International+Education+and+Censorship

International Education and Censorship﻿By Matthew Sheets

International Censorship Overview

Discussion about the internet, censorship, and education have increased recently as the Arab Spring has again brought attention to authoritarian countries and their attempts to stop both the ideas of the Arab Spring, and news about it, from reaching their citizens. A recent study by OpenNet Initiative (2011) brings to light the fact that many of the filtering technologies used by Middle Eastern countries are produced in Western countries and hopes to “inform a genuine discussion of the ethics and practice of providing national censorship technology and services, one that might lead to guidelines consonant with the most basic principles of freedom of expression” (p.2).

In their report OpenNet Initiative (2011) identifies nine countries, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Sudan, and Tunisia, which use Western based internet filtering technology stop access to, and engagement in, free speech by blocking “mass content, such as websites that provide skeptical views of Islam, secular and atheist discourse, sex, GLBT, dating services, and proxy and anonymity tools” (p.3). As Daniel Calingaert describes in //Democracy Online - Can the Internet Bring Change?// Western internet technologies that were designed to protect children in American from pornography are now being used by authoritarian regimes to block access to educational material and political content the regime in charge deems as inappropriate (2011). In addition to simply restricting access deemed inappropriate for social or religious reasons authoritarian regimes are also blocking political content and “are potentially taking sides against citizens and activists who are prevented from accessing and disseminating content thanks in part to filtering software” (Norman and York, 2011, p.4). While these Western designed technologies are being used to restrict peoples access to information about topics ranging from political dissent to dating “there is no or little oversight from civil society and free speech advocacy groups on the role Western technology companies play in restricting access to content online” (Noman and York, 2011, p.4).

Another problem with citizens getting unrestricted internet access in their home countries countries is the “increased commercialization of information” which leads Karen Williams (2004) to assert that “if information is increasingly seen as an economic commodity, greedy multinationals stand to profit, while the information poor go without” (p. 3). Williams (2004) continues by explaining that one of the results of this drive for profit causes the information available to implode rather than explode as “the range of public information available is very little compared to the range of cultures, histories, ideas, and peoples that populate our planet” (p. 3). Countries where multinational corporations have little to gain are censored because their ability to access and provide material for others to access is limited. Another factor censoring countries is culture, an example being India having only 5 million telephones for 850 million people, because a great deal of misinformation is spread about countries who are “talked about on the Internet but who cannot themselves get in to put their own viewpoint across” (Williams, 2004, p. 4). These problems are compounded as “mergers in the last decade of the 20th Century increasingly placed ownership of telecommunications and media companies in the hands of fewer people” leading to a homogenization of opinion and allowing a few companies to control the information available, present information that is bias and supportive of their own goals and political interests (Williams, 2004, p.5).

Despite the fact that accessing the internet has become easier in many countries as they have become more technologically adept the ability to access material is “different from place to place” and there has been a continual rise in governments, some authoritarian and some not, who filter access to internet sites they deem inappropriate ( Hoang, D, Larsen, S, Palfrey, J, Soloman, B, & Zuckerman, E., 2011). The internet is increasingly being used as a tool for people to educate themselves about democracy, freedom, human rights, while also providing a place for people to meet and organize digitally. If this process is to continue and the internet is to continue to lead to “building capacity for civil society” unrestricted access must be guaranteed and censorship avoided ( Hoang, D, Larsen, S, Palfrey, J, Soloman, B, & Zuckerman, E., 2011).

Both of the videos below discuss and illustrate how the internet can be used to educate people, provide a platform for discussion, and be use to advance human rights.

media type="youtube" key="-QdHTHtiUxY?rel=0" height="314" width="504"media type="youtube" key="SBCJRZDJHuo?rel=0" height="314" width="504"

 Turkey and China were chosen to focus on because both countries provide a unique example of the role censorship plays in education and the internet. The internet in China is one of the most heavily regulated, monitored, and filtered in the world. The censorship in China affects education in many ways and offers a look into what authoritarian governments can accomplish by censoring the internet and the role it plays in education. The censoring of the internet is not as persuasive in Turkey but the country does still censor the internet to stop ideas the government does not like from entering society, high school, and universities. After living and teaching in Istanbul, and becoming aware of the fact that Turkey is neither western nor eastern, I feel that Turkey provides an example of the effects censoring the intent can have on education in many of today’s countries.

