Chinese people have no access to social networks

Chinese authorities blocked all the programmes and services that allowed them to visit prohibited sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This was reported by the The New York Times (Chinese version of which is also blocked for users in China).

For a short period of time 3 more companies announced that their sites are also blocked. Chinese authorities advise all companies, which are interested in running their own business on the People's Republic of China territory to use private networks for the information transfers.
Several foreign Media experts notes that if this situation continues, all the informational agencies and bureaus that transfer news from Asia will have to move from Beijing to Tokyo.

We remind that there is a strict Internet censorship in China. All the sites are scanning on the existence of the key words, that are connected with the information about state security. Also there is a “blacklist” resources filtering. The country’s government blocked the access to portals which, according to its point of view, spread prohibited information promoting violence, pornography etc.

Each video will be published in the Internet only after being modernized.
From 2010 Chinese people, (due to the population) being the most numerous group of the Internet users, have lost the access to the Google search.

Beijing explains that this virtual policy is a measure that will secure  mental health of the oncoming generation.

The Google search engine and other companies servers have been blocked on the whole territory of China on November 8 of the current year. The representatives of  SecurityLab said that Google blocking had been coincide with the process of the Communist Party Congress were elected their new leaders.

The information about blocking was transferred by the Chinese on-line monitoring service GreatFire. According to the site’s information, the authorities of the country deprived users of visiting Google search, Google mail etc.

Such services like Google maps, Google Docs,  Google Analytics, Google Drive had been also blocked.

“The Chinese government took a step up to the whole independent of their Internet from the global network”, - notes GreatFire. Analysts think that the reason of this blocking probably is connected with the fact that Google had been for a long time disputing with the Chinese government about the censorship in the cyber space.

“Izvestia” reminds that 2 years ago the Chinese government came into a conflict with Google, demanding of the company to block searches of certain words and transfer information about users (in specific cases).  The American company rejection led to the the blocking of the Hon-Kong page.

The situation becoming more complicated due to the wide popularity of Google Android among Chinese users. According to the representatives of GreatFire.org, this can lead to an undesirable for government effect - more Chinese Internet users will know about Internet censorship.



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Russian Internet does not afraid of censorship

The economic of Russian Internet raise the grows rate and its influence as a media channel becomes stronger. RAEC sets a price for a value of the Russian Internet as a several bln dollars and prognoses its increase by 30% in 2012.

2012 discovered a new phenomenon in Russia - the state, for the first time was interested in the Internet sphere. And the first measures concerning this were prohibitive. So, due to this a law about child security from the Information, that provide the creation of the blacklist of sites and blocking illegal content in the Runet.

The first question was about the overall results of the Internet of the current year and also about the “child security from the information” law. In whole, experts pointed out the unavailability of the infrastructure to execute a law and the ambiguities in the questions concerning a content marking and blacklist.

According to experts points of view the main value of this law is that parents began to pay more attention on what their children do in the Internet, said Yuri Sinodov, the chief editor of Roem.ru. He also explained that this question is far from real problem of business. And this is very good that this law isn’t used as a mechanism to pressure business.

It is essential that a part of Internet users are worried about the “law of the Internet”, which deputies are going to make by the next year and of course users afraid of the Internet censorship. So, how tough will be the Internet control?

Generally, the representatives of this sphere do not deny the possibility of a “soft Chinese variant” of the Internet censorship. But also they consider this way as an unlikely but although a possible one .

Oleg Seidak, the head of the FINAM Global fond noticed that “Russian Internet is characterized by more technically educated and mentally active users groups. And right this groups are the main users of the information that can be prohibited by the state regulation.

I think that active and mass State actions towards the limitation of the access In the Internet can lead to a great increase of the users awareness of the ways to avoid this limitations that will have a wholly opposite effect that was not expected.

The state can close this technical possibilities only by using the Chinese variant, that means not only blocking access to the certain information or resources but also a blocking of a part of ways that allow to avoid such blocking. However this method is too cruel and this can cause the “arm race” between Internet users and a state, that none of the countries can win without destroying the Internet at all”, concerning the current situation.

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China intends to straighten up the Internet control

According to a web resources, Chinese authorities considered the possibility of the adoption of legal measures, aimed at “stopping rumors and vulgarity spreading”



We should remind that in the beginning of the current year the rule that had micro blogers to register stating their real identifying data came into a force in China. It was made, as it was said, to secure Internet users interests and for the improvement of the trust in the web”. This measure, according to the authorities will not harm the development of micro blogs but will make such services better”. If the subscriber refuse to state his passport data and the phone number he won’t be able to leave any comments.

