropriate at this stage to sketch the censorship of content which in comparison seems laudably trivial. Yet it has received a highly irrational emphasis in modernity and continues to be a major issue to this day; the graphic and symbolic reproduction sexual acts and even of non-sexual eroticism. Particularly prevalent the United States, but by no means exclusively so, the censorship of erotic, specifically obscene, material has eluded rational justification. Despite the First Amendment, in the United States eroticism is subject to censorship when the material concerned is a threat to "public health" as a first principle. The first reported prosecution in the United States in 1815, was over a exhibited painting of a man "in an indecent posture" with a women causing "manifest corruption and subversion of youth". In 1868, the Hicklin rule established that matter could be defined as obscene if it tended to deprave or corrupt those minds open to such influences. Once again, the implicit claim is made: images and symbols that are so powerful that they can command the will of individuals and that are dangerous.

If sexually explicit material is a version of graphic realism and in particular of pleasureable sensuality, then the counter, graphic violence, is also worthy of consideration in the same discussion. The history of violence has been neatly summerised as "from personalistic ferociousness to bureaucratic violence", with increased capacity in the means of violence and increased structural violence and instrumental implementation. Anthropologies have often commentated on how many primitive societies engage in ritualized and dramatic violent expressions, but cease as soon as someone is injured. Traditional China invented gunpowder but refused to use firearms in battle as it was dishonourable. Indeed, it was only after the French revolution with the idea of mass national mobilization that violence entered its modern phase, which was later to be supplemented by industralization. [Randall Collins, "Three Faces of Cruelty: Towards a Comparative Sociology of Violence", Theory and Society 1, pp415-440, 1974]

Contemporary research suggests that in object violence suggests that there indeed a correlation (not necessarily causality) between childhood exposure to media violence and children engaging in object-violence, in particular among those who have pre-operational cognition where fantasy and reality are sometimes confused, although many of the research methods are questionable at best and historical comparisons clearly indicate that contemporary society, even accounting for improved medical technology, is significantly less violent than early modernity. There is also acknowledgement of strong contextual effects and differentiation between visceral and gratitious presentations and those which explore the outcomes of violence, regardless of the degree of graphic realism - indeed the more realistic, the more "honest" the presentations can be. Despite research evidence violent media may cause harm it has been subject to far less censorship that sexually explicit media across most cultures where little evidence exists suggesting harmful effects. This is only expliciable by the nominal presentation in dominant cultures of violence as public and state-sanctioned activity, whereas sexual behaviour is considered private and personal. [ American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Public Education, Pediatrics, Volume 108, Number 5, November 2001, pp 1222-1226 Richard B. Felson. 1996. "Mass Media Effects on Violent Behavior." Annual Review of Sociology Volume 22: 103-128. Frankin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, Crime is Not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America, Oxford University Press, 1997. Stephen Prince, Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1968, Rutgers University Press, 2003 ]

With the development of the Internet as a international communications and information technology and with Graphic User Interfaces in operating systems and applications has raised debates of obscenity and sedition have reached a critical point, with technological capacity far outstripping the capacity of enforcement. Advanced social systems find themselves in the contradictions of wanting to expand their range and capacity of communications technology, wanting to make use easier, yet also like many previous social systems beforehand, wanting to control the content. Whether such an endeavour is possible, let alone desirable, provides the subject matter for the following discussion. That is, whether or not the individual mind is capable of distortion through access to freely expressed information and whether there are maturity limits to such effects. From the outset it is recognized claims for censorship on the basis of social or legal norms is not a grounded justification, rather they are self-referential tautologies. Support for censorship of certain expressions on the basis that it is illegal or abnormal is not considered a justification it itself, but rather, if censorship is to be supported, something that must arise from justifications that have universal appliciability based on verifiable evidence.

In the first instance, the possibility of the human mind being distorted from the free expression of information, it is evident from psychoanalysis and the phenomenology of perception that the introduction of any comprehensible symbolic values contributes to meaning in the mental world. All expressions of symbolic values provide additional material for internal reflection and social communication and whose influence is variable. Maurice Merleau-Ponty's criticism of scientific methodology and especially claims of a "science of the mind" are instructive here: perception is associated with pre-existing meanings and associations, including everything from a "live" dramatic expression, a graphic image or character symbols. However, as Merleau-Ponty points out, it is a grave error to mistake perception with judgement, or in more contemporary psychological terms, between perception and cognition, so that the symbolic expression or perception becomes an object of internal reflection itself and, with the benefit of ordinary language philosophy, it must added through communication with others concerning perceptual experiences. Thus, it is when dramtic expressions, publications and communications are censored that individuals are less able to engage in cognition and reflection to engage in reflective judgement. It is censorship, rather free expression, that leads to distorted mental states and hence the initial reactions of many individuals who view censored images or read censored texts for the first time. [ Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomeonology of Perception, Routledge, 1962 Catharine McKinnon, arguing in favour of censoring particular works of erotica, is an example of one who confuses perception with cognition. The logical conclusion of the following claim is that the viewing subject has no moral responsibility and no agency for any subsequent actions. It made them do it. Sooner or later, in one way or another, the consumers [of pornography] want to live out the pornography further in three dimensions. Sooner or later, in one way or another, they do. It makes them want to; when they believe they can, when they feel they can get away with it, they do." (emphasis in the original) Catharine McKinnon, Only Words, Harvard University Press, 1993 ]

With sufficient empirical evidence claims of cognitive development in the minds of children to adulthood seems verified. A distinction is drawn between the cognitive capacities of children and that of adults (whether "adolescent" or otherwise), which concurs with Jean Piaget's hypothesis that young children are unable to fully distinguish between fantasy and reality (that is, they have preoperational cognition), whereas older children, understanding logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects (operational cognition), but are nevertheless unable to demonstrate the use of symbols to abstract concepts, a skill that is apparently only available to the post-pubescent mind and which yet only manifests in a minority of adult decisions due to environmental influences. In recognition of this evidence, advanced nation-states universally apply age-based censorship categories that have some correlation with the distribution of cognitive abilities (although the correlation is stronger according to political influences) and vary according to medium, as cognitive tests also show that the greater the degree of media transparency that is, the closer it is to real experience (and even more so, supernatural effects), the greater the immersive experience and effect on memory. Thus, most classification boards in advanced nations allow nearly all written material, regardless of age, material containing pictures is subject to stronger regimes of classification (again, according to a complex of content and realism), and film and theatre even more so. [ Kuhn, Deanna, Jonas Langer, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Norma Haan, "The Development of Formal Operations in Logical and Moral Judgment" Genetic Psychology Monographs 95: pp 97-188, 1977. ]

On the basis of cognitive abilities, there is no rational justification for content censorship to any person who is capable of engaging in formal operations. Of course, this brings to question the legal and political rights of young adults classified as minors as well as all adults of majority age whose rights of free expression and free impression Recent publications have begun to question the rational foundations of these restrictions on the basis of the cognitive abilities of young adults and whilst the political movement for their equal rights is undoubtably nascent, the role that the Internet has to play in self-determination for young adults is increasingly evident. Indeed, the same may be said for all adults subject to censorship and censorious regimes - the decentralized and democratic range of expressions, the capacity and speed to copy and distribute material, ultimately the sheer quantity of information will inevitably overwhelm the capacity of censoring authorities to engage in prior publication evaluation. The only realistic option is censoring access to the media itself, an act which few governing authorities which to engage in due to the prospect of competitive disadvantage in research, commerce and cultural expression. Communication, knowledge and freedom appear to have an inextricable link to the technology of the Internet. [ The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (defined as a person below eighteen years, except where provided by regional and particular laws) states in Article 13: The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice. 2. The exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary: (a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; or (b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals. Convention on the Rights of the Child, G.A. res. 44/25, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 167, U.N. Doc. A/44/49 (1989), entered into force Sept.2 1990.] [Majorie Heins, "Not in Front of the Children: 'Indecency', Censorship and the Innocence of Youth", Hill and Wange, 2001]

In summary, freedom of expression and the freedom to receive information is a natural right to all rational beings. It provides a "marketplace of ideas", where truth may grapple with falsity, good speech with bad, and stylish and well-structured expressions with that which lacks these features. In any society that makes a claim to democracy, it is utterly antithetical to the axioms of equal and universal rights and individual self-fulfillment that expressions are curtailed. Only with the right of freedom to impart and receive information can real or imagined problems of a society (both in its cultural values and social system) be evaluated and put to debate. A balance is thus achieveable between adaptability and latency, which would otherwise remain suppressed, increasing the likelihood of the abuse of authority and the violent outbreaks against real and imagined causes of social disenfranchisement. [ "Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple, who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?" John Milton, Areopagitica FP:1644] [Thomas Emerson, The System of Freedom of Expression, Vintage Books, 1970]

None of this is to suggest that all content is necessarily free from the prospect of other responsibilities or punitive action. In the relationship between free speech and public health for example, the opinions of the U.S. Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis who argued speech could only be punished if it presented "a clear and present danger" of imminent harm is relevant. A governing system may impose "time, place and manner" restrictions on the use of public space for expressions - but not without reasons and not on the basis of content. Free speech does not protect clear acts of intimidation, which is itself an act attempting to restrict the speech-rights of others. The same reasoning applies to defamtory and libellous speech, although the contemporary U.S. interpretation that truth is not an absolute defence (i.e. the expression is perceived as malicious or not in the public interest) lacks rational foundation and removes agency - one must question whether the motives of the expressor is an issue compared to the facticity of the expression.