Censorship in China

Education and censorship in China are closely related and at constant odds with each other due to government control over many universities in China. Mr. Fang, one of the main creators of China’s internet filtering system, called the Great Firewall, is also the president of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (Hennock, 2011). Mr. Fang is very outspoken in his support of the //status quo// in China and recently said of the democracy activists in China, “They sit comfortably at home, thinking only of how, through their fingertips on a keyboard, they can bring chaos to China by taking advantage of the Internet's effectiveness as a multiplier” (Hennock, 2011). In China most universities are a branch of the government, with the presidents of China’s top 70 universities being appointed by The Ministry of Education. This has lead to many University presidents who believe in the “Maoist idea that education should be oriented toward nation-building has taken priority over beliefs that academic freedom is paramount” (Hennock, 2011). Many in China, students included, view it as higher education's role to churn out students who will make the country stronger by not challenging the status quo and encouraging students to accept jobs which further the governments and nation’s best interests. This leads to a stifling of teachers and students ability to study China and to engage in academic debates about the future of the country.

Another example of Chinese education supporting national goals is the censoring of high school textbooks so they include a “mishmash of historical details that many Chinese educational experts themselves say are highly selective and often provide a deeply distorted view of the recent past” (French, 2004). When referring to World War Two one Chinese textbook makes the claim that “the fundamental reason for the victory is that the Chinese Communist Party became the core power that united the nation,” which illustrates perfectly how censorship in education is used to further political and national goals (French, 2004). Despite the fact that there is a desire among students and teachers to teach a more neutral history, and a belief that conditions inside the country with regards to free speech and censorship are gradually improving, many see the government as standing in the way. One Chinese student who left to study abroad describes how “most Chinese students in other countries have an awakening… [because] you grow up there from Day 1, it's like living in a dark house….you don't know there's some house that could be brighter” (Kean, 2007). The easing of restrictions on internet filtering in China would open student’s worlds up to multiple viewpoints, give them access to information about events in China hidden from them, while also leading to richer debates in classes about topics being studied.

When the internet arrived in China in 1994 the government realized that it had no choice but to allow its citizens access. While the communist party did allow people to access the internet they quickly co-opted the internet and used it to advance their own message by controlling what was said and discussed online through the installation of a system of “internet regulations and a system for monitoring and control at multiple levels” (MacKinnon, 2008, p.33). An editorial in a government newspaper shows the Chinese government's views towards the internet by saying, “[China] won’t be defeated in this huge Internet war by the various intranational and international reactionary ideological trends in the various areas” (MacKinnon, 2008, p.33).

Early attempts to circumvent the internet restriction in China centered on writing blogs that authorities were unable to monitor. In 2002 a web entrepreneur named Isaac Mao partnered with a Chinese schoolteacher to produce one of the first blogging platforms using Chinese letter, and in the same year “Fang Xingdong set up China’s first blog-hosting service Blogchina” MacKinnon, 2008, 35). By 2005 educators recognized that blogs allowed both them and their students to freely exchange ideas among themselves and with the world. In 2005 Shanghai director Zhuang Xiuli described her belief “that blogs and social media tools may potentially play a role in reforming China’s ossified education system” and explained that some education “ministry officials are blogging in an effort to share and exchange information in a better and more open way than before” (MacKinnnon, 2008, p.42).

However, the introduction of the internet and its growth in China has not led to the reform that Chinese educators hoped, for many reasons. If blog host companies and websites want to do business in China they must design their own monitoring system to block what was in 2006 a list of 236 items, of which 218 were related to politics or current affairs (MacKinnon, 2008, p. 38). The communist regime in China is not concerned with how the topics it views offense are filtered as long as they are. A blog company executive describes,

“success” is measured on the company’s end by a decrease in the number of phone calls received from various government departments complaining about content. When the frequency of calls increases, companies know they need to tighten controls further in order to avoid trouble” (MacKinnon, 2008, p.38).

In addition China has made agreements in the past with companies such as Google and Yahoo to ensure that they block access to sites such like BBC and Voice of America because they report, among other things, on Chinese human right violations (Vaidhyanathan, 2007, p.13). Companies which supply internet access and services have also helped the government crackdown on students and bloggers who don’t adhere to Chinese internet topic rules. In December of 2005 Microsoft took down content posted, and helped the government catch, Chinese blogger Zhao Jing after we write about the governments suppression of Beijing News’ stories documenting corruption and official abuse.

Click in the following news stories to see some examples of Chinese education and censorship.

media type="youtube" key="bDUPOnEuHCs?rel=0" height="313" width="504"media type="youtube" key="EaAsjx-l1P8?rel=0" height="314" width="504" Censorship not only affects Chinese students but also international students studying abroad in China. Yan Li, director of Duke’s study abroad program in China, explained in an interview recently that while professors are not told what to teach they do need to be reminded that China has restrictions and that they have to be aware of how far they can go on certain topics (Rao, 2010). Ralph Litzinger, Director of Duke Engage in Beijing, comments,

Duke has a long tradition of critical studies around feminism, globalization, sexuality, film—everything…The question is, when we go to China are we going to give up that tradition?” (Rao, 2010).

