Internet Dilemma Policy Recommendation Report

Background
You are the Chief Technology Advisor for a candidate running for elected office. You investigate a social dilemma
related to the Internet and prepare a report summarizing your findings then make a policy recommendation for your
candidate.

Step 1 - Pick Your Dilemma

● Net Neutrality

● Internet Censorship

● Digital Divide

Step 2 - Review the Sources

Review the three sources (provided in the lesson and on the Overview) and any additional ones you find online. For
each source take notes on instances when your impacted groups are mentioned or technical details are explained.

Source Notes on Impacted Groups Notes on Technical Details

Free Speech Or - There is a debate on whether or not - Facebook and private organizations are
Hate Speech: offensive content should be censored. monitoring content claims.
When Does - Hate speech can't be banned
Online Hate - Societies that generally protect hate speech
Speech Become online are better off than protecting the
A Real Threat? minorities.
- Facebook can regulate how they please.

Internet - The users are essentially just consumer of - Users, publisher, info relationship.
Censorship the internet and are susceptible to many forms - Censorship can prevent links between users
Explained - of censorship that could block http requests, or and publishers
Computerphile even pull packets out of the TCP. - Dns can say an IP address doesn't exist and
censor a site, or the DNS could send the user
the wrong IP address.

Internet - This article dives into the differences in -Discusses how some different websites and
censorship - countries and hoe censorship looks different domains are regulated.
Wikipedia among different areas of the world.

What Internet - People living in Uganda experienced an - Many African users wanted facebook to
Censorship Looks internet black out because the president had censor content that offended them.
Like to censor some western civilization
applications.
-Government can control the narrative.

(continued on next page)

Step 3 – Report Your Findings
To complete this report, fill in each of the sections below. All text in italics is included to explain how to fill in
the template and can be deleted before you submit.
Core Question
When and how should internet service providers be allowed to treat some kinds of internet traffic different from others?

Impacted Groups
Fill in the table below with your Impacted Groups. You may optionally add new groups or split one of the ones
assigned into smaller subgroups if it will help better explain who’s involved in the dilemma.

Impacted Group and Description Interests, Benefits, and Harms

Group 1: Political Activists - People advocated for ● Can advocate policy

certain political parties/ideas/policies. ● Often help promote growth
● Can be rather upfront and annoying

Group 2: Intelligence agencies - Governmental ● Help keep people safe

agencies that gather information and monitor it. ● Could gather too much personal date
● Help solve problems

Group 3: Everyday internet Users - Anyone who use ● All types of consumerism/use for tools
the internet on the daily. ● Can become too internet dependent
● Desire for self growth

Explain the technical background necessary to understand the problem. Include:

To better understand the internet censorship dilemma, it is important to understand how things online can be censored
before determining when and how should the government be allowed to censor or block internet traffic. While the
Internet is used to share many useful services and information, there are growing concerns about the way that the
Internet can be used to spread damaging information ranging from national secrets to calls for violence. Censoring this
information may provide some people with increased security, but potentially risks free speech and the safety of social
and political activists. Some of the main ways people are censored is through a malicious DNS (domain name service)
saying they can't find a requested IP address, or the DNS could also send the wrong IP address to a consumer to
therefore censor content.
● Background on layers / protocols / principles of the Internet necessary to understand the dilemma
● Use the concept bank on the first page to help brainstorm ideas to include. A strong description will reference
several of these concepts
● Make sure your descriptions are approachable for your candidate, who does not have as strong of a
background in the way the Internet works
● This can be completed in bullets
Recommended Policy Solution

All decisions to censor or block internet traffic should be subject to judicial review. Independent courts should have the
authority to assess the legality and necessity of government actions, ensuring a check on potential abuses of power.

Recommended Policy: In a few sentences summarize the solution / action your candidate should support. My
candidate should pass a law that subjects censorship of internet traffic to judicial review.

Pros / Who Benefits Cons / Who is Harmed?

● The consumers, they are only not seeing content
that had been judicially reviewed to be censored
● Political activists, they are able to voice their
opinions more freely because they can share
Computer Science Principles
● Honestly no one is super harmed in this
situation aside from the number of
independent cases the courts will have to
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 more about what they believe hear.

Computer Science Principles 3