Internet Censorship
Sri Reddy
Internet and Web Systems 2 Presentation
Introduction
• Net censorship:
• e.g.’s: web filters; censorware; firewalls, to some extent
• Reasons: protection of children, national security
Home Censorship
• Protection of children from adult content and other materials
School Censorship
• federal law enacted by Congress:– Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)
Business Censorship
• To keep employees focused and not distracted
International Censorship
• Different countries have different views of the internet.
• Open Net Initiative studies these issues.
Global Internet Filtering Map
Asian Censorship
• China, Burma, and Vietnam:– Content censored includes human rights,
opposition parties
China
• China’s filtering system also known as the Great Firewall of China
China: “9 Ways Beijing Censors the Internet”
• Self-censorship: e.g. replace ‘Hu Jintao’ with ‘Gu Yue Wu Jin Ma Tao ’
• Filtering: ISPs delete sensitive words on postings,
• Internet police censors
“9 Ways Beijing Censors the Internet” (continued)
• Web master warnings
• Red tape: what can & can’t be reported
• Mother jury: what one’s mom would allow on the internet
“9 Ways Beijing Censors the Internet” (continued)
• Tea party invitation: posting against government and you will drink tea w/ officials
• The Great Firewall
• 50 cent commentators: government pays 50 cents for each commentator to mold public opinion
China: Net Access
• UltraSurf and FreeGate led the way for Chinese net users to freely and openly access the internet
Green Dam Goes Mobile?
• filtering software originally meant for Chinese computers
• discussion has shifted to the cell phone market.
Google thinks about leaving mobile search market
• Google and Baidu over 50% of market share in mobile search
• If Google leaves, Baidu and Microsoft gain an opportunity.
Google China’s outage is blamed on Chinese firewall
• At first, claims due to technical reasons
• Later, claims due to China’s filtering
China/Taiwan
• Yahoo email accounts hacked due to concern over Chinese separatists
China and Sweden
• Swedish prime minister expressed importance of uncensored internet in meeting w/ Chinese VP
Thailand
• dozens of websites blocked under state of emergency
Vietnam
• Government denies it lead cyberattacks against opponents of mining project
Middle Eastern/North African Censorship
• Region has a growing market for internet users
• Countries in the region censor to help anti-terrorism efforts.
Bahrain
• Blackberry chat groups banned
Censorship in Commonwealth of Independent States (Countries of
the former Soviet Union)
• Censorship exists, but not as much as during the Cold War era.
Kyrgyzstan
• Bakiev administration shut down opposition media weeks before April 7 Revolution, this year
European Censorship
• Goal: to filtering out child pornography, racism, hatred, and terrorism
EU
• Some fear Eurofilter will become similar to China’s
• A Thai princess’s condolence– Also a hearing aid ad were found on a Finnish
list of 1000 supposed child porn websites
UK
• Digital economy bill passes– ISPs required to send P2P warning notices to
copyright infringers
Sub-Saharan Africa Censorship
• African Internet users less than 5 percent of world’s online population
• Kenya introduced law to suppress terrorism,– citizens displeased, worried about privacy
issues– Kenyan parliament rejected new law
Ethiopia
• Human rights issues, opposition parties
Australian censorship
• Goal: to filter hate speech
• and handle copyright, defamation, and security issues
• school networks, YouTube banned after video posted with girl being beaten up
Australia (continued)
• Communications Minister- supporting a internet filter to fight cybercrime– U.S. is concerned about net censorship
• Another ‘Great Firewall’, Australia’s
U.S. censorship
• Issues: child protection, national security, intellectual property, and web security
• reportedly after 9/11, Bush administration wiretaps on internet interconnect points.
U.S. Censorship (continued)
• Adults’ right to access adult content compared to youth’s right to be protected from said content
• Communications Decency Act of 1996– U.S. law that was created to protect children,
but found to be unconstitutional
U.S. Censorship (continued)
• “Internet’s Last Hope”:– FCC vs. Comcast: Comcast kept right to slow
down BitTorrent
References
• The OpenNet Initiative: http://opennet.net/research/
• http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-censorship.htm
• Parker, Emily, “Leaping the Great Firewall of China” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704896104575139742687410862.html
• http://maps.google.com/