Blog 3- Digital Conflict

All week, I have been hearing about the Google vs. China debate on CNN. While watching, I thought it was interesting, but I did not give it much thought until I considered applying it to cyber warfare or digital conflict in general. I did some further research and did not need to look too far to find this article, entitled "China Accuses U.S. of Cyber Warfare", written by Kim Zetter of Wired.Com. The content of the article sparked some thought on how the Internet is regarded globally, and the influence of the American search engine, Google. What is being censored? The right to use the Internet, or the right to express oneself on the Internet? The Internet has provided a new way for people to have a voice, and it has sparked some digital conflict in modern societies.

I use Google as my search engine, because I feel it gives me all the information it can for me to use. After using it for so long, it is now just habit. I never thought about the restrictions that would be placed on a search engine in a regulated Internet. Sure, certain sites would be blocked, but I never considered how Google would be used in a place like China, and that they would need to censor what search results are provided.

As stated in the article, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, said the use of the Internet is a global basic human right. But who has the authority to claim what is a “basic human right” and what is not? What we as Americans believe should be a right of all citizens is not always going to transfer to other countries.

So how does that censorship apply to social media used around the world? It is complicated to block specific content placed on social media sites without banning the site entirely. Zetter addresses the influence of Twitter in Iran, and that proves how social media is a growing trend in not just the American and European societies. Twitter has been an outlet for Iranian protestors, and it is clearly a powerful tool if the U.S. State Department is asking Twitter to change their maintenance schedule to allow this open expression. In smaller societies, perhaps social media are even more essential and powerful when trying to get a message across because the other outlets are more regulated.

The Internet itself may not always be seen as a basic human right, but when the Internet is a primary tool in allowing citizens of any country to express themselves in ways they could not if using other media, perhaps blocking it really is going against a basic human right (as claimed by Americans and so many others). Google’s disagreement with China's censorship may be based upon the foundations of the American freedom of expression, rather than the foundations of the Internet.