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Date	November 2017	Marks available	6	Reference code	17N.1.SL.TZ0.2
Level	SL	Paper	1	Time zone	no time zone
Command term	Analyse	Question number	2	Adapted from	N/A

Question

Social media and political tension

National governments sometimes block websites at a time of political tension. One example was in 2011, when a government prevented its citizens’ access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Images on these websites were considered inappropriate, with the potential to cause hatred, violence and political unrest in that country. The national government gave direct orders to the internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to these sites for four hours. The aim was to give enough time for site officials to remove the offending images from their websites.

Despite these attempts by the government, some citizens were still able to access these images using proxy servers.

Many people, such as academics, believe that this approach is not appropriate and that governments should focus on the education of their citizens so that they are able to make informed decisions about how to react to potentially offensive information on websites and social media.

In addition to providing access to the internet, identify two functions of an internet service provider (ISP).

[2]

a.i.

Identify two characteristics of a proxy server.

[2]

a.ii.

Identify two ways that the government could have determined the identity of the persons responsible for posting the offensive images on social media.

[2]

a.iii.

Many schools block access to social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. However, other schools are investigating two different options:

Monitoring the network to view what websites the students are viewing.
Giving different ages of students different levels of access to social media sites.

Analyse these two options.

[6]

Many citizens have raised concerns about the surveillance of their web browsing history or the censorship of selected websites by their national government.

To what extent is it appropriate for national governments to use surveillance and censorship to control citizens’ access to websites?

[8]

Markscheme

Answers may include:

Provides an IP address
Provides various bandwidth options
Email accounts
Customer service
Spam filtering
Domain registration
Web hosting
Blocking sites
Firewall
Parental controls
VPN
Set-up / installation (e.g., for new customers)
Routing data / data packets
Load balancing
Provides DNS servers
Provides anti-virus protection / software
Controls the amount of data transfer / data usage allowed
Provides cloud storage services.

Award [1] for identifying each characteristic of an internet service provider up to a maximum of [2].

a.i.

Answers may include:

Acts as a gateway between the local network computer and a larger network (such as the internet)
Provides increased performance and security
Can be hardware or software
Connecting through a proxy server can slow down the connection
Changes the IP address used to access websites
Allows users to access websites banned/blocked in their home country or by organizations (e.g., employers)
Allows users to keep their location information private
Allows users to appear to be accessing the internet from the country in which the proxy server is located

Award [1] for identifying each characteristic of a proxy server up to a maximum of [2].

a.ii.

Answers may include:

IP address
MAC address
Unique serial number
Personal identifying data stored on the device and included with the photo (e.g., in the photo’s EXIF metadata)
GPS location data stored with the photo

Information from the social media provider

N.B.: Some students may take the alternative perspective that the identity of the person cannot be determined, only the device, for the same reasons as above.

Award [1] for identifying each way that a government can determine the identity of the person responsible for posting the offending images on the social media up to a maximum of [2].

a.iii.

Answers may include:

Monitoring the network:

It prevents cyberbullying – keep students safe (values).
It teaches students responsibility – digital citizenship (values).
It protects students from sharing inappropriate information and images about themselves (values).
It identifies any objectionable/inappropriate content that students can access on these sites.
It gathers data/information for future policies for the use (or not) of social media.
Students of all ages would have access to the same websites, regardless of age – younger students could have access to objectionable/inappropriate content for their age.
Privacy of students – school would have access to see what the students are viewing.

Giving different ages different levels of access:

Some websites have age restrictions – should only be accessed if age appropriate (values).
Younger students should not be exposed to objectionable/inappropriate content that is acceptable for older students.
Schools have a responsibility to ensure the use of the network is appropriate to various ages.
Younger students may not be able to differentiate between true intentions of online friendships (expression).
Older students need to learn responsible digital citizenship and take responsibility for their actions (values, trust).
Awareness of the benefits and drawbacks of social media sites is gained as the student matures (values).
Blocking sites by age could cause issues – blocking content that is needed by older students granting different levels of access may be more cost-effective than implementing an ongoing monitoring system (power, values).

Keywords: home, online, social, relationships, responsibility, trust, software applications, apps, objectionable content, change, expression, identity, power, values, ethics

Answers may include:

Reasons that surveillance and censorship to control citizens’ access to websites is acceptable:

It can keep children from being victims of cyberbullying, sex trafficking and pornography, objectionable/inappropriate content.
It can control/monitor various illegal activities (values).
It helps strengthen national security with laws against hacking and impose large fines and punishments (values).
It can lessen the incidence of identity theft.
Governments may be best informed to determine what may, or may not, be appropriate for their citizens (values).

Reasons that surveillance and censorship to control citizens’ access to websites is not acceptable:

It removes citizens’ freedom of expression.
It can be used to keep information from citizens that may infringe on their privacy and/or anonymity (trust).
It can be expensive for the government or may require too many resources for the benefits it brings (systems).
It may accidentally block sites that should not be blocked (systems).
Knowledge is power.
It can be used to identify people who oppose the government (values, expression).

In part (c) of this question it is expected there will be a balance between the terminology related to digital systems and the terminology related to social and ethical impacts.

Keywords: Automation, connectivity, change, power, systems, values, ethics, machine learning, accountability, transparency, autonomy, surveillance

Refer to SL/ HL paper 1, part c markbands when awarding marks. These can be found under the "Your tests" tab > supplemental materials > Digital society markbands and guidance document.