Censorship and the Internet
By David Salley
Research Paper for INF631
“The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man,
and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible
and omniscient.” – George Bernard Shaw
Abstract:
This paper will explore how the Internet has been breaking down the barriers of government
censorship. Because of the vast subject area involved, this paper will concentrate on only three
governments; China, Singapore, and the United States, although other countries will be briefly
mentioned. The United States was chosen primarily because it’s my own country and has fairly
liberal censorship policies concerning the Internet. China and Singapore by contrast, are highly
restrictive countries whose governments strive to keep the Information Highway away from its
citizens.
A. Introduction
“The Internet is the largest on-line network in the world. It links a large number
of smaller networks set up by universities, industry, nonprofit organizations, and
government. While the rapid growth rate inhibits the use of exact numbers, the
Internet is believed to connect at least 59,000 computer networks, 2.2 million
computers, 159 countries, and 40 million users worldwide.” (Weaver, 1996)
“According to one study, the users of the Internet are nearly 90% male, 87%
white and with 33% having university level education. Approximately 71% of
the users are from North America, 23% European, and 5% from other continents.
Users are young with about half of the World Wide Web users being under the
age of 30.” (Flynn, 2002)
The Internet was originally created by the Advanced Research Project Administration
(ARPA) in the late 1960’s as a decentralized data communications network. The
decentralization was intentional. If one or two computers, or even an entire section of the
Internet were to be destroyed, perhaps from an attack by a foreign country, only the destroyed
portion of the Internet would actually be lost. Traffic flow would re-route itself around the
damaged portion, so the rest of the network would stay connected.
The early Internet was government funded and therefore restricted to non-commercial
research facilities. In the mid-1980’s control of the Internet was turned over to the National
Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF expanded the connections to include educational
institutions and public research corporations such as Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and
Hewlett Packard. In the early 1990’s the Internet was opened to commercial use and quickly
expanded to what we’re familiar with today. (Wikipedia)
Where you have free speech and free flow of information, you have those who want to
restrict that flow of information. At the 1998 International Federation of Library Associations
and Institutions Conference, Jana Varlejs published a table which neatly summarizes who and
why.
Who Censors?
Government
Academic
Institutions
Religious Groups
and Institutions
Corporations
Media
Libraries
What
Pornography, hate
speech; terrorist
information, e.g.
directions for how
to make bombs;
information from /
about regimes felt to
be threatening.
Hate speech;
criticism of
administration /
faculty; expression
judged to be in
conflict with
institutional policy,
good taste, etc.
Pornography, in
general, expressions
thought to deny,
contradict, or mock
the particular
religion espoused.
Information thought
to be harmful to the
company; employee
use of electronic
resources for
“unauthorized
communication”.
Information that
threatens
advertisers.
Pornography; other
information thought
to be harmful to
children.
Why
Protect children and
citizens; decrease
foreign influence;
protect political
stability; maintain
security.
How
Legislation;
licensing /
controlling
telecommunication;
labeling.
Institutional
responsibility for
setting high cultural
/ social standards;
maintaining civility
and security.
Prevent publication;
threaten suspension
/ dismissal.
Responsibility for
maintaining moral
standards and
respect for religious
teachings and
institutions.
Protect trade
secrets; preserve
image; guard
against
unproductive or
damaging employee
behavior.
Preserves
relationships with
sponsors.
Respond to
community
pressure; avoid need
to ‘police’
terminals.
Law suits; working
to eliminate
publication and use
of information they
deem objectionable.
Law suits;
counterintelligence
or disinformation;
dismissal / sanctions
against offending
employees.
Refrain from
publishing.
Filters; contracts
specifying online
conduct.
The European Union paper, “Illegal and Harmful Content on the Internet” probably best
sums up the fears of governments about the Internet:

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





National Security (instructions on bomb-making, illegal drug production, terrorist
activities);
Protection of Minors (violence, pornography);
Protection of Human Dignity (incitement to racial hatred or racial discrimination);
Economic Security (fraud, instructions on pirating credit cards);
Information Security (malicious hacking);
Protection of Privacy (unauthorized communication of personal data, electronic
harassment);
Protection of Reputation (libel, unlawful comparative advertising);
Intellectual Property (unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works, software or music);
(Hwa Ang, 1997)
“Governments seem aware that the controls on the Internet are limited. If so,
those who say censorship and other forms of content regulation of the Net are
futile miss the point: censorship was never intended to be 100 percent effective. It
was intended as a political statement.” (Hwa Ang, 1997)
“Several countries filter Internet content at their borders, fearful of alternate
political views or external influences. For example, China forbids access to many
news sites that have been critical of the country’s domestic policies. Saudi Arabia
is currently soliciting content filter vendors to help block access to sites that the
government deems inappropriate for political or religious reasons. Germany
censors all Nazi-related material. Australia’s laws ban pornography. In addition,
Internet censorship repeatedly threatens to cross political boundaries. For
example, the U.S. Supreme Court recently rejected France’s request to censor
Nazi-related material on Yahoo’s site. Censorship and surveillance also extend
into free enterprise, with several companies in the U.S. reportedly blocking access
to sites that are not related to conducting business. In addition to blocking sites,
many companies routinely monitor their employees’ Web surfing habits.”
