As the debate over Internet censorship has intensified around the globe, many researchers, journalists, and human right advocates have been increasingly interested in the role of Western firms in state sponsored-imposed censorship regimes.
According to the Chinese government, Namibia — a southern African country with a population of 2 million — does not exist.
Government censors ordered Chinese search engines to show no search results for the country's name this week, following a corruption scandal involving a Chinese tech company's dealings with Namibia's government.
Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy has come under fire from Australian citizens and digital activists around the world for his attempts to increase Internet filtering in Australia.
China has completely shut down Internet service in the autonomous region of Xinjiang after ethnic riots left at least 140 people dead and hundreds more injured. Twitter also appears to be blocked throughout the country.
A case that could have redefined what UK citizens are allowed to post on the Internet ended yesterday after the prosecution failed to bring supporting evidence.
Guatemala's ongoing political crisis, which began with the murder of lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg and has been fueled largely by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs, reached a new level over the weekend when several ISPs began blocking access to WordPress.com. This is the first known case of widespread Internet filtering in the country.
Over the past year, ONI has witnessed consideration of filtering schemes by several Western countries, as well as the leaking of "secret block lists" for a few others (such as Norway and Denmark). The latest country to consider a nationwide policy is Germany; in April of 2009, its coalition government drafted a bill aimed at cracking down on child pornography. The bill, which passed on June 18, has received significant opposition from activists who believe that stopping child pornography requires more than just hiding it from view.
New research from the OpenNet Initiative reveals accelerating restrictions on Internet content as Asian governments shift to next generation controls. These new techniques go beyond blocking access to websites and are more informal and fluid, implemented at edges of the network, and are often backed up by increasingly restrictive and broadly interpreted laws.
ONI, in conjunction with ONI Asia, is proud to announce the release of reports on Asia and China, available now on our Web site.
Last week, as Iranian voters went to the polls to elect the country's next president, the Iranian government blocked access to number of political Web sites, as well as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Yesterday the OpenNet Initiative profiled the extent of this crackdown. Today we are releasing a new survey of Internet filtering and online content controls in Iran, which details the most recent instances of censorship and provides a basic framework for understanding the legal, technical and institutional mechanisms of filtering in Iran.
The Internet and mobile phones have taken on a major role in Iranian politics over the last several months. As protests over the contested election results continue in Iran, the government has dramatically increased its control over digital technologies. Many important Web sites have been blocked over the past couple of days, including the Web sites of the opposition parties in Iran, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. While political organizers have learned to leverage the organizing power of Web 2.0 tools, government censors in Iran are quick to shut them down when they are most effective. None of this is surprising; it reflects similar events seen in many places around the world.