The Internet provides great opportunities for freedom of expression and receiving information, regardless of content, regardless of frontiers and most recently in a wide range of media formats. It is hardly surprising then that it has been strongly targetted by nation-states authorities, organizations and individuals who wish to restrict the right of free expression and free information. The following outlines some critical examples of these attempts, including total content censorship in the form of censorship of the Internet as a means of information and communication, attempts to restrict access to seditious material, the censorship of erotic expression and censorship of group vilification. This particular subchapter deals primarily with the concern of freedom of expression and the freedom to receive information. Questions of access were discussed in the previous chapter, and concerns over truthfulness, deception, privacy and anonymity are discussed in the next subchapter. Examples of have been drawn from a balanced evaluation of the degree of content censorship, the number of people it has affected, and illustrative justifications for censorship.

Media Censorship

Whilst numerous nation states exist with substantial religious influence on law and obviously even more so on culture mores even in advanced nations, a small number can be strictly classified as having a traditionalist political system with laws determined by recourse to religious texts and interpreted by specialist religious authorities. This is of course, includes many modern societies who until very recently made the principle of the separation of church and state a political and legal reality. However, recently some nations with strong religious legal and political foundations took upon themselves a direct means of ensuring their societies remained without criticism by engaging in content censorship by "censoring", in full or in part, the means of information provision and communication itself. In other words, in accordance to the perceived directives in the traditionalist text certain modern technologies, in part or in full, are also excluded.

Most notable in this regard was the Taliban of Afghanistan who, in 1996, sought to ban public access audiocassettes, recorders, videotapes, satellite dishes and television. The Minister of Religion, Mohammed Qalamuddin, called such devices "the cause of corruption in this society". When the Taliban took power all but religious music was banned and Kabul radio station's music collection was destroyed. In July 2001 according to a Reuters report, the regime banned all Internet access to the country, including even that of the government's departments. The Foreign Minister, Maulvi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, claimed that the regime was not so much opposed to the Internet itself, but rather obscenity, vulgarity, and anti-Islamic content, which is of course a contradictory answer: left to its technological capabilities with the participation of human agents, it is inevitable that there will be some "obscentity", "vulgarity" and "anti-Islamic content", particularly given the manner in which members of the Taliban define these terms. ["Afghan Rulers Plan to Smash TV Sets", by Barbara Crossette, The Wall Street Journal, July 10, 1998] [Net Relolution Doomed? NUA Editorial, July 23, 2001 http://www.nua.ie/surveys/analysis/weekly_editorial/archives/issue1no187.html Jul 17 2001: The ruling Taliban movement has banned use of the Internet in Afghanistan http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356983&rel=true ]

Following suit Iran, renowned for killing apostates from the Islamic religion, also banned satellite dishes that could receive "western" television broadcasts in 1996. In 1999 Iran's Supreme Leader reinvigorated the ban claiming: ""The enemy is trying to attack the political system in the Islamic Republic with the aid of cultural devices". The Khamenei also stated that Iran would develop censorship mechanisms to keep place with the technology. Whilst the first private Internet Service Provider opened in 1994, the government ISP, the Data Communication Company (DCI) filters sites that it deems to be pornographic or oppositional. Private ISPs must be approved by the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Islamic Orientation. Users are also supposed to be subject to a written document stating that they will refrain from "non-Islamic sites". In 2003, the government listed some 15,000 political and pornographic websites to be blocked with Ministers quoted as wanting "block access to immoral sites as well as political sites which rudely make fun of religious and political figures in the country". Iran's judiciary have banned 80 newspapers and magazines in the three years prior to the Internet list and many reform-orientated individuals have turned to the Internet for information. Iran has had email services since 1995, with random checks to ensure that users do not use profane language or transmit seditious material. Furthermore, Iran is limited to text-only interfaces. [ "Khamenei boosts hardliners in media battle", The Iranian, June 1999 http://www.iranian.com/News/1999/June/media.html Iran steps up net censorship, 12 May, 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3019695.stm ]

Likewise governed by Shari'a, Saudi Arabia authorities withheld the allocation of the country's first public access ISP until late 1998 after multiple postponements. The Islamic government wanted to ensure that there could be sufficient technological centralisation to filter out undesirable material defined as pornographic, politically sensitive, or unsuitable religious material. In 2001 the Saudi Council of Ministers stated the range of content censorship (primarily material contravening Shari'a or contrary to the state or system of Saudi Arabia) and enforced a regime whereby ISPs that traced user access, addresses accessed and size and type of files copied through a central array of web proxy servers run by the government's Internet Service's Unit (ISU) at King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology. One press report seemed to suggest that the government was going to adopt a "allowable" list rather than a "censored" list, which would make the regime one of the most heavily censored in the world. According to one press report, "Industry insiders claim King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology will simply provide a list of desirable sites, officially sanctioned by an internal committee. All other sites will be banned by default. In other words, the user will not be able to type in the URL of any site that he/she wants to visit, but rather only be able to pick from an officially sanctioned list". Reports exist that enterprising computer hackers charge between $30 to $70 USD to circumvent the blockages [Saudi Arabia awaits Internet connection October 12, 1998 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_192000/192222.stm Jonathan Zittrain, Benjamin Edelman, Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, 2002 http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/saudiarabia/ IT News, November 4, 1998,

In other religious nation-states, the Vatican City dependency on imported electricty and telephone services left the enclave as without a link for some time, although it was assigned a country-code top level domain (va). With what must be the worst xhtml code and design for any government website in the world (or at least equal to People's Democratic Republic of Korea), the Vatican offers a relatively libertarian approach to Internet censorship, claiming that "[W]e strongly support freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas. Free to seek and know the truth is a fundamental human right, and freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy" and "we deplore attempts by public authorities to block access to information", with exceptions for "hate speech, libel, fraud, child pornography, and pornography in general, and other offenses", although justifications for such bans seem to vary from their criminality to "sinfulness". Meanwhile in 1999 the Buddhist religious nation state of Bhutan lifted its non-television status and simultaneously opened its first Internet link by Queen Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuk one of the four wives of the theocratic king (who happen to be all sisters). Originally planned as an email-only link, the King eventually decided that Bhutan should also have access to the world wide web and thus has been proclaimed "the Light of the Cyber Age". [Compare http://www.vatican.va/ with http://www.korea-dpr.com/] [ The Church and Internet, Pontifical Council for Social Communications, February 22, 2002 http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_20020228_church-internet_en.html Ethics in Internet, Pontifical Council for Social Communications, February 22, 2002 http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_20020228_ethics-internet_en.html Orville Schell, "Bhutan meets the World Wide Web and the World Wrestling Federation", Redherring, February 13, 2002 and http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.28/bhutan_tv.htm ]

With an official doctrine of atheism (itself a religious position) and official control by the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Republic of China may be defined as a having a para-traditional or semi-modern political system. It should come as little surprise then, that widespread media censorship and Internet blockages have been introduced for much of the last fifteen years. It is clear that the Chinese government maintains and active interest in blocking certain sites, although official recognition of such media bans or the method used are not forthcoming. On available evidence, it seems that the Chinese authorities use a media ban method - blocking particular IP addresses - rather than content filtering. The most commonly blocked sites are those which impart opinion on democracy and human rights issues in the People's Republic (e.g., Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch), religious and para-religious sites (Falun Gong, Falun Dafa, the Islamic Virtual School), higher education institutions (Caltech University, MIT, Columbia University, University of Viginia) and government websites, particularly those which claim authority over Tibet and Taiwan. Attempts to connect to some 204 012 distinct websites found that 18 931 were inaccessible from at least two proxy servers on at least two distinct days, indicating that the People's Republic of China engages in more thorough censorship of Internet sites than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. [ Johnathan Zittrain, Benjamin Edelmann, "Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China", Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University See also: March/April 2003 edition of IEEE Internet Computing. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ ]

