- action anglais article censorship censorship, censure definition english filtering human internet juridique law libr3050 libr3050, library policy pro research rights studies wikipedia,

My tags:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references (ideally, using inline citations). Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008)

Part of a series on

Censorship

By media

Banned books Banned films · Re-edited film Internet · Music · Press Speech and expression Video games

Methods

Book burning · Bleeping Broadcast delay Content-control software Expurgation · Gag order Pixelization · Postal Prior restraint Self-censorship Whitewashing Chilling effect Conspiracy of silence Verbal offence

Contexts

Corporate · Political Religious Criminal speech  · Hate speech

By country

Censorship Freedom of speech

v • d • e

Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. The legal issues are similar to offline censorship.

One difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can find it on websites hosted outside the country. Conversely, attempts by one government to prevent its citizens from seeing certain material can have the effect of restricting foreigners, because the government may take action against Internet sites anywhere in the world, if they host objectionable material.

Barring total control on Internet-connected computers, such as in North Korea and Cuba, total censorship of information on the Internet is very difficult (or impossible) to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the Internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Freenet) allow unconditional free speech, as the technology guarantees that material cannot be removed and the author of any information is impossible to link to a physical identity or organization.

In November 2007, "Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf stated that he sees Government-led control of the Internet failing due to private ownership.

Contents 1 Software 1.1 Censorship 1.2 "By-catch" 2 Circumvention 2.1 Proxy websites 2.2 Java Anon Proxy 2.3 Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) 2.4 Psiphon 2.5 Tor 2.6 Sneakernets 3 Around the world 3.1 13 "Enemies of the Internet" 3.2 Pervasive 3.2.1 Cuba 3.2.2 Iran 3.2.3 Maldives 3.2.4 Myanmar 3.2.5 North Korea 3.2.6 People's Republic of China 3.2.7 Syria 3.2.8 Tunisia 3.2.9 Uzbekistan 3.2.10 Vietnam 3.3 Substantial 3.3.1 Bahrain 3.3.2 South Korea 3.3.3 Saudi Arabia 3.3.4 United Arab Emirates 3.3.5 Yemen 3.4 Nominal and others 3.4.1 Australia 3.4.2 Brazil 3.4.3 Canada 3.4.4 Chile 3.4.5 Czech Republic 3.4.6 Denmark 3.4.7 Fiji 3.4.8 Finland 3.4.9 France 3.4.10 Ghana 3.4.11 Ireland 3.4.12 India 3.4.13 Israel 3.4.14 Italy 3.4.15 Jordan 3.4.16 Morocco 3.4.17 Netherlands 3.4.18 Norway 3.4.19 Pakistan 3.4.20 Russia 3.4.21 Singapore 3.4.22 Sweden 3.4.23 Thailand 3.4.24 Turkey 3.4.25 United Kingdom 3.4.26 United States of America 4 Portal censorship 4.1 Examples 4.2 Major web portal official statements on site removal 5 Commonly targeted websites 6 See also 7 References 8 External links 8.1 Wikis 8.2 Campaigns against 8.3 Circumvention resources

[edit] Software

Jo Glanville, editor of Index on Censorship observes that "censorship, for the first time in its history, is now a commercial enterprise".^[1]

[edit] Censorship

One of the most popular filtering software programmes is SmartFilter, owned by Secure Computing in California, which has recently been bought by McAfee. SmartFilter has been used by Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, as well as in the US and the UK.^[1]

[edit] "By-catch"

See also Internet forum#Word censor and Anti-spam techniques#Detecting spam.

Automatic censorship sometimes stops matter which it was not intended to stop. Examples are:

• Auto-censorship against sexual words in matter for children, set to block the word "cunt", has been known to block the Lincolnshire placename Scunthorpe. Likewise, a block against the word "penis" may block the Yorkshire placename Penistone; and at least one big web forum, set to block "twat", automatically changes "wristwatch" into "wris****ch", and refuses the name "Dick" even when it clearly means a man's name. Another example is blocking "specialist" because it contains the drug name "cialis"

• Within Wikipedia, a block against the word "admin" in usernames of users who are not administrators, has been known to query usernames containing the placename and game-name Badminton.
• The Yahoo email group system's profanity blocker, set to block the acronym CP in descriptions of email groups, treating it as meaning "child pornography", blocked it when a journalist setting up an email group used "CP" to mean "Canadian Press". Likewise, it blocks the word "pornography" - including in the sentence "No hard or soft pornography will be allowed".

