"Censorship Sucks"

That’s a comment made at a recent developer’s conference by Twitter CEO Evan Williams in reference to the micro-blogging service’s attempt to crack the Chinese market. China has been in the news lately for its heavy-handed attempts to block search engine results and other Internet content from reaching the general population. If information is power, then withholding it is one way to keep citizens’ power in check.

According to the Great Firewall of China website, “It is estimated that some 30,000 Chinese civil servants are monitoring Internet traffic and blocking content that is deemed undesirable. Typing in sensitive keywords such as ‘democracy’, ‘Falun Gong’ or ‘porno’ in a search engine results in an error message. Websites of a sensitive nature are being blocked.”

At one point, I discovered that Learn the Net was blocked in China. although I’m unsure why, as the site content is certainly not controversial. But a recent check revealed that it’s now accessible in Hong Kong–which has an open Internet policy–as well in Beijing, the seat of Chinese government. (If you publish online, you can use this tool to check the status of your site.)

Unfortunately China isn’t the only country engaged in online censorship. As you might suspect, repressive governments, including North Korea, Burma, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam routinely censor the Net. According to Reporters Without Borders, an international organization that monitors freedom of the press, other countries are under surveillance, like Australia, for the government’s efforts to have Internet service providers block sites deemed “inappropriate.”

And China isn’t the only country that requires search engines to filter results. The European Union, including France and Germany, bans sites promoting Nazism.

Other countries have gotten into the act. An alert posted by the International Freedom of Expression eXchange claims that the Thai government blocks “more than 50,000 websites and web pages.” 

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University tracks inaccessible websites in real time by relying on reports from people around the world. Browse the latest reports at HerdictWeb.

As the Internet becomes the world’s prime source of information, expect to see more governments cracking down on free speech. But even as censorship techniques become more sophisticated, citizens seeking information are pioneering new ways to communicate. A prime example is the use of Twitter during the post-election protests in Iran.

Have you experienced online censorship? Share your story.