Wednesday, May 20, 2009

China IGIF 2009


Freedom House Freedom on the Net




China


Population: 1.3 billion

Internet Users/Penetration 2006: 137 million / 10 percent

Internet Users/Penetration 2008: 298 million / 22 percent

Mobile Phone Users/Penetration 2006: 461 Million

Mobile Phone Users/Penetration 2008: 633 Million

Freedom of the Press (2008) Score/Status: 84 / Not Free

Digital Opportunity Index (2006) Ranking: 77 out of 181

GNI Per Capita (PPP): $5,400

Web 2.0 Applications Blocked: Yes

Political Content Systematically Filtered: Yes

Bloggers/Online Journalists Arrested: Yes













Status: Not Free


Obstacles to Access: 18 (0–25)

Limits on Content: 27 (0–35)

Violations of User Rights: 33 (0–40)

Total Score: 78 (0–100)





Introduction


Although China is home to the largest population of internet users in the world and has witnessed increasing creativity and “pushback” from its netizens, the country’s internet environment remains one of the most controlled in the world. China’s 1.3 billion citizens have only a limited ability to access and circulate information that is vital to their well-being and the country’s future direction. The Chinese authorities maintain a sophisticated and multilayered system of mechanisms for censoring, monitoring, and controlling activities on the internet and mobile telephones. This system has been enhanced in recent years with new attempts to manipulate online discussion, including the recruitment of commentators to guide opinions and more forceful encouragement of self-discipline among private internet companies and web-hosting services. The country also boasts the world’s largest number of individuals imprisoned for their online activities, with at least 49 cyberdissidents behind bars as of mid-2008.1

The internet was first opened for public access in China in 1996, and the number of users has since grown exponentially, from 20 million in 2001 to over 200 million in 2008.2 From the beginning, however, the Chinese government has sought to assert its authority over the new medium. The underlying system of infrastructural control and filtering technology has been more or less complete since 2003,3 while more sophisticated forms of content manipulation have gained prominence only recently. Nevertheless, due to the egalitarian nature and technical flexibility of the internet, the online environment remains more free than traditional media. In recent years, the country’s growing community of bloggers, online commentators, and human rights defenders has played a role in uncovering official corruption, mobilizing citizens for humanitarian efforts, and exposing rights abuses. Some groups have used information and communication technologies (ICTs) to launch more direct critiques of the regime, though the authorities have thus far managed to prevent a viable alternative to the current political system from gaining momentum in cyberspace.



Obstacles to Access


Realizing the potential contributions of the internet and other ICTs to economic modernization and growth, the Chinese leadership has encouraged the expansion of the necessary infrastructure. Obstacles to access remain, however, including an urban-rural divide, restricted access to advanced applications, government control over the backbone of the network, and a freeze on the opening of new cybercafes.

In 2008, China surpassed the United States as home to the largest number of internet users in the world, with the government-linked China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) announcing a total of 298 million users.4 Given the total size of the country’s population, however, the overall penetration rate is just 22.6 percent, a low figure by global standards. Moreover, rural users account for only 28 percent of the total, according to CNNIC.5 While most users access the internet from home or work, an estimated 40 percent use cybercafes, particularly those with lower incomes.6 Broadband access is widespread. Use of mobile telephones has also spread quickly. According to the ITU there were 633 million mobile-phone users in China by the end of 2008,7 giving the country a penetration rate of nearly 50 percent and the world’s largest population of mobile users.8 Access to the internet via mobile phones has increased in recent years; state-run media reported that 117 million people used this service in 2008, more than double the total from the previous year.9 The increase in both the overall internet population and the number of mobile internet users may be attributed in part to a gradual decrease in the cost of broadband and mobile-phone access.

There is widespread access to internet technology and applications, such as video-sharing websites, social-networking tools, and e-mail services, but extensive restrictions remain, particularly on advanced applications whose providers are based outside the country. The YouTube video-sharing site and overseas blogging platforms like Wordpress and Blogspot cannot be accessed reliably in China; the e-mail services Gmail and Hotmail are frequently jammed. The social-networking site Facebook, which is popular among Chinese college students, was periodically blocked during 2008, especially during the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.10 In cases where international applications are available, as with Google search engines and Skype Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the foreign corporations in question have agreed to alter their services and implement monitoring and censorship of political content in order to gain access to the market.11 For international applications that remain blocked, Chinese equivalents have emerged and gained immense popularity, though they are more susceptible to government control. In 2007, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), which oversees audiovisual content on the internet, ordered that all video-sharing websites must be state owned, except for several large examples that had already become influential.12 SARFT subsequently shut down many video-sharing sites and demanded that the three major ones—Tudou.com, 56.com, and Youku.com—be closed for several days in 2008 to conduct a “self-inspection” and ensure that adequate content controls were in place.13 In some instances, the government has shut down access to ICTs or applications surrounding specific events. During the summer and fall of 2007, prior to the 17th Party Congress, the authorities carried out a widespread shutdown of data centers housing servers for websites, online bulletin boards, and comment forums, affecting millions of users.14 Similarly, following unrest in Tibet in March 2008, the government attempted to control the flow of information to and from the region, disrupting mobile-phone service there and blocking YouTube across China.15 Major circumvention websites like anonymizer.com and proxify.com have also been blocked, while more sophisticated tools like Freegate and TOR are closely monitored and frequently attacked by the authorities.

Internet access was once monopolized by China Telecom, but recent waves of reform have liberalized and decentralized ownership of internet-service providers (ISPs) in the country, making the system less strict than that of traditional media. Users can now opt to access the internet through private ISPs, among which the Great Wall Broadband Network is the most popular broadband provider in major cities. A license from the MIIT is required to establish an ISP or host a website within China, though approval has recently become easier to obtain than in the past.

The government has been willing to liberalize the ISP market in part because of the centralization of the country’s connection to the international internet, which is controlled by six to eight state-run operators that maintain advanced international gateways in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.16 This arrangement remains the primary infrastructural limitation on open internet access in the country. According to regulations issued by the MIIT, a commercial ISP can function only when it subscribes to the gateway operators. Moreover, the MIIT can revoke the license of any ISP that fails to comply with its regulations and orders. This network design essentially creates a national intranet and gives the authorities the ability to cut off any cross-border information requests that are deemed undesirable.

The authorities have also sought to exercise fairly tight control over cybercafes, which would otherwise enable anonymous communication and networking among citizens. The issuance of licenses for the establishment of cybercafes is managed by the Ministry of Culture (MC) and its local departments. The ministry has stepped up its regulation of cybercafes in recent years. In 2003, it ordered that the facilities must be operated as chain stores,17 and since March 2007 it has indefinitely suspended the issuance of new licenses (there were 113,000 cybercafes in existence at the time).18 Mobile-telephone communication is dominated by three state-owned operators: China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom.19 Under the oversight of the MIIT, connection to the internet via mobile phones is also monitored by the international gateway operators.


Limits on Content


The Chinese authorities employ a wide range of mechanisms at every layer of communication to limit free expression online and control the flow of information via ICTs. At the same time, the Chinese blogosphere is active and creative, and a growing number of netizens use ICTs to spread information and opinions. Thus far, the authorities have managed to prevent this from translating into open political opposition to Communist Party rule or a groundswell of public criticism of the government’s key policies.