[edit] Circumvention

There are a number of resources that allow users to bypass the technical aspects of Internet censorship. Each solution has differing ease of use, speed, and security from other options.

[edit] Proxy websites

Proxy websites are often the simplest and fastest way to access banned websites in censored nations. Such websites work by being themselves un-banned but capable of displaying banned material within them. This is usually accomplished by entering a URL address which the proxy website will fetch and display. They recommend using the https protocol since it is encrypted and harder to block.

[edit] Java Anon Proxy

Java Anon Proxy is primarily a strong, free and open source anonymizer software available for all operating systems. As of 2004^[update], it also includes a blocking resistance functionality that allows users to circumvent the blocking of the underlying anonymity service AN.ON by accessing it via other users of the software (forwarding client).^{[citation needed]}

The addresses of JAP users that provide a forwarding server can be retrieved by getting contact to AN.ON's InfoService network, either automatically or, if this network is blocked, too, by writing an e-mail to one of these InfoServices. The JAP software automatically decrypts the answer after the user completes a CAPTCHA. The developers are currently^{[citation needed]} planning to integrate additional and even stronger blocking resistance functions.

[edit] Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

Using Virtual Private Networks, a user who experiences internet censorship can create a secure connection to a more permissive country, and browse the internet as if they were situated in that country. Some services are offered for a monthly fee, others are ad-supported.

[edit] Psiphon

Psiphon software allows users in nations with censored Internet such as China to access banned websites like Wikipedia. The service requires that the software be installed on a computer with uncensored access to the Internet so that the computer can act as a proxy for users in censored environments.^[2]

[edit] Tor

Tor is a free software implementation that allows users to bypass Internet censorship while granting strong anonymity (though it has its weaknesses).

[edit] Sneakernets

Sneakernet is a term used to describe the transfer of electronic information, especially computer files, by physically carrying data on storage media from one place to another. A sneakernet can move data regardless of network restrictions simply by not using the network at all.^[3]

The volunteer organization Information Without Borders is attempting to implement a sneakernet routing protocol for providing cheap Internet access to developing and post-conflict regions using donated flash drives, PDAs and mobile phones. The protocol is also useful for providing free and open Internet access to people living under repressive regimes that restrict free expression by limiting access.^[4] This protocol is still under development, but actual flash-drive sneakernets are known to exist in Cuba. Flash-drive sneakernets were used in 2008 to distribute a video of a student asking why Cubans are not permitted to access web sites like Yahoo.^[5]

[edit] Around the world

The following sections follow the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) categorization scheme: Pervasive, Substantial, Nominal, Indirect, Watchlist.^[6]

[edit] 13 "Enemies of the Internet"

In 2006 the organization Reporters without Borders published a list of the 13 "enemies of the Internet":^[7] This list was later updated to include the following countries as of 2008:[1]

•  Belarus
•  Burma
•  China
•  Cuba
•  Egypt
•  Ethiopia
•  Iran
•  North Korea
•  Saudi Arabia
•  Syria
•  Tunisia
•  Turkmenistan
•  Uzbekistan
•  Vietnam
•  Zimbabwe

[edit] Pervasive

While there is no universally agreed upon definition of what constitutes "pervasive censorship", organization Reporters without Borders (RSF) maintains an internet enemy list^[7] while the OpenNet Initiative categorizes some nations as practicing extreme levels of Internet censorship. Such nations often censor political content and may retaliate against citizens who violate the censorship with measures such as imprisonment.

[edit] Cuba

Connecting to Internet is punishable and Internet is reserved for the ruling elite.^[8]

Cuba is on ONI's watchlist and on RSF's internet enemy list. Cuba has the lowest Latin America ratio of computers per inhabitant, and the lowest internet access ratio of all the Western hemisphere.^[9] Citizens have to use government controlled "access points", where their activity is monitored through IP blocking, keyword filtering and navigation history checking. According to the government, access to internet services by the Cuban population are limited due to high costs and the American embargo, but there are reports concerning the will of the government to control access to uncensored information both from and to the outer world.^[10] The Cuban government continues to imprison independent journalists for contributing reports through the Internet to web sites outside of Cuba^[11]

[edit] Iran

Iran is in ONI's pervasive category and on RSF's internet enemy list. Iran Internet censorship is delegated to ISPs who attempt to filter contents critical of the government, pornographic websites, political blogs, and especially recently women's rights websites, weblogs, and online magazines.^{[6] [12]} Iranian bloggers have been imprisoned for their Internet activities by the Iranian government.^[13] Most recently, the Iranian government temporarily (12/5/2006 to January 2009) blocked access to video-upload sites such as YouTube.com.^[14]. Flickr, which was blocked for almost the same amount of time was opened in February 2009 (25th).

