State Internet filters becoming more pervasive

By Stephen Withers
Monday, 21 May 2007 12:01

Your IT - Home IT

Governments are increasingly restricting their citizens from accessing certain Internet content or from using particular services according to a report from an international group of academic researchers.

A study of Internet 'filtering' by the OpenNet Initiative - a collaborative effort involving researchers at Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford and Toronto universities - found evidence of it happening in 25 of the 40 countries investigated.

Examples include "pervasive filtering as a central platform for shaping public knowledge" in China, Myanmar, Vietnam and Uzbekistan; broad filtering in Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen; more targeted filtering in Thailand and Pakistan; and selective filtering in Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, India, South Korea and Singapore.

The types of material being filtered varies, but includes pornography and other moral issues, hate speech, political opposition to the ruling party, material from countries on the other side of a conflict, or simply anything deemed 'inappropriate.'

The research involved 'in-country' testing of lists of web sites considered to be provocative or objectionable for various reasons. Testing was repeated at different times and locations to distinguish filtering from connectivity problems.
The OpenNet Initiative also found services such as Skype and Google Earth are being blocked by governments.

The United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia and New Zealand were not covered by the initial study.

The OpenNet Initiative notes that various governments use non-filtering methods to control the publication and viewing of particular types of Internet content, or to record Internet use by ISPs' customers.