The Communist Party’s internet control strategy consists of four different techniques: technical filtering, prepublication censorship, postpublication censorship, and proactive manipulation. While the first is primarily aimed at content based outside of China, the latter three apply to content produced and posted within China as well. The purported goal is to limit the spread of pornography, gambling, and other harmful practices, but such content is generally easier to access than information related to political and religious groups, human rights violations, and alternative news sources.20 The most systematically censored topics are those deemed by the Communist Party to be the most threatening to its domestic legitimacy. These include criticism of top leaders, independent evaluations of China’s rights record, violations of minority rights in Tibet and Xinjiang, the Falun Gong spiritual group, the 1989 Beijing massacre, and various dissident initiatives that challenge the regime on a systemic level, such as the Nine Commentaries (a series of editorials analyzing the history of the party and encouraging an end to its rule) and more recently Charter 08 (a prodemocracy manifesto calling for a multiparty system).21 These standing taboos are supplemented regularly by directives and terms targeting specific, unforeseen incidents and other events about which the government wishes to suppress news or opinions, such as the work of individual human rights defenders, allegations of shoddy construction surrounding the Sichuan earthquake, occurrences related to the Olympics, antigovernment riots in various localities, and indeed any references to censorship. Broader politically oriented terms such as “democracy,” “human rights,” and “freedom of speech” are subject to less extensive censorship.22


Technical Filtering: Restricting access to foreign websites is a key component of technical filtering, enabled by the channeling of all internet traffic through the gateway operators described above. Among the websites that are systematically blocked are those of political parties in Taiwan or groups supporting greater freedom for religious and ethnic minorities; human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch; news outlets like the Hong Kong–based Apple Daily, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Chinese service, and Radio Free Asia; and overseas dissident publications. In 2008, the government’s pledges of unfettered internet access for foreign journalists during the Olympics were not upheld; although a number of previously censored sites were unblocked following an international outcry, sites related to Tibet or the Falun Gong remained blocked as usual throughout the games.23 Similarly, while some foreign sites were unblocked for Chinese users before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, most of them were inaccessible again by late 2008.24 In addition to blocking entire websites, the sophisticated technology employed by the authorities enables the filtering of particular pages within sites that are otherwise approved, if the pages are found to contain blacklisted keywords in the URL path. Filtering by keyword is also implemented in instant-messaging services, such as Tom-Skype and QQ, and the necessary software is built into the application upon installation.25


Prepublication censorship: Prepublication censorship is enforced using lists of taboo topics, which Chinese government bodies, mainly the Information Office of Beijing (or its equivalent in other cities), periodically issue as circumstances require. These are accompanied by specific instructions on how to treat the proscribed topics, such as not placing certain content in an important position on a homepage, not allowing it to appear in blog entries and comment forums, or not reprinting items from foreign news sources. Such orders are expected to be carried out—either automatically or manually—by state-run online news outlets and private companies running a wide variety of websites; the latter risk losing their business licenses if they fail to comply. Most postings on blogs, comment sections of news items, and bulletin board system (BBS) discussions that are deemed objectionable are deleted at this stage. Tests conducted recently found that entries containing sensitive keywords such as “June 4,” “Falun Gong,” or “Dalai Lama” could not be displayed on Chinese blog hosting services, including the simplified Chinese version of Microsoft’s MSN Space Live service and Skype’s Chinese version, Tom. A more extensive academic study found that while this practice was common, implementation was nonetheless inconsistent across blog hosting companies, and some potentially sensitive discussions did take place, indicating a tendency among private actors to resist government orders.26 In an additional form of prepublication censorship that has been used in some localities, a system of virtual internet policing employs the animated characters “Jing Jing” and “Cha Cha” to warn users of online content infringements.


Postpublication censorship: Postpublication censorship, applied to information that has already been posted, can take a number of forms. Individual blog entries may be deleted, in most instances within 24 to 48 hours of their posting. In other cases, entire blogs may be shut down by service providers, as has occurred with several well-known bloggers in recent years.27 In addition, search engines including the China versions of Google and Yahoo! filter results to exclude those that do not favor the Chinese authorities’ perspective. Since e-mail messages circulated within the country cannot be filtered at the international gateways, service providers have been pressured to carry out their own censorship; many have reportedly complied, including the popular Sohu and QQ.


Proactive manipulation: In addition to preventing certain content from appearing in Chinese cyberspace, and partly in response to the growing prominence of the internet in shaping public perceptions, the Chinese authorities in recent years have introduced measures to proactively sway public opinion online and amplify the party’s version of events over alternative accounts. Since 2005, paid web commentators known as “50 Cent Party” members or “Red Vests” have been recruited by the authorities to post progovernment remarks, lead online discussions along the party line, and report users who have posted offending statements.28 Some estimates place the number of these commentators at over 250,000.29 In other instances, such as the 2008 unrest in Tibet, censorship of unofficial accounts or deletion of critical comments has been combined with the required posting of the Xinhua news agency’s articles, which enables the official version to dominate public discourse.30

A wide variety of government agencies at both the local and national level are involved in online content censorship. While the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CPD) plays a key role in outlining topics for censorship, the Information Office of the State Council (IOSC), the MIIT, and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) are the primary enforcement agencies. The IOSC mainly oversees online news content. The MIIT, the top technical authority, supervises the telecommunication infrastructure (for the internet as well as mobile phones), grants or revokes the licenses of private enterprises, and oversees the various technical censorship systems, including the international gateways and SMS (text message) jamming. The MPS has the power to track, investigate, and arrest users; monitor websites; and punish cybercafe owners.

In addition to the IOSC’s oversight, online news is subject to aspects of the same regulatory system that applies to traditional media. Thus the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) extends its core jurisdiction over printed media to relevant online publications. In other instances, specific bodies have been created to regulate internet content, such as the Internet Review Group, which operates within the CPD to inspect and monitor online material.31 More recently, branches of the Administrative Office of Internet Propaganda (AOIP) under the direct control of provincial or municipal governments have been playing an increasingly active role in regulating the internet.32



Figure 1: State Agencies Involved in Internet Control in China


Censorship decisions are largely nontransparent, though some private companies are known to alert readers that content has been removed for unspecified reasons. No avenue exists for appealing censorship decisions. In 2007, Chinese blogger and lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan attempted to sue Sohu for deleting his postings, arguing that it contravened the user terms of agreement, but the case was dismissed by a Beijing court.33 Realizing the comprehensive nature of surveillance and censorship on the internet and SMS, ordinary users and bloggers engage in extensive self-censorship and often refrain from transmitting sensitive comments online or via mobile phones, particularly when anonymity is not ensured.34

Despite the multiple layers of control, the internet has emerged in recent years as a primary source of news and a forum for discussion for many Chinese, particularly among the younger generation. Indeed, a recent academic study estimated that there were approximately 72 million blogs in China at the end of 2007, along with nearly 17 million “active” bloggers updating their websites a minimum of one time per month.35 Through this and other avenues, Chinese cyberspace has grown into a dynamic environment, replete with online auctions, social networks, homemade music videos, a large virtual gaming population, and spirited discussion of some social and political issues. The latter discussions sometimes include the creative use of asterisks, code words, or homophones to replace potentially sensitive keywords. For example, censorship is referred to as “harmonization,” and the 1989 massacre in Beijing, which involved the use of tanks, is described as “tractors coming into the city.”36 Many well-educated and web-savvy Chinese are able to bypass the government’s control using a variety of technical circumvention tools. These individuals can thus obtain more information from overseas sources than the average citizen, and can act as opinion leaders in online discussions, particularly if they have knowledge of a foreign language.

