In the 40 countries of the world are subjected to Internet censorship

In 2002, the government only four states were subjected to regular Internet censorship.Today, these countries - over forty. Certain restrictions on the web today introduced practically all states

"Today, freedom of the Internet is in danger as never before", - one of the founders of the World Wide Web Vinton Cerf. Forcing American science to sound the alarm? Of course, numbers.

In 2002, the government only four states were subjected to regular Internet censorship, today there are more than 40 states. Particularly common in recent disturbing news coming from Asia. So, when in August in India began a new wave of religious conflicts, the government decided to just block web pages and social network profiles of those people whom the authorities suspected of spreading rumors. In recent months, the court had to be brought bloggers in Vietnam, and South Korea accounts regime opponents were simply block writes BFM.ru .

Even in Ethiopia, where internet access is only 1% of the population is already actively used internet filter and remote monitoring of the user's connection. Just this year, according to the international organization "Reporters without Borders" in the world killed 29 bloggers, 127 more people have been imprisoned for their positions in the Internet.

Slowly introduce censorship all

My favorite excuse State giving censorship - "for reasons of national security." In this case, the web content filtering in one degree or another, practically all of the country. "In the world there, maybe a couple of Internet providers and states that do not filter the contents of the Web. Just when those involved are democracies, they are detailed discussions about what content and on what to censor," - said Jermyn Brooks , Chairman, Global Network Initiative (GNI).

The most striking example - the controversial film "innocent Muslims", which caused a wave of protests in the Islamic world. What to do - prohibit it from running to escape the violence and loss of life? In Russia, for example, that have done so, first Prosecutor General's Office, and then the court of first instance found extremist film and decided to block.

Even a country like Sweden, where 90% of households have access to the web, can not ignore the issues of censorship.For example, the government decided to do obvious thing - block sites with child pornography, a blacklist of prohibited Internet sites. But the choice of pages are not transparent and was illogical, critics say. "But that does not mean that the Swedish system is as bad as in some non-democratic country," - justifies the actions of the Swedish authorities Deputy Foreign Minister Frank Belfrage. According to him, the Swedes defend democracy, while authoritarian and dictatorial regimes - anti-democrats.

West helps East ...

Another problem - the fact that not all Western companies involved in the development of technologies to spy on users in the network, and filtering of Internet content, adhere to high ethical standards when it comes to a bargain, even with questionable clients. "Western governments have practically no control over sale of such technology and do not indicate to whom they can sell, and to whom - not", - complains Eric King, of human rights group Privacy International, investigation, in which countries go the Western system of computer surveillance.

However, the good news we can assume that none of the systems of control and censorship is not yet strong enough. In China, about 10% of users have learned to bypass the public system lock "Golden Shield" ("China's great firewall"), using proxies and anonymizers networks - that is, software that enable anonymous network connection is protected from eavesdropping.

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