Webloggin » Internet Censorship

A U.S.-British-Canadian study shows that at least 25 countries censor internet access and block websites for political, social, and other reasons. The OpenNet Initiative studied 40 countries and the Palestinian authority.

China, Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam had the most extensive filters for political sites. Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen had the strictest social-filtering practices, blocking pornography, gambling and homosexual sites.

In some countries, censorship was narrow. South Korea, for instance, tends to block only information about its neighbouring rival, North Korea.

Yet researchers found no filtering at all in Russia, Israel or the Palestinian territories, despite political conflicts.

Governments generally had no mechanism for citizens to complain about any erroneous blocking, with Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates being among the exceptions.

The OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration between researchers at Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the University of Toronto, has previously published reports detailing censorship in specific countries. The latest study was its attempt to compare filtering worldwide. [snip]

The group supplied software to volunteers in each of the countries tested. Websites checked include those for gambling, pornography and human-rights abuses. (Globe and Mail)

The Chinese Communist Dictatorship has BANNED all TypePad and Blogger blogs from Chinese internet servers with the help of Cisco Systems See RConversation and Resistance is Futile, who (like me) says:

The Chinese government fears me. And well they should, for I stand for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY and CAPITALISM and ARMED CITIZENS.

More from The Inquirer:

Instead of blocking static Web sites, they take down entire Internet-based applications like Youtube, Skype and Google Maps. They also are use furtive, just-in-time filtering to knock out the Web sites of political opposition groups during critical election periods.

China, Iran, Syria, Tunisia, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Oman and Pakistan censor anything that moves or jiggles. [snip]

Filtering does not happen in Russia, Venezuela, Egypt, Hong Kong, Israel and Iraq.

In the United States and much of Europe filtering is focused primarily on copyright infringement, apparently.

Jake Shapiro says:

… I’ve watched this project grow from the days when Jonathan Zittrain and Ben Edelman were making long distance calls to China from Z’s office to test various websites 5 or 6 years ago. It’s blossomed into an important and fascinating study and this release marks a milestone in comprehending the impact and reaction to the transformative power of the Internet on a global scale.

I mentioned Censor this Beeeyotches in the Sunday Reading List.

Enjoy your freedoms. You never know when they will be taken away.

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