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Introduction:
Foreign countries, such as China and Saudi Arabia, block
a various amount of content from their citizens, such as health and religion.
The Canadian government should set up proxy servers to help the other countries
bypass their governments control over internet content. Proxy servers are a
secure way to access information because they block the internet users IP address
from being detected. Proxy servers will allow many individuals to access content
without fear from being caught by their government. Setting up proxy servers
in foreign countries eliminates the knowledge gap because the internet users
can access blocked content. If the Chinese and Saudi Arabian governments block
these types of information their people would not build an understanding of
the outside world. The Chinese and Saudi Arabian government set up these laws
to protect their sovereignty.
Setting up proxy servers in another country, is not a
legitimate role for the Canadian government. The Saudi Arabian and the Chinese
government are entitled to their sovereignty. However, if limiting the knowledge
capacity of their people is their sovereignty, then this becomes an issue of
surveillance that can cause fear.
Studying the numerous forms of blocked content by the governments, allows the
reader to understand the effects. By understanding these effects, the reader
understands that the Canadian government should get involved to eliminate the
knowledge gap. The only way to eliminate this knowledge gap is to establish
proxy servers in these countries to allow the spread of global awareness. Disregarding
the laws set up by other countries is necessary to eliminate this restricted
barrier.
Analysis:
The Chinese government restricts users to develop an
understanding of the outside world by blocking an assorted amount of content
from their internet users. By blocking content, this creates more of a knowledge
gap between the citizens of China and the global world. The Chinese citizens
will become restricted in their knowledge and they will not be able to understand
what is happening in the outside worlds. Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman
of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School performed
a test on the Chinese internet systems. Zittrain and Edelman conclude that the
Chinese officials are trying to block content from other parts of the country
to eliminate the spread of the internet (Zittrain and Edelman). However, internet
surfing is encouraged in cybercafés so that the individuals in the café
can monitor the internet users (Zittrain and Edelman). This is a form of surveillance
that needs to be eliminated because the internet users are living in constant
fear that they will be caught for accessing illegal content.
Zittrain and Edelman took websites found on Yahoo to test on the Chinese servers
to examine if the Chinese government blocked these sites. Two forms of content
that are blocked from the Chinese servers are health and news (Zittrain and
Edelman) topics. Blocking heath and news creates a bigger gap in knowledge between
the Western world and China. If proxy servers were set up by the Canadian government,
the Chinese internet users would be able to securely access information on health
and news. This would expand their knowledge of diseases, infections, and also,
they would be aware of what is happening in other parts of the world. By limiting
these resources, the Chinese Officials are widened the gap of knowledge of the
outside world from the Chinese. The Chinese internet users are sheltered in
a box and they are becoming oblivious to the concerns and the developments of
other countries. The Canadian government needs to eliminate this knowledge gap
to provide awareness and understanding of other parts of the world to Chinese
internet users. Canada will be able to provide access, securely, to information
to the Chinese internet users in order to build upon the Chinese awareness of
other countries. This will in turn break the enclosed box that the Chinese are
currently living in.
Saudi Arabia is another country blocking internet content from their people
which widens the gap of knowledge. Zittrain and Edelman also examined the different
media content that were blocked from the Saudi Arabian internet users. For example,
any content that insults the Arabian government or belief system is block (Zittrain
and Edelman). According to Zittrain and Edelman, the reason for the blocking
specific internet content is to preserve the Saudi Arabian sovereignty (Zittrain
and Edelman). The Arabian government possibly believes that any other form of
internet content such as religion will influence their people into converting
against their religious beliefs. But, by doing this, the Saudi Arabian government
is limiting the Saudi Arabian users’ knowledge and awareness of other
countries way of operation and their beliefs. When a user accesses blocked content,
the user is aimed at a page displaying an error message that the page cannot
be accessed (Zittrain and Edelman).
One example of blocked content from the Saudi Arabian servers is religious sites.
This limits the Saudi Arabian users to develop an understanding of other countries
religious beliefs. According to the study called “Documentation of Internet
Filtering in Saudi Arabia”, the content that is blocked from the servers
are, “67 about Christianity, 45 about Islam, 22 about Paganism, 20 about
Judaism, and 12 about Hinduism” (Zittrain and Edelman). Limiting the knowledge
of religion by the Saudi Arabian government is understandable because they want
to protect their sovereignty. However, limiting the knowledge disallows the
internet user to build a comprehension of other people’s religion. The
Saudi Arabian internet users are encompassed in a protective box. They cannot
learn about what is outside of their country. The Canadian government should
get involved in establishing proxy servers to allow the expansion of knowledge
of different religions and cultures to the people of Saudi Arabia. The government
of Canada should help eliminate internet censorship. Proxy servers provide a
secure way to access information without fear from internet users being tracked
down because of illegal access to blocked content.
Conclusion:
Proxy servers are a secure way to eliminate internet censorship from countries that block internet content. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and China that block content, only want to strengthen their sovereignty. However, protecting their sovereignty by blocking content such as health and religion only causes a limit in the knowledge capacity of their people. If the Canadian government decides to get involved, Canada should set up proxy servers to eliminate this knowledge gap. By doing so, the internet users of the Saudi Arabian and Chinese government would not be afraid to access internet content. By increasing the amount of content the internet users have, the more their knowledge base will grow eliminating the knowledge gap.