In 2002, the governments of only four states were subjected to regular Internet censorship, today there are more than 40 states. Often the bad newa are coming from Asia. In August in India, a new wave of religious conflicts began, that is why the government decided to block web pages and social network profiles of people whom the authorities suspected in rumor’s spreading.
Even in Ethiopia, where internet access has only 1% of the population, who actively used internet filter and remote monitoring of the user's connection. This year, according to the international organization called "Reporters without Borders" in the world 29 bloggers were killed, more than 127 have been imprisoned because of their positions in the Internet.
Slow censorship introducing
The stare favorite censorship excuse is - "for national security reasons."
"The world has nearly a couple of Internet providers and states that do not filter the contents of the Web. Just when those countries are democracies, they discuss about what content must be censored, "- says Jermyn Brooks, the Chairman of the Global Network Initiative (GNI).
The most striking example is the controversial film "Innocent of Muslims", which caused a wave of protests in the Islamic world. What to do? Prohibit it from running to prevent the violence and people death? For example in Russia this film was announced by the Prosecutor General's Office and the court of first instance as extremist and then was blocked.
Even a country like Sweden, where 90% of households have web access, cannot ignore the censorship issues. 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 was illogical, said critics. "But it does not mean that the Swedish state system is as bad as in some non-democratic countries" - the Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank Belfrage justifies the actions of the Swedish authorities. According to him, the Swedes support democracy, while authoritarian and dictatorial regimes are anti-democrats.
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 high ethical standards when it comes to a bargain, even with questionable clients. "Western governments practically do not have control over such technology sailing and do not choose to whom they can sell, and to whom - not", - complains Eric King,the member of Human Rights Group Privacy International.
However, the good news is that none of the censorship control systems is strong enough yet. In China, about 10% of users know how to avoid the public lock system "Golden Shield" (security provider), by using proxies and anonymizers networks - is software that enable anonymous network connection that protected from eavesdropping.