(Feamster, Infranet)
There are two main difficulties to censoring the Internet. The first is that there is no
universal agreement as to what should be censored. In the United States, the age of consent is
18. In other countries, it’s as low as 12. So what constitutes ‘child pornography’ in a virtual
space that has no geographic location? Americans love their pornography. In a recent study at
Carnegie Mellon University (Flynn 2002), it was estimated that over 80% of the stored digitized
images on the Internet are pornographic. Yet, in some countries like Saudi Arabia, those same
images are forbidden by law as well as culture. The United States enjoys religious freedom.
Saudi Arabia forbids all but Islam. The United States permits freedom of speech, even speech
that others may find offensive. Some of it is even incorporated into our entertainment. The
movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark” uses Nazis as villains. Other countries like Germany and
France forbid any reference to Nazis.
The second difficulty to censoring the Internet, is that it was designed from the beginning
not to be censored. “The Net interprets censorship as damage and simply routes around it.” –
John Gilmore, early Internet pioneer (Ebbs, 1997). Even if a government does achieve some
success in censorship, there are those who work the Internet to get around such censorship.
Mirror sites re-post information from a site that’s been blocked off. Tunneling programming is
used to bring censored information to an uncensored URL. Telneting allows long-distance
connections to approach the censored site from a different point on the globe. The technology to
use the internet is developing far faster than technology that can be used to filter or control it.
B. United States – 1. Laws
Unlike China and Singapore, the United States relies on regulation for censorship rather
than physically blocking access. Most regulations deal with the pornography issue, in an attempt
to protect our children. The United States allows far more freedom of speech than other
countries allow their citizens. The Federal Communication Commission is in charge of
regulating the Internet.
“The Supreme Court’s decision Reno v. ACLU that the Internet, like the printing
press, is entitled to the highest level of First Amendment protection represents a
break with the Supreme Court’s tradition of underestimating the social
significance of new media.” (Flynn, 2002)
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) [1986]
The ECPA regulates interception and monitoring of your e-mail. It’s based on the
statues that govern physical postal mail in the United States. It essentially states that there are
penalties for unauthorized reading, copying or storage of your e-mail messages. It should be
noted that ‘unauthorized’ generally refers to outsiders and not your employer. By providing
employees of a company with the means to communicate via electronic means, the employer is
authorized to maintain and monitor the system. These privileges are usually spelled out in the
employment agreement.
The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) [1994]
This act required telecommunications providers to make their equipment allow the
government to intercept all wire and electronic communications carried by the provider. In
1997, the government created “Carnivore” for the purpose of filtering electronic
communications. Because the system was not compatible with Earthlink, a Internet Service
Provider, it crashed their system. Earthlink challenged the law in court and lost. The parties
arrived at a compromise, Earthlink would use its own software to gather the data for the
government. (Horn, 2002)
The Communications Decency Act (CDA) [1996]
“The CDA was enacted in February 1996. In the same month, a US Court issued a restraining
order preventing its enforcement. In June 1996, a panel of federal judges in Philadelphia ruled
the CDA unconstitutional. In June 1997, the US Supreme Court struck down the CDA on
grounds that it violated the First Amendment.” (Electronic Frontiers Australia)
“However, the Communications Decency Act will not stop or deter this unwanted
material from being posted. Internet users who reside outside the United States
boundaries are not compelled to abide by the CDA and would be free to post their
material without penalty.” (Weaver, 1996)
“The Supreme Court decision in Sable Communications v. FCC stated that
‘restrictions on speech should use the ‘least restrictive means possible’ Yet
according to the CDA something as available as Playboy magazine and as
universal as the King James version of the Bible may be banned from the
Internet.” (Weaver, 1996)
“On June 26, 1997, the United States Supreme Court struck down parts of the
Communications Decency Act, ruling that the federal law prohibiting the
transmission and display of obscene material to a minor was unconstitutionally
broad and a violation of the First Amendment. Reno v. ACLU was hailed as one
of the most significant decisions of the century, and the question of regulating
sexually-oriented expression on the Internet appeared to be answered.” (Flynn,
2002)
Child Online Protection Act (COPA) [1998]
“COPA is the sequel to the CDA and aimed to avoid the constitutional defects of the CDA.
COPA covers communications that are made for commercial purposes on the World Wide Web.
It requires commercial Web publishers to ensure that minors do not access ‘material harmful to
minors’ on their Web site.” (Electronic Frontiers Australia)
“COPA was enacted on 21 October 1998. On 20 November 1998, the US District Court for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the
law and subsequently, on 1 February 1999, issued an injunction preventing the government from
enforcing the law. On 22 June 2000, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the
lower court’s injunction. The Court stated in its conclusion that ‘Due to current technological
limitations, COPA -- Congress' laudatory attempt to achieve its compelling objective of
protecting minors from harmful material on the World Wide Web -- is more likely than not to be
found unconstitutional as overbroad on the merits.’” (Electronic Frontiers Australia)
Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) [2000]
Congress passed the CIPA on December 15, 2000. It places restrictions on library
funding for libraries that do not install filters to prevent ‘adult’ sites from being accessed via
library terminals to protect children. The Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2003.