One other interesting example of media censorship, and Internet media censorship in particular, that which occurs in nominally secular and modern states; that of attempts by monopolistic telephone companies to restrict use of Voice-over-IP connections. With soundcards and combination earphone/microphone headsets, spoken conversation can occur through Internet connections with excellent connections available through dial-up connections (33.6 kb/s) and with specialist programs allowing comprehensible results as low at 8 kb/s. As international calls are typically substantially have a higher consumer price to underlying cost ratio and with VoIP technology providing close to equal and in some cases better connectivity, monopoloy telephone companies rightly perceive they are under threat. Further it is unlike that carriers will adopt the technology as it provides a similar service, but with a substantially different technological infrastructure. Thus, monopoly companies such as Cable & Wireless Panama (a joint venture between the Govvernment of Panama and the UK-based telephone corporation Cable & Wireless) claims, as per legislation, exclusive rights to all non-wireless telecommunications and all international voice traffic. As an example of the technological ignorance of some regulators, a decree with enforced in November 24, 2002 prohibited the use of 24 UDP ports normally associated with VoIP. However, in addition to 24 named UDP ports, the decree also prohibited the use of "any another port that is prospectively used to carry out international calls via the Internet". As ports are nominal, this literally means all Internet connectivity - a total media ban. Ironically, Panama is a major nexus for undersea fiberoptic cables and a international Internet traffic. ["Panama Stays Decision to Block Voice-Over-IP Traffic", World Internet Law Report, Volume 4 Issue 1, January 15, 2003 see also "Crackdown on Cybercafes in Iran" Finanical Times at http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356762&rel=true ]

Whilst partial or total media censorship is often justified in terms of real or imagined content it is conceptually different. It represents censorship of any content and is the equivalent of an systematic implementation the religious mode of consciousness that is structually associated with traditional social formations. In terms of formal pragmatics, in religious "reasoning" regulative expressions can be made to the physical world and technologies have an physical reality. As such, with the exceptions of the statements from the Afghani Taliban and Iranian regimes noted above, few contemporary nation-states adopt or imply a total media ban, with selective bans being implemented instead. It is important to conceptually differentiate the blocking of websites from content filters. The former blocks transmission regardless of content, (although sites chosen are often done so on the basis of perceived past transgressions or probably transgressions), whereas the latter will filters access based on dynamic content - thus a website may be accessible one day, but not the next. As with all technological bans, censorship of Internet media is a mechanism to enforce distributions of power and in this particular case, the capacity and ability of individuals to impart and receive information: it is a recipe for ensuring social stability over adaptability and to impoverish those who lack access and enrich those who do.

Blashemy and Sedition Censorship

Like media censorship, blashemy and sedition is not an all or nothing proposition. The former is defined as those legal codes and systematic procedures which limit freedom of religious expression. The historical and common use origins of the word describe it as speaking of sacred entities in an irreverent and impious manner (deriving fron the Greek blashmos, "evil-speaking"), however in this context it refers to any speech that is contrary to state-endorsed religion. In comparision, sedition is normally defined as acts or expressions that incite rebellion against state authorities (from the Latin sediti, "apart"). In both cases in the most extreme examples, they represents expressions, information or communication which advocates the removal of a government or governing religion by force. They may also represent material which is considered to be a matter of national security by the authorities that deem such material worthy of such censorship, or of contrary interpretation of sacred texts. They can represent a general incitement to civil disobedience or an incitement to commit a crime (such as apostasy).

Likewise with media censorship, the application of sedition and blashemy censorship may vary from the extremely ambigious to the precise; some regimes with apply sedition censorship to any expression which are perceived as "anti-state" or a potential threat to public order, whereas others are far more specific. In general, the more democratic and developed a political system, the less the range of material consider to be seditious and the greater the precision of material that faces such a definition. Unlike media censorship, blashemy and sedition censorship on the Internet is an example of post-publication censorship; the former prevents the user receiving information whereas the other punishes expressions. As with the prior section on media censorship the government systems which are most prone to blashempy and media censorship are those authoritarian regimes ruled by religious and traditional legal codes - mostly Islamic - and the developing state-socialist regimes, most prevalently the People's Republic of China. Examples are also derived from other state-socialist regimes, such as Cuba and Vietnam, developing democracies that have some religious laws of which Malaysia and Egypt are the most interesting examples, and developing secular nations such as Turkey and the Republic of Korea. [ Even advanced democracies often have elements of premodern religious legal codes which represents a structural distortion from the systematic norm. On occassion, these are put into effect such as the declaration of the poem "The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name" by James Kirkup as criminal blashempy by the British legal system in XXX. The poem, still considered blashemy under British law, is widely available on the Internet (e.g. http://annoy.com/history/doc.html?DocumentID=100045). In 1997 the UK police unsuccesfully prosecuted three online magazines for linking to it. In 2001 a BBC presenter spoke part of the poem live on BBC2. ]

With enormous numbers of religious websites blocked in Saudia Arabia (as noted in the subsection above), it is hardly surprising to discover that blasphemy and sedition is harshly punished within the Kingdom as well. The Royal Decree for Printed Material and Publications, promulgated in 1982, contained a list of prohibited topics covering any material that was printed, published, or circulated in the kingdom. Violations of the law were criminal offenses. For example, journalist Saleh al-Harith was jailed for seven years for reporting to the foreign press (the al-Jazeera TV network in Qatar), concerning state abuses committed against ethnic Ismaelis in the wake of rioting in the city of Najran in April 2000 where a man had been arrested by authorities as a "sorcerer", a crime punishable by death. Poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam was arrested and the editor of the newspaper al-Madina dismissed following the publication of the poem "The Corrup on Earth", which stated some some judges may "care for nothing but their bank accounst and their status with the rulers". A Yemini national, Hail Al Masri, has recently been sentenced to death by beheading for insulting the religion of his roommate. As an even more extreme example, and a rare example of press criticism, it was reported that members of Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice police, the mutaween, scuffled with firefighters who attempted to rescue fifteen girls who died in a blazing school building. The police refused to let the firefighters enter because the girls were not wearing headscarves and robes and therefore it was "sinful to approach them". ["Saudi Arabia: Plight of journalist raised again", 12th February 2003, Index on Censorship http://www.indexonline.org/indexindex/20030212_saudiarabia.shtml Saudi author arrested over poem, 20th March 2002, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1884043.stm Saudis Sentence Man To Death for Insulting Religion, February, Middle East Newsline http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2003/february/02_03_4.html Saudi police 'stopped' fire rescue, Friday, 15 March, 2002, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm ]

When Internet services were finally allowed in Saudia Arabia, similar law enforcements applied regarding sedition and blasphemy censorship. The Council of Ministers Decision 163 required ISPs and users to refrain from "any activities violating the social, cultural, political, media, economic, and religious values of the Kingdom" and prohibited sending or receiving coded information without prior authorization. "Religious values" does not imply Islam in general, but rather the interpretation of the Hanbali sect, with the state engaging in systematic repression of Islamic Shafey, Maliki, Hanafi, Ismailis and Zaidis sects. In April 2000, a women's only Internet cafe was closed down following allegations it had been used for immoral purposes. According to Brigadier Yousfut Matter of the civil police: "What was uncovered was against both our religion and our traditions", although he did not elaborate on exactly what was uncovered. As justifciation for such practises, the state Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz told the U.N. Third Millenium summit in on September 6, 2001 that is "absurd to impose on an individual or a society rights that are alien to its beliefs or principles". [ Internet clampdown in Mecca, 17 April, 2000, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_716000/716424.stm Human Rights Watch World Report 2001 http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/mideast/saudi.html Unearthing information on punishments in the secretative regime is difficult and many are tortured and detained without ever knowing what they are charged with. Many laws in force are actually unwritten or unavailable to the public. As Amnesty International reports: "The government allows no international human rights organizations to carry out research in the country and it ignores requests by such organizations for information. It has effective control over all kinds of information: there is strict censorship of media within the country and strict control of access to the Internet, satellite television and other forms of communication with the outside world. Anyone living in Saudi Arabia who criticizes this system is harshly punished. After arrest, political and religious opponents of the government are detained indefinitely without trial or are imprisoned after grossly unfair trials. Torture is endemic. Executions, flogging and amputations are imposed and carried out with disregard for the most basic international fair trial standards." Saudia Arabia: A Secret State of Suffering, March 2000 http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/saudi_arabia/campaign2000/report/intro.html ]

In Iran, Intelligence Minister Ali Yunessi claimed in January 2003 that there was an "underground war" being waged on the Internet which sough to "put out rumours and disinformation about all government bodies and their officials". Officials from the intelligence and culture ministries have been provided the task to compile a list of websites to be defined as "illegal" and demand that ISPs block access to them. The Deputy Minister for post and telecommunications, Massud Davari-Nejad described such those blocked as "immoral sites and political sites that insult the country's political and religious leaders". A number of website managers and users were arrested in 2003, including Javad Tavaf, editor of the website Rangin Kaman, for criticising the "Guide of the Islamic Revolution", Mohamed Mohesen Sazegara, editor of the Alliran website, apparently for calling for Constitutional reform and the claim that Iran had been "hijacked by six religious figures on the Council of Guardians", Sina Motallebi, editor the of the website Rooznegar for ironically criticising the arrest of journalists and no less than seventy schoolchildren for using the Internet to organize dates and "forbidden sexual relations".