The relationship between online journalism and traditional media is mutually reinforcing, primarily with respect to a small number of daring, investigative print publications. In several instances during the coverage period, traditional media outlets received tips or discovered sources online, reported on the information in commercial print publications, and thus generated further online discussion. Nevertheless, blogs and other internet platforms remain more likely than traditional media to contain criticism of the government and a broad spectrum of views.

Civil society organizations involved in education, health care, and other social and cultural issues that are deemed acceptable by the authorities often have an online presence. ICTs played a particularly prominent role in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, as people on the ground transmitted updates via Twitter and BBS comments, netizens created personalized videos and memorials, blogs became a platform for public sharing of memories, and millions of dollars were donated toward relief efforts via websites.37 In some instances, the internet and SMS have been used to mobilize “real life” protests, as occurred in the southern city of Xiamen in 2007, when bloggers supported large-scale street protests that eventually succeeded in terminating the construction of a chemical factory nearby. In other cases, they have been used to circumvent government cover-ups or expose official malfeasance. SMS was employed to circulate epidemic information during the SARS outbreak in 2003,38 and there were several cases in 2008 of internet users revealing acts of corruption by local officials, leading to their dismissal.39 ICTs have also featured in the organization and venting of acute nationalist sentiment, initially with tacit government approval; prominent examples include the country’s periodic anti-Japanese protests and the retribution against French companies after demonstrators in Paris disrupted the 2008 Olympic torch relay.40

In spite of the booming internet population and the skyrocketing number of websites, fully independent civil society, ethnic, and religious organizations remain underrepresented, though they have been able to use some ICTs to advance their causes. A loose network of lawyers, legal academics, and activists known as the weiquan or “rights defense” movement has used internet, e-mail, VoIP, and mobile-phone technology to circulate and publish open letters, document accounts of abuse, and organize a 2006 national relay hunger strike for human rights. More recently, in December 2008, a broad coalition of 300 such individuals issued a bold manifesto dubbed Charter 08, which called for significant political reforms including multiparty democracy, a free press, and an independent judiciary. Though the government suppressed broad public discussion of the proposal online, the initiative did circulate to a limited audience, garnering an additional 7,000 signatures.41 Similarly, after being driven underground by a violent persecutory campaign, adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual practice have made use of the internet and mobile phones to maintain contact with one another, communicate with overseas practitioners, send documentation of torture abroad, and download censored information for the purposes of producing offline leaflets and DVDs that expose rights violations and call party propaganda into question. Meanwhile, overseas groups such as Radio Free Asia, Human Rights in China, and the Epoch Times have reportedly sent millions of e-mails into the country, supplying users with news summaries on Chinese and international events, instructions on anticensorship technology, and copies of banned publications like the Nine Commentaries.42


Violations of Users’ Rights


Those who violate party directives on censorship or publish information on taboo topics face a range of possible sanctions, including criminal and financial liability, long terms of imprisonment, and loss of a business license, though enforcement is selective. Article 35 of the constitution guarantees the freedoms of speech, assembly, association, and publication, but such provisions are subordinated to the national interest. In addition, the constitution cannot be invoked in courts as a legal basis for asserting rights. The judiciary is not independent and closely follows party directives, particularly in politically sensitive freedom of expression cases. Although no legislation exists at the national level to clearly regulate online communication and indicate what ICT content is prohibited, a wide variety of regulations have been issued by different government agencies to establish censorship guidelines. A total of 81 ordinances involving 29 government agencies were issued between 1993 and 2007 to articulate various controls on content and communication over the internet.

In addition to internet-specific regulations, vague provisions in the criminal code and state-secrets legislation have been used to imprison citizens for their online activities, including publication of articles criticizing the government or exposing rights abuses, transmission of objectionable e-mail messages, and downloading of censored material from overseas websites. Hu Jia, a well-known human rights activist and winner of the European Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in April 2008 for “inciting subversion of state power” on the basis of several articles he had written and published online.43 Other individuals detained or sentenced on such charges in recent years include writer Du Daobin,44 professor Guo Quan,45 lawyer Gao Zhisheng,46 and most recently, freelance journalist Chen Daojun for his writings expressing support for protesters in Tibetan areas in March 2008.47 In another prominent case, Shi Tao, a former journalist, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2003 on charges of “leaking state secrets” after a message he sent from his Yahoo! e-mail account was intercepted and turned over to the authorities.48 Huang Qi, an outspoken human rights activist, was detained in July 2008 on similar charges of “illegal possession of state secrets” for posting criticism of Sichuan earthquake relief efforts on his website.49 In November 2008, Liu Jin, a former university librarian, was sentenced to three years in prison in Shanghai on charges of “using a heretical organization to undermine implementation of the law” after she downloaded information about the Falun Gong from the internet and passed it to others, which her lawyer argues is a common occurrence.50 According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), at least 49 cyberdissidents were in jail in China as of July 2008, the largest number of any country in the world.51 Moreover, prison sentences for online violations tend to be longer in China than elsewhere, often a minimum of three years and as high as ten, while in most other countries punishments range from six months to four years. Though these individuals represent a tiny percentage of the overall user population, the sentencing of prominent individuals within a fairly close-knit activist and blogging community to long prison terms creates a chilling effect and contributes to an atmosphere of fear that extends far beyond the immediately affected group.

While some exist, the options for anonymous online communication are limited, and restrictions have increased in recent years. After significant protests from the internet industry, government attempts to implement real-name registration across all commercial websites have been abandoned for the moment. However, real-name registration has been put into practice among the BBS websites of all the universities.52 For mobile phones, SIM cards can be purchased anonymously without difficulty, though the transmission of text messages has been more tightly controlled in recent years, and they are frequently intercepted by the Public Security Bureau in cooperation with the MIIT.53

Surveillance of internet and mobile-phone communications in China is pervasive and among the most advanced in the world. The country’s international gateways form one layer of the monitoring system. Other measures include requirements that users register with ISPs when purchasing internet access at home or at work, which facilitates tracking by the authorities.54 Customers at cybercafes are required to present identification, and the cybercafes must install software to monitor and filter users’ web browsing. In some cities, cybercafes have been required to install surveillance cameras that transmit images directly to control systems in local branches of the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry of Culture has endeavored to build a national surveillance platform that unites such local systems and is said to be able to filter any objectionable information transmitted from cybercafes.55 If ISPs and websites are found to showcase “reactionary materials” or fail to promptly comply with the authorities’ orders, they are subjected to fines, may have their servers confiscated by internet police,56 and can have their licenses revoked by the MIIT.57 In a more informal mechanism of control, some quasi-governmental associations (for example, the Internet Society of China) have been established to encourage domestic websites to implement self-regulation and comply with party orders.