[edit] Maldives

Maldives is not categorized by ONI and RSF removed it from its internet enemy list in 2006. Maldives filters^{[citation needed]} opposition websites and had imprisoned cyber dissidents in 2004 and 2005, all since released.^[15][16]

[edit] Myanmar

Burma (also known as Myanmar) is in ONI's pervasive category and on RSF's internet enemy list. Burma has banned the websites of political opposition groups, sites relating to human rights, and organizations promoting democracy in Burma.^[6] During the 2007 anti-government protests, Burma completely shut down all internet links from its country.^[17]

[edit] North Korea

North Korea is not categorized by ONI but is on RSF's internet enemy list. Only a few thousand citizens in North Korea, a tiny minority of the total population (about 4%), have access to the Internet, which is heavily censored by the national government.^[18]

[edit] People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. China blocks or filters Internet content relating to Tibetan independence, Taiwan independence, police brutality, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech, democracy, pornography, some international news sources (such as the VOA), certain religious movements (such as Falun Gong and the Roman Catholic Church), and many blogging websites. Some 52 cyber dissidents are reportedly imprisoned in China for their online postings.^[19]

[edit] Syria

Syria is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. Syria has banned websites for political reasons and arrested people accessing them.^[6][20]

[edit] Tunisia

Tunisia is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. Tunisia has blocked thousands of websites (such as pornography, mail, search engine cached pages, online documents conversion and translation services) and peer-to-peer and FTP transfer. This filtering is performed using a transparent proxy and port blocking. Cyber dissidents including pro-democracy lawyer Mohammed Abbou have been jailed by the Tunisian government for their online activities.^[21]

[edit] Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. Uzbekistan prevents access to websites regarding banned Islamic movements, independent media, NGOs, and material critical of the government's human rights violations.^[6] Some Internet cafes in the capital have posted warnings that users will be fined for viewing pornographic websites or website containing banned political material.^[22]

[edit] Vietnam

Vietnam is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. The main networks in Vietnam prevent access to websites critical of the Vietnamese government, expatriate political parties, and international human rights organizations, among others.^[6] Online police reportedly monitor Internet cafes and cyber dissidents have been imprisoned for advocating democracy.^[23]

[edit] Substantial

[edit] Bahrain

Starting from January 2009, Batelco (the largest ISP and maintainer of Bahrain Internet Exchange) has started blocking a vastly increasing number of sites. Many popular political forums, including bahrainonline.org, wattani.net, and many others are now blocked^[24][25]. The blocking also currently includes nearly all known proxy sites, including the Google Translate tool (when translating websites), as well as all known pornography websites. Several Christian sites, such as copts-united.com and freecopts.net, are also blocked. Individuals trying to access these sites are redirected to anonymous.com.bh. See also: Internet in Bahrain.

[edit] South Korea

South Korea is in ONI's substantial category but is not on RSF's internet enemy list. South Korea's internet censorship policy is highly political and particularly strong toward suppressing anonymity in the Korean internet. In 2007, numerous bloggers were censored and their posts deleted by police for expressing criticism of, or even support for, presidential candidates. This even lead to some bloggers being arrested by the police. ^[26] Subsequently in 2008, just before a new presidential election, a new law legislation that required all major internet portal sites to require identity verification of their users was put into effect. This applies to all users who add any publicly viewable content. For example, to post a comment on a news article, a user registration and citizen identity number verification is required. For foreigners who do not have such numbers, a copy of passport must be faxed and verified. Although this law was initially met with public outcry, as of 2008, most of the major portals, including Daum, Naver, Nate, and Yahoo Korea, enforce such verification before the user can post any material that is publicly viewable.^{[citation needed]}

Also, South Korea has banned at least 31 sites considered sympathetic to North Korea through the use of IP blocking.^[6] Moreover, They started to block illegal websites such as unrated games, porns, gamblings, etc, by IP blocking since 2008. If you attempt to access these sites, it automatically redirects to the warning page showing "This site is legally blocked by the government regulations."