In the People's Republic of China, some fourty-two "cyberdissidents" are in prison according to Reporters Sans Frontiers. Along with attempts to block numerous websites and monitor user activities, in 2001 the official news agency Xinhua annoucned that "espionage" activities including "stealing, uncovering, purchasing or disclosing state secrets" could carry the death penalty. Lin-Hai was jailed in 1998 for two years for giving thirty thousand email addresses to the U.S. based pro-democracy journal VIP Reference. Mr. Lin claimed that he had no political motives and passed on the email addresses for the purpose of building business contacts. In July 2002, some eighteen intellectuals issues a statement, a "declaration of rights of Chinese Internet users", calling for freedom of expression (creating website), free to receive information (website accessibility) and freedom of association (to open cybercafes) which was signed by thousands throughout China. Criticism of the government is punishable by lengthy prison terms: In 2001, shopkeeper Liu Weifang was jailed for three years for subversion for criticising the governments economic reforms of 2000 and 2001. Lu Xinhua, a member of the banned Chinese Democratic Party, was jailed for four years in 2003 for criticising human rights violations in Wuhan and criticising the President, Jiang Zemin. Wang Sen, also a member of the Democratic Party, was jailed for ten years for "trying to overthrow the government" after an Internet post where he alleged a local state clinic was selling medicines donated by the Red Cross. Yang Zili, prosecuted with three others were likewise advocating political liberalism and economic reform on a website, sardonically remarks that the articles: "in no way imply any plan to subvert the government. When we speak of freedom and liberalisation, we believe this will come about through reforms. Is it not evident that the last 20 years of reform and conciliatory policies have led China towards liberalisation?" [ Chinese Net User Gets Two Years, BBC, January 21, 1999 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/258805.stm http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905354643&rel=true The Internet Under Surveillance: Obstacles to the Free Flow of Information Online, Reporters Without Borders 2003, pp29-45]

In the recent past Cuba has less international bandwidth (832 kbs) than that available to many U.S. households. In two years the number of computers tripled and fibre optics now connect Havana with Camaguey and would soon be reach Santiago, on the other end of the island. Access however is restricted to the proirities allocated according to national planning mechanisms and as early as June 1996 Decree 209 ("Access to the World Computer Network from Cuba") stated that connectivity could not be used "in violation to the moral principles of Cuban society and its laws" or "endanger national security". In Gramna 2003 Carlos Martinez Albuerne of the Monitoring and Supervision Agency reported that some thirty one people had received "sanctions" for "using email addresses that did not belong to them". In December 2000, Jose' Orlando Gonza'lez Brido'n, secretary-generla of the illegal Cuban Democratic Workers' Confederation was imprisoned for blaming the police for the death of CTDC's national coordinator and for "subversion" for having send an article to a Miami radio station. A similar situation exists in Vietnam, where some 5 Internet users are known to be in prison because of their online activities, with punishments given out to those who engage of "harmful use" of the Internet following monitoring and inspection of cybercafes. In January 2002, the Deputy Minister for Culture and Information, Nguyen Khac Hai, ordered police to destroy any publication not authorized by the government, which included photocopies and printouts from the dissident website "Dialogue". In September 2002, the Deputy Chief inspector of the same ministry, called for subversive and pornographic material to be blocked. Le Chi Quang, a computer teacher and law graduate, was arrested for sending "dangerous" information abroad and imprisoned for an essay posted on the Internet entitled "Beware the Empire of the North" referring to the border agreements made with China in 1999. [ Jesus Martinez, The Net in Cuba, Matrix News, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1999. The Internet Under Surveillance, ibid, pp46-50, pp133-137]

Malaysia and Egypt are both nominal democracies which are however substantially influence by religious legal codes. A constitutional monarchy with an elected lower house, Malaysia originally seemed to be following the pro-censorship path, with Information Minister Rahmat declaring in March 1996 that " those making libelous and disparaging remarks about the country via the Internet will be penalized". Usenet, in particular the group soc.culture.malaysia was targeted as a site being used to ""rumours, racist remarks and uncensored statements on all things Malaysian, especially politics". Further, "We are aware that some people in the country are using their homepages to discredit the country. When the new regulations are introduced, those found to have acted against the country through lies and libelous statements will face the music." However, soon afterwards, Malaysia dropped its pro-censorship stance on the basis of administrative difficulties and feedback from investors. "There will be no censorship," Tan Sri Datuk Dr Othman Yeop Abdullah said, adding that "existing laws will apply, once you download content and disseminate it...but if you just access and look at it, it's ok". [ Interview with Dato Mohamed Rahmat, Minister of Information, The Sunday Star, March 10, 1996, p15 Internet censorship started in December scrapped, The Straits Times, March 17, 1999 http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/reg/mal2_0317.html ]

Yet these claims were later contradicted by action. In mid-2000, The Energy, Communications and Multimedia Industry Parliamentary Secretary, Chia Kwang Chye, remakred that those using the Internet to spread lies or make threats would be imprisoned following seditious comments by a fundamentalist Islamic group. Journalist from the only online daily newspaper, Malaysiakini, are often refused press passes to official events and conferences. Journalists from two other websites, Radioqradio and Agendadaily, have also been refused creditation. In January 2003, the Malaysiakini offices were raided for "sedition" and "inciting racial hatred" following a complaint by the UMNO (governing party) youth wing after the online newspaper published an anonymous article which criticized special benefits being granted to the ethnic Malay majority and comparing the UMNO to the racist Ku Klux Klan. Opposition political parties have also been harassed, with the computers of the National Justice Party being seized in May 2001 with the home of the Party's website editor being searched. The website allegedly contained "seditious" material and the Party has since transferred the website to a foreign host. Furthermore, Malaysia has the interesting example where Muslims - and Muslims only - are subject to specific laws of Shariah, whereby anti-Islamic offenses (such as insulting the prophet or the teachings of the Qu'aran) is punishable by fines up $1 386 or three years imprisonment. In the past, minor oppositon parties have attempted to make apostasy a capital offense for Muslims in Malaysia. [ Malaysia Warns Internet Abuse Could Lead to Imprisonment, South China Morning Post, July 26. Associated Press. (2000). The Internet Under Surveillance, op cit, pp74-81 Malaysian Governent Assures Net Freedom - For Some, ZDNet, December 14, 2000 http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356246&rel=true ]

With a collation of legal codes from English common law, Napelonic civil code and Islamic law, the Republic of Egypt is a nominally democratic nation where one political party, the National Democratic Party, achieved 88% of the vote in the People's Assembly and holds 99% of the seats on the consultative Advisory Council. The President, Hosni Mubarak, has been in power since 1981. Whilst Article 4 of the 1996 Press Law prohibts censorship, it seems that this prohibition is not taken seriously, less still for online publications. The famous Egyptian poet, Naguib Surur, requested that his son speak for him after his death (1978) but warned that the state would turn on him. His son, Shohdy Surur, published his fathers most famous poem, 'Kuss Ummiyyat' (Nuguib's Mother's Cunt) where he uses colloquial street Arabic to express his scorn on contemporary Egypt. Shohdy, charged with possessing "immoral booklets and prints" (despite the fact the website was hosted in the United States, not Egypt), and said he was "happy with the sentence ... [as] my father explicitly predicted in that same poem that the oppression he personally experienced would also happen to his son. I'm glad that I will now be able to defend him and what he wrote". In addition, when fifty-two homosexual men were tried by the state security court at the end of 2001, gay community websites were minitored by the police who organized acts of entrapment. In late 2002, a successful campaign from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights changed an article in the new communications bill which would have allowed the army, police and state security officials to access any communications network to read that interception could only occur "in accordance with the law". [ Mahmoud El-Lozy, Rebel With A Cause, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line No 400, 22-28 October 1998, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1998/400/cu5.htm See also: New Jail Threat for Poet's Son, Index on Censorship, July 18, 2002http://www.indexonline.org/news/20020718_egypt.shtml Lucy Ashton, 21 allegedly gay men get 3 years, Middle East Times, March 21, 2003 See also: The Internet Under Surveillance, op cit, pp52-53 ]

The Republic of Turkey and the Republic of Korea are both rapidly growing developing middle income (Turkey) to upper income (Korea) democracies who have made serious attempts to embrace the rise in telecommunications technology. There are no specialized laws in Turkey directly relating to the Internet and several attempts to do so has resulted with strong opposition from the Turkish public and particularly the intelligentsia. On one occassion the Turkish Ministry fo Defense drafted a "National Information Security Act" which proposed prison sentence from three to six years and heavy fines for non-compliance. The act would have declared any data to be under the control of the government and that ISPs would have to respond to any requirests made by a "National Information Security Organization". In general Turkish press laws apply which means a ban on expressions or information that is deemed pornographic, promoting of Islamic or other religious fundamentalism or separatism (e.g. Kurdish self-determination). Nevertheless, severe punishments for online activities have occurred. In May 1999, an anonymous poster sent a 24pp text file on "Human Rights Violations in Turkey". The moderator of the list Cofkun Ak, was challanged by a user who though that portions of the text were criminal. When the moderator did not delete the text, the user contacted the Ministry of Justice which eventually led to a fourty month prison term for Cofkun. Another example was the ten month imprisonment of Emre Ersöz was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment in 1998, when a group of blind Turks protested outside the Muncipaility of Ankara following an incident when one of their community fell into a pit excavated by the Muncipality. The security forces violently suppressed the demonstration. When Emre posted on Turk.net his dismay at television images of security forces beating up blind people, he was arrested for criticizing the security forces following arrest by an anti-terror team with automatic weapons, detention and cross-examination by the Anti-Terror Centre and eventually convicted of "insulting and weaking the security forces of the state".