Besides professors having to weigh what topics can be safely discussed in the classroom students sometimes have trouble accessing banded websites, such as Facebook and occasionally Gmail and have been advised not to discuss “not to discuss politics openly during their stay in China” (Rao, 2010). Despite these hardships Duke students are able to work around the filters by accessing the internet through a virtual private network setup by Duke, and Litizinger asserts, “There is free speech in China and open discourse. Probably the most active democratic space is the Chinese Internet” (Rao, 2010).

Whether most Chinese citizens will participate in the discourse described by Litizinger is still undetermined. One reason is that government filters block access to websites and blogs that provide counter narratives to government propaganda. While there are ways to avoid the filters most Chinese internet users rarely use them and in a 2005 survey of internet users in five major cities found that 71.2% never and 19.7% seldom used proxy sites to bypass filters with most of those that do being students (MacKinnon, 2008, 36). Further, many Chinese people who use the internet are “young, male, [hold]…a job as a teacher or a white-collar worker with a high income, or are a student” so the ability of the internet to reach the masses in China is not yet a reality (MacKinnon, 2008, p. 33, 44). Another obstacle standing in the way of the internet freedom is that Chinese internet culture focuses much more around entertainment and less around “serious political discussion” and even though Chinese bloggers, educators, and students are ready to discuss censorship “Chinese blog-hosting companies and others with power to negotiate with authorities have not seen fit to resist or push directly against censorship requirements” (MacKinnon, 2008, p. 33, 42). It appears that if the internet is going to improve the education in China, and lead to a more democratic and open government, the changes will have to come from the school teachers and students who have the most access and get the most use out of the internet.

Censorship in Turkey

Most instances of censorship in Turkey center around Turkish penal code 301, which outlaws ‘insults to Turkishness,’ Bill 5651 which prohibits internet sites which promote “sexual abuse of children; facilitation of drug abuse; provision of dangerous substances for health care; obscenity; prostitution; gambling; or…crimes against Atatürk,…[and] the role of minorities in society” (Bar, 2008). An example of Bill 5651 was when in 2007 Turkey blocked access to YouTube after “Pro-Greek web surfers posted videos depicting Atatürk as homosexual” and an example of penal code 301 was in 2006 when Turkey tried Pulitzer Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk for insulting Turkishness (Bar, 2008). The recent increase in prosecutions have caused critics of the Turkish government to claim,

“The current government of Turkey, which continuously claims to keep extending the democratic rights of citizens, continue blocking users’ access to various Internet pages and sites within the borders of the country” (Arikan and Ozkan, 2009, p.47).

Here is a news story about protests in Turkey over the banning of websites.

....................................................... media type="youtube" key="DjgAbERkCpI?rel=0" height="314" width="504"

In addition to Bill 5651 and penal code 301 Turkey has passed laws restricting “freedom of expression” which caused academics in Turkey to see the law “ as an attack on all our personnel and academic freedom” and claim, “if this new law is introduced then inevitably self-censorship will occur on university webpages” (Jones, 2001, p.11). There are numerous examples of Turkish universities being censored by these laws with one of the most recent being the firing, and rehiring after international pressure, of Cigdem Atakuman for printing an article in state-run scientific journal, Bilim ve Teknik, on Charles Darwin and evolution. Turkish authorities claimed “that in the current political climate in Turkey, something like that could be perceived as a provocation” which then caused critics of the government to claim” that the Islamic-oriented Government in Turkey is seeking to increase the role of religion and promote the Muslim version of creationist theory:(Gill, 2009). Another example of Turkish online censorship is the blocking of any websites that refer to the Armenian genocide. The Armenian genocide is completely written out of the Turkish national school curriculum. Sociology Professor at The University of Michigan Fatma Gocek who grew up and was educated in Turkey says about the Armenian Genocide, “That fact that you could live in a society, get the best education society has to offer…and not know about it…our have any book available…puzzles me” (Gocek, 2007). The Turkish government is so concerned about controlling the spread of this information that they successfully pressured Germany to remove a reference to the Armenian from genocide school textbooks (Chapman, 2005, p.20). These conditions prevent students from expressing their viewpoints and studying topics that the Turkish government deems insulting to Turkishness, complicates the access people living in Turkey have to information about the same topics, and stifles academics freedom.