This offered rules will oblige users to prove their identity concluding any agreement on getting services for access the Internet. The matter is about both fixed lines and mobile Internet. It is not known yet how this new measures will be realized in practice. Observers notes that Chinese citizens are obliged to provide documents signing the contracts with the Internet-providers.

However, any additional limitations, according to user’s point of view, will negatively effect a development of the Internet sphere and will limit the freedom of speech in more intense. Even now Chinese web companies use special programs for a content monitoring, messages with “illegal content” blocking and deleting. “Politically unconscious” posts, “provocative publications’ etc. are filtered and deleted.



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UNO decided to control Internet

The Internet is familiar to everyone. Nowadays Internet content is very important, that is why all world powers want to control it.

So, who will control it?

Today the main Internet regulators are several American non-government organizations. they are IETF, W3C and ICANN. Officially they do not depend on governmental and intergovernmental organizations. But practically American authorities have a great influence on them.

Russia, China, India, Brazil and Iran are the countries that support the extension of ITU power. USA afraid that if this countries get the right to influence the Network regulatory policy they will limit the freedom of speech and raise censorship.

Independent Internet in fact is between the devil and the deep sea. The regulated companies are in the USA and they are influenced by the American Power. From the other side if the Iran, China or Saudi Arabia get the right to vote it is unlikely that the Internet will be as free as now.

Washington worries the possibility of the Internet control transfers to UNO as it  was announced by the USA State Deputy. According to experts Americans concerns primary are connected with economic interests. Huge American Internet corporations want to influence on rules that regulates the Internet. In general experts believe that the USA opinion is a combined position of all biggest Internet companies.





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The wefightcensorship.org - the portal that is created to contain censored materials

“Reporters without borders” created a special web-site where it is possible to publish materials that are not allowed for publication because of the censor. DW representatives found out how this resource is arranged.

The aim of the wefightcensorship.org Internet-portal, that is created by the initiative of the non-government organization, is to fight with censorship. This project is financed by the EU, Paris authorities and voluntary. This site contains journalists and bloggers materials that were not permitted for the publication due to the censorship in the authoritarian regime’s countries.



“We think that it is necessary to create an Internet-portal contains censored materials”, - said Matthias Spielkamp, the director of “Reporters without borders” organization in the interview with DW. However according to Spielkamp, authors of the site are not going to make it as a data base or a platform for a “leak” of official documents like Wikileaks portal for example.

On the wefightcensorship.org site anyone who wishes can download and send the material to administrators anonymously. For this aim you need a special account. According to Matthias Spielkamp, it is only about the information, that wasn’t published in Media due to the absence of the freedom of speech in some countries.

Online articles and videos have the information about its origin and the reason of its censored. If an article is written not in English or in French than it have to be translated into one of this languages.  According to Spielkamp, the edition do not publish all the materials. “The editor check whether information is a truth or not”, - explains Spielkamp.

The first published article on this site belongs to Omar Brouksy from Morocco. He is not allowed to work officially as a journalist in his country. The government deprived him of the accreditation in the beginning of October 2012 because of the critical material about the royal family role during the elections. Also this site contains a video about the explosion on the ammunition depot in Turkmenia,  about which the Turkmen media hardly reported.

By this means, according to Matthias Spielkamp words, the site team is trying to secure publication’s authors. All photographs and videos allocated on the wefightcensorship.org site can be easily copied. Besides, users can find the link in the network.


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Internet censorship: Tajikistan issued an ultimatum for Zuckerberg after blocking of Facebook

On Wednesday, November 27, it became known that Tajikistan authorities are serious about unblocking Facebook, subject to the fulfillment of their conditions.

For negotiations in Dushanbe about unbanning the largest social net in the world by the mobile networks operators and Internet providers in Tajikistan the Head of the State Communication Service Bek Zukhurov insists on Mark Zukerberg presence. « Does this Facebook net have an owner?”- said Zukhurov in a rage.

Also authority announced that he can meet with Zukerberg only during his business hours. During negotiations Tajikistan authorities want to ban negative comments about their policy, which appear in Facebook constantly.” There are too many outrages against heads of states which are written by some strange people- said Zukhurov - they might get money for that.

The Head of the Comunication Service suggests that Facebook users get nearly from $5 to 10 th. for each negative comment. How Mark Zukenberg commented such an attack and wether he’s going to negotiate in Tajikistan is unknown. However Russian bloggers laughed at Zukhurov and quote him for free.


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Censorship on the Internet - a new global trend?

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

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.

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