Restricting access to data
Introduction
There are number of ways that access to data available on the Interent and World wide Web can be restricted.
Education
One of the strategic ways that data can be restricted is through education. It can be extremely disturbing, for example, for youngsters to view atrocities committed through terrorism or pornography or photos of accident victims. Unfortunately, all of these kinds of things are available to view with little effort. The role of education is to discuss what can be viewed and whether it should or shouldn't be viewed, and the consequences of doing so. Youngsters who view pornography, for example, can develop very unhealthy views of the opposite sex and the role of love and mutual respect in a relationship. Viewing graphic violence at a young age can be both disturbing and unhinging. Ensuring that youngsters develop a moral compass and self-restraint may be the most effective way of controlling access to undesirable content.
Acceptable Use Agreements
Most organisations get users of their network to sign an Acceptable Use Agreement. This states clearly what a user is and isn't allowed to do using the hardware and software that the organisation owns and is responsible for. If someone breaks this agreement, then there will be no surprises about the sanctions that will be applied. For an employee, this could mean losing their job.
Filters
Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) now have controls available to filter out certain kinds of material from the Internet so that if someone tries to search for something or view something they shouldn't, it is blocked. This can involve building and maintaining a list of banned sites (a never-ending and almost impossible job), banning keywords in search engines and articles, banning certain kinds of files like music files from being downloaded and banning websites that have a particular rating. Some controls are switched on by default. Others, parents have to switch on themselves. Parents can also buy filtering software, which allows even more customisation of the kinds of material that will and won't be allowed. Organisations such as schools usually have a filtered Internet feed. This might, for example, block eBay and YouTube and allows schools to add extra sites to block as they want.
Filtering is not fool-proof. Many parents know little about setting filters up properly. Filters are not 100% guaranteed and they are relatively easy to circumvent using proxy servers.
Censorship by organisations
YouTube and Twitter, for example, are regularly asked to block access to material. This may be from organisations and may be from Governments. The problem with this is that what might be legal in one country is illegal in another so blocking has to be done just for specific countries. Another problem is that of free speech. China, for example, does not want certain sites displaying information about politically sensitive topics, like the Tiananmen massacre. Whilst it might block sites with this kind of information, it might inadvertently stop access to sites that many Chinese now use for business. Countries like India may try to block e.g. India's Daughter from being shown in the country because it shows the attitude of Indian society in a bad light. This is not easy to do, however, because anyone can view this film using a proxy server, by using a peer-to-peer sharing service and by having access to unregulated satellite TV.