In comparison the Republic of Korea was one of the first countries to pass specific laws concerning viewing and publishing online material in 1995. In 2001, the Information and Communications Ministry barred some 120 000 websites deemed offensive with their information on computer hacking, cybercrime, euthanasia, pornography and bomb making. In 2002 the government shut down an anti-military service site on the grounds that military service was an obligation and evidently beyond debate as part of the article 53 of the the 1995 legislation that referred to "dangerous content". This was struck down by the constitutional court and the article ammended to "illegal content". In January 2002, the government banned the country's first homosexual website ezone.com. A government committee on the protection of children claimed that the website was pornographic and a threat to the morality of children. In July 2002, Kim Kang-Pil of the far-left Democratic Labour Party was arrested as a threat to national security (specifically "an act advantageous to the enemy") for posting articles sympathetic to the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. [It was estimated that in 2002 that 34% of all computer hacking outside the United States originates in, or passes through, the Republic of Korea, with 91% from Pacific Rim nations. Reported in the Wall Street Journal, see also: http://www.predictive.com/company/pressroom/inthemedia.cfm?offset=13 http://www.cio.com/online/031802_report.html Kemel Altintas, Tolga Aydin, Varol Akman, Censoring the Internet: The Situation in Turkey, First Monday, Volume 7, Issue 6, 2002. http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/Issue7_6/altinta/ Turkey pp117-118 South Korea ibid pp105-107 ]

The Censorship of the Sensual

In discussing the topics of sensual censorship the following definition are used. The sensual is meant to mean any potrayal of human sensual experience, whether pleasurable or painful, whether individual or participatory, whether consensual or forced. It includes everything from the physical sensations of taste (e.g. food), momentum and balance (e.g. a roller-coaster ride, music) to sexual sensations, violent sensation, violent sex and sexual violence. The range of such censorship may seem to be from the laudably trivial to extremely disconcerting, but it is important to note that this has not always been the case. Food for example has been subject to some extreme censorship in the past (food taboos) and has has been utilized in religious debates, war and theories racial and ethnic superiority. Of course, taste, smell, balance and momentum and touch are not part of the sensual experience of the Internet and it is quite improbable that they will be for some time yet. Only the sensual experience of sight and hearing are available for the receiving subject from which sensual expressions may be derived. [Stewart Lee Allen, In The Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Foods, Canongate, 2002]

Thus, the discussion of sensual censorship on the Internet to that which is pragmatic to the current technology (text, sound, still and motion images) and is usually limited to those assumed extremes of sensual feeling, whether pleasureable or painful, which is invariably expressions of sexual activity, violent activity and drugs use or information. Music is sometimes included, usually on the grounds of seditious, pornographic, "anti-social" or allegedly vulgar lyrical content, and advocates of such censorship such as the Parent's Music Resource Center in the United States seeks a prohibition on lyrical content that expresses content concerning sex, violence, drug use and suicide. In 1992, the state of Washington passed a law called the Erotic Music Bill. This law stated that store owners had to place and "adult's only" label on certain recordings. Few request censorship on the basis of sound (for example, the medieval ban on the C and F# tritone the so-called "Devil's Chord"), although some fundamentalist religious sects claim that music and particular types of music have the capacity to cause a person to lose rational will.

This particular subsection concentrates on sensual expressions in largely post-seditious social systems: it almost goes without saying that religious and authoritarian regimes that place bans on media, blashemy and sedition also apply the same metanarrative on sensual expressions as well both on the Internet and in other media. Comparisons are thus made here for those societies where it is evidently a critical issue or which have provided a archetypal legislative, namely the United States of America which have made several attempts to legislate online material and engage in monitoring and the the Commonwealth of Australia, whose current conservative government had provided more restrictive legislation online compared to material available in print or film and Canada, whose unusual legal convulsions of the 1990s were indicative of competing opinions on the theme of sensual expression. In all cases differentiation is made between sexually explicit material, violent material and sexual violence and the legal framework that applies on the Internet or offline, if such a difference exists.

Censorship of the Internet through United States legislation is pivotal to any analysis. Firstly, inhabitants of the United States of America are the single most numerous users of the Internet. Secondly, production of computer hardware, software and network infrastructure is dominated by United States geographically and U.S. corporations in the global economy. Finally, the United States has a most remarkable history, previously documented, in regards to censorship of explicit material. Since the mass development of the Internet in the 1990s there have been a number of legislative attempts on curtial the availability of such material and specifically the availability to minors. Despite the first ammendment stating that Congress shall make "no law" concerning free speech and the free expression of ideas, some exceptions have been made. In reference to the theme of sensual expressions, obscenity is defined as speech which has a "clear and present" danger to public health (which is also a constitutional requirement). The current standard derives from a three part test (Miller versus California 1973): 1. "the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; and 2. the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and 3. the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or social value. [This definition an be supplemented by the recognition from Stanley v. Georgia (1969) which established the right for persons to receive obscene material and possess it in the privacy of their own homes. It is, however, still illegal to purchase or transport obscene material.]

A second attempt to introduce the equivalent of the Communications Deceny Act came in the from form of Child Online Protection Act in October 1998, however this was struck down by the Federal Appeals Court in Philadelphia in June 2000 and remains on hold as of the time of writing. Another third attempt took the form of four different required software filtering bills, none of which passed both houses of congress. Such bills required schools and libraries which received federally discounted Internet access to install filtering software to screen material deemed "inappropriate to minors" (which obviously includes sexual and violent) material, with individual administrations to determine which filters to purchase and which content to allow. Not surprisingly, manufacturers of filtering software, with such brand names such as CyberPatrol, We-blocker, Cybersitter, Netnanny, Surfcontrol, and Websense, are enthusiastic of such legislation. The official press release from Netnanny commented following the passing of one such bill: "This latest development, provided that it passes the House of Representatives, will mean a major increase in activity in the education market for Net Nanny Software International Inc., leading developers of online child safety and PC security software". A fourth attempt, the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was also based around a requirement that schools and libraries use filtering software, which again has been deemed contrary to the first ammendment. This is fortunate, as filtering software is notorious for screening out appropriate and inappropriate material and is easily circumvented. [ U.S. Senate Passes Bill Requiring Internet Filtering Such as Net Nanny in Schools and Libraries Receiving E-rate Funding, Netnanny Software International Inc., Press Release July 28, 1998 available at: http://www.netnanny.com/press/press_980728.htm Indeed, one organization of enterprising youths have set up their own popular website to by-pass filtering software with the slogan "You'll understand when you're younger": http://www.peacefire.org ]

In Australia, the Office for Film and Literature Classification is responsible for full and partial censorship of all material, including online information. However, it was the Australian Broadcasting Authority who in 1996 released a report entitled "Investigation into the Content of On-line Services" proposing a self-regulatory based on content rating and the PICS filtration system. In 1999 however, the Broadcasting Services Act was amended to allow citizens to lodge complaints according to the ABA about Internet content. Electronic mail and real-time content (irc, talk) was were not included in the amendment. Publications have a seperate classification guidelines to film and computer games thus depending on the content, different regulatory regimes may apply to the Internet. New guidelines were approved in 1999, and a call was made to further review and combine the classifications regime in November 2000, which consisted of a draft release in 2001, which apparently is still undergoing evaluation. [ Office of Film and Literature Classification, Revised Draft Classification Guidelines for Films, Videos, Internet Content and Computer Games, Australian Government Press, 2001. Available at: http://www.oflc.gov.au/PDFs/rev_class.PDF Investigation into the Content of On-Line Services, Australian Broadcasting Authority, 1996. Availble here http://www.aba.gov.au/what/online/ols_report/ ]

The general classifications in regime in Australia is as follows: Content that is, or would be, 'X' or 'RC' (Refused Classification) for motion pictures is prohibited online, although it is available in other media formats. Material rated 'X' only applies for films and only applies to consensual explicit sexual activity. No depiction of violence, sexualised violence or coercion is permitted in X rated material, which is only available from the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. Fetishes such as body piercing, the application of substances such as candle wax or urine, bondage, spanking or fisting are not permitted. Items that warrent a "refused classication", which applies to computer games and films only (i.e. computer games which exceed the MA+ (mature audience category are proscribed), includes detailed criminal instruction, gratitious, prolonged, excessively frequent or detailed violence, sexual violence, offensive or abhorrent fetishes (such as bestiality), incest fantasies or other abhorrent fantasies, bestiality, excessively violent and/or sexually violent material, detailed instruction and material promoting drug use.

