Right To Internet
In this social world today where everything, every piece of information is a click away, it’s hard to believe few nations are still apart from this fast-paced delivery of information. There are several nations where people don’t even have access to mobile phones because the government of those nations hasn’t allowed them. It’s basically like living in a stone-age world even in 2021.
The immense explosion of network and technology which began with the internet is still not discovered by a few countries. What must be why the government of such countries has blocked access to free information to its citizens? Let’s discuss!!
The government of countries such as North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran has not allowed complete access to the internet. In fact, in China, the developers have created their network and social media applications for their people. This way, the people could enjoy the same features, but they are disconnected from the rest of the world. Why does China follow this approach?
The majority of the internet services are controlled by a handful of companies such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon. This way the complete data of the world is at the mercy of these MNCs. China believes that such a scenario should not be occurring with its citizens thus they have built up their network where people could connect and this way the complete data of the people of China remains within the servers of the country. Considering that data privacy is such a hot topic, China’s way of dealing with this is pretty straightforward.
Other countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran have regulated the use of the internet for their citizens because of religious beliefs and political issues. There are many countries where bloggers and content creators are behind the bars in such countries because they have spread media that is not accepted as per the norms of the government.
What do you think about such regulations? Aren’t people supposed to have the right to access all the content? It is the people’s right to choose what they want to see. All these perspectives and statements make sense when you are living in a democratic country, but if you are living in a country like North Korea these statements won’t make sense to you.
The number one country practicing internet censorship today is North Korea, not too surprising given the closed nature of the country. It is estimated that only about 4% of the entire population even has access to the Internet, with all controlled by the government. The number of cell phone users is a little larger, about 7%, but access to the Internet remains limited. Although many North Koreans now have mobile phones, it’s thought that most of these users still aren’t connected to the internet. Of those who do have access, it is limited to a national intranet known as Kwangmyong. This intranet offers access between universities, libraries, government departments, and a few locally hosted websites. The available content seems to be severely restricted, much of it infused with North Korean propaganda.
Only a few of the very powerful and wealthy within the government even have access to what the free world knows as the web, most citizens can only access a tightly controlled intranet.
Well but you do realize that nothing is completely locked in this particular era and everything is accessible in one way or the other. Here is where VPN comes into play. It is not advisable to use it but yes VPN does allow you to access the internet and access the blocked content. Multiple platforms provide the services of VPN and thus people use it.
There are multiple ways to access it other than VPN as well such as SSH Tunnel, Proxy, DNS Server, and Tor.
So yeah different struggles of different people living in different countries but in the end Internet does connect us all in one way or the other. Right to the Internet might be one of the fundamental rights of a country in the future, what’s your take on it?