Furthermore, search engines are required to verify age for some keywords deemed inappropriate for minors. For such keywords, age verification using national identity number is required. For foreigners, a copy of passport must be faxed to verify the age. As of 2008, practically all large search engine companies in Korea have complied with this legislation as well, including foreign-owned companies (e.g. Google Korea and Yahoo Korea).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is in ONI's substantial category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. Saudi Arabia directs all international Internet traffic through a proxy farm located in King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology. Content filtering is implemented there, based on software by Secure Computing.^[27] Additionally, a number of sites are blocked according to two lists maintained by the Internet Services Unit (ISU):^[28] one containing "immoral" (mostly pornographic) sites, the other based on directions from a security committee run by the Ministry of Interior (including sites critical of the Saudi government). An interesting feature of this system is that citizens are encouraged to actively report "immoral" sites for blocking, using a provided Web form. The legal basis for content-filtering is the resolution by Council of Ministers dated 12 February 2001.^[29] According to a study carried out in 2004 by the OpenNet Initiative:

The most aggressive censorship focused on pornography, drug use, gambling, religious conversion of Muslims, and filtering circumvention tools.^[27]

See the report by Harvard University's Law School on Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia.

[edit] United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates is in ONI's substantial category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. The United Arab Emirates forcibly censors the Internet using Secure Computing's solution. The nation's ISPs Etisalat and du (telco) ban pornography, politically sensitive material, and anything against the moral values of the UAE. They both block Skype as well.

[edit] Yemen

Yemen is in ONI's substantial category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Yemen's two ISPs block access to contents falling under the categories of gambling, adult contents, and sex education as well as material seeking to convert Muslims to other religions.^[6]

[edit] Nominal and others

[edit] Australia

Australia is in ONI's nominal category as of 2008. It does not allow content that would be classified "RC" (Refused Classification or banned) or "X18+" (hardcore non-violent pornography) to be hosted within Australia and considers such content "prohibited"/"potentially prohibited" outside Australia; it also requires most other age-restricted content sites to verify a user's age before allowing access. Since January 2008 material that would be likely to be classified "R18+" or "MA15+" and which is not behind such an age verification service (and, for MA15+, which also meets other criteria such as provided for profit, or contains certain media types) also fits the category of "prohibited" or "potentially prohibited". The regulator ACMA can order local sites which do not comply taken down, and overseas sites added to a blacklist provided to makers of PC-based filtering software. The list itself and associated documentation was specially exempted from Freedom of Information laws under the previous Howard government.

Identification of these "prohibited" or "potentially prohibited" items appears to be done mainly as a response to individual complaints rather than by any attempt to pre-emptively classify sites or pages. In addition, certain addresses (mostly of child porn) also come from international and local law enforcement and related sources. The number of items on the prohibited blacklist was in the range of 1,000 to 1,300 in late 2008 and early 2009, with roughly 50% being child-porn related.

The Australian Labor Party has a policy of mandatory blocking, at the ISP level, of material on the ACMA blacklist, as well as providing a second level of opt-out "clean feed" which would also block adult content and an unknown number of other categories.^[30] As of 2008 this policy has been outlined, but not implemented, and there has been significant opposition to it.^[31] In March 2009, the ACMA "blacklist" was leaked, revealing several innocent sites which were included in error.

[edit] Brazil

Brazilian legislation restricts the freedom of expression (Paim Law), directed especially to publications considered racist (such as neo-nazi sites). The Brazilian Constitution also prohibits the anonymity, submitting authors and providers to intimidation.

[edit] Canada

Canada is in ONI's nominal category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. In a few cases, information which the government is actively attempting to keep out of Canadian broadcast and print media (such as names of young offenders or information on criminal trials subject to publication bans) is available to Canadian users via Internet from sites hosted outside Canada.

Project Cleanfeed Canada (cybertip.ca) decides what sites are child pornographic in nature and blocks them from Canadians. However, some argue that they are accountable to no one and could be adding non pornographic sites to their list without public knowledge.