Though they are not experienced by the average user, extralegal intimidation and harassment, including occasional physical violence, have been increasing in recent years as more individuals record, investigate, and publish online information that is deemed undesirable by the government. In January 2008, construction company executive Wei Wenhua was beaten to death in Hubei province by 50 law enforcement officers after he used his mobile phone to film them in a violent clash with demonstrators protesting waste-dumping in their neighborhood. Several of the officers were reportedly detained and later charged over the incident, which marked the first death of a citizen journalist in China.58 In September 2008, Liu Shaokun, a teacher in Sichuan province, was sentenced to one year of “reeducation through labor” after posting online photos of schools that collapsed in the earthquake; following an international campaign on his behalf, he was released to serve his sentence at home.59 Individuals known for expressing critical views of the government, such as Hu Jia, his wife Zeng Jinyan, and democracy activist and Charter 08 drafter Liu Xiaobo, have been placed under house arrest or 24-hour police surveillance for months at a time—or for the duration of important domestic and international events—even when they are not formally imprisoned. As with other detainees, individuals arrested for internet-related activities are likely to face severe torture once in custody. This treatment is aimed at forcing them to reveal information or renounce their views or beliefs. Other forms of harassment include visits from police and public security agents, and restrictions on travel, both within and outside the country. In November 2008, Zhou Shuguang (also known as Zola), one of China’s best-known bloggers, was prevented from traveling to Hong Kong en route to Germany, where he was set to serve as a judge for an international blogging competition.60 In addition to persecution from the government, individuals have also been known to suffer harassment from internet mobs, particularly those made up of ultranationalists. Wang Qinyuan, a college student at Duke University, was harassed along with her family in China after she expressed opinions in support of the rights of Tibetans. Her personal information was also posted on the internet, a phenomenon that has been dubbed “human flesh search engine.”61


1 “Cyber-dissident accused of illegal possession of state secrets is denied right to see lawyer”, Reporters without Borders, July 21, 2008, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27892 Accessed on 3/23/2009

2 China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), http://www.cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2003/10/22/1001.htm Accessed on 3/23/2009

7 ITU, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/Default.aspx, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) puts the number at 641 million

9 “117m Chinese surf Internet via mobile phones, up 113% “, China Daily, January 13, 2009, www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-01/13/content_7392583.htm Accessed on 3/23/2009

10 “Aw on the Internet” blog, http://www.awflasher.com/blog/archives/1354 Accessed on 3/23/2009

11 “Google founder admits compromise over China”, The Scotsman, June 8, 2006, http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/google/Google-founder-admits-compromises-over.2782379.jp Accessed on 3/23/2009;

and “China Skype services snags and stores users’ messages”, The Register, October 2, 2008, www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/02/skype_surveillance_in_china/ Accessed on 3/23/2009

13 “’Chinese YouTube’ shutdown amid censor fears”, The Times Online (London), June 20, 2008, http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4179103.ece Accessed on 3/23/2009 and “China softens rules on video-sharing websites”, Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2008 http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/06/world/fg-video6 Accessed on 3/23/2009

14 “Attacks on Press 2007: China”, Committee to Protect Journalists, http://www.cpj.org/2008/02/attacks-on-the-press-2007-china.php Accessed on 3/23/3009

15 “China blocks YouTube, Yahoo! over Tibet”, The Times Online (London), March 17, 2008, http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3568040.ece Accessed on 3/23/3009

18 “2008 Freedom of the Press report on China”, Freedom House , http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=251&country=7372&year=2008 Accessed on 3/23/2009

19 According to the WTO agreements, the share taken by foreign capital in the telecom operators can’t exceed 49%. See, http://www.shjubao.cn/epublish/gb/paper22/1/class002200036/hwz532030.htm Accessed on 3/23/2009

20“Censorship in Chinese Media”, New York Times, September 25, 2008 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/censorship-in-chinese-media/ Accessed on 3/23/2009

21 Graph from Open Net Initiative 2005 study of filtering in China, available through “Written evidence submitted by Sarah Cook, Student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London”, House of Commons, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmfaff/269/269we08.htm Accessed on 3/23/2009;

and “Breaching Trust”, International Warfare Monitor ONI Asia, October 1, 2008, http://www.nartv.org/mirror/breachingtrust.pdf Accessed on 3/23/2009; and “Charter 08: Why it should be called Wang”,Chinayourren.com, January 11, 2009 http://chinayouren.com/eng/2009/01/charter-08-why-it-should-be-called-wang/ Accessed on 3/23/2009

22 See note 20.

23 “Web curbs for Olympic journalists”, BBC News, July 30, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7532338.stm Accessed on 3/23/2009 and “Internet censorship plagues journalists at the Olympics”, Cnet.com, July 29, 2008, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10002097-93.html Accessed on 3/23/2009

24 “Post-Olympic China Olympic China turns its back on Internet censorship promises”,DailyTech, December 18, 2008, www.dailytech.com/PostOlympics%2BChina%2BTurns%2BIts%2BBack%2Bon%2BInternet%2BCensorship%2BPromises/article13716.htm Accessed on 3/23/2009

25 “A list of censored words in Chinese cyberspace”, China Digital Times, http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2004/08/the-words-you-never-see-in-chinese-cyberspace/ Accessed on 3/23/2009

26 ”China’s censorship 2.0: How companies censor bloggers”, First Monday, February 2, 2009, http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2378/2089 Accessed on 3/23/2009

27 http://inmediahk.net/node/1001868 Accessed November-December 2008

28 “Internet society of China wants people to report illegal and inappropriate content”, Passingnotes.com, June 11, 2004, http://www.passingnotes.com/archives/2004/06/14/interfax-internet-society-of-china-wants-people-to-report-illegal-and-inappropriate-content/ Accessed on 3/23/2009 and http://www.ddgx.cn/news/2008/0730/index_tstt/091704.htm Accessed on 3/23/2009 and http://www.hhubbs.com/thread-64753-1-2.html Accessed on 3/23/2009

29 “China’s guerilla war for the web”, Far Eastern Economic Review, July 2008, http://www.feer.com/essays/2008/august/chinas-guerrilla-war-for-the-web Accessed on 3/23/2009

30 “China blacks out Tibet news”, Business Week, March 17, 2008, http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2008/gb20080317_321446.htm Accessed on 3/23/2009

32 “Internet censorship tightens in China ahead of Olympics”, Interfax.cn, July 25, 2008, http://www.interfax.cn/news/4327/ Accessed on 3/23/2009

33 “China’s Internet controls tightened ahead of sensitive political congress”, Associated Press, October 11, 2007, www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/12/business/AS-FEA-TEC-China-Internet-Controls.php Accessed on 3/23/2009

35 “Political Expression in the Chinese Blogosphere: Below the Radar,” Asian Survey, September/October 2008, http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/AS.2008.48.5.752 Accessed on 3/23/2009.

