Computing and IT: In-depth Analysis of Web Censorship and Technologies

This report delves into the multifaceted aspects of web censorship and its technological underpinnings, exploring the arguments for and against its implementation. It examines the roles of governments, private companies, and individuals in controlling information flow, with specific examples from countries like China and the UK. The report covers topics such as the Great Firewall, dark web activities, and the impact of social media. It analyses various activities within Unit 6 and Unit 7, including the use of censorship to protect children, counter extremism, and manage political unrest. Furthermore, it touches upon the technologies and legislations employed to enforce censorship, including hardware, software, and legal frameworks. The report also provides insights into the ethical considerations and the balance between freedom of expression and societal safety, offering a comprehensive overview of the complex landscape of internet censorship and its implications in the modern era.

Computing and IT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
UNIT 6.............................................................................................................................................4
Activity 6.1..................................................................................................................................4
Activity 6.2..................................................................................................................................5
Activity 6.3..................................................................................................................................5
Activity 4.....................................................................................................................................5
Activity 5.....................................................................................................................................6
Activity 6.....................................................................................................................................6
Activity 7.....................................................................................................................................6
Activity 8.....................................................................................................................................6
Activity 9.....................................................................................................................................7
Activity 6.10................................................................................................................................7
Activity 11...................................................................................................................................7
Activity 12...................................................................................................................................7
UNIT 7.............................................................................................................................................7
Activity 1.....................................................................................................................................7
Activity 2.....................................................................................................................................8
Activity 3.....................................................................................................................................8
Activity 4.....................................................................................................................................8
Activity 5.....................................................................................................................................8
Activity 6 ....................................................................................................................................8
Activity 7.7..................................................................................................................................9
Activity 8.....................................................................................................................................9
Activity 9.....................................................................................................................................9
Activity 10...................................................................................................................................9
Activity 11...................................................................................................................................9
Activity 12...................................................................................................................................9
Activity 13.................................................................................................................................10
Activity 14.................................................................................................................................10

Activity 15.................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Computing is concerned with designing, developing and building hardware and software
system to process various kinds of information. Similarly, information technology is the study of
the system for storing, retrieving and sending information. It is important to have a better
understanding of both these aspect in the present era for the welfare of nation. In this assignment,
pros and cons of some of the advanced technologies is been elaborated.
UNIT 6
Activity 6.1
Web censorship can be defined as the restrictions imposed on the free flow of
information via the internet connections. It may be either self imposed or externally imposed by
the government or its agencies. Since, everyone is accessible to the internet in this era, use of
social media sites has been increased at a tremendous rate. Individuals share their views publicly
via these sites (Kahlon and et.al., 2018). To connect with more number of people globally people
are using these sites which is in the favour to ameliorate the relationship with other nations. But
sometimes, people share sensitive information that can provoke the other individuals and spread
the ill-feelings. Further, it has been stated by various researchers that certain books, news, videos
and films are also prohibited from the reach of people due to being politically unstable that can
ultimately create political unrest in the country.
In order to defend the communities from such a devastation, censorship is introduced by
the government of many nations, like, China, etc. So, we can say that it is favourable to impose
censorship on the web to some extent. Since, the government has the authority to make the
policies and laws which people have to follow, the web should be subjected to government
censorship. Along with the head of the communities the government have to decide upon the
information to be censored. If the information is of a sensitive nature that may provoke ill-
feelings in the society or demoralise the people, it must have to be censored. For this, the
government have to track the web activities done by the individuals on regular basis. This will
help to stop the unusual tasks performed by them. Though this will restrict their freedom, but at
the same time it is mandatory for the welfare of the community. Restricting this freedom
becomes important to develop a healthy living environment in the country. It becomes an
important activity to initiate stability and prevent any political unrest environment in the country.