[edit] Chile

Chile is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list and it's considered one of the most liberal countries in terms of internet freedom in Latin America. Many universities and schools block the access to websites like YouTube, Fotolog, Flickr, Blogger, Rapidshare, Twitter and Facebook depending of the institution filters and popular portals like Terra.cl, LUN.com, EMOL.com are also blocked or any kind of pornographic website. The Chilean Government also block the access in their computers to blogs or electronic versions of the local newspapers with opinions against the Government or the ruling coalition, for example, during the first days of Transantiago or the 2006 Student Protests or the Chile-Microsoft relationship. Some local ISP also block the access to websites with contents against them or any kind of policy promoted by them.

[edit] Czech Republic

Since 2008, mobile operators T-mobile^[32] and Vodafone ^{[33] [34]} pass mobile and fixed Internet traffic through Cleanfeed which uses data provided by the Internet Watch Foundation to identify pages believed to contain indecent photographs of children, and racist materials.

[edit] Denmark

Denmark is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Denmark's biggest Internet service provider TDC A/S launched a DNS-based child pornography filter on October 18, 2005 in cooperation with the state police department and Save the Children, a charity organisation. Since then, all major providers have joined and as of May 2006, 98% of the Danish Internet users are restricted by the filter.^[35] The filter caused some controversy in March 2006, when a legal sex site named Bizar.dk was caught in the filter, sparking discussion about the reliability, accuracy and credibility of the filter.^[36] Also, as of October 18, 2005, TDC A/S has blocked access to AllOfMP3.com, a popular MP3 download site, through DNS filtering.^[37]

February 4, 2008 a Danish court has ordered the Danish ISP Tele2 to shutdown access to the filesharing site thepiratebay.org for all its Danish users.^[38]

On December 23 2008, the list of 3,863 sites filtered in Denmark was released by Wikileaks.^[39]

[edit] Fiji

Fiji is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. In May 2007 it was reported that the military in Fiji had blocked access to blogs critical of the regime.^[40]

[edit] Finland

Finland is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Following a "voluntary law" ^[41] enacted by Finnish parliament in 2007-01-01, most of the Finland's major Internet service providers decided on November 22, 2006 to begin filtering child pornography and first ISPs started filtering on January 2008. The Ministry of Communications has commented that filtering is voluntary for ISPs as long as they do not refuse. The blacklist is provided by Finnish police and should contain only foreign sites. Technically filtering was planned to be URI based like the United Kingdom's Cleanfeed, but so far implementations have been DNS based.

A majority of these censored Internet sites, however, are actually not censored by the Finnish ISPs due to actual child pornography, but due to "normal" adult pornography instead. Most of the known sites are also located in EU or United States where child pornography is strictly illegal anyway. Two-thirds of the Finnish internet censorship list of the filtered domains can currently be seen on lapsiporno.info,^[42] the homepage of Matti Nikki, a Finnish activist criticizing Internet censorship in the European Union and especially in Finland. On February 12 2008, Nikki's page was also added to National Bureau of Investigation's blacklist (Wikinews article). As the list was compiled using links from pornography sites, this list does not tell anything about the last third of the blocked sites.

At September 2008 problems with accuracy continued, when websites of main international standards organization for World Wide Web W3C was briefly blacklisted as childporn by mistake.^[43]

More recently, a government-sponsored report has considered establishing similar filtering in order to curb online gambling.^[44]

[edit] France

France is in ONI's watchlist and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. French courts demanded Yahoo! block Nazi material in the case LICRA vs. Yahoo. The case is currently^{[citation needed]} on appeal for an en banc rehearing. France is at point to promote the Hadopi law to filter the Internet in its territory.

[edit] Ghana

Ghana is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. In 2002 the government of Ghana censored internet media coverage of tribal violence in Northern Ghana.^[45]

[edit] Ireland

[edit] India

India is in ONI's nominal category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. As of July 2006^[update] the Indian government has directed ISPs to block seventeen websites, including some hosted on the Geocities, Blogspot and Typepad domains. Initial implementation difficulties led to these domains being blocked entirely.^[46][47] Access to sites on these domains other than the specifically banned ones was restored by most ISPs after about a week.^[48] The first documented incident of Internet censorship in India was the Yahoo! Groups ban of 23 September 2003. Kynhun, a Yahoo! group linked to the outlawed "Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council", a minor separatist group, was ordered banned by the Department of Telecommunications. Difficulties in implementing the ban by the ISP's ultimately led to all Yahoo! groups being banned for a period of about two weeks.