“Since 1996, four U.S. states, New York, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia
have passed Internet censorship legislation restricting/banning online distribution
of material deemed ‘harmful to minors’. These laws have been struck down on
Constitutional grounds.” (Electronic Frontiers Australia)
Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA-PATRIOT) [2001]
On September 11th, 2001, terrorists struck at the Pentagon and twice at the World Trade
Center. A fourth plane, presumed to be heading for the White House was forced down in a field
near Pittsburgh. Forty-five days later, on October 26th, the 342 page Patriot Act was passed by
Congress. The act ushered in sweeping changes, expanding law enforcement powers,
weakening previous legal protections and drastically changing intelligence gathering and
electronic surveillance of the Internet.
The Patriot Act amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.
Previously, only records could be subpoenaed. Now ‘all tangible things’ can be seized including
books, computer servers, and all forms of information storage systems, (e.g. tape drives, floppies,
CDs, cassettes, etc.)
The Patriot Act expands the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986.
Previously, ISPs were only required to release a subscriber’s name, mailing address, phone
number and billing records, including type of service used and time in use. Now, federal agents
can demand all web-pages visited and means of payment, (e.g. credit card numbers or bank
account numbers)
The Cable Communications Policy Act has been altered. ISPs are no longer permitted to
inform subscribers that they are under surveillance. The Patriot Act contains a ‘sunset’
provision and most, but not all, of the expanded powers will expire December 31st, 2005.
B. United States – 2. Policies
“Yes, pedophiles and pornographers use computer networks. They also use
telephones and the mail, but nobody would argue that we need to censor or shut
down these forms of communication.” (Ebbs, 1997)
“While it is commendable of the men and women in congress to seek the
protection of minors, we must remember that the responsibility of children lie
with their parents and not with the government.” (Weaver, 1996)
As part of my research, I surfed the Internet to discover just how much objectionable
material I could find. I did not go looking for child pornography out of personal distaste and a
desire to not break the law. I had no trouble finding racist material, the Ku Klux Klan website is
at (www.kkk.com). Instructions on computer hacking, how to get high, making a pipe bomb,
and instructions for assorted misdemeanors were at The Temple of the Screaming Electron
(www.totse.com). E-bay publishes a long list of prohibited materials, much of it due to differing
regulations between potential buyer and seller locations, such as credit cards, gift coupons,
licenses, legal drugs, weapons, alcohol, etc. They also prohibit illegal and offensive items. A
quick search on ‘Nazi’ turned up over 2200 items.
B. United States – 3. Search Engines and Filters
a. Search Engines
“One may often glimpse at how a search engine might censor or redistribute
information about its competition by looking at how it displays or deletes
information about its competition and the competitions corporate affiliations”
(Brody, 2000)
While search engines are not censored in the strictest sense of the word, it’s important to
realize that due to the design of the search engine, the user may not be getting the results they
expected. A few salient points: (Brody, 2000)
1.) Web crawlers – There are three major components of a search engine. The user
interface, which is the webpage that the user can see; the database index which has web-pages
sorted by keyword for quick retrieval and the web-crawlers, multiple small programs which
explore the web and bring back content to be added to the index. Each search engine has their
own parameters for what the web-crawlers bring back which vary by keyword searched for,
number and type of pages brought back, directions for following links. Because of the vastly
different designs, it’s possible for a small search engine to bring up results more useful to the
user, than a much larger search engine with many more web-crawlers in place.
2.) Departure points – Web-crawlers can bring back different pages, or the same pages
with different rankings merely from having started from different departure points. Some robots
start from pre-programmed lists of links. Others start from lists of popular sites. Still more will
follow links from page to page to page. It’s entirely possible for a web-crawler to miss the exact
content the user is looking for if it’s not closely linked to a starting index, or distantly connected
to the search path the web-crawlers follow
3.) Web-page Updates – Some search engines rank their pages by ‘freshness’, the most
recent renewal date for that particular webpage. While this is an excellent technique if one is
trying to follow current events or a news story, it is less well suited for academic papers. Such
search techniques tend to disregard unpopular, unusual or historical sites as stale and obsolete
information.
4.) Paid Placements – Search engine websites make their profits by accepting
sponsorships. A manufacturer of blankets can pay a fee for the keyword ‘blanket’ so that his
webpage always appears at the top when a search on ‘blanket’ is done. It should be noted that
this technique is simply a variant on buying ad space in a printed magazine.