The activity also become important for the commercial and governmental agencies as well.
Tracing individual’s web activities can ascertain any illegal activity going on at the workplace. It
will also assess whether they are working considering utmost productivity aspect or not.
Many organisation and other agencies have been involved in altering the activities of its
employees. Ireland is among the countries wherein the least censorship has been imposed.
Sometimes individual themselves impose censorship to avoid any controversies while expressing
their views to the other ones. Hence, it is controlled personally. Censorship can be imposed on
any article, book , parts of films to avoid any social or political regression.
Activity 6.2
Journalist have been able to express its views regarding censorship taking the examples of
China. It discussed regarding China being an active country following censorship with utmost
care. Google have also been able to receive the requests regarding blocking of certain websites
due to unwanted content available on it. The main issue faced by the team is regarding what to
block and what not to be blocked (GarcÃa-Valls and Ferreira,2018). Private companies are also
involved in censorship where they filter and analyse the information before putting it on online
platform. For instance, fakebook itself delete the images or documents by itself if it can cause
any riots to the country. Flickr also deleted pictures of police officers of Egypt due to privacy
and responsibility concerns. There are certain limitations that have been put regarding access to
the application by Apple as well.
Activity 6.3
To protect the children from unusual sites access, only consent is given to the adults to
access the information. Though it is difficult to ascertain that the persons accessing the same are
valid users or not. Moreover, faking one’s own identity is quite an easy task online by putting
wrong date of birth on e-mails and other social media websites. It males difficult for the
controllers to provide access to some consent which may not be appropriate for a particular age
group. Persuasion and Coercion are the common activities that are being found while revealing
any inappropriate content to the adult without seeking consent. In order to provide adequate
protection from this type of content, cyber team constantly gets involved in tracking the web
users and their frequently viewed pages and websites. This is to protect the users against the risks
for inappropriate internet activities.

The Arab Spring Uprisings is one of the diverse aspect of web usage. They are referred as
a series of protests or uprisings in the Middle East. They were worsening due to the information
leakage via social media and at that time the government didn't know much about the use of
social media. To overcome these kinds of situations at present, the government is now becoming
much more aware about these technologies to control the situations.
Activity 6.4
In UK, it has been observed that riots are occurring at alarming rates and they are using
social media to framework their ideas. To stop these actions, the country has implemented
various web censorship legislation to defend itself. For example, laws on obscenity and sexual
content, Stage Licensing, Libel laws, National Security, etc. All these are incorporated to devoid
these devastators to access unusual websites and hence, are not subjected to share views over
there (Stergiou and et.al., 2018).
To promote the usage and actions over the laws and legislations, government in actively
campaigning over right use of social media websites. All the ethical issues are taken into
consideration while ascertaining that what kind of material on social medias are actually trending
and if it can create any political unrest in the country or not. The data is preserved with the aim
to take better actions in future. It also helps in preserving cultural norms and religious beliefs of
the country as well.
Activity 6.5
Dark web is a part of world wide web which can be accessed only with the help of special
software. It is that part of the web which cannot be searched by any of the individual through any
search engine. It makes the individual to perform any illegal activity due to its non-traceable
property. It is generally formed in small group, such as, friends network, through certain type of
operating system or software. Government has been involved in preparation of laws and
obligations that can help in preventing the ideas and activities of darknet. Firewall and web
filters helps in reducing these activities to some extent. Other software is now installed to track
that special software assisting in the use of dark web techniques.
Activity 6.6
Internet censorship in China is quite different from other countries. It has been able to put a
great firewall that has reduced the illegal activities and dark side of internet to the minimum. Its
impact on the citizens is also found to be quite less in comparison to the other countries. China is

prone with such illegal activities to a great extent. To protect the country from the same Golden
Shield Project has been incorporated in China which is also referred as national public security
work informational project. This golden firewall is established by the government over there
which is a form of surveillance project that blocks the politically inconvenient data coming from
another country. Freedom of net ,2016 reports derives that internet freedom is now declined to
safeguard the people (Calvo and et.al., 2018). It has been able to ban internal social media
websites in the country can bring political unrest to it.
Activity 6.7
There are various important points that have been touched by the speaker during his
speech. China is a country who doesn’t have access to Facebook. There are certain other
applications that have been censored in China from being accessed by the citizens of the country.
There are around 500 million internet users in the nation. All the international applications are
banned in the country. However, it has been able to create its own. The blocked social media in
the country has helped it in keeping the server in the hands of the country. The speaker has also
emphasized that it has made the country to come under the periphery of smart censorship. It has
smartly been able to serve the demands of the citizens. Moreover, it has helped to avoid political
unrest where only good and positive content is aired and allowed to be published. The speaker
has been able to deeply explain the concept through cat and mouse concept.
Activity 6.8
To counter the extremism, the debate had been taking place in UK. These persons show a
kind of behaviour which is not favourable for the welfare of the community. To stop the feelings
been spread by them, censorship is gain imposed on their actions. Censorship can help in
controlling the web-based content to avoid these kinds of activities in the near future. They were
restrained to use the specific sites which were burgeoning ill-feeing in the people. Some actions
were taken by the government and the rest were done by the internet service providers. Many
legislations were also framed. In this way, today also the UK has incorporated various policies to
ensure a safe country (Albrecht, Schartner and Panelli,Illinois Tool Works Inc, 2018). The
authority can lie in both hands, that is, with internet service providers and government. Making
search of certain kind of material illegal and tracing people conducting this activity can help in
addressing censorship ton the core and providerin better services with respect to the same.

