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Netizen Report: Transition Edition

June 22, 2012 by

The June 21st edition of the Netizen Report on Global Voices Advocacy begins in Myanmar, which is undergoing an uncertain political transition:

Myanmar’s resolve for an open Internet is being tested this week as the government declared a state of emergency on June 10, to contain deadly clashes between Muslims and Buddhists in the nation’s western Rakhine state. The country’s military junta was dissolved in 2011, so the government’s response to website comments inciting hate and murder could set a new tone for freedom of expression as the state goes through a seminal transitional moment.

Despite moves toward democracy, Myanmar was still listed as one of the ‘Enemies of the Internet‘ this year by free speech advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. The government began political reforms last year and has increased access to the Internet by lowering firewalls that had blocked social media such as Facebook and the use of VoIP software.

The conflict between Buddhists and the Muslim Rohingya minority has galvanized Internet activity in this developing nation, but hate speech, ruthless pictures of dead bodies and street protests have spread quickly online. The independent Burmese website Democratic Voice of Burma also had its server overwhelmed in a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS) by hacker group Blink, which used computers with IP addresses based in Singapore or Russia. The Blink website posted numerous anti-Islamist messages including “Get Out From Our Land .. Rohingya .. We Love RaKhine .. We Love Myanmar”, directing comments at the Muslim minority, which traces its origins to neighboring Bangladesh.

Myanmar’s government remains silent on these social media messages, but military officials have warned news media not to inflame the conflict through their reporting and demanded all articles be submitted for government review before publication. As in many countries under transition, it remains to be seen whether Internet freedom can survive this political and humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, the struggle for online freedom continues around the world..

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Netizen Report: Intervention Edition

June 14, 2012 by

This week’s Netizen Report on Global Voices Advocacy begins in Kuwait:

Throughout this week’s edition we highlight examples of government intervention to limit free speech online, ostensibly “for the greater good”. In Kuwait, a Shi’ite man has been sentenced to prison for ten years for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammad and Sunni Muslims via Twitter. Pleading innocent, Hamad Al-Naqi said the posts were written by someone who had hacked his Twitter account.

From there we travel to China, India, South Africa, Tunisia, Oman, Facebookistan, and beyond. Click here to read the whole thing.

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Netizen Report: Telecoms Edition

June 9, 2012 by

This week’s Netizen Report on Global Voices Advocacy begins in Ethiopia:

In countries whose governments disrespect free speech and privacy, the introduction of new telecommunications (telecoms) infrastructure generally creates a new layer of censorship and  surveillance. One of the latest examples is Ethiopia. Last week Ethio Telecom, the sole telecommunication service provider in Ethiopia, announced a plan to relaunch its 3G wireless network to improve the quality and speed of Internet connections. However Tor, a project which supports anonymous online communication, recently found that Ethio Telecom has deployed or begun testing Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) of all Internet traffic, and has also blocked Tor. The Tor team has since developed a workaround for users in Ethiopia.

We proceed onward across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, and provide an update on the battle over which international organizations should be allowed to govern parts of the Internet. Click here to read the whole thing.

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Netizen Report: Mexican Spring Edition

June 3, 2012 by

Galvanized online, tens of thousands of protesters marched in Mexico’s capital last month calling for more engaging issue campaigns by politicians and less biased reporting by mainstream media of the upcoming presidential election. This past week’s Netizen Report on Global Voices Advocacy discusses this and other key Internet freedom and control issues. Click here to read the whole thing.

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Netizen Report: Runet and Eurovision Editions

May 23, 2012 by

The Netizen Report team produced two more excellent editions last week and this week on Global Voices Advocacy. Check out this week’s Eurovision Edition, highlighting government threats to online freedom in Azerbaijan, and last week’s Runet Edition, which begins with recent struggles in Russia. Both editions continue on their weekly world tour of the global struggle for freedom and control of the Internet.