36 “China’s web censors delete blogs, unplug servers”, Associated Press, October 15, 2007, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301488,00.html Accessed on 3/23/2009

37 “Sichuan earthquake special edition” , Slideshare,net, Mary 27, 2008, http://www.slideshare.net/jason.zhanjia/iwom-watch-sichuan-earthquake-special-edition-presentation Accessed on 3/23/2009

38 http://www.51friend.net/bbs/2290965mp1.aspx Accessed on 3/23/2009 Accessed on 3/23/2009 and “Breaking down the great firewall”, BBC News, April 30, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4496163.stm Accessed on 3/23/2009

39 “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? A Review Of The Chinese Internet In 2008”, EastSouthWestNorth, January 21, 2009, http://zonaeuropa.com/20090124_1.htm Accessed on 3/23/3009

40 “Chinese nationalism fuels Tibet crackdown”, New York Times, March 31, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/world/asia/31china.html?pagewanted=print Accessed on 3/23/2009

41 “Chinese Authorities Continue to Suppress Charter 08; Number of Signers Exceeds 7,200 “, Human Rights in China, January 9, 2009, http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/press?revision_id=109512&item_id=107728 Accessed on 3/23/2009 and “Charter 08 Still Alive in the Chinese Blogosphere” China Digital Times, February 9, 2009,http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/02/charter-08-still-alive-in-the-chinese-blogosphere/ Accessed on 3/23/2009

43 “Expression=prison: Hu Jia”, Amnesty International, April 4, 2008, www.amnesty.org.au/china/comments/11747/ Accessed on 3/23/2009

44 Reporters Without Borders, http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=119 Accessed on 3/23/2009

45 “Blogger charged with subversion”, Radio Free Asia, December 22, 2008, www.rfa.org/english/news/china/guoquan-12222008104700.html Accessed on 3/23/2009

46 “Gao Zhisheng, the lawyer "who defies the Communist Party”, AsiaNews, February 17, 2006,www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=5416 Accessed on 3/23/2009

47“China: Dissident writer Chen Daojun sentenced”, English Pen, November 25, 2008, http://www.englishpen.org/writersinprison/bulletins/chinadissidentwriterchendaojunsentenced/ Accessed on 3/23/2009

48 “Another cyberdissident imprisoned because of date provided by Yahoo”, Reporter Without Borders, February 9, 2006,http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16402 Accessed on 3/23/2009

49 “Free Huang Qi”, International Herald Tribune, February 8, 2009, http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/08/opinion/edhuang.php Accessed on 3/23/3009

50 “China imprison Falun Gong follower, lawyer says”, Associated Press, November 14, 2008, http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/14/asia/AS-China-Falun-Gong.php Accessed on 3/23/2009

51 Reporters Without Borders, http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=119 Accessed on 3/23/2009

53 “China will monitor, censor sms messages”, Slashdot, Juky 3, 2004, http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/03/0035224 Accessed on 3/23/2009 and “China cracksdown on sms”, Journalism.co.uk, February 7, 2004, http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/5970.php Accessed on 3/23/2009

54 http://news.1488.com/news/legality/2006/7-17/14-34-1-1.shtml Accessed on 3/23/2009 and http://www.adslsh.com/shenqing.asp Accessed on 3/23/2009

56 Personal communication

59 “Mr. Liu Shaokun released to serve his RTL sentence outside of labour camp”, International Federation for Human Rights, October 16, 2008,

http://www.fidh.org/spip.php?article5937 Accessed on 3/23/2009

60 “Blogger Zhou Shuguang a.k.a. "Zola" barred from leaving China: "potential threat to state security"”, RCConversation, November 24, 2008, http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/11/blogger-zhou-sh.html Accessed on 3/23/2009

61 “New freedom, and peril, in online criticism of China”, The Washington Post, April 17, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041603579.html Accessed on 3/23/2009


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IGIF - Overview Essay


Freedom House Freedom on the Net



Access and Control:

A growing diversity of threats to internet freedom

By Karin Deutsch Karlekar and Sarah G. Cook


















As the internet and other new media come to dominate the flow of news and information around the world, governments have responded with measures to control, regulate, and censor the content of blogs, websites, and text messages. Indeed, the recent case of an Iranian blogger who died in police custody is a disturbing reminder that expressions of political dissent or even independent thought circulated through the internet carry as much risk as those circulated via underground journals in an earlier era. And just as authoritarian regimes once devoted massive resources to controlling the print media and the airwaves, so today China employs a small army of functionaries tasked with monitoring and censoring the content of websites and blogs.

The mounting assault on digital freedom is taking place in an environment of explosive growth in the use and, more significantly, the influence of new media forms. An increasing number of organizations and civic initiatives use websites to inform the public about their causes and question government performance. Recent years have also featured a “blogging revolution,” as millions of people have begun keeping online journals, commenting and sharing opinions on a vast number of cultural, social, and political issues. This expansion has taken place in developed and developing countries alike, in countries where the press is under duress as well as in vibrant democracies.

Even as new information sources become more prevalent and influential, governments, and in some cases private actors, have begun to push back through the development of techniques designed to control what people read, view, and discuss. Predictably, some of the world’s most repressive regimes, like those in China and Iran, have created a pervasive, sophisticated, and multilayered system of censorship that significantly limits the content that citizens can access or post on the internet and transmit via mobile phones, particularly when it comes to topics deemed sensitive by the authorities. Harsh laws, an apparatus of monitoring and surveillance, torture, and imprisonment await those who cross the “red lines” separating acceptable from unacceptable thought. In settings that are somewhat less repressive—such as Egypt, Russia, and Malaysia—the internet has emerged as a haven of relatively free speech in otherwise restrictive media environments. In these societies, however, the space for free comment and open circulation of ideas is slowly closing, as governments devise subtle methods to manipulate online discussion and apply vague and flexible security laws to arrest and intimidate bloggers. As with traditional media, the result of this sophisticated harassment is an insidious form of self-censorship among journalists and commentators. Even in more democratic countries—such as the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Turkey—internet freedom is increasingly undermined by legal harassment, opaque filtering procedures, and expanding surveillance. On the whole, threats to internet freedom are growing and have become more diverse, both in the array of countries that impose restrictions and in the range of methods employed.

This dynamic of increasing digital media use worldwide accompanied by more systematic and sophisticated methods of control is the core finding of this study, a pilot report on internet and new media freedom. On the basis of a newly developed set of 19 indicators, the study evaluates the level of internet and mobile-phone freedom experienced by average users and activists in a sample of 15 countries across 6 regions: China, India, and Malaysia in Asia; Cuba and Brazil in Latin America; Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran in the Middle East and North Africa; Kenya and South Africa in sub-Saharan Africa; Russia, Estonia, and Georgia in the former Soviet Union; and the United Kingdom and Turkey in Europe. Covering the calendar years 2007 and 2008, the index addresses a range of factors that might affect such freedom, including the state of telecommunications infrastructure, government restrictions on access to technology, the regulatory framework for service providers, censorship and content control, the legal environment, surveillance, and extralegal attacks on users or content producers. The selected indicators capture not only the actions of governments but also the vigor, diversity, and activism of the new media domain in each country, regardless of—or despite—state efforts to restrict usage.


Key findings and trends


Access to and usage of internet and mobile-phone technologies have grown exponentially in recent years. In six of the countries examined, internet penetration doubled between 2006 and 2008, and in three, mobile-phone penetration similarly doubled. This greatly expanded access, however, has been met in most cases with the clear emergence of new and multiple threats to other aspects of internet freedom, particularly restrictions on certain content or heightened prosecution and surveillance of users.


Negative trends:


  • Expanding forms of censorship: Censorship and control of online content was present in some form in all 15 countries studied, with authorities in 11 targeting political content in at least one instance. Censorship takes a number of forms and can include not only technical filtering, but also manual removal of content as a result of government directives, intimidation, requests from private actors, or judicial decisions. Some regimes even engage in the sophisticated manipulation of online conversations using undercover government-sponsored agents.

  • Privatization of censorship: There is a growing trend toward “outsourcing” censorship and monitoring to private companies, as opposed to direct intervention by government agencies. In a range of countries with differing levels of democracy, private entities and their employees—including service providers, blog-hosting companies, cybercafes, and mobile-phone operators—are being required by governments or other actors to censor and monitor information and communication technologies (ICTs). This has been the case for local and multinational enterprises alike.