5.) Popularity Searches – Google, among others, uses a popularity ranking for its
searches. The list of websites returned is ranked by the number of other sites linked to them. It
assumes that frequently visited sites are more relevant than less popular sites. This may not
necessarily be correct. Feedback may result in closed systems of highly inter-related sites that do
not contain the information the searcher is looking for. It should be also noted that the system
can be manipulated. Thousands of democrats have added links to their personal webpage so that
a Google search on ‘miserable failure’ will take the reader to George W. Bush’s official
biography on the White House’s website. For a while the phrase ‘weapons of mass destruction’
took the reader to a bogus site (http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk) however, legitimate
news articles have since pushed it out of the number one position.
b. Filters
"Library use of blocking/filtering software creates an implied contract with
parents that their children will not be able to access material on the Internet that
they do not wish their children to read or view. Libraries will be unable to fulfill
this implied contract, due to the technological limitations of the software, thus
exposing themselves to possible legal liability and litigation." (American Library
Association, 1997)” (Blalock, 2001)
Laura Blalock covered the problems with Internet Filters so well in her article Internet
Filters in Public Libraries, that rather than paraphrase her, I’m simply going to cite her list in its
entirety. (http://web.utk.edu/~lblalock/567/filtering/filtering.html)
“First, none can block graphics-only Web sites, only text-based.
Second, none voluntarily tells site owners that a site has been blocked or rated. It
is only by accident that an owner--or searcher--would discover that a given site
had been targeted. Moreover, there appears to be little recourse legally, and even
less in persuading product owners to change their minds.
Third, the majority of products refuse to permit their customers to view their preprogrammed stop-lists of words, phrases, sites, and topics deemed objectionable.
Indeed, product owners regard their stop-lists as highly valuable commercial trade
secrets, and very few products permit customers to disable the stop-list.
Fourth, all of them cost money--forever! All are commercial products, and pricing
policies vary widely, with United States prices in 1998 starting at $25 for one
workstation and $10 per LAN workstation for initial installation, and annual
update fees from $30 for one workstation up to $1,500 for 100 workstations and
$4,000 for 250.
Fifth, none of the products is created through the expertise of credentialed
librarians and indexers. Instead, a few products employ a small number of
‘Internet and computer-savvy’ young people for minimum wage, to locate
questionable sites.
Finally, product owners and their supporters exaggerate the effectiveness of the
products, and underestimate the enormous complexity of the task they claim to
perform. I charge exaggeration because of 1) the dynamics of the Internet, and 2)
the dynamics of human language in indexing itself.
Indeed, the magnitude of the task that the producers of filtering and rating
software have undertaken is formidable. One estimate of the number of new sites
in 1998 in the United States alone was 3,000 per day! And those are Englishlanguage sites only. The Internet is a dynamic phenomenon that leaves product
owners shooting at moving targets--speeding targets, actually. A 1998 estimate of
the size of the Web was 320 million Web pages currently accessible to casual
browsers, a number expected to grow by 1,000% in the next few years.
Thousands if not millions of inappropriately blocked sites have been documented
in product evaluations by filtering critics. Perhaps the most frequently blocked are
any that remotely concern sex. The most well known example was the blocking
three or four years ago of just the one word ‘breast’ that resulted in the blocking
of all breast cancer sites. One product blocking on ‘sex’ is also reported to have
blocked the news group dedicated to Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard,
(alt.sexy.bald.captain). And the NASA Mars exploration site (marSEXplorer).
And some two years ago, in its relentless search for dirty words, one product
added the word ‘couple’ to its stop-list, with the result that the White House site
was blocked because ‘couple’ appeared in a reference to the Clintons and the
Gores. This product also blocked the site for Super Bowl XXXI, and a hockey site
because of news that a player had been sidelined due to a groin injury.
Many products also block any reference to homosexuality, lesbianism, or
bisexuality. As a spokesperson stated, ‘We filter anything that has to do with sex.
Sexual orientation is about sex by virtue of the fact that it has sex in the name.’
Using this approach, one product prevented access to the entire library Web site
of the Archie R. Dykes Medical Library! Why? Because of the term ‘dyke’, a
North American slang term for lesbian.
But most products do not focus exclusively on sex and violence, however. Many
have strong political and ideological motivations. Some block all feminist sites,
such as NOW, the National Organization for Women, feminist newsgroups, and
sites such as alt.feminism. Also blocked was the Planned Parenthood site.
In retaliation for criticism on the Internet, CyberSitter's ‘bad words list’ was
revised last year to block access to sites containing the phrase ‘Don't Buy
CyberSitter!’ The same product has also blocked the site for Peacefire, a student
organization opposing Internet censorship, and the site for The Ethical Spectacle,
a Webzine that has criticized the company that owns the product.
CyberPatrol has similarly gone to extreme lengths to suppress criticism, blocking
any site that opposes it. An example two years ago was the blocking of Web
pages pertaining to the 1996 monograph entitled Sex, Laws, and Cyberspace by
Jonathan Wallace and Mark Mangan. It has also blocked the Electronic Frontier
Foundation archive.” (Blalock, 2001)
c. Censorship Avoidance Software
Wherever censorship exists, you will find those working to circumvent that same
censorship. Techniques for avoiding censorship include, but are not limited to: mirror sites that
re-post information from a site that’s been blocked off, tunneling programming that is used to
bring censored information to an uncensored URL and telneting that allows long-distance
connections to approach the censored site from a different point on the globe. A group of MIT
students designed “Infranet” to combat censorship in foreign countries.
