It is disappointing to know that in my country, the U.S., where internet began, laws about interception of online traffic do not provide enough privacy for users. Also, that firms I used to respect, Yahoo!, Cisco Systems and Microsoft are working with censorship authorities in China. This does not bode well for our freedom on speech. The home of the First Amendment, the Internet and blogs, should set the example for other countries on how they should be respected as part of free speech and democracy.
Reporters without Borders reports that since the U.S. led the invasion of Iraq five years ago, there have been hundreds of journalists forced into exile. On the eve of the 5th anniversary of the start of U.S. invasion, many journalists ran to Jorday or Syria after being threatened with or surviving murder attempts.
China 3/21 – The government tightens net on online video sharing.
Russia 3/21 – TV journalist murdered in his Moscow apartment.
Turkey 3/21 – Two Trabzone gendarmes accuse superiors of doing nothing to stop Dink murder.
Nigeria 3/21 – Lagos-based daily’s cartoonist attacked at home by armed intruders.
Argentina 3/21 – Investigators think journalist’s murder was a crime of passion
Zimbabwe 3/21 – A week ahead of elections, African observers urged not to minimize im
portance of government control of media.
Bangladesh 3/21 – Cartoonist released after 6 months in prison
Jordan 3/21 – 3-month jail sentences for 5 journalists
Iraq 3/21 – Al-Arabiya and Al-Sumariya journalists attacked by prime minister’s bodyguards.
China’s internet filtering system is the most sophisticated in the world. It has multiple levels of legal regulation and technical control, involves many agencies, putlic and private personnel. China censors material transmitted by web sites, logs, online discussion forums, university bulletin boards, and emails. The filtering takes place at the “backbone” level of network and individual service providers block using their own filters. Blog service providers block certain posts or editing and removing them. Chin’s intricate filtering system is supported by a complex set of laws and policies that control publication of material online. These are a vague and broad range of laws to protect “state secrets”, the “dignity” of the state, and rights of protection for the citizen are unclear and more likely to by considered inapplicable by the state. News testing performed in 2004/05 showed China has blocked the Voice of America service, and the BBC. In every site related to the Falun Gong movement, it was block. Clearly China’s filtering regime is one of the most sophisticated. Other sites also blocked were anti-Communist content pages, with material related to the Tiananmen Square incident, The Human Rights in China site, and other pro-democracy Web sites. There was a high level of blocking also on Taiwan and Tibet sites.
It is important to understand how politics shapes the Internet, and also understand the dynamics of technology and Civil Society. Comparing e-Civil Society with e-Government and e-Commerce in China, it is shown that the Internet matters for Chinese civil society in many ways, and that Civil Society and the Internet energize each other in China today. The implications mean that political control of the Internet will have to take the form of control of civil society as well, and also the other way around. Civil Society development will further the democratic uses of the Internet as much as the diffusion of the Internet will shape Civil Society. This is the long-term consequences for developing of the Internet and Civil Society in China.
