Internet filtering is becoming a widespread pleasure among dictatorships all over the world. Lets take a look at some of them.
First of all here is the methods governments use to restrict access to the Internet:
- High prize for internet connections or by allowing monopolies
- Monitoring of user behavior, often real time
- By law that demands operators to block a list of sites
- By filtering all traffic in and out of the country on government controlled proxy servers
Singapore Since 1996 the Singapore Broadcasting Authority have regulated the usage of the Internet by demanding that operators block sites with unwanted content.
North Korea It is not legal to connect to the Internet at all in North Korea. The country has local networks and some “net cafés”.
China - and the great firewall The most widely restricted Internet in the world. Thousands of people are employed in the internet surveillance business in China. Sites build on specific blog software are banned, search engine results are filtered and the actual individual surfing patterns are monitored real time. The filters block access to sites about Tibet, Taiwan, democratic movements and dissident groups. See how China hack Google and how Chinese users can defeat it here.
USA Overseas Internet users have been blocked from a voter registration site, www.fvap.gov, during the 2004 election. Pentagons reason for the action was fear of hackers. Read more.
Cuba “We cannot forget that the Internet can be aggressive. It can hurt you,” said Jesus Martinez, director of the Center for Interchange of Automated Information, or CENIAI, the country’s sole Internet provider. At the cyber cafe in Havana’s International Business Center, patrons must show identification and sign a contract just to open an e-mail account. There is only access to local websites and sending emails and the price for 3 hours internet usage is equal to one-third of the average Cuban workers’ monthly wage.
Saudi Arabia All Saudi Internet connections are routed through a government-controlled central farm of proxy servers, giving the government a direct filtering capability. Mainly censoring of sites critical of the royal family.
Denmark The former state owned operator now called TeleDanmark is still the sole owner of all end users cables. This situation has led to extremely high prices on internet connections compared to the rest of Europe. The competition authorities are looking at the case, but they have done that for ages. And hey, isnÂ’t the CEO of TeleDanmark a former minister from the same government that is in power now?
Burma Myanmar Post and Telecommunications, has been forced to filter sites which are detrimental to government policies.
Vietnam Same as above
Bahrain Bans electronic versions of Playboy magazine and other home pages that the government says are pornographic.
Iran Access to the Internet in Iran is presently subject to official censorship, although the precise scope and scale of the filtering is unclear. Khatami has informed the international press that only a couple of hundred sites are blocked. http://opennetinitiative.net/ has discovered that it is more than 10.000.
Thumb Iran access denied This is the message iranian internet users often see when browsing the Internet.
Syria Filter websites
South Korea Major internet service providers in South Korea are ordered by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) to block domestic access to 31 websites considered being carrying propaganda favoring the North Korean regime.
India India is blocking at least one site: HinduUnity.org. - Because of inflammatory anti-Islamic material contained on the website