Censorship, Privacy and the Internet (Week 11)

 In this week's blog I am going to talk about the role of censorship and privacy in our lives and will try to give examples from different perspectives.

Act 1 (cen***ship) :

You can find a lot of examples of censorship from all around the world and from all aspects of life. Although to some degree censorship can be useful and can prevent harmful activity from spreading, overusing it for propaganda and subjective morals is unacceptable. In this example I am going to talk about the censorship system in Turkmenistan and how it is used to oppress freedom of speech and ruins many social aspects of life in a whole country.

Some people may think that their country is the harshest in terms of censorship and limitations, Your view can change if you explore more about what happens in Turkmenistan since 2006, when the current president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov rose to power. Today we are going to take a look at the censorship of media in Turkmenistan.

The government agencies ruled by the current president, have a absolute influence over any content published in media to an extent that there's a total absence of media and freedom of speech in Turkmenistan. The state controls all print and electronic media. Outside media outlets have nearly no access to the nation. The government strikes back against local stringers for remote outlets. The state proceeds to constrain and firmly control web access. In January, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported that the government purportedly uses imported, secretly created observation gear to track and square websites, recognize individuals which utilize administrations to bypass blocks, recorded phone calls, and block mobile messengers. RFE/RL and the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR), an exile group, detailed that in January the government begun blocking all Virtual Private Networks (VPN) programs and software. Concurring to an exile-run news site, Turkmen.news, by the conclusion of July most VPN servers were not accessible. only few Internet users are able to access only a highly-censored version of the Internet, often in Internet cafés in which they must show ID before being able to go online. There is only one Internet access provider. But all this does not satisfy President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, who is also known as “Father Protector”. The harassment of journalists is also growing to an unacceptable level. Not only that but also On a pretext of making the cities more visually engaging, the authorities occasionally restore a campaign of evacuating satellite dishes, thereby denying the public of one of the few remaining ways to get to uncontrolled news scope. The broadcasting law provides in theory for the plausibility of privately-owned TV channels but only on condition that they promote “a positive picture of Turkmenistan” , thereby making the purpose totally obsolete.

Act 2 (privacy) :

Privacy is a very important right that everyone should be benefiting. However, like many other privileges, it can be more useful in some aspects of our lives than others. To give a brief example : you may want some degree of privacy when you are reading a book but it is not the same level as some other parts of life take as an example medical privacy.

Medical confidentiality is a set of rules that limits access to information discussed between a person and their healthcare practitioners. 

In this example, we are going to analyze the medical privacy laws in Australia.

 According to law, With only a number of special cases, anything you talk about along with your doctor must, by law, be kept private between the two of you and the association they work for. This is moreover known as doctor–patient confidentiality. When you go to a new doctor, you'll be able select whether to share your past medical records with them by giving your written assent to your other doctors, so that they can send your new doctor the data in your medical record. Health information is any data about a person’s wellbeing or disability, and any information that relates to a health benefit they have gotten or will get. Health data is sensitive and individual, which is why there are laws to ensure your rights to keep your health data private. Confidentiality in a healthcare situation implies that what you tell your healthcare provider, what they write down about you, any medicine you take and all other individual data is kept private. You have got a legal right to this privacy, and there are laws that direct health service providers in how they collect and record data about your health, how they must store it, and when and how they utilize and share it.

Here is a quick summary of medical confidentiality laws in Australia:

• By law, your medical records and health information must be kept safe and private by all medical and healthcare professionals, and all healthcare facilities, such as hospitals and clinics.
• You are allowed to access your child's health information. 
• If you care for an adult, you can be authorised to have access to their information.
• You always have the right to access your own health information.
• If you think your doctor or other provider is mishandling your information, your first step is to ask them about it. If you think your health records have been shared without you agreeing to this or if you have any other worries about your records, speak to your doctor first.