E-SPEAIT Week 11

 

China is a well known example of online censorship. Not only do they block popular apps, social media apps and search engines, but also news sites. The world is becoming more connected online, but China doesn’t seem to care. It has been taken to a level where you need to have a license just to have your own website, app, blog or forum. It’s estimated that 96% of online traffic in Chine goes through Chinese servers. All this censorship has been turned into success by some local companies. Tencent and Alibaba are aren’t just some of the biggest companies in China, but in the entire world. By blocking rival companies like Google and Amazon, people don’t have other choices therefore helping its own companies. China even introduced a law which requires internet companies to register names of users to aid government.

Due to the stay-at-home orders Google services are more dominant in schools than before. Teachers use Google Classroom to manage their online classes. Google also has student versions of Gmail, Calendar and Docs. More users could also mean more problems. Two children from America are suing Google for allegedly collecting biometric data. The complaint says that the data is used to create face templates and voiceprints of children. The data collection is said to be violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) which regulates biometric technologies in the state. Also likely to violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act which requires sites to get parental consent of users who are under 13, to collect personal information.

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