After having refused to pass the Internet filter law for the last eight months, German President Köhler agreed to do so by signing it on 17 February 2010. The law is expected to be officially published in the middle of March 2010.
A new OpenNet Initiative report entitled "Sex, Social Mores, and Keyword Filtering: Microsoft Bing in the 'Arabian Countries'", explores Bing's practice of filtering sex and LGBT content across the Arab world.
The German government declared its intention to not continue with the Internet filtering law which was passed in 2009 to block child pornography online.
In 2008, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority blocked YouTube in what was said to be a reaction to a trailer of Geert Wilder's film "Fitna" hosted on the video-sharing site. The ban was reversed soon afterward, and since then, Pakistani users have enjoyed unfettered access to YouTube...until now.
The OpenNet Initiative is proud to release its 2009 Year in Review, a look into cases of filtering, surveillance, and information warfare around the world in 2009. From the Iran's Internet crackdown to Vietnam blocking Facebook, the events of 2009 demonstrated a global rise in third-generation Internet controls.
The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) has been monitoring Internet filtering around the world since 2002. Currently, more that 40 countries are filtering the Internet to varying degrees, while a number of others, including Australia, Iraq, and Spain, are considering enacting filtering policies. So, just how many people are censored online around the world? The number we have come up with is 563,018,414.
Jordan has long stood out as a beacon in a region of heavy Internet filtering. Bordered by--among others--Syria and Saudi Arabia, two of the Middle East's worst offenders, Jordan has filtered only one Web site, arabtimes.com, for the past decade.
That is all about to change.
Following Google's decision, published on the Official Google Blog, to stop filtering search results on Google.cn, it appears that the Great Firewall is now blocking "Google Blog" as a search term.
In an announcement made January 12, 2010, Google stated that it would no longer submit to the Chinese government's requirements that it censor results on Google.cn. The decision could have far-reaching implications.
Over the past few weeks, reports have trickled in to Herdict and via Twitter, alerting us of the filtering of individual Twitter pages in Tunisia and Bahrain (as well as, possibly, China). The filtering shows these governments' capability to silence individual voices whilst keeping open an important social networking channel.
