Thursday, 8 November 2012

Freedom of Speech on Internet



                                                                   (Source : robpinney.photoshelter.com)

                                           

Everyone has right of freedom of speech. Everyone has authority to share his/her thoughts, opinions and views publicly. However, free speech is one of the essential foundations of society. Hence, some sensitive issues such as religion topics and politics topics, people should be considered wisely before publicly worldwide. Of course, people have rights to share everything through social website without any limit of restraint but people should undertake of the consequences of freedom of speech. 

Early September 2012, the U.S film of insulting illustrations of the Prophet Muhammad which has been banned by France. Besides, the anti-Islam film called Innocence of Muslims has been uploaded onto Youtube had blocked in Pakistan, Libya and Egypt. It caused violence in US, and some Muslim countries due to cultural clash in the mass media internet era. Stéphane Charbonnier editor of French satirical magazine stated that the purpose of doing these video is fight over the role of freedom of speech and human rights in Middle East. It is neither insulting nor ridicule Muslim people (Spiegel  2012)

 After the videos released on Youtube, some people might think the movie’s content has insulting to Muslim whereas some people might think, it’s the golden chance to challenge for fledgling democracies.

                          (Source : thecomingcrisis.blogspot.com)

Freedom of speech on the internet is quiet concern in the regions onSoutheast Asia. According to Article 19 (2011) mentioned that the governments of Southeast Asia use the laws and regulations to control online speech which has political conflict, filtering contents on the internet, blocking file-sharing websites and Acts to target online users. These regulations of mass media on internet had been taken by Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Combodia.  However, Controlling the freedom of expression on internet, it could also protect others such as children.  By doing this, crimes would have the possibility to be avoided, as well. 

Reference List :

  • Spiegel Online, 2012, ‘France Bans Protests of Muhammad Caricature’ viewed 4 November 2012

  • Article 19, 2011, ‘South East Asia: the state of free expression’ viewed 4 November 2012

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