“We designed Infranet to meet a number of goals. Ordered by priority, the goals
are:
o Deniability of any Infranet requestor. – It should be computationally
intractable to confirm that any individual is intentionally downloading
information via Infranet, or to determine what that information might be.
o Statistical deniability for the requester – Ideally, an Infranet user’s
browsing patterns should be statistically indistinguishable from those of
normal Web users.
o Responder covertness – Since an adversary will likely block all known
Infranet responders, it must be difficult to detect that a Web server is
running Infranet simply by watching its behavior.
o Communications Robustness – The Infranet channel should be robust in
the presence of censorship activities designed to interfere with Infranet
communication.
o Performance – We seek to maximize the performance of Infranet
communication, subject to our other objectives.” (Feamster, Infranet)
C. Other Countries
While the main focus of this paper examines how the United States, China and Singapore deal
with Internet Censorship, this section briefly touches on other countries and the methods that
they use for dealing with the Internet that I found interesting. The majority of this material was
taken from How Countries are Regulating Internet Content by Peng Hwa Ang (Hwa Ang, 1997)
and Internet Censorship: Law and Policy Around the World published by Electronic Frontiers
Australia (http://www.efa.org.au)
Australia
“In April 1999, the Commonwealth Government introduced an Internet
censorship bill into Parliament. This bill, if it had been passed without
amendments, would have required Internet Service Providers to, among other
things, block adults’ access to content on sites outside Australia on threat of fines
for non-compliance. Following widespread criticism, the proposed law was
amended to include provision for an additional access prevention method other
than ISP blocking of overseas hosted material at the server level. The amended
law, Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999, commenced
operation on 1 January 2000.” (EFA)
Canada
“The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
announced on 17 May 1999 that it will not regulate new media services on the
Internet. After conducting an in-depth review under the Broadcasting Act and
Telecommunications Act beginning the previous July, the CRTC has concluded
that the new media on the Internet are achieving the goals of the Broadcasting Act
and are vibrant, highly competitive and successful without regulation. The CRTC
is concerned that any attempt to regulate Canadian new media might put the
industry at a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace.” (EFA)
Denmark
“As of March 2002, Denmark had no law making it a criminal offence to make
material that is unsuitable for minors available on the Internet, nor were there any
proposals to create such a law. Discussion related to protection of minors was
primarily unfolding around the issue of filtering at public libraries.” (EFA)
European Union
“It is very unlikely the United States would co-operate in the way the Council of
Europe would want it to by removing Web content classified as racist by another
country’s courts. The Justice Department fought hard to have the racist bits
pulled from the cyber-crime convention itself. I can’t imagine they will let
freedom of speech be curtailed via the backdoor in this way.” – Angus
MacDonald, spokesman for the Council of Europe.” (Meller, 2001)
France
“Ivar Tallo, an Estonian member of the council, gave the example of a French
racist organization establishing a Web site aimed at influencing a French
audience, and situating it in the United States solely to take refuge behind the
First Amendment.” (Meller, 2001)
“In May 2000, a French judge ruled that USA Yahoo! Inc must make it
impossible for French users to access sites auctioning race hatred memorabilia.
Yahoo said it was technically impossible for it to block Internet users in France
from seeing Nazi-related content on its USA Web site and that its French site
complied with France’s laws prohibiting advertising Nazi memorabilia. In
November 2001, a US District Court ruled that Yahoo does not have to comply
with the French court’s order concerning access to its USA site. The Court ruled
that the USA First Amendment protects content generated in the US by American
companies from being regulated by authorities in countries that have more
restrictive laws on freedom of expression.” (EFA)
Germany
“Germany, which has some of the world’s toughest laws banning race hate
propaganda, has conceded defeat to the cross-border reach of the Internet and
given up trying to bar access to foreign-based neo-Nazi sites.” (EFA)
“Germany recently drafted a ‘multimedia’ law that, among other things, censors
pornography and anti-Semitic propaganda. Acts already prohibited in Germany –
such as denying the Holocaust, distributing hard-core pornography to minors and
conducting fraudulent business – will also be illegal in electronic form” (Hwa
Ang, 1997)
Malaysia
“On 14 February 2002, an article in The Australian reported that the Malaysian
government had signaled an intent to require website operators to obtain licenses.
According to the article, ‘Steven Gan, editor-in-chief of Malysiakini.com says
that the Mahathir government’s plan to require licenses for website operators
would effectively silence the only dissenting media voices in a nation with rigid
controls over traditional news outlets, especially newspapers.”
New Zealand
“In 1993, the NZ Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act (FVPCA) was
enacted. The definitions in this act are said by regulatory authorities to cover
Internet content; ‘publication’ covering text and static images, and ‘film’ covering
moving images. However, apparently offence provisions of the act have very
rarely, if ever, been enforced to date in relation to online content other than child
pornography.” (EFA)
Saudi Arabia
“Saudi Arabia has a national ban on satellite dishes and has purposely restricted
the installation of Internet equipment and sites for fear of losing control of the
images and material that Saudi citizens can gain access to” (Flynn, 2002)
South Korea
“In July 2001, the Internet Content Filtering Ordinance became effective in South
Korea. According to media and other reports, the provisions of the ordinance are
controversial within South Korea. Previous content filtering provisions that were
included in a 2000 bill were not passed by the National Assembly due apparently
to the harsh criticism it provoked from civic groups. Recent information on
English language web sites regarding the extent and manner of enforcement of the
2001 ordinance is scarce.” (EFA)
Sweden
“In May 1998, the Swedish Parliament enacted the “Act (1998:112) on
Responsibility for Electronic Bulletin Boards”. Electronic bulletin board is
defined so as to include storage of data on the Internet, such as web pages, etc.