In publications, four classifications (unrestricted, category 1, category 2 (both unavailable to persons under 18 years or in the state of Queensland), refused classification) are used. A RC or category 2 classification may be classified category 1 if it is sold in a plain opaque wrapper. Category 1 materials may not incite, instruct or promote violence, although realistic depictions are allowed as long as they are not gratitious or exploitative, they may permit general descriptions of sexual activity, realistic depictions may not show actual sexual activity, drug use is allowed but it detailed instructions or encouragement may not be provided, realistic depiction of genitals and sexual excitement is permitted, including touching, depictions of minor fetishes is allowed. Category 2 classification allows actual sexual activity, depictions of stronger fetishes with the exclusion of "revolting or abhorrent" fetishes with extra leniancy for stylised and written descriptions rather than realistic potrayals. Refused classification uses the same criteria as for film.

Contemporary Canadian censorship of sensual expression can date back to the Butler decision of February 27, 1992, where the Supreme Court of Canada defined obscenity as sex with violence, explicit sex involving children, and exploitive sex that degrades or dehumanizes. Over the next year, most of the feminist bookstores in Canada experience detentions and seizures, including the Toronto Women's Bookstore and Everywoman's Bookstore in Victoria, for stocking the adult lesbian comic "Hothead Paisin #7", which contains no sexual depictions whatsover, Glad Day, a gay and lesbian bookstore for the sexually explicit magazine for lesbians, "Bad Attitude" and Wonderworks, a women's spiritual and ecological bookstore for ordering "The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory". Even as late as 1997, the theory was still being put into practise, as RMCP police in the district of British Columbia attempted to seize Nancy Friday's book "Women on Top: How Real Life has Changed Women's Lives" from local libraries on the basis that "a Crown opinion has deemed that the book contravenes the Criminal Code sections dealing with obscene material and child pornography". The book is based on interviews with more than 150 women about their concept of sexual pleasure and how to further their desires in sexual relations. It was not until December 2000, following a case initiated by Little Sisters and Art Empoream versus Canada (Ministry of Justice) where the onus of proof of harm was placed on plantiff, rather than being a matter for the defendant to disprove. This effectively makes Butler irrelevant for nearly all sexually explicit media expressions. [ The subjective definition "degrades or dehumanizes" was used by state authorities with extreme prejudice against feminist, progressive and lesbian and gay bookstores. Although Catharine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin have denied responsibility for the application of the criminal code (they claim they would prefer a civil code), they contradict this by admitting that they both worked with the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) in participating on the Butler case and claim victory that the Supreme Court accepted that "obscenity law was unconstitutional if used to restrict materials on a moral basis, but constitutional if used to promote sex equality". Evidently to be moral is not to treat others as equals in their mind. Ironically, some of the books seized by Canadian customs included those written by Andrea Dworkin. Andrea Dworkin, Catherine McKinnon, "Statement by Catharine A. McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin Regarding Canadian Customs and Legal Approaches to Pornography", August, 1994 Marina Jimenez, "RCMP raids libraries for sex bestseller", Vancouver Sun, 1997 ]

Following suit, in mid-1993 the Federal Canadian government passed bill C-128 aimed at eradicating child pornography. As is typical in contemporary society confusion occurred between the distinction between child and adult, minor and majority age. Depictions of "explicit sexual activity" of anyone under 18 years or who appears to be under 18 years are considered "child pornography". In Canada the age of consent to sexual intercourse is 14, except for anal sex, where both parties (and it must only be two, because three or more makes it a public act) are either married or 18 years or older. In other words, like the other examples included here, the legislation of publications and recordings of acts was subject to greater legal restriction that the acts themselves, as if the introduction of a recording device actually changed the morality of the situation. Just how broad depictions of "sexually explicit activity" meant became obvious within six months as Eli Langer, a Toronto artist, was arrested even though none of his works involved live models or photography. Two years latter the courts ruled in favour of Mr. Langer. According to Electronic Frontiers Canada, most of the subsequent charges under the child-pornography law are laid against the presumed victims: street kids over the age of consent but under the age of majority, who are charged after making consensual videos for fun or profit.

In 1998 there was a proposal for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission issued a request to the Canadian populaation on whether they wanted the Commission to regulate Canadian Internet content, suggesting that the Commission could promote Canadian cultureand protect Canadians (with emphasis on youth) form pornography and hate speech. David Jones, of Electronic Frontiers Canada, opposed the proposal claiming that "The Internet has flourished in the absence of government regulation ... A CRTC-regulated Internet would not be desirable or constitutional" further noting that Canada already had laws for criminal speech and that CRTC had a poor reputation as a guarantor of freedom of expression citing the suppression of the Dalhousie University radio station CKDU in 1994. By November 1999, the CRTC had decided that the voice of the public was clear enough that Internet regulation was not desired and gave up the regulatory option, noting that all online material that uses alphanumeric text is already not subject to the Broadcasting Act and that remaining material does fall under that legal framework and that the new media complements rather than substitutes existing legislation. [ The Globe and Mail, August 1, 1998 Electronic Frontier Canada opposes Internet Regulation by CRTC, November 26, 1998, available at: http://www.efc.ca/pages/pr/efc-pr.26nov98.html CRTC Won't Regulate The Internet CRTC Press Release, May 17, 1999 http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/NEWS/RELEASES/1999/R990517.htm ]

Censorship of Individual and Group Vilification

The final example of content based censorship is that of individual, institutional or group vilification. As with previous examples this ranges in in degress of intensity, precision and technological possibility. Vilification (from the Latin, vilificare to hold cheap) is defined as vicious, hateful or defamatory statements about individuals or groups. It used here as a set of descriptive terms that includes the legalistic terms of defamation, the act of injuring another's reputation by false information, including the written form (libel) and the oral form (slander) as well as subjective ones such as offensive expressions ("disagreeable to the senses") to those which engage are correctly defined as verbal-acts, such as intimidation and threats of violence. The purpose of this subsection is to define which, if any, of the above warrant proir censorship or the punitive award of damages, which cause harm and to what degree of causality and finally, the application and experience of vilification on the Internet. Again, for the degree of Internet usage and the political right of free speech, the legal framework and application of the United States is used as a pivotal example. Likewise the Commonwealth of Australia, for an alternative legal application and recognition of Internet density. Finally the Federal Republic of Germany, with particular scrutiny on attempts to apply vilification regimes on the Internet.

Individual and institutional vilification is relatively undisputable component of this discussion and the following principles are generally understood: Derived from early English common law it encompasses the twin torts of written and oral defamation (libel and slander) regardless of the medium or form, thus including text, gestures, signs, images, motion pictures. Libel is normally considered more injurous as the circulation is greater in scope and scale. Legal privilege normally exists for individuals who are required to transmit information and are acting in good faith, such as those performing government fuctions or professional discussions. A distinction is also drawn between defamation that is apparent (per se) or that which requires extrinsic evidence to show damages (per quod). In the case of readily apparent defamation the plaintiff need not show harm, and the only defense is that the the statement were true. In defamation per quod, contextual evidence by the plaintiff needs to be shown.

In the United States, in Stratton Oakmont, Inc vs Prodigy Servs. Co., 115 WL 323710 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1995), Prodigy was sued for libellous statements made by an anonymous party on of Prodigy's message boards. The court held that Prodigy was strictly liable and were effectively a publisher and distributor. Congress subsequential enacted 47 USC S§23, which stated that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" which was substantially enacted in 1995 when an anonymous poster claimed that Kenneth Zeran, a small business owner, was selling "Naughty Oklahoma t-shirts" with offensive slogans related to the recent bombing incident. Zeran received numerous angry responses, including death threats, and requested that AOL remove the posting which they refused. In Zeran v. America Online Inc., 129 F.3d 327, 331 (4th Cir. 1997), the Court interpreted in that online service providers were completely immune from all liability as long as the statement did not originate with the service provider itself.

In First Ammendment protects public speech, even that which is offensive to other social groups, except in the cases where it is individually directed ("fighting words") or threatens violence. As the ACLU explains: "How much we value the right of free speech is put to its severest test when the speaker is someone we disagree with most. Speech that deeply offends our morality or is hostile to our way of life warrants the same constitutional protection as other speech because the right of free speech is indivisible: When one of us is denied this right, all of us are denied.". When neo-Nazis campaigned for the right to publically march in Skokie, Illois in 1979, they were defended by the ACLU. The Executive Director, Arey Neier, whose relatives died in Hitler's concentration camps during the second world war commented: "Keeping a few Nazis off the streets of Skokie will serve Jews poorly if it means that the freedoms to speak, publish or assemble any place in the United States are thereby weakened."