  • Lack of transparency and accountability: In both democratic and authoritarian settings, there is a serious lack of transparency surrounding censorship decisions and the use of surveillance. In the majority of the countries examined in this study—whether they censor pornography or legitimate political content—there is no public list of blocked websites, little or no possibility of appeal for those who find that content they have posted online is inaccessible to others, and limited independent judicial supervision of the use of information obtained through the monitoring of either the content or the traffic data of internet and mobile-phone communications.

  • Legal threats: Methods of control and censorship that were developed to restrict content in traditional media—particularly in the legal sphere—are beginning to seep into the new media environment, though they are not yet as common or extensive as in the older context. Multiple countries saw their first blogger sentenced to prison or their first internet-restricting legislation introduced during the coverage period.

  • Technical attacks: In addition to imprisonment, harassment, torture, and intimidation, internet activists are experiencing forms of “technical violence” that are not present in the traditional media sphere. These hacking or denial-of-service attacks are increasingly being employed by a range of actors, and they are negatively affecting internet freedom in a number of countries.


Positive trends:


  • Poverty not a barrier to new media freedom: Developing countries, although hindered by infrastructural constraints, can perform well overall in the index if they enact good policies regarding access, content, and the legal framework. From an economic perspective, liberalization of the market for service providers was found to have reduced the cost of access and significantly increased penetration rates in a number of countries.

  • Growing civic activism: Even in highly repressive countries, citizens are making use of ICTs in inventive ways in order to create and disseminate news and information, add to the diversity of viewpoints and opinions, perform a watchdog role, and mobilize civic groups “offline” in order to address particular political, social, and economic issues.


  • Internet freedom greater than press freedom: Every country examined—with the exception of the United Kingdom—performed better on internet freedom than on media freedom in general, as measured by Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press index. These differences were smaller among the best and the worst performers, and were most pronounced in the middle range of countries.

Wide variation in the environment for internet freedom


A principal aim of the pilot study was to choose a set of countries that demonstrate the varying levels of internet freedom in the world and showcase the range of issues and restrictions that prevail in different media environments.


Free: Countries that scored in the Free range (0–30 points out of a possible 100) include Estonia, clearly the best performer with a total score of 10; the United Kingdom and South Africa, with scores of 20 and 21, respectively; and Brazil, with 26. These countries all have a generally open environment for new media, with few or no government obstacles to access, a low level of content control, and few violations of individual users’ rights. Even within this range, however, there are issues of concern. The United Kingdom’s score suffered from problems related to libel laws, lack of transparency, and extensive surveillance, while in Brazil judicial decisions that lead to content censorship are a growing threat. In South Africa, many obstacles to access are infrastructural shortcomings rather than deliberate government policies. Estonia stands out as having particularly widespread access and strong protections for user rights and personal data, though it has recently come under pressure from the European Union to change such policies.


Partly Free: The middle band of countries ranked in the Partly Free category (31–60) range from relatively strong performers such as Kenya and India to more restrictive environments like Georgia, Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt, and Russia. These countries all have some limits to access (either infrastructural or imposed by the government), some controls or state influence over content and on users’ ability to mobilize via digital resources, and varying levels of denial of user rights, including legal interventions, interference with privacy, and physical harassment or attacks. In many of these countries there is a wide gap between internet freedom and the levels of freedom for print and broadcast media. While digital media do face efforts at state control in these societies, the internet and other new technologies serve as relatively open outlets in what are otherwise difficult environments for freedom of expression.


Not Free: In the Not Free category (61–100) are China, Iran, and Tunisia, which all have significant government-imposed restrictions on access to certain technologies, extensive technological filtering and other forms of content control, and systematic violations of user rights, including prosecutions, extralegal attacks, and invasion of privacy. Of the three, China’s apparatus for censoring and controlling content is the most sophisticated and prison sentences imposed the longest, while in Tunisia and Iran, there are greater infrastructural limitations on usage. Although the level of internet freedom is higher than that of general media freedom and provides a key open space in restrictive media environments, these governments all take a range of measures to control the new media and are especially determined to prevent them from facilitating the mobilization of political opposition.


Worst of the Worst: Rounding out the pilot study is Cuba, which received a score of 90. Cuba stands out due to its near-total restrictions on access to internet and mobile-phone technology, whereas other countries promote internet use but then seek to control content or engage in harsh retaliatory measures against individual bloggers and online activists. Censorship of content, severe limitations on residents’ ability to use digital technologies as news sources or for mobilization, stringent legal penalties, and disregard for privacy rights all ensure the Cuban regime’s almost absolute control over the internet, despite small openings in the last few years.



Typologies by category


In addition to the breakdown of the countries studied into Free, Partly Free, and Not Free according to their total score, additional typologies emerged based on scoring in each of the three topical categories: Obstacles to Access, Limitations on Content, and Violations of User Rights.


Similar performance across all three aspects of internet freedom: The group of countries that exhibited this dynamic included Estonia, which scored well across the board, as well as Georgia, which received moderate scores in all three categories, thanks in part to restrictions on internet freedom stemming from a much less favorable traditional media environment. The fact that Iran, China, and Tunisia also fit into this group reflected their governments’ multilayered and comprehensive approach to controlling internet and mobile-phone usage.


Weak performance on access to technology: Not surprisingly, the countries fitting this pattern included developing countries with relatively low gross national income per capita—India, Kenya, and South Africa. For the two African countries, however, their weak performance in the Obstacles to Access category was matched by relatively strong respect for user rights, with only Estonia scoring better in that category. Also in this group was Cuba, where despite heavy limitations on content and extensive violations of user rights, the most significant restriction on internet freedom is the sheer lack of access to the technology, largely due to government actions. Cuba received the worst possible score in the Obstacles to Access category.




Particularly high degree of violations of user rights: Six countries reflected this dynamic, making it the most common typology. On the one hand, the group included Russia, Egypt, and Malaysia, where government-encouraged improvements in access to ICTs and relatively little censorship are offset by harsh legal environments, state monitoring, and a rise in criminal prosecutions. On the other hand, the description also fit the more democratic United Kingdom, Brazil, and Turkey. While criminal prosecutions for legitimate online activities rarely occur in these societies, they do suffer from the threat of prosecution or restrictions associated with civil lawsuits for libel and defamation. In addition, fairly extensive requirements are placed on service providers to retain user data or filter certain content. The United Kingdom’s score in this category was striking, given that it scored a perfect 0 on Obstacles to Access.


Threats to internet freedom and methods of control


As mentioned above, a key finding of the study was the wide range of threats to internet freedom. The methods of control vary and are used with increasing frequency. They include:


Restricting access to technologies or applications: The index divides obstacles to accessing relevant ICTs into two types: deliberate government attempts to restrict access to particular technologies or applications, and other limitations that may occur as a result of infrastructural or economic constraints. For the first category, practices covered the entire spectrum: in four countries—Estonia, Russia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom—there were no official attempts to restrict technologies, while in several others—such as China, Malaysia, and Tunisia—the restrictions were limited in scope, either sporadically interfering with access due to specific events or selectively targeting particular activists. On this indicator, Iran stands out for its decision to limit broadband access for the majority of internet users, while Cuba largely cuts off its population from internet access altogether and only recently relaxed restrictions on mobile-phone ownership.