(thereby excluding personal e-mail that is only stored in individuals’ mailboxes).
The law places an obligation on service providers who store information (not
those who only provide connections to the Internet) to remove or make
inaccessible content that is obviously illegal.” (EFA)
D. China
“China’s data communications network consists of a range of mostly public and some
private datacom services. Specifically, China Telecom, Jitong Communications Company
(private), China Unicom, China Netcom, and the State Power Corporation are amoung the five
largest providers of Internet communications service s in the country.” (LaCharite, 2002)
“Licensed ISPs, local police forces, the MII’s Data Communications Bureau (DCB) and
ultimately the Ministry of State Security (MSS) computer surveillance teams enforce the national
government’s censorship laws.” (LaCharite, 2002)
China imposed a new law on cryptography on 31 January 2000. The government
expected every company that uses encryption technology to register their technology. (Recio,
Firewall)
“To finish it all off, the registration for all nine million Internet users in China was to be
hand delivered to a small office in an alley in Beijing, to the newly created administration: State
Encryption Management Commission.” (Recio, Firewall)
“The law is clearly unworkable; there aren’t enough people and the commission just isn’t
large enough to handle the paperwork necessary for filing all of the registrations. The
government isn’t doing much to enforce these new laws either. So why then would such a law be
passed? Selective enforcement that may be used by the government as needed later.” (Recio,
Firewall)
“While the government connected Internet Society of China (not a chapter of the
international Internet Society) has asked ISPs and content creators to sign a pledge that includes
self-filtering, few official statements document that government-maintained web filtering exists,
much less the criteria employed and thresholds necessary to elicit a block.” (Zittrain, 2003)
In their report Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China, Jonathan Zittrain and
Benjamin Edelman provide a full listing of some 19,000+ specific Web sites found to be
inaccessible from China.
“Dissident/Democracy Sites – Of the top 100 sites Google returned, 40 were blocked for
a ‘democracy china’ search while 37 ‘dissident china’ sites were blocked, 32 were blocked for
‘freedom china’ and 30 for ‘justice china’. Specific blocked sites included Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, Hong Kong Voice of Democracy, Direct Democracy Center
and dozens of Falun Gong and Falun Dafa sites.” (Zittrain, 2003)
“Health – Of the top 100 Google results, 24 were blocked for ‘hunger china’, 23 for
‘famine china’, 21 for ‘aids china’, 19 for ‘sex china’, and 14 for ‘disease china’. Specific
blocked sites included AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the Internet Metal Health reference, and the
Health in China research project. We also found 139 sites in Yahoo’s health directory categories
and subcategories blocked.” (Zittrain, 2003)
“Education – Several well known institutions of higher education, including the primary
Web servers operated by Caltech, Columbia, MIT, and the University of Virginia were blocked.
Non-university sites including the Learning Channel, the Islamic Virtual School, the Music
Academy of Zheng, and the Web sites of dozens of public and private primary and secondary
schools were also blocked.” (Zittrain, 2003)
“News – The BBC News was consistently unreachable. CNN, Time Magazine, PBS, the
Miami Herald, and the Philadelphia Inquirer Web sites were unavailable as well. Of Google’s
top 100 results for news, 42 were blocked.” (Zittrain, 2003)
“Government Sites – Blocked sites included a variety of those operated by governments
in Asia and beyond. The entire site of uscourts.gov, including the many federal district and
appellate courts in the United States, as well as the United Kingdom’s Court Service and Israel’s
Judicial Authority were blocked. The communications sites of various governments were
blocked, including the US government’s Voice of America, as well as travel sites for Australia,
Israel, Korea, Switzerland, and Wales. Government military department sites were also
blocked, including the US Department of Defense, though others remained reachable, such as the
CIA.” (Zittrain, 2003)
“Religion – Blocked sites included the Asian-American Baptist Church, the Atheist
Network, the Catholic Civil Rights League, Feng Shui at Geomancy.net, the Canberra Islamic
Centre, the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, and the Denver Zen Center. We found 1,763 sites in
Yahoo’s categories and subcategories pertaining to religion blocked.” (Zittrain, 2003)
“The Chinese government and associated network authorities are clearly continuing to
experiment with different forms of blocking, indicating that Chinese network filtering is an
important instrument of state Internet policy, and one to which significant technical and human
resources continue to be devoted.” (Zittrain, 2003)
“There does not appear to be any consistency to Beijing’s policies. One of the more
recent examples of this is the Chinese government’s willingness to de-list Melbourne’s Age
Website and Sydney’s Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) site. The Age’s website had been
unavailable via Chinese ISPs for more than a year, while the SMH page was blocked shortly
after the Sydney Olympics had come to an end – they are both now considered non-offensive
Websites.” (LaCharite, 2002)
“China’s Internet population has quadrupled in a span of only a year, totaling 8.1 million
as of December 1999, and an estimated 20 million by the end of 2000. With an increase of 1,500
to 15,000 web-sites and 35 million e-mail addresses Beijing will have to struggle to maintain
control of the Internet” (Recio, Firewall)
“The unstoppable nature of the net and the challenges that it poses for domestic security
officials can be evidenced by the fact that over the last eight years China has seen its share of
online subscribers increase from three thousand to over twenty-two million.” (LaCharite, 2002)
“In June of 1997, Chinese dissidents founded Tunnel, a Chinese language journal of
dissent. Tunnel is managed and edited in China. Once an issue is ready to be published, it is
secretly delivered to the United States and then emailed to China from an anonymous address.