Activity 6.9
Various kinds of hardware and the software systems are used to implement the China's
Great Firewall. Cisco system was provided by US companies to block the access of specific
sites. Public security bureau was installed for this. With the help of proxy servers also the
censorship was done. Along with all these IP blocking, DNS filtering and redirection were also
taken into consideration. Communist party of China has been able to see internet platform as a
battleground where the main propaganda agenda in to successfully implement censorship in the
country. Various staff filtering technologies are used to bring only legal content at the platform.
Studies of mobile games, chat applications, search engines and live streaming platforms in China
are constantly conducted so as to bring consistent changes in the strength of censorship.
Activity 6.10
In this case, because the man had spread the ill feeling about the organisations, he had
been arrested. Since the man had wrote the post under his name , he had no fear about what he
was doing (Mansouri, Gholampour,Kisi and Ozbakkaloglu, 2018). But before doing so, he had to
consider the situation prevailing at the time for the airport and in this regard arrest warrant was a
right thing to be done against him. It is a kind of self censored technique since it was done
personally. Therefore, it becomes important for people to first review their tweet as it can get
them under surveillance when it is clinically tested. However, the same can be difficult to be
judged that whether a particular statement was given in humour or not. It is a perfect example of
slippery slope of censorship since, it is in between the stages of external and internal censorship.
Activity 6.11
The speaker stated that censorship is related to controlling the information that is available
online in the form of pictures, videos etc (Fu, Liu and et.al., 2018). Censorship can have different
goals at several places. In the wider context it has relation to preventing war due to politically
incorrect statements and content. Censoring Facebook and YouTube at work to avoid time
killing activities, etc. The prime example being discussed is China’s and its great firewall.
Australia is also involved in tighter censorship activities. Privacy is another important activity
that is taken care of by companies for better workplace environment. Anonymity can be used for
both positive and negative matter. The tool can be used to trace the criminal or a drug dealing
gang but it can also be used by the country to track people of countries in war.

Activity 6.12
We can say that our responses have not been changed after doing this case study, since
government has to impose these kinds of censorship for the sake of the community. People can
access the information only to the extent permissible. However, the perspective to the same has
been changed where the reader can now learn more regarding censorship and its adoption in
various countries in innovative manner.
UNIT 7
Activity 7.1
Today the use of CCTV cameras has been increased at an alarming rate. They are used as
a security device in all the organisations and even at homes also. Traditional cameras had low
resolutions and hence advance cameras are now emerged out. Now, automated number plate
recognition system is also used widely to detect the vehicles. Cameras with smart video
monitoring systems are being used now.
Activity 7.2
Government has also installed cameras for general surveillance, to detect anti-social
behaviour, crime prevention, real time intervention and to reassure the public security. To control
the crime rates, they are implemented in various countries. Since, the alcoholic activities are not
much effected by the camera presence, there is no significant reduction in such kinds of crime by
installing camera but to control the crime in car parks they play a vital role. Hence, the number
of cameras being installed in the places have increased to great extent. It is mainly present at the
public places in order to keep a track on the activities that may be illegal and criminal activities
can be identified in the initial phase only.
Activity 7.3
In the subways of UK also they are being installed. They are used to track the incident
and to provide help on hand (Shulaker, Hills and Mitra, 2017). For this one has to invest some
money but for the welfare of the individuals it is of utmost importance. For this, the quality of
the camera should be proper and police has to track the screens at regular intervals to provide
help as and when needed. The design must be form in a manner that it is less visible to the
criminal ad quality of output is maximum. Tracking screens at regular interval can slow down
the statistics of crime in the country.