The video below explains the Turkish governments view on the Armenian Genocide and attempts to censor information about it.

.................................................... media type="youtube" key="MPgg-_s-crU?rel=0" height="314" width="504"

Students’ reactions to the government’s attempts to censor material online in Turkey are mixed. When asked if “courts should be able to ban the access to any web page that contains inappropriate information” 48.6% percent agreed or strongly agreed. However, when the question “it is right to ban Youtube with court decision” was asked 71% disagreed or strongly disagreed (Arikan and Ozkan, 2009, p. 50). Student also voiced strong support against, 84%, banning “web pages criticizing the politicians or political decisions related to governments,” (Arikan and Ozkan, 2009, p. 50). Turkish students appear to strongly support user generated sites, such as Youtube, and political sites being unblocked and unfiltered, but accepts some government control over other internet sites. The Turkish government keeps record of “complaint topics made by the web users via online forms” and the third most common complaint, 10.18%, was about sites “against Ataturk”(Arikan and Ozkan, 2009, p. 51). It appears that most Turkish students support complete and unblocked internet access but that there is a minority who would support the governments blocking sites insulting Turkishness.

As the Turkish government has continued to block sites the use of proxy servers has increased in Turkey because many people in Turkey want access to filtered material. In addition many websites which are filtered or blocked have different web addresses that “contain the same content as a banned site, but on a different web address” (2008). Bilkent Professor Mustafa Akgül condemns the filtering and claims, “It’s like finding two pages in a book illegal and reacting by closing down the entire library." He continues saying that Turkey needs to stop the blocking of websites and blogs it disagrees with so it “join the rest of the world” (2008). Allan Bar also comments that Turkey’s block of user generated sites excludes them “from an important part of information on the web, and cannot actively contribute to it either by posting videos” (2008). Similar to China, in order for Turkey to offer an education free of bias and open to multiple viewpoints they need to allow students and teachers access to everything the internet has to offer whether is discuss aspects of their history they would rather forget, like the Armenian Genocide, or critiques Ataturk.

Conclusion Global Citizenship and Censorship

James Banks (2004) believes that education in the 21st century should work towards focusing around something he defines as ‘citizenship education’ because “world migration and the political and economic aspects of globalization are challenging nation-states and national borders” (p.292). Banks (2004) believes citizen education should help “students to develop thoughtful and clarified identifications with their cultural communities, nation-states, and the global community” while also enabling students “to acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to act to make the word more democratic and just” (p. 289). The internet can be used to facilitate Bank’s goals of educating students to be part of a global community while also working to enact democratic and just change but only if access is uncensored. The internet and the connections it allows students to make throughout the world, and the access it gives teachers to multicultural resources, can help in creating students who see themselves as citizens of a global community and then spread these ideas throughout a society.

The restriction that both Turkey and China put on internet access severely restrict the ability of educators, students, and their citizens from developing global connections leading to the situation that Bank’s (2004) describes as,

"A nation-state that alienates and does not structurally include all cultural groups into the national culture runs the risk of creating alienation and causing groups to focus on specific concerns and issues rather than on the overarching goals and policies of the nation-state" (p.294).

Turkey, China, and other countries containing many culture groups, often face this problem as they censor the access technology offers minorities viewpoints, ideas, and desires both in and out of the classroom. If the technology, and the internet specifically, are going to be used for the citizen education described by Banks then the filters and blocking of websites espousing ideas that countries do not necessarily agree with need to be eliminated.

In addition Banks (2004) describes how he is concerned about a definition of literacy that includes only “basic skills and ignores citizenship participation in national and global contexts” because although basic skills are essential they are not sufficient in our diverse and troubled world [and] Literate citizens in a diverse democratic society should be reflective, moral, and active citizens in an interconnected global world” (p.291). Again, the censorship that both China and Turkey institute on the education systems in their countries focuses more on the learning of literacy skills that will only benefit their specific countries and selected nationalities. While there is access in each country to filters that allow websites, blogs, and sources to be accessed which can be used to teach a literacy focused around creating citizens that meet Banks definition of literacy access is often limited and not everyone in the society has or know how to gain access.

The institutional censorship that exists in both China and Turkey, and countries throughout the world, which blocks access to the technologies that can create global citizens can prevent some extreme challenges for educators. If technology is going to be used to better educate students in countries living outside of America, and provide citizens he ability to educate themselves, the censorship which exists needs to be reduced, and in many cases eliminated. As technology continues to evolve, and the internet continues to grow, new ways to circumvent censorship should continue to grow. Whether technology will enable the sort of citizenship education Banks describes is still to be seen.