Thus its staff remains safely hidden in cyberspace, and all of its contributors, both in China and
abroad, write under pseudonyms.” (LaCharite, 2002)
“In China, there are central servers (Internet Service Providers) that through which all of
the Internet access for the country flows. These specialized servers are called firewalls. This is
the simplest way to block access to websites that Beijing feels are subversive; however, users are
still able to access the Internet by making long distance calls to Internet service providers in
neighboring countries.” (Recio, Firewall)
“However, a Chinese law promulgated in February 1996 bars such international calls.
Violators face first a warning, then a fine of up to 15,000 yuan or about US$2,000, equivalent to
a year's salary of an average worker in China.” (Recio, Firewall)
“A Chinese financial information website called China Finance Information Network
(http://www.c.net.cn) suffered a government imposed suspension for 15 days and a fine of $1800
USD. The crime is rumor mongering; the website published an article which accused some local
official of corruption.” (Recio, Firewall)
“For two weeks CFI Net could not post anything on their website. They could post
financial related materials, or any other articles. Most importantly, they could not post any
advertisements, which CFI desperately relied on for their revenue.” (Recio, Firewall)
“The obvious impact that this suspension had on CFI is immediately apparent: pecuniary.
CFI, each day, had about a million page views, from 100,000 daily users. As a result of the
suspension, an estimated $120,000 in advertiser spending had been lost in just the first 4 days.”
(Recio, Firewall)
“It appears that the laws that apply to the Internet are a subset of laws that apply to
electronic media. Recently, China passed a law that compelled all economic news services
provided by foreign companies, such as Reuters and Knight-Ridder, to be distributed only
through the official Xinhua news agency.” (Hwa Ang, 1997)
“China has publicly declared that it is looking at Singapore's attempts at media
regulation. China's regulations, however, go much further than Singapore's: only the comp and
sci newsgroups are allowed; access is through filters and even then using a handful of
government-controlled access providers; besides pornography, political and linguistic matters are
also censored.” (Recio, Firewall)
“There are really only two routes that the Chinese government can take towards the
detection of outside propaganda, and exposition of state secrets. They can either, ban the
Internet entirely from the country’s computer networks, or become selective gatekeepers for the
traffic owing into and out of the Chinese network. The simple solution of isolating the Chinese
cyber-space from the rest of the Internet may seem rather simple enough.” (Recio, Firewall)
“However, what complicates the isolation scenario is the fact that in order for China to
remain aloft in the technological scene, it must keep its cyber-doors open to innovation and the
world technological advances. By China isolating itself from the rest of the Internet, it limits
innovation and fosters technological stagnation. This, in the end, exacerbates the difficulty of the
cyber-border patrol maintenance.” (Recio, Firewall)
“The Internet is by far the most effective irritant ever to the differences in countries’
laws; in this case, it’s China’s over-reaction to information physically located within its bounds,
but visible to and destined for the entire world.” (Recio, Firewall)
“China has the potential to become one of the world’s cyberspace superpowers.
However, to fully benefit from the Internet, Beijing will have to seriously consider dismantling
many of its restrictive regulations. In many ways the government has already let the information
genie out of its bottle. Domestic ISPs are on the increase, many foreign companies are starting
to make inroads into China’s lucrative IT&T market, and average monthly income is no longer a
determinant to Internet access.” (LaCharite, 2002)
E. Singapore
“Censorship in Singapore is justified on historical and socio-political grounds. Both the
government and the people want it, favoring caution and prevention over liberalism. In line with
these desires, the Singapore government has drawn up guidelines for censorship. In practice,
however, some of these principles conflict, especially when censorship of the Internet is
attempted.” (Hwa Ang, 1996)
“From a Western, especially American perspective, censorship is difficult if not
impossible to defend. But the position of the Singapore government and indeed even the
citizenry is that there are good enough reasons for censorship. First, as there is anecdotal
evidence to suggest that media can have negative effects on their consumers, it is therefore wiser
to err on the side of caution through censorship. Second, there have been incidents in the past
where media reports have caused racial riots and the shedding of blood.” (Hwa Ang, 1996)
“Censorship also survives because of the widespread support of Singaporeans, as a recent
survey by [Dr. Peng Hwa Ang] found. On a censorship scale of 1 to 7, the three areas where
Singaporeans wanted most censorship were materials for the young, news leading to race conflict
and racially offensive public expression in that order. Thus, censorship in Singapore is justified
on historical as well as socio-political grounds, favoring caution and prevention over liberalism.