Activity 7.4
Secured by design approach is a technique to prevent the crime by installing cameras in
residential places also. This will lead the people to feel safe while residing in their homes. But
everything has its pros and cons. However, the main demerit of installing CCTV cameras
everywhere is that it hampers the personal and private life of the individual where people cannot
perform in their will. Moreover, there must be a personal column to a certain level at the
workplace as well which gets hampered due to installation of CCTV cameras. Though they
provide safety services for the people but installation of these lead to undermine the people's
responsibility for each other.
Activity 7.5
CCTV cameras are widely used to monitor the antisocial behaviour. For this, it must be
secured by design approach provides the favourable assistance. The loudspeakers are also
attached with these cameras, which can to use by the service providers to control the situation at
the particular time. In this way, the behaviour of the riots can be controlled as soon as possible.
The main aim of secured by design is to provide utmost security system for the building and
private and public spaces of the country. It also helps in maintaining good standards with respect
to security in the environment.
Activity 7.6
With the advancement of technologies at the present time, the use of PTZ (pan tilt and
zoom) CCTV cameras are now increased. They have loudspeakers and microphones along with
them to control the situation when it actually takes place. Hence, they are very effective to curb
the antisocial factors (Kahlon and et.al., 2018). It is an important technique as conversation of
the criminals and illegal activities performers can also be recorded for better judgement.
Activity 7.7
Though it was the video recorded in 2007, which depicts the use of camera at many
places. Looking at this we can say that; wide number of cameras are installed in various sectors
for the security of the nation. In schools also, they are implemented today. The core idea is to
state that each and every activity being performed and step being taken is recorded in the CCTVs
hence every move is to be watched before taken.

Activity 7.8
Cameras are deployed in schools to track the performance and behaviour of the students
and teachers both. This is to ensure the safety of the parents towards their children. This is to
curtail the ideal time of the teachers to provide fruitful services to the students.
Activity 7.9
CCTV cameras of high quality resolutions like PTZ (pan tilt and zoom) cameras are now
installed in the classrooms. The biggest positive reason of the same is security. They helps to
track the teachers that whether they are paying full attention to the students or not but at the same
time , they devoid the teachers from their personal relaxation. With the help of this, the teachers
can provide creative services to the students to attract the members related to the administration
(Kahlon and et.al., 2018). However, it can be a costly affair for the school where a team can be
required to handle the same and keep a track record of all the recordings. Yup, one can feel
comfortable while teaching under the gaze of camera if they have confidence.
Activity 7.10
With the instalment of CCTV cameras in the schools, the students and teachers feel that
they are always in its gaze and hence, not behaves in a real manner. It increases the chances of
crime and unacceptable activities in the parts where cameras are not present in the school
building. Hence their performance is not much accountable in the classroom rather it is therein
washrooms and other areas which are not under surveillance. To cope up with the same, only
they must be installed at particular places.
Activity 7.11
The Metropolitan Police Service is deploying large number of cameras. All this is done
for the welfare of the people. People must have to assist these changes to help the administration.
It is for their safeguard only (Calvo and et.al., 2018). Moreover, to change the attitude of people
for the same, knowledge-based programs and conferences can help in better acceptability of the
technology.
Activity 7.12
Mosquito is a technique to safeguard the youth against any violence. It emits a high
frequency sound which can only reach the teenagers. This will help to detect the teenagers if they
are indulging into any wrongful activity or not. More types of such products are required to be
developed to maintain the ethical status and morale of the nation.

Activity 7.13
In UK, cameras are installed in large numbers. They serve as a tool for repression. For
the safeguard of the nation they are installed in large numbers. Now, they are equipped with
advanced technologies (Calvo and et.al., 2018).
Activity 7.14
British countries have implemented this from police sector to the classroom for the
security of the people. If they are being misused, the IT professionals has the responsibility upon
them. Government is also playing the role in this but various private sectors can also assist in the
same. The government have been able to install the cameras in almost every part of the city. It
has also been able to pass legislation regarding the same which have made the territory of UK
even more secure than before.
Activity 7.15
CCTV cameras are very important to keep the workplace secure and one has to make
proper strategies while installing the same so that action can be taken at a proper time.
CONCLUSION
To conclude we can say that IT technologies are very important for the safeguard of the
nation . The government and the other authorities have to plan in proper way to implement the
same.