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/