Recently, Indian law enforcement has entered an agreement with the popular social networking site Orkut to track down what it deems defamatory content which, in their example, includes content critical of Bal Thackeray.^[49]

India is also looking to block Google Maps due to the Mumbai attacks.

[edit] Israel

Israel is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. The religious parties in Israel proposed and internet censorship legislation would only allow access to adult-content Internet sites for users who identify themselves as adults and request not to be subject to filtering. In 27/02/2008 the law passed in its first of three votes required.^[50]

[edit] Italy

Italy is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Italy bans the use of foreign bookmakers over the Internet by mandating certain edits to DNS host files of Italian ISPs.^[51][52]. Italy is also blocking access to websites containing child pornography. ^[53] From August 2008, Italy is blocking also The Pirate Bay website^[54][55], basing this censorship on a law on electronic commerce and it's the absolutely first in Italy making a block not only for the present, but also for the future^[56]. On this last block, a consumer-association, Altroconsumo, have announced reappeal.

[edit] Jordan

Jordan is not on RSF's internet enemy list however selective censorship still occurs. Censorship in Jordan is mainly focused on political issues that might be seen as a threat to national security due to the nation's close proximity to regional hotspots like Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Jordan, unlike most of its neighbors, has a free and an advanced telecommunications sector. ^[57]

[edit] Morocco

Morocco is in ONI's watchlist and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. As of March 2006, Morocco had blocked access to a few blogging sites, such as LiveJournal. Reporters Without Borders says that Morocco now censors all political websites advocating Western Sahara's independence, however many Western Sahara-related blogs are still accessible. Google Earth has also been added to the list of filtered Web sites in Morocco. In 2007 Morocco's main telecommunication operator Maroc Telecom also blocked access to YouTube for nearly a month, without giving any reason.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Netherlands

Since 2007 in the Netherlands one major ISP, UPC, blocks access on DNS level to sites authorities claim are known to provide child pornography. In the second quarter of 2008 all major Dutch ISP's have agreed with Ernst Hirsch Ballin of the Ministry of Justice to also block all the sites that are on the list. The blacklist is compiled by the National Police Forces (KLPD) ^[58]. Ernst Hirsch Ballin has said ^[59] that at the moment 150 websites are blocked. It contains no websites that are hosted in EU countries and they are checked once every 2 months by Productteam Bestrijding Kinderpornografie. Providers will not be forced to use it since that would be unconstitutional according to a research done by the governmental Scientific Research- and Documentation Center (WODC)^[60] commissioned by the Ministry of Justice. As of 2009 the only providers that use the filter are UPC and two small providers, Scarlet and Kliksafe. The providers that have been prositive about a non-mandatory filter do not have it in use.

[edit] Norway

Norway is in ONI's watchlist and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Norway's major Internet service providers have a DNS filter which blocks access to sites authorities claim are known to provide child pornography,^[61] similar to Denmark's filter. A partial sample of the Norwegian internet censorship list can be seen at a Finnish site criticizing internet censorship.

[edit] Pakistan

Pakistan is in ONI's watchlist and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Pakistan has blocked access to websites critical of the government. Currently^{[citation needed]}, the government has blocked blogs hosted on Blogspot.com. A ban on pornographic websites has also been enacted.^{[citation needed]}. Websites promoting Balochistan and Sindh nationalism or documenting human rights abuses in those places have also been banned.[2]

[edit] Russia

Russia is in ONI's watchlist and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Russia pressured Lithuania into shutting down the Kavkaz-Center website, a site that hosts videos on attacks on Russian forces in Chechnya, and reports on the Second Chechen War from a Chechen separatist perspective.^[6] In February 2008, it became known that six Russian internet providers with ties to the government were blocking access to an opposition aggregate news site. After this became public, the biggest of these companies dropped the block and explained that it was "testing content filters". The other five blocks remain in place.^[62]

In 2007 a lawsuit against Savva Terentiev, a musician from Syktyvkar, was started because of a commentary in a LiveJournal blog, in which he sharply criticised local police forces. He was accused of "provoking antagonism between social groups". Although several philological expert examinations of the text denied this accusations, arguing that this was just a relational expression, the lawsuit is still not closed.^[63]

