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In 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee started WWW, it was all about consuming static content, and authority of that content was in the hands of a few media corps or educational institutions. In a matter of few years, the trend changed, information was no more static. It was the world of Web 2.0 which enabled everyone to create content, followed by social networking which allowed content creators to spread their voice in almost the speed of light.

Moral Policing

Eventually, more content creation and sharing meant more strength to voice or an unrestrained strength to the voice, which called for moral policing. This is where the governments came into action. China was among the first ones to adopt a censorship policy, which is said to date back as early as 300 AD. It received worldwide criticism for it. But now with other countries like the US talking about Internet Censorship Bill already, internet censorship seems to have become reality in every country. As of today, India has more than a 100 mn internet users. Hence India has the third largest number internet users after China and the US.

After a while, there shall be very little difference between China, US, or India. Hence the debate would no longer be about what but how to censor the freedom to citizen in this spree. According to a recent media report, Reporters Without Borders produced a Press Freedom Index of 179 nations, where all the 3 counties in mention fell down the ladder-US came down to 47 from 20s, India was at 131 rank against 122 last year, and China was ranked at 174. A comparison between 3 countries will be only about execution, which would largely be a political decision. While it's difficult to arrive at a conclusion, but we should deeply look into the real scenario of 3 major countries that are practicing or looking forward to adopting this control.

Targeting the Media

Media has been the most vulnerable prey of censorship. From The New York Times, BBC, to Indian Journals, everyone has bared it all, especially during wartime. We still remember those blank pages on the cover pages of The Indian Express. As rightly mentioned in the famous lines of Armed Islamic Group (GIA): 'Those that live by the pen shall die by the sword', hence not only in the past but also in the recent times, Iran, China, Korea, and many other countries have reported detention of the journalists.

Things haven't changed then, except that the number of pen-holders has multiplied massively. The next category of target is the social media group like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, who have been in a constant fight with governments like in China.

China's Controlling Methods

After The Great Wall of China, the extensive structure of 8,851.8 km, another great surprise from the Republic came as the Great Firewall (The Golden Shield Project) that started in 1998. Today it has shaped up as one of the most sophisticated control systems. It's a robust control system that can scan and censor everything-internet sites, mobile text messages, calls, social networking services, etc. Rather than following the hackneyed process of blocking domain extensions and websites, China follows Google, ie, they identify and block as per the keywords.

So, an utter of a non-permissible word during a telephonic conversation can disconnect the call. The Mainland has built an infrastructure that can pass through all networks; recognize multiple speech/languages in the conversation; screen the content for objectionable content, and disable them. Hence regulating what people communicate about and stand-up comedians laugh at. The matter does not always end at a call, even today the civilians are detained for uploading the pictures, videos, etc, that are inappropriate as per the government.

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