INTERNET CENSORSHIP ON PAKISTAN OF YOUTUBE

Pakistan & YouTube

Posted by nart on February 23rd, 2008. No comments... »
Tags: Internet Censorship.

UPDATE — In attempting to block access to YouTube, Pakistan ended up making YouTube inaccessible to everyone — not just everyone in Pakistan, but everyone! Martin A. Brown provides some of the technical details and a time line here (Thanks Steven!):

Just before 18:48 UTC, Pakistan Telecom, in response to government order (thanks nsp-sec-d) to block access to YouTube (see news item) started advertising a route for 208.65.153.0/24 to its provider, PCCW (AS 3491). For those unfamiliar with BGP, this is a more specific route than the ones used by YouTube (208.65.152.0/22), and therefore most routers would choose to send traffic to Pakistan Telecom for this slice of YouTube’s network.

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I’ve updated blockpage.com with a screen capture from an ISP in Pakistan from the Don’t Block the Blog Campaign. As noted, since most ISPs route through the Pakistan Internet Exchange which only blocks IP addresses, many users in Pakistan won’t have access to YouTube at all. Users of the ISP TWA appear to have partial access.
The Global Voices Advocacy blog has good coverage of the story and has also posted a copy of the blocking order. (Older blocking orders from Pakistan available here, here and here.)

Democracy “Magnified”

Posted by nart on February 21st, 2008. No comments... »
Tags: Internet Censorship, Search Engines, Search Monitor.

The “magnify” component of the Search Monitor project attempts to match the top ten results from Google/Yahoo with the top ten results form the China-specific versions of Google/Yahoo in order to note the similarities and differences in terms of censored, returned (the website is in the top ten of the both the .com and .cn versions of the search engine) and indexed (the website is in the top ten of the .com version, but not in the top ten of the .cn version, but is not censored). It also compares the results based on whether or not each website is hosted in China or ends in a .cn. This is taken as a measurement of “authorized” content that is unlikely to present information that China would block.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP AROUND THE WORLD

Internet Censorship Around The World.

Given the drive in the United States to censor Internet communications, what are other countries doing to censor their citizens, or protect free speech in their bits of cyberspace?

The Internet is growing into all sorts of faraway corners of the globe. In many countries, the Internet is still so new that censorship isn't an overt issue yet. In others, computer networking and e-mail aren't on the same level as they are in North America, East Asia, Europe, or even Chile or Turkey. In Sri Lanka, for example, e-mail is delivered through a uucp network over regular phone lines. When e-mail needs to be delivered to a site outside Sri Lanka, it has to go over an expensive long-distance call from Colombo to Stanford University in the U.S. Users are heavily discouraged from sending long or "frivolous" e-mail messages. Transferring any image, pornographic or not, would be a no-no. The cost keeps erotic digital images out of Sri Lanka, more than direct government interference.

Full Internet service has just opened to the public in Beijing, China. China Net is carrying a little over 1000 Usenet groups on its news server. A recent poster to Usenet from Beijing says that "some sensitive newsgroups are locked out".

Likewise in Malaysia, newsgroups that carry discussions or images that are against the law in Malaysia are not carried. According to Mohamed b. Awang-Lah, administrator at mimos.my, the government doesn't actively filter communications. A check of posts in soc.culture.malaysia shows that discussion in that group, at least, can be pretty free-ranging and colorful. Nevertheless, the Acceptible Use Policy at Jaring, the main Malaysian Internet backbone, states that "members shall not use Jaring network for any activities not allowed under any Law of Malaysia". Given that Malaysian censors are still deciding whether to allow the movie "Casper" into the country, the potential for censorship is high, but that potential hasn't been fully used yet on the Internet.

Potentiol WTO challenge internet sensorship

A study published a few days ago by think-tank ECIPE (European Centre for International Political Economy) investigates the future impact of international trade law on Internet censorship. It states that the World Trade Organization (WTO), which governs international trade, is likely to challenge Internet censorship in the near future. This is because Internet censorship can hamper international trade by restricting trade in online services. By examining WTO's official regulations and the current status of Internet censorship in various countries, the study concludes that WTO has a strong case against governments involved in blanket Internet censorship. Blanket Internet censorship, or disproportionate censorship, involves permanent bans and entire blockages of websites.

There are many examples of how blanket Internet censorship in China prevents fair trade in online services there. For instance, foreign-owned search engines are doing poorly in China. The study cites in 2002, Baidu (a search engine based in China) had only 3% of the Internet search market in China, while Google had 24%. However, currently Baidu has almost two-thirds of the market and has overtaken the global leader Google in the Chinese Internet search market. In contrast, in Japan where language barriers also exist but Internet censorship is significantly less prevalent, foreign-owned search engines have >90% of the market.

The reason for the great popularity of Baidu in China is not purely due to the quality of the product; the Chinese government also has a hand in it. Baidu closely follows China's official rules on Internet censorship by not returning controversial search results or mentioning any of the over 18,000 foreign websites that the Chinese government wants blocked. Thus, the Chinese government has a vested interest in making it the most widely-used search engine in China. Google's right (and the right of other foreign search services) to offer its services in China is compromised by this. In 2002, the government in China went so far as to make the URL and IP-address of Google re-route to Baidu. An Internet user in China, after typing in Google.com, would end up on Baidu.cn. It was a great way for the government to popularize Baidu, but it was clearly done at the cost of Google.