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Netizen Report: Raise Your Voice Edition

May 13, 2012 by

Last week’s Netizen Report, published on Global Voices Advocacy, begins with the story of dedicated activists in India who are fighting against unreasonable government censorship and surveillance powers. Here is how the report begins:

Internet activists in India are fuming over the country’s sweeping new Internet restrictions on objectionable content, and are beginning to take extreme action to combat the law. This week we recognize Aseem Trivedi and Alok Dixit from Save Your Voice, who have begun a hunger strike in protest of the ‘Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011’ which were quietly issued by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in April 2011.

One of the flaws of the new rules is that they mandate that website or domain owners must take down material within 36 hours when a third party issues a complaint, without giving a chance for content owners to defend the material. The Bangalore-based advocacy group Centre for Internet & Society also pointed out that the rule leads to a general chilling effect on freedom of expression over the Internet.

Member of Parliament Shri P. Rajeev has moved to have the rules annulled amid widespread protests by India’s netizen community. As a growing number of MP’s become aware of the issue some see some hope that the censorship law will be discarded. For more details, analysis and links see this post on Global Voices.

From there we survey the global state of censorship, surveillance, activism, corporate actions and government regulation. Click here to read the whole thing.

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Netizen Report: Follow What You Believe Edition

May 2, 2012 by

This week, the Global Voices Netizen Report launches its first weekly edition, by honoring Ms. Chiranuch Premchaiporn, who was arrested in 2009 for violating Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act because she failed to delete a user comment insulting the King of Thailand quickly enough. Also covered, censorship, surveillance, copyright and other net freedom issues from around the world. Click here to read the whole thing.

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Netizen Report: Firewall Edition

April 27, 2012 by

The latest edition of the Netizen Report on Global Voices Advocacy begins with the story of how, on April 12, the Chinese Internet was cut off from the global Internet for about two hours, for reasons that remain unknown. Meanwhile, netizens around the world have been busy fighting threats to their freedom of all kinds. For a full roundup of the latest developments in the global struggle for freedom and control in cyberspace, click here.

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The Netizen Report: Legislative Edition

April 12, 2012 by

Our crack team has posted another great edition of the Netizen Report over at Global Voices Advocacy. It begins:

Democratic nations face a challenge in finding the right balance between national security imperatives on one hand and the need to protect citizens’ freedoms on the other. In this week’s report we highlight several solutions that fall too far on the former side.

To read the whole thing – including a roundup of all the various global developments related to the worldwide struggle for Internet freedom, click here.

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Fighting the Great Firewall of Pakistan

April 11, 2012 by

Foreign Policy has published my latest contribution, Fighting the Great Firewall of Pakistan, featuring an interview with Sana Saleem, Global Voices contributor and founder of the Karachi-based social justice organization, Bolo Bhi. Here is how the article begins:

It takes a strong stomach and a thick skin to be a female activist fighting online censorship in Pakistan. Sana Saleem has both.

The 24-year-old founder of a Karachi-based free expression group Bolo Bhi has been accused of supporting “blasphemy.” On Twitter, a chilling message made the rounds last month: “this @sanasaleem is a prostitute who feature in porn movies #throwacidonsana.” Her photo was posted in pornography forums.

None of this has fazed Sana, who in conjunction with several other young Pakistani blogger-activists had launched a successful campaign that has shamed the government into halting plans for a national Internet censorship system. A long-time contributor to the international bloggers network Global Voices Online, in March Saleem joined forces with other groups including the Pakistan-based social justice group Bytes For All and other activists like the dentist-blogger Awab Alvi, a.k.a. “Teeth Maestro,” who has been campaigning against censorship since 2006. Their success is a victory for free speech, and not only in Pakistan. It holds lessons for activists around the world who are fighting uphill battles against censorship schemes initiated by governments that claim to be acting in the public interest, and who have support from influential political constituencies.

Click here to read the rest.

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