Censorship

As usual, the discussion board topics got me thinking this week. The last topic on the discussion board is one that asks if the internet is truly international and if it isn't, what implications does this have for education?

This led me to thinking about censorship and the countries that censor websites that might allow for others to speak out about the government there. Restricting access to certain websites is the norm in countries like China and North Korea. It would seem that this is about more about restricting what people could learn from these sites and less about the sites themselves.

Censorship is a dangerous game to toy with because it leads to a central way of thinking and doesn't allow for others to form opinions. They can only have the opinion of the one doing the censoring. 

In education this could be very problematic. Students should be exposed to all kinds of different cultures and lessons so that they can learn about others and learn from others. Now, this isn't to say that we should be letting kids do whatever they want on the internet, but there is so much good stuff out there for them to learn from. Making sure they have monitored access to it is where we should be. 

And, until the international community realizes that censoring websites infringes upon people's freedom, the internet will never be truly international.





Comments

  1. nutsJuly 24, 2022 at 9:06 PM

    Great point. Yes. North Korea or China is one of the countries suppressing people's voices. But, to be honest, I think education can allow censorship at some point since if we do not filter anything, it could negatively affect building students' identity...

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