[edit] Singapore

Singapore is in ONI's nominal category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. In Singapore, three people were arrested and charged with sedition for posting racist comments on the Internet, of which two have been sentenced to imprisonment.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Sweden

Sweden is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Sweden's major Internet service providers have a DNS filter which blocks access to sites authorities claim are known to provide child pornography, similar to Denmark's filter. A partial sample of the Swedish internet censorship list can be seen at a Finnish site criticizing internet censorship. The Swedish police are responsible for updating this list of forbidden Internet sites. On July 6, Swedish police said that there is material with child pornography available on torrents linked to from the torrent tracker site Pirate bay and said it would be included in the list of forbidden Internet sites. This, however, did not happen as the police claimed the illegal material had been removed from the site. Police never specified what the illegal content was on TPB. This came with criticism and accusations that the intended The Pirate Bay's censorship was political in nature.

[edit] Thailand

Thailand is in ONI's nominal category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. Significant efforts have been made in Thailand to oppose sites that are representing illegal activities. Activities such as gambling, drug usage and pornography are strictly banned, using DNS control in Thailand and, more effectively, a transparent proxy. This makes the website appear to be inaccessible. Also, the government has banned sites that discuss circumventing Internet censorship.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Turkey

Main article: Internet censorship in Turkey

Many minor and major websites in Turkey have been subject to censorship until now, including the oldest and most popular Turkish social blogging community Sourtimes and widely popular poetry and literature community Antoloji.com. On March 6, 2007, the government of Turkey blocked access to the video-upload site YouTube.com, with the following statement parked on the domain: "Access to www.youtube.com site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court."^[64] The ban was met with widespread protests and lifted two days later. Youtube was banned again in 12.03.2008 with decision no 2008/251, which was then soon lifted. As of August 2008, Youtube is still banned in the country since 5th of May 2008, due to two court decisions.

Beside Youtube, 853 minor and major websites are currently banned in Turkey, including the widely popular blogging site Wordpress.com, which has been banned since August 2007 complete with all subdomains. As of October 2008, Blogger is banned too. Other prominent websites currently on ban in Turkey include Youporn, The Pirate Bay, Megaupload, Deezer, Virb, Dailymotion, Google Groups, Tagged, Netlog, Slide, GeoCities, CareerBuilder ,Alibaba and in 24 October 2008 Blogspot. Ironically, The Internet Movie Database had been lucky enough to get away from being censored due to a misspelling of its domain, resulting in a futile ban on www.imbd.com. ^[65]

As of September 2008, Turkey filters access to prominent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' Web site. The filtering was in response to a complaint from Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar (nom de plume Harun Yahya). Oktar is also behind the filtering of Wordpress and Google Groups.

Turkey is not categorized by ONI and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. However, beside the old media control and censorship association RTÜK, a new governmental association has been recently established just for Internet control and censorship without prior court judgement as it was before.^{[citation needed]} According to the 5651st law of Turkish Penal Code, all media including websites directing people to suicide, child abuse, drugs, pornography, prostitution, insulting and gambling are forbidden. Turkish Telecommute Foundation has also a website for public reports^[66]. Nevertheless due to the public profile of the major websites currently on ban; juridicial, technical and ethical arguments for their complete censoring have been painfully lacking, which resulted in extensive piercing of the prohibitions via the use of proxies or change of DNS servers.

[edit] United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is in ONI's watchlist and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. British Telecommunications ISP passes internet traffic through a service called Cleanfeed which uses data provided by the Internet Watch Foundation to identify pages believed to contain indecent photographs of children.^[67][68] When such a page is found, the system creates a 'URL not found page' error rather than deliver the actual page or a warning page. Other ISPs use different systems such as WebMinder [3].

