Political filtering

ONI Blog: Sina Weibo Updates User Contract with More Content Restrictions
Last week, Voice of America reported that Sina Weibo, China's largest microblogging service, has released a new user contract. Updates to the contract include agreeing not to post content deemed "untrue," threatening to "the honor of the nation," promoting "evil...
ONI Blog: Palestinian Authority Unblocks News Websites After Criticisms
The Jerusalem Post reported that the Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered access restored to eight websites that were blocked two weeks ago. In his order to the attorney general, Abbas stated, "Freedom of expression is a right enshrined in...
ONI Blog: CPJ Ranks Ten Most Censored Countries
In preparation for World Press Freedom Day, the Committee to Protect Journalists published its findings on the most censored countries in the world. The top three countries with the most press restrictions and least access to media information were revealed to...
ONI Blog: Threats to the Open Net: April 27, 2012
ONI releases its annual "Year in Review" report, which details all the most significant cases of Internet censorship and surveillance around the world. Among the most high-profile controversies were the SOPA/PIPA debates in the US Congress and European software firms' cooperation...
ONI Blog: Ethiopian News Website Blocked
The leading independently-owned Ethiopian news website The Reporter has been blocked for the past five days, as Reporters Without Borders noted on their blog. Since April 21 at around 4:30, the website has been inaccessible to anyone within the country....
ONI Blog: ONI Releases 2011 Year in Review
The OpenNet Initiative is proud to announce the release of its 2011 Year in Review, a collection of the year's top instances of filtering, surveillance, and information warfare around the globe. Starting domestically, 2011 saw the beginnings of SOPA and PIPA, bills...
ONI Blog: Sergey Brin criticizes China, Hollywood in interview on web freedom
In an exclusive interview with The Guardian UK, Google co-founder Sergey Brin criticized governments, companies, and industries for threatening free Internet activity. He called attention to China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other countries with restrictive Internet policies as threats to the...
ONI Blog: Ai Weiwei Says Censorship in China Will Ultimately Fail
After being released from retainment last year, Ai Weiwei has published an op-ed criticizing Internet censorship by the Chinese Communist Party. The Guardian UK published a commentary titled "China's censorship can never defeat the internet" last Sunday by Ai. In criticizing...
ONI Blog: Big Internet Companies Back CISPA
This week, media outlets reported that major software and technology companies have come public with their support of the CISPA proposal recently laid out on the Congressional table, which would increase the power of the US government to monitor online communications....
ONI Blog: CISPA Threatens Online Freedom
Media organizations have been in an uproar over the newly proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) put forth by the House of Representatives. The proposal, named H.R. 3523 and intended to protect individuals from cyberattacks, falls victim to the same...