This position has been systematically articulated by the government and accepted by the people
as one of the boundaries within which Singapore society must function.” (Hwa Ang, 1996)
“Singapore has adopted a multi-pronged approach to Internet censorship. First the
Singapore Broadcasting Authority, which regulates Internet content, has said that the regulations
are targeted only at the function of the Internet that is of a broadcast nature. Second, it has
adopted the peculiar, perhaps even unique, idea of the class license: certain classes of content are
deemed to be automatically licensed provided a code of practice is abided by. In effect,
censorship is after, not before, publication. Matters of race, religion and politics are given
special attention on the Internet. When the code is breached, the license is revoked.” (Hwa Ang,
1997)
“The SBA has the power to impose sanctions, including fines, on licensees who
contravene the Code of Practice. The SBA takes a light-touch approach in regulating services on
the Internet. For example, licensees [Internet Content Providers and Internet Service Providers]
found to be in breach of regulations will be given a chance to rectify the breach before the
Authority takes action.” (EFA)
“To date, the self-censorship among international companies eager to secure a position in
the Singapore market has obviated the need of authorities to exercise much direct control over
content. CNN has even gone so far as to alert Singapore Cable Vision (SCV) to potentially
sensitive material, as it did before screening coverage of the case involving U.S. teenager
Michael Fay, who was found guilty of vandalizing cars in Singapore.” (Rodan, 1998)
“The Internet has the ability to explode information onto every user. More information
can be gathered and distributed at a faster pace, meaning that the flow of information in
circulation increases at an exponential rate. In Singapore, however, the number of censors at
work has not kept pace with the explosive growth in the amount of censorable materials.” (Hwa
Ang, 1996)
“Censorship in Singapore is undertaken by the Censorship Section of the Ministry of
Information and the Arts. Figures from the Censorship Section show that the number of censors
has increased by 80 percent in the 10 years from 9 in 1983 to 16 in 1993. The amount of
materials that the Censorship Section has to vet, however, has increased 400 percent over the
same period--from 102,352 in 1983 to 408,863 in 1993. On a per-person basis, the workload has
increased five-fold from about 5,500 in 1978 to more than 25,000 in 1993.” (Hwa Ang, 1996)
“There are three regulatory regimes for the Internet. First, it could be classified as a
telecommunications service because one major use is electronic mail. Second, it could be
considered a computer service because one needs a computer to access the Internet. Third, the
availability of information through Usenet group and web-sites, where they can reach a wide
audience electronically, could qualify the Internet as a broadcasting service. Singapore has
chosen the third option: to treat the Internet as a broadcast service. It is to be regulated under the
recently-passed Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA) Act, which defines broadcasting
broadly--in terms of programme transmission to all or part of the public, regardless of the means
used.” (Hwa Ang, 1996)
“In 1992, the National Computer Board detailed a new strategic statement, IT2000 – A
Vision of an Intelligent Island. Under IT2000, it is now planned that all 750,000 households on
the island will be connected to a comprehensive computer network by the year 2000 with the
compulsory installment of broadband coaxial and optical fiber networks. Households,
businesses, schools, libraries, government departments, and statutory authorities will be
electronically inter-linked to facilitate shopping and other commercial and official transactions,
as well as provide cable and interactive television services and the Internet. A wireless
communications network will also afford mobile computer access to information services
throughout Singapore. So extensive is the plan that even public space is likely to be wired. It is
proposed that television cameras be fitted at corridors, lifts, public parks, car parks, and
neighborhood centers for monitoring purposes. The plan was quickly acted on, with more than
100,000 households connected with wiring to support broadband applications before mid 1996.”
(Rodan, 1998)
“By mid-1996, there were around 200,000 users of the Internet in Singapore. In addition
to the 100,000 subscribers, this includes access from the various cyber cafes that have recently
sprung up. The government had also set up ten Internet clubs at state-run community centers.
With regular use of the Internet involving 5-10 percent, Singapore has a participation rate
rivaling the United States and ahead of Australia. But while this is in line with the IT2000
strategy, it nevertheless causes the government some anxiety. The Internet is a web comprising
more than 70,000 computer networks connecting an estimated 50 million users in around 130
countries. More than 9,000 newsgroups containing discussions or picture data bases are
accessible through the Internet, including sexually and politically explicit material. Yet, in a
reference to the flow of ideas, images, and information on the Internet, Senior Minister Lee Kuan
Yew contends, ‘The top 3 to 5 percent of a society can handle this free-for-all, this clash of
ideas’ For the bulk of the population, however, exposure to this is likely to have destabilizing
social and political effects, according to the senior minister.” (Rodan, 1998)
“The Singapore government is well aware that it cannot do much to censor the Internet.
In fact, as the discussion above as shown, censorship can impact the workings of the Internet and
faith of users in the system. But, as the Minister for Information and the Arts has said, the
Singapore government will not give up without a fight.” (Hwa Ang, 1996)
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