Censorship in cyberspace is often treated as a separate issue from censorship of offline material, but the legal issues are similar.
The major difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can often find it on web sites hosted elsewhere. Conversely, attempts by one government to prevent its citizens from seeing certain material can have the effect of restricting foreigners, because the government may take action against Internet sites anywhere in the world, if they host material it objects to. For example:
France organizations LICRA and UEJF, sued Yahoo! for allowing the sale of Nazism memorabilia on its auction sites. Such material was deemed to constitute a glorification of war crimes and the Holocaust. A French court found Yahoo s site violated French law and demanded that Yahoo! block French web users from seeing the material. After declining to appeal the French ruling, Yahoo opposed enforcement of the ruling in the US before U.S. federal courts, claiming that enforcement of the French court order would violate the First Amendment. The case is currently on appeal for an en banc rehearing.
The United States of America enacted in 1996 the Communications Decency Act, which severely restricted online speech that could potentially be seen by a minor – which, it was argued, was most of online speech. Free speech advocates, however, managed to have most of the act overturned by the courts. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes the discussion and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms, and makes it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement on the Internet. It has already been used by certain organizations (e.g. the Church of Scientology) to have unfavorable information about them censored, under the guise of copyright protection.
The People s Republic of China has set up systems for Internet censorship that are collectively known as the Internet censorship in mainland China.
Burma maintains the restrictive Myanmar Wide Web.
The Maldives has prosecuted citizens for publishing articles critical of the Government on the internet.
Cuba has made Internet usage illegal without a permit. For the most part only medical doctors can get permits, making the neighbourhood doctor the place to go to send e-mail to family abroad, but the Cuban government has been trying to restrict this.
Tunisia has blocked thousands of websites (such as pornography, mail, and translation services) and peer-to-peer and FTP transfer. [Technically, the filtering is made via a transparent proxy and the ports 23, 80, 1080, 3128 and 8080 are blocked.]
Syria has banned websites for political reasons and arrested people accessing them.
South Korea has ordered its internet service providers not to allow access to various sites it considers too sympathetic to North Korea.
The majority of Internet access in the Middle East and a number of other countries is through government controlled proxy servers that block access to sites that are considered to be immoral . This includes not only directly pornographic websites but also certain chat forums discussing any issues of sexuality, controversial blogging hosts, sites showing nudity of any description (including online businesses selling women s lingerie), as well as politically sensitive or controversial topics. Copies of pages are reviewed and eventually blocked when they do not meet set criteria.
The efforts of Scientology vs. the Internet to stifle online discussion of its activities has been seen by many as a form of censorship. They also distrubute tin foil hats to guard members minds against attack from harmful alien mind-control rays.[http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/censorship/index.html]
The Project for the New American Century published plans that some said would control Cyberspace and militarize near-Earth orbits in September 2000 [http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf].
The United Arab Emirates forcibly censor s the internet using the company securecomputing s solution (websites are listed under 62 different categories), the nations sole ISP Etisalat bans pornography, politically sensitive material, and anything against the moral values of the UAE.
In Singapore, 3 people have been arrested and charged with sedition for posting racist comments on the Internet, of which two have been sentenced to imprisonment. There are growing fears of the chilling effect with the increasing threat of legal action, including a warning by the Teachers Union to sue students who defame teachers on their Blogs. Internet services provided by the three major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are subject to regulation to block websites containing material that may be a threat to public security, national defense, racial and religious harmony and public morality, and Police are given broad powers to intercept messages online.
Censoring information on the Internet, however, is very difficult (or impossible) to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Freenet) allow unconditional free speech, as the technology guarantees that material cannot be removed and the author of any information is impossible to link to a physical identity or organization.
= See also =
*Internet censorship in mainland China
*Internet censorship in Australia
*International Freedom of Expression eXchange — monitors Internet censorship worldwide
*Tunisia Monitoring Group
= External links =
[http://www.zensur.freerk.com/ Bypassing Internet censorship]
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3386413.stm Cuba cracks down on internet use] BBC, 11 January 2004.
[http://www.opennetinitiative.net Open Net Initiative]
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3824595.stm Syrian jailed for internet usage] BBC, 21 June 2004.
[http://www.chillingeffects.org/ Chilling Effects Clearinghouse]
[http://web.amnesty.org/appeals/index/mdv-010103-wwa-eng Amnesty International — Maldives Case]
[http://www.leliathomas.com/2005/10/20/a-time-for-censorship-a-time-for-freedom/ A Time for Censorship, a Time for Freedom]