Reporters Without Borders released its annual report [PDF] on online access today. They call it Enemies of the Internet, and it shows a world where online censorship, intimidation and worse is increasing. It's not surprising that as access to the Internet expands, more and more dictators and tyrants will try to suppress it. But what's troubling about this year's report is the inclusion of two democratic countries: Australia and South Korea. Both countries were included in the report's Under Surveillance list - a sub group of the main Enemies list.

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams told a gathering of the technology faithful on Monday that notorious censorship firewalls in countries such as China will give way to online innovations. "The Internet is a tidal wave that is going to be impossible for anyone to keep out," Williams said during an on-stage chat at the South By South West Interactive gathering here. "In places like China it is hard to say how long those firewalls will be able to hold up," he said.

War-torn Afghanistan will set up an Internet filter to block Internet sites with sexual or violent content, a minister said. But the government denied that it was another attempt at censorship or would include the Taliban's website. The Afghan government said this week it would clarify new restrictions on news coverage of Taliban strikes after widespread criticism of the plan by media rights groups and some of its most important allies, including the United States. Information and Culture Minister Sayed Makhdoom Raheen said the new Internet bans were not linked to media freedom issues. "We have specified that four sites which announce sexual issues, drug trafficking and cultivation, violence issues -- like making bombs and gambling -- must be banned," he said.

Microsoft has kept a relatively low profile in China since Google announced its decision to potentially withdraw from the market over censorship issues and following an attack on its systems that it believes originated in China. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer previously said his company had no plans to pull out of China, indicating it was unlikely to follow Google's lead in challenging a Chinese system that forces Internet companies to self censor their sites on sensitive topics. "Regardless of whether or not Google stays, we will aggressively promote our search and cloud computing (in China)," Zhang Yaqin, chairman of Microsoft's Asia-Pacific R&D Group, told Reuters on Friday, on the sidelines of the opening of the National People's Congress, China's parliament, in Beijing. China was in consultation with Google to resolve their dispute, Minister Li Yizhong from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said, also on the sidelines of the NPC. A Google spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny that discussions were taking place.