[edit] United States of America

The United States of America is in ONI's nominal category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. The United States enacted in 1996 the Communications Decency Act, which severely restricted online speech that could potentially be seen by a minor – which, it was argued, was most of online speech. Free speech advocates, however, managed to have most of the act overturned by the courts. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes the discussion and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms, and makes it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement on the Internet. Many school districts in the United States frequently censor material deemed inappropriate for the school setting. In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) which requires schools and public libraries receiving federal funding to install internet filters or blocking software.^[69] Congress is also considering legislation to require schools and libraries to block access to social networking websites, The Deleting Online Predators Act. Opponents of Internet censorship argue that the free speech provisions of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution bars the government from any law or regulation that censors the Internet.^[70]

A January 4, 2007 restraining order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein forbade a large number of activists in the psychiatric survivors movement from posting links on their websites to ostensibly leaked documents which purportedly show that Eli Lilly and Company intentionally withheld information as to the lethal side-effects of Zyprexa. The Electronic Frontier Foundation appealed this as prior restraint on the right to link to and post documents, saying that citizen-journalists should have the same First Amendment rights as major media outlets.^[71] It was later held that the judgement was unenforcable, though First Amendment claims were rejected.^[72]

The Department of Defense filters certain IP addresses. The US military's filtering policy is laid out in a report to congress entitled Department of Defense Personnel Access to the Internet.

[edit] Portal censorship

Major portals occasionally exclude web sites that they would ordinarily include. This renders a site invisible to people who do not know where to find it. When a major portal does this, it has a similar effect as censorship. Sometimes this exclusion is done to satisfy a legal or other requirement, other times it is purely at the discretion of the portal.

[edit] Examples

• Google.de and Google.fr remove Neo-Nazi and other listings, 2002^[73] Another example is wikipedia, which does not allow links to copyrighted material or material that migh violate the DMCA

[edit] Major web portal official statements on site removal

This section requires expansion.

• Google:^[74] "Google may temporarily or permanently remove sites from its index and search results if it believes it is obligated to do so by law, if the sites do not meet Google's quality guidelines, or for other reasons, such as if the sites detract from users' ability to locate relevant information."

[edit] Commonly targeted websites

• Pornographic, Pedophile-related, and other websites considered objectionable
• Social Networks (e.g. Facebook and MySpace)^[75]
• Wikipedia
• Political Blogs^[76]
• YouTube^[77]
• Nazi and similar websites — particularly in France and Germany^[78]
• Religious websites
• Google - particularly in mainland China and Cuba^[79]
• Censorship-circumvention websites^{[citation needed]}
• Foreign websites

[edit] See also

• Computer surveillance
• Content-control software
• Criticism of Wikipedia, Censorship
• Cyber-dissident
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Geolocation
• International Freedom of Expression eXchange — monitors Internet censorship worldwide
• Internet brigades - flooding rather than censoring
• Irrepressible.info
• Jingjing and Chacha
• Proxy list
• OpenNet Initiative
• Scieno Sitter
• Tunisia Monitoring Group

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Global Integrity: Internet Censorship, A Comparative Study; puts online censorship in cross-country context.

[edit] Wikis

• Wikia Censorship at Wikia
• Internet censorship wiki at cship.org

[edit] Campaigns against

• Electronic Frontier Foundation US-based organization promoting online freedoms.
• iraniazad.com Committee against censorship.
• Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) International campaign against all censorship based in Thailand.
• irrepressible.info Amnesty International campaign to combat Internet repression.
• Erik Ringmar, A Blogger's Manifesto: Free Speech and Censorship in the Age of the Internet (London: Anthem Press, 2007)
• Picidae Break through the Internet Censorship!

[edit] Circumvention resources

This article's external links may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

• Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents Reporters without Borders guide on Internet anonymity, censorship circumvention, and blogging, , [4] (online).
• Reporters Without Borders: Technical ways to get around censorship, [5], [6], [7], [8]
• Information Without Borders a technology provider organization developing a standard sneakernet protocol (SNP) and working code, for circumvention and for rural access
• List of possible weaknesses in systems to circumvent Internet censorship by Bennett Haselton, 2002
• Psiphon software that is installed on a computer in a non-censored country to allow unhindered access to selected users in censored countries.
• Tor is an anonymity-network capable of bypassing Internet censorship
• OpenNet A world map that shows world access powers.
• Libertus.net: ISP "Voluntary" / Mandatory Filtering (2008 review of state of the internet filtering)
• Sesawe is an international consortium working to support uncensored access to the Internet.

v • d • e Internet censorship Countries Australia · China · Iran · India  · Ireland · Morocco · Myanmar · Pakistan · Thailand · Turkey · Tunisia · United States · United Kingdom · Vietnam