Regarding specific applications, the study found that seven countries had blocked so-called Web 2.0 applications—advanced services such as the social-networking site Facebook, the video-sharing site YouTube, and the blog-hosting site Blogspot—either temporarily or permanently during the 2007–08 coverage period. Such applications are among the most popular features of the internet and exemplify the interactive potential of the medium. They enable production of content and circulation of information by any user and are often at the center of exposures of government malfeasance or antigovernment mobilizations. Because information can be spread quickly using these applications, some governments have moved to block access to entire sites rather than selectively removing content after it has been posted. Turkish and Brazilian courts and regulatory bodies have resorted to this tactic; Turkey has blocked YouTube since May 2008. While the international versions of such applications are generally blocked in China, they have been replaced by domestic alternatives, allowing users to share videos or maintain blogs. However, as Chinese companies are more susceptible to government pressure and censorship directives than their foreign counterparts, such a replacement dynamic essentially serves as a means of exercising greater control over content.


Economic obstacles to access: The study found, understandably, that infrastructural and economic constraints were the main or among the main obstacles in countries with lower gross national income per capita and other socio-economic indicators. For example, Georgia, India, Kenya, and South Africa, which all performed relatively well overall, scored poorly on these questions. Internet penetration rates in these countries tended to be low, costs for access were high compared with income, there was a significant rural-urban divide with regard to level of access, and there was a relatively low level of broadband penetration. At the same time, mobile-phone penetration was often significantly higher than internet penetration in these countries, reaching between 30 and 90 percent of the population with fairly widespread geographic coverage. In some countries, this has contributed to an increase in the number of individuals accessing the web via their mobile phones. Indeed, South Africa was in the unique position of having more people access the internet via the “mobile web” than from computers.

The study also found that developing countries that made decisions to promote broader or cheaper access, such as Egypt, Brazil, Malaysia, Turkey, and China, scored relatively well on these questions. Thus even in developing societies, government action can reduce the impact of poverty as a barrier to internet use, although the rural-urban divide and low computer literacy remain key challenges. Cuba, by contrast, remains a society in which inadequate infrastructure and prohibitively high government-imposed pricing stand as insuperable obstacles to expanded internet access.


Filtering and censorship: One of the primary ways to restrict internet freedom is to prevent users from accessing content that is deemed undesirable by the authorities. This can be accomplished through the technical filtering of either specific content or broad swaths of information at the ISP level, targeting keywords, entire domain names, or particular web addresses. Pioneering technical tests conducted by the OpenNet Initiative have shown a dramatic increase in filtering over the past several years, with a growing number of countries engaging in some form of the practice. However, this study found that states


employed a range of additional methods to limit access to content and control the circulation of information, including human censors who monitor and manually remove blog postings; outsourcing of search-engine filtering and chat-room censorship to private companies; judicial orders or instructions from a regulator to remove certain content; and either written or informal requests from authorities to ISPs, websites, or blog hosts to take down proscribed materials.

Of the 15 countries in the study, only three—China, Iran, and Tunisia—filtered political content using systematic technical means. It was found that comprehensive filtering was possible in large part because all three countries have centralized their internet infrastructure so that all traffic must pass through a limited number of gateways or service providers, particularly before connecting to the global internet. In these countries, there is pervasive filtering of permanently taboo topics, including those related to human rights violations, prominent political figures, oppressed minorities, and official corruption. Proscribed content is identified through lists of forbidden keywords or website addresses, and the lists are regularly updated by state agencies based on real-world developments. Among the three countries, however, China was the only one found to have engaged in similarly systematic filtering of mobile-phone text messages.



A number of other countries that eschewed extensive filtering still imposed relatively serious blocks on certain websites or types of political content. This included opposition news sources in Malaysia; content related to ethnic minorities or deemed insulting to the national identity in Turkey; and briefly in Georgia, all sites whose domain names ended with Russia’s “.ru” country code. Russian authorities relied to a larger extent on behind-the-scenes pressure or phone calls requesting

the removal of certain content. This method was also employed by Chinese authorities, who send out regular guidance on acceptable content as well as where and how it should be posted or deleted. Among the better performers, filtering or blocking tended to target small amounts of well-defined content, such as child pornography, although there were instances in which blocks were employed to censor sensitive political or social content, or caused larger obstructions than were intended. Several countries, including Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, and Estonia, were notable for blocking almost no content, including material that might be deemed politically sensitive.


Content manipulation: Even with sophisticated filtering technology, it is effectively impossible to create an airtight “firewall” against all content deemed undesirable by the government. With the exception of Cuba, all the countries in the study have some degree of content diversity, and a variety of opinions reach at least certain sections of the population, particularly those that are versed in circumvention techniques. Thus authoritarian regimes have increasingly resorted to guiding or influencing online discussion through the clandestine use of paid progovernment commentators or the financing of entire websites and blogs. The Chinese government employs an estimated 250,000 “50 Cent Party” commentators, Russia has seen a proliferation of Kremlin-affiliated “content providers,” and Tunisia uses a smaller team of undercover agents, all essentially aiming to subvert any online conversations that might erode support for the regime. A related dynamic is the spillover effect of tightly controlled traditional media outlets that launch online versions, remain key sources of information for many ordinary users, and are thus able to shape online opinions.


“Outsourcing” of censorship and surveillance to private companies: Partly due to the nature of internet and mobile-phone technologies, extensive censorship and monitoring of content or usage patterns are not possible without the cooperation of private companies. Consequently, every country assessed in this study was found to engage in some level of “outsourcing” to nongovernmental access providers, be they ISPs, cybercafes, or mobile-phone operators. Among good and mid-range performers—such as Estonia, Kenya, South Africa, Georgia, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and India—this took the form of legislation requiring retention of user data, interception powers for law enforcement agencies (often with some judicial oversight), or filtering of content, although the targeted material did not involve political communication in these relatively free settings. In more authoritarian environments—such as Egypt, China, Tunisia, Cuba, and Iran—the outsourcing involved extensive surveillance and user registration, especially in cybercafes; legal requirements for the filtering of political content; and sanctions such as the loss of business licenses for private entities that failed to comply with regulations. In China, Iran, and Tunisia, private entities often had significant numbers of staff members assigned to implement these tasks, which imposed an additional cost on their businesses. In these three countries in particular, international technology companies have also complied with the local, illiberal, and antidemocratic regulations. They have aided censorship and surveillance practices, provided equipment that is crucial to carrying out such tasks, and at times turned over the personal data of users, leading to their arrest.