Based on the study's findings, WTO member states that implement blanket Internet censorship are violating WTO rules, which say member states can only engage in censorship and restrict trade when it is "necessary for protecting public morals" or "maintain[ing] public order." In addition, those measures must be necessary and minimize the disruption of trade. According to the study, WTO should have a major issue with blanket Internet censorship because it disrupts commercial activities by more than necessary in order to achieve the goals of the censoring government. The study proposes WTO may advocate proportionate Internet censorship, or selective filtering, as an alternative to blanket censorship. There are exceptions though, for some WTO member states that currently implement blanket censorship do not have the infrastructure in place for switching to selective filtering. However, countries like China already have this infrastructure, so in the eyes of WTO they would have no excuse not to abandon blanket Internet censorship for something less drastic. There are, of course, sovereignty issues involved in WTO forcing member states to restrict Internet censorship, and those would need to be dealt with.

If this study's analysis of WTO's ability to influence Internet censorship is correct, then it foreshadows the potential for WTO to reprimand member states engaging in excessive censorship of the web. Such a policy would impact many nations currently heavily engaged in Internet censorship, such as China, since membership to WTO is nearly universal. As a result, providing that WTO member states comply, in the future there will be a decline in Internet censorship.

This post relates to an earlier one that centered on Bill Gates' opinion that Internet censorship will fail because of its conflict with business requirements. It turns out that Gates may be correct. Businesses will probably not lead the fight against Internet censorship, like Gates believed, but the WTO will potentially lead the fight on behalf of business that provide international online services.

Internet Censorship and Attacks on Journalists Amid Major Street Protests

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the arrests and physical attacks that journalists suffered while covering demonstrations yesterday and today in various Egyptian cities. The authorities have been doing everything possible to keep the media at a distance in order prevent the circulation of images of protesters demanding President Hosni Mubarak's departure. No TV station was able to film yesterday's big protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The authorities began jamming mobile phone communications early yesterday afternoon in places where protesters had gathered in Cairo. Representatives of the Vodafone and Mobile Nile phone companies today denied any involvement in the disruption of service, blaming the Egyptian authorities.

The social-networking website Twitter and the livestreaming service Bambuser.com were both blocked yesterday afternoon. The hashtag #jan25, referring to protest, was widely used on Twitter yesterday.
Access to Facebook was intermittently blocked today, with the degree of blocking varying from one ISP to another. Egyptian dissidents and civil society groups have been using Facebook for years to disseminate information and organize protests, including the 6 April 2009 strike.

Is 'Spinternet' the Future of Internet Censorship?

What is 'Spinternet'? Well it's a term coined by Evgeny Morozov, a Belarussian journalist who has written extensively on the politics behind internet censorship. In a way, it refers to a shift in tactics used by governments trying to censor the internet. In the past, internet censorship was straight forward. Government blocked websites,  manipulated search engines and harassed dissenting bloggers and reporters. However, Morozov states that the increasing ease and speed of internet communication has made these methods ineffective.


Blocking a website only draws attention to it and motivates internet users to find ways to get around the block. Therefore, this has the counterproductive effect of increasing the popularity of that blocked website. Unfortunately it is impossible for the governments to block all the blogs that censored opinions or information can quickly spreed.


Thus government need to find a new way to control the internet content. Many have tried to create a 'Spinternet' where a version of the internet which the government 'spins' dissenting users views to align with the governments views. This spinning of opinions is done secretly by people hired by the government in question. Let me list a few notable examples. In China, there is the50-Cent Party, composed of nearly 300,000 Chinese citizens who get 50 cents for each comment they post online, if it steers the discussion in a way that is favorable to the Chinese government. In addition, recently it was revealed that there is a plan in Nigeria to mobilize selected individuals to create seemingly credible online forums that would be used to (presumably falsely) attack the Nigerian government's online critics 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Censorship

Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Censorship.

Goverment used many ways censorship to protect people against harmful information. Unfortunately, they have used it to misinform and suppress people. However, information propagates mero quickly through the internet tahn through all other media, goverments and ISPs must continually develop and implement new internet censorship tools.

Advantage

Protecting Women and Children - The pornography industry is increasingly competitive. Many adult website think they need to provide more diversions by advocating violent sexual abuse of women and children.

Guarding Against Email Spam - Internet spam is unsolicited email. Spam can contain in many types. Such as,

- malware that you activate by simply opening the email message. To guard against viruses and spyware, never open any email that seems even slightly suspicious.

- Phishing schemes that try to steal your identity by asking for your personal information. These notes often apperas to be form seemingly legitimate financial companies asking you to verify your account numbers and passwords.

Disadvantages

Internet censorship has technical and potential legal problems.

Technical Limitations - Internet censorship might not always work because new technologies are emerging through which people can use proxy servers to bypass government firewalls.

Potential Legal Problems - If certain websites are blocked, the individual or corporate owners of those blocked websites might be able to sue to have the blocks removed. Hopefully, international treaties and courts eventually can define acceptable behavior for all websites

No Internet censorship despite Facebook and Twitter influence

Recently I had read an article on 12 february that says that our prime minister,Datuk Sri Najib Razak vowed not to censor the Internet but instead will engage with Malaysian when acknowledging when now people are using social networking websites such as Facebook and Twetter to express outrage or their anger on their own wall so people can read and share.

The prime minister was as to give a comment on Facebook and Twitter crucial role about this issue regarding the Egyption strongman, President Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian Goverment had banned the micro Blogging site which is Twitter,and as a result of massive protease of anger and hatred about the government when president Mubarak refused to go down on his duties as president.

Our prime minister said that Internet is powerful and not surprisingly Because it is one of the worlds phenomenon.He added that the government has a choice weather to partake or not in the global trend or to embrace it.In fact, social networking information can be disseminated in time and does not mean it's true.

And this is my post for this week.I had explained about the effects of social networking impacted the world and also the censorship.