Religious beliefs on the Internet: Between ignorance and censorship [View all]

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By Jean-Loup Richet
October 16, 2013 1:47 PM EDT

By definition an iconoclast is "a person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc. as being based on error or superstition; a breaker or destroyer of images, especially those set up for religious veneration." I use a wider definition of iconoclasm, including political iconoclasm - state ‘censorship’ of religious beliefs. As for religious intolerance, I’ll define it as “intolerance against another's religious beliefs”.

Make no mistake, there is nothing new about iconoclasm and intolerance. In fact, religious censors have been around for centuries. Iconoclasm was a huge part of the French Revolution, as people destroyed countless religious artifacts in the name of ‘freedom’. During Russia's October Revolution in 1917, religious materials were destroyed as part of the strategy to overthrow the government and put the Soviets into power. Sadly, the censorship of religious beliefs by state or people is still very much alive and well today.

Filtering religious images

You might think that all of our advances in technology would make it harder for iconoclasts to censor people's religious beliefs. You might think that the Internet is a place where all beliefs will be possible. However, all of that technology actually makes it easier for censors to get their way. On the web, religious images aren’t destroyed; they’re out of sight - purely filtered.

The biggest example? The UK's Digital Economy Bill - or, as it's known around the web, the "UK Internet Censorship Bill". Back in 2010, Parliament passed a bill that was supposed to prevent the theft of copyrighted materials, like illegally downloading music and movies. From there, Parliament extended the bill's reach so that it could also crack down on child pornography. After all, it makes sense to block something that's so illegal, immoral, and dangerous, right?

http://blogs.computerworld.com/privacy/22892/drawing-analogies-censorship