Eveyln Kallen's research on hate groups and hate-speech online however is somewhat contrary to the ACLU's views. Kallen presents evidence that organized political groups manipulate deeply held "invalidation myths" to incite "virulent hatred and harmful action". The problem however - which Kallen does not sufficiently address - is who belongs to what social group, if they are not institutionally bound and at what point does false speech actually persuade an individual contrary to their ability to reject other evidence and form convictions. The evidence of hatred provided by Kallen is indisputable and similar evidence is available to any casual research. The requisite proof of causality and precision, however, is substantially lacking. Like all prejdudices and unconsidered opinions their capacity to withstand rational debate is limited - if this not the case, human society may as well adopt authoritarian rule, as we are clearly too ignorant, too incompetent and too incapable of improvement to actually have a democratic and civil society. Kallen adopts the "mass influence" model of socialization uncritically and especially so for a communications medium like the Internet. [ American Council for Civil Liberties, ACLU Briefing Paper 16, undated. Available at: http://archive.aclu.org/library/pbp16.html Evelyn Kallen, Hate on the Net: A Question of Rights / A Question of Power, Electronic Journal of Sociology, Volume 3, Number 2, 1998. Available at: http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.002/kallen.html See also: Beverly Ray and George E. Marsh, Recruitment of Extremist Groups on the Internet, First Monday Vol 6., #2 (Feb. 5, 2001) Available at: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_2/ray/ ]

In Australia, racial vilification legislation originally derives from being a signatory of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination signed on the 30th September 1975. In that Convention it states that signatories shall declare the dissemination of racial superiority an offense, along with incitement to violence on the basis of race, colour or ethnci origin and shall outlaw organizations that promote racial discrimnination. These theoretical conventions became practice with the introductions of state laws and specifically the federal Racial Hatred Act of 1995, after lengthy community debate first initiated in 1992. Unlawful racially offensive behaviour under the act are public acts based on the race, colour, national or ethnic origin of a person or group of people which are likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate. The act must be serious and there are exemptions for artistic expressions, academic investigation and accurate reporting in the public interest. Writing in favour of the principles of outlawing racial speech, the Senior Lecturer of Law at the University of New South Wales, Melinda Jones, outlined several instances of racial violence and verbal and written racial intimidation as examples where the victim of such abuse reduces the capacity of the individual to participate in democratic speech and emboldens racists to engage in actions of hatred. Jones considered it fortunate that Australia did not have the first ammendment which "protected the perpetrator" (i.e. places onus on the plantiff), nor a system where the government is perceived as, or should be, a "neutral-umpire". [ Melinda Jones, Empowering Victims Of Racism By Outlawing Spirit-Murder, Australian Journal of Human Rights, Vol 1, No 1, December 1994 ]

In the first year of its introduction, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission received one hundred and twelve complaints brought under the Racial Hatred Act, the majority relating to Media, Neighbourhood Disputes and Employment. A recent specific trial with regards to the Internet are actions against Dr. Frederic Töben, a revisionist historian, has published online material which is insulting to Jewish people on the grounds that it denies conventional claims of the scale of the Nazi holocaust against members of the Jewish faith and their "race". Toben was arrested in Germany in April 1999 and sentenced to 10 months in prison on the basis of the material on his "Adelaide Institute" website. At no stage did Toben advocate or incite violence against Jewish people, rather the German law relating to revisionism - that it defamed the deceased - applied. The following year, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission ordered him to close his website and post a apology to the people he had offended. The determination claimed that the material was "vilificatory, bullying, insulting, and offensive". As Terry Lane commented at the time, an order to close a website isn't going to change a persons' convictions and correctly concludes: "We should test his assertions, not silence them". In June 2003, an appeal lodged by Toben was rejected by the Federal Court. The website is now hosted in the United States. [ Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Commonwealth) No. H97/120, The ruling of HREOC is available at: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/australian/adelaide-institute/ Terry Lane, Censoring the Adeliade Institutes Website is Futile, On Line Opinion, 2000 availabe at www.onlineopinion.com.au/2000/nov00/lane2.htm Toben v Jones [2003] FCAFC 137 (27 June 2003) available at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2003/137.html ]

As indicated above, the Federal Republic of Germany has also made several efforts to regulate distribution of information on the Internet on the basis of group vilification, specifically such information which is perceived as promoting national socialism or other extremist politics and that which defames the reputation of the victims of national socialism or their relatives. This includes speech, symbols, gestures and images as per standard defamation law. Germany has constantly avoided Internet-specific laws and liability of Internet Service Providers for the contents. However, the Internet has been targetted for the application of existing laws. In 1995 a prohibition was invoked on over two hundred usenet groups offered through Compuserv on the basis of such legislation, which meant the usenet groups were blocked to Compuserv subscribers globally, the first time such censorship had such a wide-ranging scale. Two months later, the largest ISP, the T-Online service of Deutsch Telekom voluntarily blocked the site of Canadian neo-Nazi, Ernst Zuendel following a warning from state prosecutors. Later that year, perhaps in an attempt to appear even-handed, Internet Service Providers were warned to block several thousand webpages, the entirety of the site from the Dutch access for all (www.xs4all.nl) due to left-wing political content on one of the pages. In November 1996, CompuServe considered transferring its German administrative operations because of such legislation, claiming that they did not want to be in the position where they had to censor material on the Internet. In a related incident in the same month, police in Munich seized copies of CorelDraw included Nazi-related "clip art" images under the historical people section. [ "Germany Moves Against to Censor Internet", New York Times, January 26, 1996 "Compuserve May Pull Admin Unit Out of Germany", New York Times 19, Nov 96 C5 "German Governement don't want their people to read this newspaper", Radikal, http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal/ "German Police Seize Corel Software", Toronto Globe & Mail 18 Nov 96 B8, 19 Nov 96 B4 ]

More recently, the German companies Bocatel, Webwasher and Intranet have started working with the University of Dortmund to filter on the basis of website addresses. Following the implementation of their proxy filtering software, not dissimilar to that used in the People's Republic of China and Saudi Arabia noted above, and become requisite following a decision of the district government of DÃŒsseldorfcounty, Northrhine-Westfalia, and the Bundesland (federal state). A petition against the initiatives was organized in 2002 by ODEM and the famous German hacker group, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). The project initiatially started by blocking access to two neo-Nazi groups hosted in the United States, however future plans suggest extending the proxy software to block content on the basis of protecting minors, to ensure copyright and consumer rights and even search engines whose cache does not comply with national laws. On an initial reading, this appears to be contrary to article 5 of the German constitution which grants citizens the right to inform themselves from accessible sources without limitations. [ Pilotprojekt zur Evaluierung von Internet-Filtersystemen, 2001 available at: http://www.bocatel.de/filterpilot/ http://www.bocatel.de/Docs/2001-1219-Strategiepapier_Filtering1.pdf ]

Justifications for vilification censorship appear on the first instance to have greater rational foundations that those based on censorship of media, blashempy, sedition or sensual expressions. There is less doubt for example in many examples that such speech causes harm and therefore is an infringement on the free speech of others, whereas the previous examples were, in many cases just expressions of political power or majority viewpoint. In contrast, like verbal acts, like captive audiences, like theft of intellectual property, vilification specifically notes that some speech and some content actually directly hinders the right of others to express themselves freely. However, direct hindrance is critical: expressing an opinion, no matter how unconventional, no matter how disturbing or offensive can not cause the same sort of direct hindrance. Whilst this may be the case in some parts of some of the examples given above the general principle of prohibiting "offensive" speech (i.e. causes revulsion to the senses) rather than harmful speech which directly impedes the capacity of the alter to engage in counter-debate seems to be unwarranted and a very dangerous strategy, especially when "social groups" is ambigiously defined (e.g. the Australian legislation for vilification on the basis of race or ethnicity - neither or which have precise and factual meaning). Driving offensive ideas underground merely sets the stage for social instability and rebellion; they only convictional strength that members of a society has is the mass loyalty of its members and the legitimacy granted to its decision makers. This is inevitably reduced when coercion rather than reason is applied.

Recommendations

Censorship seems to develop in a structural continuum according to the political system used in a society. At one extreme, those societies that have a significant influence of a traditional political system and religious legal code place censorship on particular types of media, and all else that follows. Slightly less censorious from the prohibition of access is the prohibition of content, starting with religous content which, as per religious assertions, is a metanarrative that covers all aspects of the physical, social and individual worlds. Thus religious censorship inevitably correlates with censorship of political expression, artistic expression, sensual expression. With the advent of freedom of religious affiliation, the balance of censorship shifts from blashemy to sedition and the state authority replaces the religious authority. Again this ranges as a continuum, with authoritarian states interpreting all sorts of internal or external criticism as a form of sedition ("anti-social expressions")and more democratic regimes tolerating and, in very rare cases, encouraging debate and contributions of information. With the introduction of democratic-critical political systems and a legal code that grants the right to criticize state systems and state authorities, the balance of censorship shifts from seditious material becomes censorship of individual expressions, with a concentration on the sensual pleasure/pain extremes of sexual material and violence. Where freedom of expression is however assurred the protection of identity (and not just financial) reputation becomes the issue, a concern now facing advanced democratic nation states.

