Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Internet shutdowns aren't just Africa's problem. They're happening worldwide
The Internet is an open, public medium whose connection and accessibility, if not privacy, are supposedly guaranteed by the government. However, more targeted blockades or even total blackouts were enforced in countries especially in Asia and Africa last year. If you traveled to or stayed within the Firewall of China, you must have experienced difficulty in connecting to certain social media or accessing to some news websites. Such access control is the easiest way to control public interactions and stop uprisings to the authorities, and more governments implementing it recently.
Indeed, controlling, limiting, or excursing influence over media has been practiced everywhere in the world and anytime in history. Newspapers and publications, radio and TV broadcasts are typical examples of such interventions. Also, censorship of mail exchanges and phone conversations is another example of communication control. But nowadays, a single touch on a screen by the authority can do all these at once. Yes, the Internet. It’s so easy for the government to blockade to blackout internet access and traffic within its country. No manpower, expense or deployment is needed to implement such comprehensive and effective control instantly especially when people are becoming more dependent on online services via their smartphones.
Enjoy reading the article and learn what could be done to interrupt or disrupt public services by the government.
No comments:
Post a Comment