Report uncovers most repressive online nations

by Stevie Smith - Mar 13 2009, 17:30

Bemoaning instances of poor Internet speed and service reliability is a common complaint for many online users in the U.S. and across Europe, but perhaps we should all learn to be a little more tolerant given that our Net content is at least not crippled by censorship.

If finding that tolerance is something you could benefit from, then the annual Reporters Without Borders list of the world’s worst online censorship offenders may make you appreciate your access, your good fortune, and your geography just a little more.

According to Paris-based non-government organisation Reporters Without Borders (RWB), the nations making up this year’s “Enemies of the Internet” list consist of Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The RWB’s annual report assessing the spread of online censorship and repression across the globe was released on Thursday, March 12, and labelled the above countries as being guilty of preventing their citizens from freely viewing online content deemed to be “undesirable” by individual governments.

“All of these countries distinguish themselves not only by their ability to censor online news and information but also by their virtually systematic persecution of troublesome Internet users,” outlined the RWB.

“Not only is the Internet more and more controlled, but new forms of censorship are emerging based on the manipulation of information,” it added. “Orchestrating the posting of comments on popular websites or organising hacker attacks is also used by repressive regimes to scramble or jam online content.”

And the report didn’t just take aim at repressive nations, but also took issue with leading U.S. online technology companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, all of which it claimed have knowingly assisted the likes of China in censoring or prosecuting Internet users despite championing free speech and user privacy in the west.

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