LESSON 12
CONTROVERSIAL CONTENT
ISSUES ON CONTROVERSIAL CONTENTS
The issues on controversial contents are always focusing on pornography and slander.
Pornographic and slanderous activities can be in the forms of plots and actions displayed on video games, controversial rhythm or lyrics of music, controversial contents of books and controversial issues on religion and philosophy.
Pornography Creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire.
Slander Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.
A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
PORNOGRAPHY
What is pornography? Why is pornography considered “negative” content?
DEFINITION OF PORNOGRAPHY
The definition of pornography is any form of media or material (like books or photographs) that depicts erotic behaviour and is intended to cause sexual excitement.
Pornography tends to exploit men, women and children in a distasteful manner.
SLANDER
Slander is a legal term for false and malicious statement (meaning knowing that it is false, or “reckless disregard” that it was false) about someone.
Examples :
You wrote an e-mail that a fellow classmate was having an affair with a teacher, even though it was not true. You then sent it to five other friends.
Ahmad is a muslim. One day, he received a “spam” e-mail stating that his favourite soda drink “Soda Moda” uses non-halal food colouring, but he does not know if the source of the content is credible or true. He decides to forward the e-mail to 50 of his friends.
Chin Wei spreads a rumour that a Government Minister is receiving bribes from an enemy government.
IMPACTS ON MALAYSIAN SOCIETY
What can you conclude about the impact of controversial content on the Malaysian society?
Pornography
- can lead to criminal acts such as exploitation of women and children
- can lead to sexual addiction or perversion
- can develop low moral value towards other men, women or children
- can erode good religious, cultural and social beliefs and behaviour
Slander
- can develop into a society that disregards honesty and truth
- can develop bad habit of spreading untruths and rumours
- can lead to unnecessary argument
- can cause people to have negative attitudes towards another person
1.2.3.2 - Describe the process of filtering to control access to
controversial contents.
THE PROCESS OF INTERNET FILTERING
It is our responsibility to ensure that the teenagers are protected from
these corruptions of the mind by filtering access to the Internet.
What is Internet filtering?
Internet filtering is a process that prevents or blocks access to certain
materials on the Internet. Filtering is most commonly used to prevent
children from accessing inappropriate material and to keep employees
productive on the Internet.
CONTROLLING ACCESS TO THE INTERNET
Controlling access to the internet by means of filtering software has become a growing industry in
The current preferred method of choice to limit access on the Internet is to filter content either by:
keyword blocking
site blocking
web rating systems
These methods require software to be installed at a client of server level.
One of the strategies is by using the keyword blocking method.This method uses a list of banned words or objectionable terms.
As the page is downloading, the filter searches for any of these words. If found, it will block the page completely, stop downloading the page, block the banned words and even shut down the browser.
- software company maintains a list of ‘dubious Internet sites’
- the software prevents access to any sites on this list
- ‘denial lists’ regularly updated
- some software provides control over what categories of information you block
- Who decides what goes on the ‘denial list’ and what criteria are they using?
- can you keep track of the whole of the Internet?
- filters can use both site blocking and word blocking
Web sites are rated in terms of nudity, sex, violence and language. The Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSACI) is responsible for the rating of the websites on the content on the internet.
ratings done either by the web page author or by the independent bureau.
browsers set to only accept pages with certain levels of ratings.
1.2.4.1 - Explain the need for Cyber Law.
What is Cyber Law?
Cyber law refers to any laws relating to protecting the Internet and other online communication technologies.
NEEDS FOR CYBER LAW
In the recent years, many concerns and issues were raised on the integrity and security of information, legal status of online transactions, privacy and confidentiality of information, intellectual property rights and security of
government data placed on the Internet.
These concerns and issues clearly indicate why cyber laws are needed in online activities.
THE CYBER LAW ACTS IN
The Malaysian Government has already passed several cyber laws to control and reduce the Internet abuse.
These cyber laws include:
Digital Signature Act 1997
Computer Crimes Act 1997
Telemedicine Act 1997
Communications and Multimedia Act 1998
Beside these cyber laws, there are three other cyber laws being drafted.
Private Data Protection Bill
Electronic Government Activities Bill
Electronic Transactions Bill
The Digital Signature Act 1997 secures electronic communications especially on the Internet.
Digital Signature is an identity verification standard that uses encryption techniques to protect against e-mail forgery. The encrypted code consists of the user’s name and a hash of all the parts of the message.
By attaching the digital signature, one can ensure that nobody can eavesdrop, intercept or temper with transmitted data.
The Computer Crimes Act 1997 gives protection against the misuses of computers and computer criminal activities such as unauthorised use of
programmes, illegal transmission of data or messages over computers and hacking and cracking of computer systems and networks.
By implementing the Computer Crimes Act 1997, users can protect their rights to privacy and build trust in the computer system. At the same time, the government can have control at a certain level over cyberspace to reduce cyber crime activities.
TELEMEDICINE ACT 1997
These act provides the future development and delivery of healthcare in
COMMUNICATIONS
This Act also ensures high level of user's confidence in the information and communication technology industry.
1.2.4.2 - Explain briefly the computer crimes below :
- Copyright Infringement
- Theft
- Attacks
COMPUTER CRIMES
A computer crime is defined as any criminal activity that is related to the use of computers. These activities include computer fraud, copyright infringement, computer theft and computer attack.
COMPUTER FRAUD
Computer fraud is defined as having an intention to take advantage over or causing loss to other people, mainly on monetary basis through the use of computers.
There are many forms of computer fraud which include e-mail hoaxes, programme fraud, investment schemes, sales promotions and claims of expertise on certain fields.
Students need to be aware of other computer frauds such as health frauds, scams and hacking. Students will also most likely get false information while researching information on the Internet.
Copyright infringement is defined as a violation of the rights secured by a copyright. Copyright infringement involves illegal copy or reproduction of copyrights material by the black market group. The open commercial sale of pirated item is also illegal.
With the current technology, the most perfect copy of the original copy can be downloaded from the internet.
Computer theft is defined as the unauthorised use of another person’s property with the intention to deny the owner the rightful possession of that property or its use.
Examples of computer theft include:
transfer of payments to the wrong accounts
tap into data transmission lines on database at no cost
divert goods to the wrong destination
Computer attack may be defined as any activities taken to disrupt the equipment of computer systems, change processing control or corrupt stored data.
Computer attack can be in the forms of:
- physical attack that disrupt the computer facility or its transmission lines.
- an electronic attack that uses the power of electromagnetic energy to overload computer circuitry.
- a computer network attack that uses a malicious code to exploit a weakness in software, or in the
computer security practices of a computer user
