On March 25, 2009 the Government of Venezuela issued a decree (Decree 6649) that implements measures to reduce the superfluous or luxurious expenses of the government. The decree establishes that “superfluous or luxury spending is forbidden in the national public sector”, and states that only necessary expenses will be permitted.

The headlines in Guatemala's top newspaper, as well as on internationally popular site Boing Boing reported that a Twitter user was arrested by Guatemalan authorities, facing charges of “intent to incite financial panic." The last couple of weeks have been complicated for Guatemalans. Many human rights activists have received death threats via SMS; a YouTube video blamed high rank authorities for the murder of a prestigious lawyer, protests requesting the President to quit were live-streamed; and now a blogger and user of Twitter has been arrested on nonexistent charges.

An Egyptian court has recently banned pornography Web sites, labeling them "venomous and vile," according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Egypt, which strictly bans offline pornography, already has a regulation which requires Internet cafe users to sign a form saying that they will not attempt to access or download pornography.

In an effort to “modernize” police tactics and surveillance, UK’s home secretary has called for the implementation of a system that records internet contact between users, according to BBC News.

Iran’s Internet censorship regime is generally accepted to be one of the most aggressive in the world, yet according to the New York Times, by autumn 2008, more than 400,000 Iranians were able to access an uncensored web thanks to a software created by Chinese computer experts working for Falun Gong.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has released its list of the top ten worst countries in which to blog. While CPJ has captured the very worst, the unfortunate truth is that the mistreatment of bloggers is on the rise.

According to BBC News reports, top executives from major Internet companies including Google, YouTube, Twitter, Howcast, and Meetup visited Iraq last week in order to assess how their technologies might assist in the ongoing fight against corruption.

According to reports in Business Intelligence—Middle East, Google has no intention of engaging in an Internet censorship program with the United Arab Emirates.

Based partially on a top-secret blacklist of websites, Australia’s program of Internet filtration is still in full force. Government censorship recently resurfaced in the media when Australia’s Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, admitted that certain images were added to the blacklist in error and blamed the Russian mob for the addition of a dentist’s site, according to reports in The Age.

In addition to technical filtering and surveillance practices, more countries in the Middle East impose restrictions on Internet use in cyber cafés. The latest example comes from Saudi Arabia where Internet cafés have been ordered by the Ministry of Interior to install hidden cameras and provide a record of names and identities of their customers, as reported by Saudi Gazette.