The rise of Internet technologies and communications has caused, and will continue to cause with increasing momentum, disquiet among all governing authorities. The prospect of individuals freely receiving and imparting information without political frontiers is obviously disconcerting to those with vested political interests or are desirous for homogenous and unreflexive cultural mores. Such values are antithetical to those of individual freedom, social democracy and a secular society and attempts to implement such restrictions are invariably associated with general social and cultural impoverishment, inequalities of wealth and power, technological paralysis and - due to the uneven use of modern technologies - war. The preceeding examples are by no means a comprehensive study of censorship of the Internet, but rather pertinient examples with structual associations based on the technology itself and particular types of content. The recommendations that follow reflect the political autonomy and rights of individuals, the right of individuals to be protected from harmful material and for effective and efficient social systems. The recommendations also counter recursive justifications based on legal codes or cultural mores, or the notion that social institutions and systems have definable "rights" and requirements that are independent of those from its constituent membership.

As should be evident from the preceeding subchapter on universal access, media censorship by governing social systems is not recommended. Individuals and societies with the highest levels of reflexive communication and technologies to aid such communication are those which are most adaptable and have the highest levels of information resources to draw upon. To truncuate communication and communication technologies is to effectively truncuate the range and capacity of thought. In particular, to truncuate communications technologies whilst admitting a range of instrumental technologies - especially those associated with force and violence - is to ensure a perpetual state of repression or war. A caveat however must be placed here; this is not a suggestion of the inevitability of technological adaption. Free human communities within the precinct of a governing social system have the right to determine what technologies that they consider appropriate. If a religious or para-religious community of individuals. in voluntary association, wishes to isolate themselves from the rest of the world then this is their right. There is no suggestion, for example, that members of the Badiu culture of west Java for example _must_ or _inevitably_ will adopt Internet technologies. However, for communities which adopt premodern social systems it is strongly recommended for their own stability that that they also also ensure premodern means of production and means of communication.

If Internet technologies are deemed allowable, the next pragmatic question is what content or communications are allowable. Governing systems have invariably defined questions of content in terms of "harm to society" and "harm to individuals". In the first case, "harm to society" has been often interpreted as information and communications from a range including those which are contrary or oppositional to official state policy and laws to those which are at variance to cultural norms. In the latter case, harm to individuals refers to the suggestion that particular information, based on content, can affect an individual mind behind their individual will or reasoning or that particular information imparts untruthful information that affects the judgements of individuals. The first type of content is that which seeks to change the existing political system or individuals with political power. A social system that counters such expressions through censorship runs the risk of losing legitimate mass loyalty. Whilst the use of violence may temporarily enforce a false sense of obedience, loyalty is only assured by those social systems which allow internal and external criticism and adapt accordingly, even to the point where incitement to change the political system or to disobey legal prohibitions. Likewise, social systems become dysfunctional when prohibited content is based on ambigious notions of cultural norms. All human cultures are dynamic and irrationalisable; attempts to regulate cultural norms inevitably result in cultural paralysis _and_ systematic instability.

"Harm" in this context therefore has a very restrictive sense. Only individuals and institutions (in the singular or as a collective with discrete membership criteria, such as institutions) may be "harmed" and then only on very unambigious and causal characteristics, such with captive audiences (such as subliminal advertising), verbal acts, defamation and intimidation or incitement to violence. Governing social systems must ensure that individuals and institutions are protected from expressions, regardless of media, that damage the reputation or finances of individuals or institutions on the basis of misreporting of facts (and only facts) about said individuals or institutions (i.e. fraud, defamation and libel). The Internet however raises new challenges for these relatively common modern legal practises. Not only is prior evaluation of material is no longer plausible, the internationalization of access and expressions means that national legislation is problematic. Prior evaluation is no longer sustainable or efficient as a means of protecting individuals or institutions. In a globalized world with globalized information, it is imperative that national authorities establish an international code for the protection of individual and institutional reputations regardless of their location. This may take the form of either the post-publication punitive model such as that used in the United States, or the recommendation of the Council of Europe for "right of reply" to all those affected by expressions. [ Declan McCullagh, Why Europe still doesn't get the Internet, June 16, 2003 http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1017333.html ].

There is therefore, a clear distinction between content censorship based on implied or assumed harmfulness and that which causes harm. However, in a recursive manner, "harm" also includes expressions that restrict the ability of others to express themselves. This includes statements of intimidation, or in the words of the U.S. supreme court (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942) "fighting words ... which by their very utterance inflict injurt or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace". However, attempts to elaborate this direct and individual concept of intimidation to include abusive speech about group memberships have proven problematic to justify, regardless of well-meaning intentions and the fact they are often presented as a "civil liberties" issue. Firstly, there is a tendency to elaborate actual expression of intimidation to those which are merely offensive. Secondly, there is a tendency to convert particular expressions to general expressions. The censorship of such expressions by governing systems in the former case merely represses, consolidates and provides subjections justifications for such ill-feeling, when the solution to such (usually sexist, racist or homophobic speech) is the expression of counter opinions. In the latter case (often claimed in associated with sexually explicit works) there is confusion between acting and reality, and consent versus force. In both cases there is no grounded justification for censorship; and censorious regulations are invariably the enforcement of existing power relations or pandering to populist prejudice.

Finally, as raised in the introduction to this subchapter is the issue of age and maturity. To reiterate and elaborate the statements there, the minds of children are different to those of adults. All available evidence to date suggests that children are incapable of engaging in formal mental operations, confusing fantasy with reality in early childhood (preoperational) and following normative behaviour without reflection in late childhood (concrete operational). There is some justification on these grounds for protecting children from some content on this basis, particularly media that has higher levels of immersive reality (motion pictures higher than text), and particularly content that has a higher levels of realism (from supernatural content, to graphic realistic potrayal) and particularly content which suggests acting contrary to the consent of others (non-consensual violence, but not depictions of consensual sexual acts).

Two further relevant considerations include firstly the tension of ownership of child between that as property of the family and as a social being with independent rights and secondly, the legal-regulative definition of a minor versus the physical-constantive definition. These tensions have resulted in the so-called "crisis of adolescence" and their solution require a radical rethinking of contemporary conventional wisdom and radical changes to prevailing social systems. Firstly, social systems must provide full adult rights to all beings who are adults, that is, who fit the biologically and neurological criteria in a manner that ensures recognition of individual variation. Secondly, systematic censorship of material available to children can only have prohibitive justification when they are physically located in the social arena. In the privacy of the family unit, such material can only be recommendations of guardianship.

This subchapter elaborated the history and definition of censorship and provided case studies relevant to the Internet. Examples of censorship were differentiated according to censorship of media, censorship of seditious content, censorship of depictions of sexual or violent content, and censorship of defamatory, libellous or vilifying material. The general social theoretical perspective is that all individuals, regardless of nationality, have the right to freely receive information, impart information and engage in debates according to their perspective and interests. Furthermore, all individuals have the right, that transcends national boundaries, to be protected from false information harmful to their reputation, finances or from content that alter their behaviour beyond their conscious will. It is difficult to find an existing society or nation-state that ensures these rights and therefore, the claims and counterfactual and idealized. There is, of course, no empirical method to determine to what degree speech is censored apart from the data already given.

Contemporary theory on rational will-formation and expression and the clearly indicates that the practical implementation of free expression and freedom of information is a necessity for a democratic and liberal social system and increasingly so as technological enhancement of individual action and enforcement of systematic regulation becomes more intrusive and of greater capacity. It is disconcerting enough that only a minority of adults use formal operations in their cognitive and moral reasoning. It is critical that this level increases if genuine democracy, where equals make decisions concerning matters of their common interest, is to be achieved rather than a mere shifting of institutional relations of power, is to survive. However, only in the environmental conditions where the individual is free to receive and impart information can this occur. Access distortions have already been noted - they can and do the degree and scope of expression due to systematic imbalances in wealth and power. However within this already systematically and structurally distorted technologically mediated language game - which currently excludes 91% of the world's population - to further restrict the flow of information because of merely widens the gap between the potential of the Internet and its actual implementation.

It is in the interest of being able to freely receive information, to freely express opinions, to engage in free reflective thought and come to carefully considered convictions; it is in the interest that social systems represent the democratic will of the people, where all have equal access to information, and social system may function efficiently; it is in the interest that the Internet as a technology may develop to provide the fullest access possible to as many people as possible and that scare computing resources and workers are not directed to inefficient and ineffectual activities of dubious moral reasoning that following conclusion is reached: There should be no prior censorship, in any form, of communication and information on the Internet, regardless of the content.