Regulating internet content today is viewed as an anti-democratic practice but Southeast Asian governments seem able to justify it by invoking the need to save the young from the scourge of indecent sexual behavior. Indonesia’s plan to filter web of “bad” content through its Multimedia Content Screening team was shelved last February after it was opposed by the public. Today, the proposal is being revived in the wake of a celebrity sex tape scandal which continues to shock both the young and old in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. After enacting an anti-pornography law two years ago, Indonesia now wants to enforce an internet blacklist in response to the demand of conservative voices to protect the morals of the young. A similar celebrity sex scandal hounded the Philippines last year which paved the way for the passage of an anti-voyeurism law. The internet was also blamed for the instant dissemination of the sex tapes which prodded lawmakers to craft a cybercrime bill.

The UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority warned yesterday that the use of BlackBerry smartphones posed a potential threat to national security. Accusing the company that operates the phones of operating “beyond the jurisdiction of national legislation,” the TRA said it would try to protect both consumers and the law. “This threat by the authorities constitutes a new offensive against BlackBerry phones and their potential for disseminating news and information,” Reporters Without Borders said. “As its servers are based abroad and its communications use encrypted networks, Research in Motion, the company that makes these phones, is not subject to local laws and is thereby avoiding the government’s attempts to have access to users’ personal data.”

BEIJING — Word leaked out slowly, spread by Web-savvy folks on Twitter: Internet porn that once was blocked by Chinese government censors was now openly available. "Are they no longer cracking down on pornographic websites? A lot of porn sites and forums are accessible," technology blogger William Long wrote on his feed. Messages like that startled Chinese Web surfers, long accustomed to the authorities' Internet blockades. The country had been in the midst of highly publicized anti-pornography sweeps, and there had been no announcement of any change in government policy. Yet eight weeks later, the porn sites are still accessible. Still unanswered are questions about whether it's an official change in policy, a technical glitch or some sort of test by the usually disapproving Chinese Internet police. "This has never been done with the (Chinese) Internet before," said Beijing-based Internet analyst Zhao Jing, who goes by the English name Michael Anti.

Global Voices Advocacy (GVD), a global anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists, has launched a shocking report that Thailand has blocked at least 113,000 websites deemed to pose a threat to national security. With its objective to defend free speech online, Global Voices revealed that Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) and the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situations (CRES) admitted to blocking 48,000 websites in May this year, 50,000 in June and July and adding 500 more per day. Asia Sentinel has been blocked intermittently in Thailand over stories critical of the political crisis in the country. Meanwhile, Freedom against Censorship Thailand (FACT), whose website has also been blocked, conducted its own extensive testing across Thai Internet service providers (ISPs). It found that ISPs blocked at least a further 15,000. GVD has already criticized the government's policy on curbing freedom of media and called Thailand an "Internet Desert" approaching leaders' paranoia in Burma and North Korea. Almost all blocked websites were accused of breaching Thailand's infamous lèse-majesté law. Lèse-majesté, or the crime of injury to the royalty, is defined by Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code, which states that defamatory, insulting or threatening comments about the king, queen and regent are punishable by three to 15 years in prison.