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::E-GOVERNMENT

Web censorship growing: report
Friday, May 05 2006
by Charlie Taylor
A new study claims that oppressive regimes around the world are increasingly looking to censor freedom of speech online, often with the help of technology firms.

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According to the Reporters Without Frontiers Annual Report, which highlights the ways in which governments threaten the freedom of the press, censorship of the web is growing on every continent.

The report, which was released on Wednesday to coincide with World Press Freedom Day, claims that traditional "predators of press freedom" such as Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Libya, the Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, all censor content on the internet now.

Moreover, it notes that while only China, Vietnam and the Maldives had imprisoned cyber-dissidents in 2003, many more countries are beginning to follow their lead.

The study claims that while blogs, discussion groups and personal websites have all helped to give a voice to men and women who were once just passive consumers of information, governments on all continents are increasingly looking to crack down on those who use the medium to "spread dissent".

According to just a few of the examples cited in the report, Morocco now censors all political websites that advocate Western Sahara's independence, while Iran has expanded its list of banned sites to includes all websites that mention women's rights. In addition, the study claims that Burma is looking to outdo China in terms of censorship by not only using filter software to stop access to certain sites but also acquiring technology which can automatically record what's on computer screens in internet cafes across the country.

As well as banning access to particular websites, governments are increasingly looking to restrict citizens from posting via their weblogs. One example cited in the report states that two internet users have been jailed and tortured in Syria, one for posting photos online of a pro-Kurdish demonstration in Damascus and the other for simply passing on an e-mailed newsletter the regime considered illegal.

The study also claims that China, which is seen to be the most repressive regime when it comes to net censorship, is now passing on its cyber-spying skills to other authoritarian states including Zimbabwe, Cuba, and most recently Belarus.

Reporters Without Frontiers said that technology firms are also actively assisting administrations attempts to curtail freedom of speech. Among the tech companies criticised in the report are Secure Computing, which sold software to censor access to the internet to the Tunisian government, and Cisco Systems for building China's internet infrastructure and selling the country special equipment for the police to use to monitor net use.

Europe and the US don't escape condemnation either. The US is criticised for sending an "ambiguous message" to the international community by making it easier to legally intercept online traffic and by filtering the internet in public libraries.

The EU meanwhile is rapped on the knuckles for introducing a law on data retention which forces internet service providers to retain records of customers' online activity.

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