DISCLAIMER: This is an old post taken from my previous geeky technology blog. It is preserved here for hysterical raisins (it was popular at the time).
What with the concern over the proposed Internet filtering policy that is supposed to be put into place in Australia, we thought this would be a good time to bring this subject up. Our point here is not to enable people to commit crimes, nor to say that they should commit crimes. Our point is that (a) filtering doesn’t work, and (b) if honest, law-abiding citizens find Internet filtering interfering with a legitimate task, it should not only be their right, but their duty, to subvert the faulty measure.
This information will also prove valuable to those within schools, businesses, and other organizations that filter Internet usage. Although, we of course can’t be held responsible if you get fired or expelled for using this information. And we can’t believe we just had to write that, but not everybody reading this is living in a free country.
Who is currently filtering the Internet?
The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) currently lists 42 countries which censor Internet access for their citizens at some level. These are Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, China (with Hong Kong), Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Malaysia, Moldova, Morocco, Nepal, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.
What is being filtered?
The obvious target is sexually explicit content. When politicians speak of it, they always beat on “child pornography” as the whole culprit, as if the Internet were simply dripping in the stuff. The truth is, any content that would make a nun frown eventually gets lumped into the big pile of things you’re not supposed to see. Eventually, the filtering tends to block access to content related to women’s health, gay and lesbian rights groups, and teenage sexual education.
Social networks and social media sites are the next most-common target, usually blocked by schools and businesses.
After that, we have the bin labeled “other.” These sites include Wikipedia under extremely totalitarian governments, blogs and personal websites dealing with political or religious content – particularly if it bucks the status quo, Google in countries such as China and Cuba, and of course, websites with information on circumventing censorship. Even a blog which merely has a post pointing out that there’s censorship going on will get censored!
When is filtering considered “pervasive”?
International group Reporters Without Borders categorizes 13 countries as “enemies of the Internet”, which are so pervasive in their censorship that they are grossly in violation of human rights.
One example is Cuba. Cuba has the lowest ratio of computers to citizens in all of South America, and the lowest rate of Internet access in the whole Western Hemisphere. To “surf the web” in Cuba, you have to go to a government-controlled access point, sign up, stand in line, and get your tightly-monitored access time – during which IPs are blocked, keywords are filtered, and your browsing history is checked! Reporters in Cuba have been sent to jail for the crime of reporting news from inside Cuba to others outside the border.
Iran is another high offender, which orders its ISPs to censor content relating to criticism of the government, pornography, political opinion, and women’s rights. Iran has blocked access to YouTube, some blogs, and some commercial online magazines. Bloggers have been jailed in Iran for their Internet activity.
One last example is China. China has made itself really famous for its Internet censorship, so there’s no need to go into too much detail. But they are known to filter content related to politics in general and independence in Taiwan and Tibet in particular, human rights, independence, religions including Falun Gong and the Roman Catholic Church, and many blogs expressing contrary political or religious views. China also limits access to Wikipedia. At one time, up to 52 individuals have been reported jailed in China for “cyber dissident” activity.
