Global Internet Censorship On the Rise

An anonymous reader writes "State-led internet censorship is on the rise around the world. According to a study conducted by the Open Net Initiative and reported by the BBC, some 25 of 41 countries surveyed were filtering at least some content. Skype and Google Maps were two of the most often-censored sites, according to the article. 'The filtering had three primary rationales, according to the report: politics and power, security concerns and social norms. The report said: 'In a growing number of states around the world, internet filtering has huge implications for how connected citizens will be to the events unfolding around them, to their own cultures, and to other cultures and shared knowledge around the world.'"

Comments

Re:I was going to ask my Chinese colleague ...

[Chief Wongoller]

Well, I'm reading this from China, where slashdot is NOT blocked. Yes the BBC article is, but then most BBC stuff is, but the original Open Net initiative isn't.

Not quite

[WindBourne]

Many countries esp. China and USA require that all communications be open to be listened in on. CALEA pushed it for general comms and under USA PATRIOT act, it forced the issue onto voip, which includes skype. This should be more obvious in light of what has been coming out concerning W's spying on American.

And china, being china, wants total exposure of their citizens all the time.

Re:Big deal

[Chandon Seldon]

If a nation's government is united enough and willing to break their own laws on protecting human rights, I rather doubt they'll care about "the PR disaster associated with directly breaking the Internet".

You seem to have far too much respect for the effectiveness of law, and far too little realization of how frequently government actors are willing to ignore the law to further their personal agenda. Consider the NSA internal spying controversy in the USA: that was blatantly illegal, there were even specific laws made against it the last time this happened, but that didn't slow them down from doing it. Even with all the controversy, we don't even have any reason to believe that they've stopped.

They get away with that because they can do it silently. The government can silently break the law, and the consequences - if any - take time to happen. In that world (well, this world - the one we live in), tools of free expression - including anonymous speech - are essential. If people can't speak anonymously, how can whistle blowers expose some of these scandals?

Well, once either side start to step outside the bounds of the law, all bets are off.

Reality takes place on both sides of the law, so I guess all bets have been off for a very long time.