Legal repercussions: Most countries do not have internet-specific criminal legislation but rely on general press laws or statutes against insult, blasphemy, leaking state secrets, and other prohibitions to restrict or punish users for online activities. Overall, in 6 of the 15 countries under assessment, a blogger or online journalist was sentenced to prison during the coverage period. Cuba is one of the few countries with internet-specific laws, but tends to prosecute online journalists under generic charges such as presenting a “precriminal social danger.” The level of prosecutions is highest in China, which uses laws against “inciting subversion,” “leaking state secrets,” and “using a heretical organization to undermine the law,” and has issued more than 80 decrees that specifically address internet content and related issues. Prison sentences for online violations in China tend to be longer than elsewhere, with a typical minimum of three years and maximums as high as ten, while in other countries most sentences range from six months to four years. Numerous prosecutions have also occurred in Tunisia, Iran, Egypt, and Malaysia, where laws against insulting the head of state or Islam are most frequently invoked, while Russia relies on vague laws against extremism. Even better performing countries like India produce occasional cases against bloggers. By contrast, legal repercussions for online activity seem to be virtually nonexistent in South Africa, Kenya, and Georgia. Although Turkey is notorious for its high rate of prosecutions against journalists and writers in general, it would appear that this has not yet affected online content producers to the same extent. In the United Kingdom, the phenomenon of “libel tourism” poses a new threat to journalists and scholars alike. Wealthy individuals from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union have exploited expansive interpretations of libel laws and jurisdictional questions by British courts to silence or intimidate journalists through civil lawsuits, leading to increased self-censorship among both traditional and online commentators, particularly on issues related to the financing of terrorism.

Extralegal harassment and threats: The extralegal punishment of individuals for their online activities has emerged as a major and growing issue of concern. The Committee to Protect Journalists noted at the end of 2008 that there were more online journalists than traditional journalists behind bars for the first time that year, either as a result of legal prosecution or extralegal detention. Such forms of repression are virtually unknown in the better-performing countries, although there have been exceptions. At least one blogger or journalist was detained during the coverage period in 8 of the 15 countries under study, in some cases for a short period of time. However, the intimidation of individuals has reached significant proportions in 6 of the 15 countries. In these cases, multiple individuals have been subjected to arbitrary arrest, 24-hour surveillance, harassment, prosecution, or various forms of mental and physical mistreatment, including torture. Levels of abuse are particularly severe in China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia. Egypt stands out as a country with a relatively open internet environment that has chosen to use these methods to make an example of a few prominent activists and bloggers. Although the number of individuals targeted in these countries is small relative to the entire online community, their experiences have a chilling effect on their peers.

Harassment can also take the form of “technical violence,” in which specific websites or servers are attacked by hackers employing dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which can paralyze or shut down entire websites. Such incidents occurred in six countries; in Georgia and Estonia, massive attacks targeted government websites and information networks during periods of diplomatic or military friction with Russia. The assaults were apparently carried out by individuals residing in Russia and possibly associated with the Russian authorities.


Positive openings


Despite the growing range of threats and methods of control, there have been several positive trends in recent years. As access to the relevant technologies has expanded, so too has the circulation of news and information and user mobilization on a host of political and social issues. Even in Cuba, with its tight controls on access, some citizens have attempted to push the boundaries through blogging and the offline sharing of downloaded internet content through USB devices and other means.

In other restricted media environments, the diversity of online content is significantly higher than in the print and broadcast media, and citizens have to some extent been able to use the internet and mobile phones to spread information and organize around certain issues. This is more easily done on topics deemed less threatening to the government, such as environmental activism in Iran or relief efforts after the Sichuan earthquake in China. But it is also present to a degree on more politically sensitive subjects, such as women’s rights in Iran or calls for an end to one-party rule in China. Online activism is especially striking in middle-range performers such as Malaysia and Egypt, where citizens have used blogs and social-networking sites to organize protests and create pressure groups pertaining to government policies or local elections. In Kenya, an online citizen journalism initiative called Ushahidi was launched during a burst of postelection ethnic violence. It catalogued incidents using messages sent by ordinary citizens with their mobile phones, and posted them onto a map to track the unfolding events.

Some governments have taken positive steps to strengthen online freedom. In Brazil and Egypt, the authorities have introduced programs to support the opening of low-cost internet access points in rural and economically disadvantaged areas. In Estonia, the government has opened over 1,200 free wireless internet-access zones, with at least 800 more planned for the coming year. In Turkey, a parliamentary inquiry has been launched into surveillance practices by law enforcement agencies following a series of scandals. There have also been several court decisions upholding freedom of speech online. In South Africa, a judge ruled that ISPs should not be held liable for comments posted by users, while in Egypt a court rejected a request to block several dozen websites, including those of prominent human rights groups.


Future trends


  • Growth of the “mobile web”: A noticeable trend, particularly among developing countries, is the growing availability and affordability of internet access via mobile phones, whose penetration rate is currently higher in most countries than that of the internet. This process holds the potential for both positive and negative effects on internet freedom. On the one hand, the number of individuals able to make use of the internet will grow exponentially. On the other hand, the methods already used by governments to restrict the content viewed or transmitted via computers may spread to the “mobile web.” Indeed, some of the findings of this report indicate that such a dynamic is beginning to emerge, as China, Tunisia, and Iran channel mobile internet traffic through the same gateways as traditional internet traffic, subjecting it to similar levels of monitoring and technical filtering.


  • Expanded adoption of sophisticated censorship and filtering methods: As internet and mobile-phone access continues to grow, more and more governments may respond by implementing sophisticated censorship and filtering mechanisms. This possibility poses a threat particularly in middle-performing countries where the internet environment has thus far been significantly more open than the traditional media sphere. Countries to watch in this regard are Egypt, Kenya, Georgia, Malaysia, and Russia, as their scores on this index are notably better than on Freedom House’s press freedom index.


  • Increase in legal repercussions and violations of user rights: As the findings of this study indicate, the first line of attack in many countries—whether democratic or authoritarian—is legal sanctions and violations of user rights. Without persistent public pressure and vigilant oversight by the international community, this trend could continue, with more countries passing restrictive, internet-specific criminal legislation; more powerful societal actors using defamation suits to silence critics; and more bloggers being sentenced to long prison terms, tortured, or killed. Indeed, since the end of this study’s coverage period, Kenya’s president has ratified a controversial cybercrimes bill, a prominent Chinese blogger has been stabbed in a public place, and an Iranian blogger has died in prison.


Despite such threats, the flexibility and spread of digital media technology carry with them significant promise for improving the flow of information, enhancing civic participation and activism, and ultimately, bringing greater freedom to all corners of the globe. Nonetheless, as this study’s findings indicate, such potential must not be taken for granted. Foresight and creativity are needed, particularly on the part of democratic countries, to develop policies and procedures that are applicable to new technologies but consistent with international standards for human rights and democratic governance. In a fast-changing digital world, vigilance is required if we are to ensure continued freedom on the net.


***


Karin Deutsch Karlekar, a senior researcher at Freedom House, served as managing editor of the pilot Freedom on the Net: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media. She holds a PhD from Cambridge University. Sarah Cook, an Asia researcher at Freedom House, served as assistant editor of the study. She holds masters degrees in politics and international law from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.


Overall guidance for the project was provided by Robert Guerra, project director of Freedom House’s Global Internet Freedom Initiative; Christopher Walker, director of studies; Daniel Calingaert, deputy director of programs; and Arch Puddington, director of research. Extensive research, editorial, proofreading, and administrative assistance was provided by Denelle Burns, as well as by Tyler Roylance, Katrina Neubauer, Joanna Perry, Eliza Bonner, Caroline Neilsen, and interns Joshua Siegel, Eliza Young, and Aidan Gould. We would like to thank our consultant writers and advisers and other members of the survey team for their contributions. We are also very appreciative of numerous individuals who provided guidance and feedback on the methodology developed for this pilot study.


This project was made possible by contributions from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Dutch Foreign Ministry. Freedom House is actively seeking additional funding to expand and continue this pilot study.




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Monday, May 18, 2009

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