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The Internet Privacy Technology

Countries Ranked In Terms of Internet Freedom 98

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we're-number-two! dept.
msum sent in a report that ranks 37 nations around the would in terms of their internet freedom. Estonia takes gold, the US silver, and Bahrain comes in last.
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Countries Ranked In Terms of Internet Freedom More

Countries Ranked In Terms of Internet Freedom

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  • Re-post (Score:4, Informative)

    by Pikkebaas ( 1665451 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @07:57AM (#35928334)
    Isn't this just a repost of http://slashdot.org/story/11/04/21/1946253/Australia-Ranked-Fourth-In-Internet-Freedom [slashdot.org]?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes... but THIS article is about Estonia being 1st, while THAT article was about Australia being 4th. Totally different, see?

    • Re:Re-post (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BrokenHalo ( 565198 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @08:34AM (#35928634)
      It is indeed a repost, but it goes further even than that. In TFA, which takes the form of an interview, the response to the first question begins:

      Robert Guerra: Well, this project is actually the second report.

      Sounds like someone might have been nobbled. But in any case, describing countries such as the US or Australia as "free" - when citizens are free to view whatever content they want so long as they have no objection to so-called "Intelligence" services spying on them and taking whatever action they see fit - seems a bit hollow to me.

    • Talk about internet censorship : my country (Belgium) is not even mentioned in the report.

      • When it comes to the most revolting swear word in the whole of the known universe, I think a little censorship is to be forgiven.
      • I have to say I thought it was quite humorous that the majority of countries where freedom is taken for granted are simply not included.

        For 12 years, I stood up each day in school forced to pledge my allegiance to a flag and the country it stands for under some god I don't even believe in. It's as if they were also trying to force their religion on me as well. The simple fact that we are forced every day to re-pledge our allegiance at risk of being penalized by the principle are taunted by some religious fr

    • Freedomhouse, the creators of this imaginary list are a propaganda front [wordpress.com] for the US Gov. As with most propaganda, their "list" is completely bogus - to any impartial observer there is just no way the US could make it to third place of world stage based on the facts. [dotweekly.com]. However propaganda is not effective unless you get everyone repeating it without thinking - which raises the question - how is this organization they gaming the slashdot story posting system ?? Are we to have this propaganda tripe plastered ac

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by geegel ( 1587009 )

        By the way I'm really glad that Slashdot is sticking it to the man. In the report Iran is actually the champion on freedom censorship not Bahrain (lower score, higher freedom). If you can't beat them, confuse them.

        Source [freedomhouse.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )

        I find it funny that Hillary Clinton talks about internet freedom while they drag some old guy out and cuff him:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My29YT1T4R4 [youtube.com]

        I guess US citizens are now to restrict their protests to the Internet ;).

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So far we know that Australia is 4th, Estonia 1sr, US 2nd, the place of Bahrain is 37.
      As nobody RTFA here, we need quite a few reposts to complete the list. I have full trust in CmdrTaco, he was very good in dupes so far, maybe he can do even better...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      And the list is incomplete too. Considering that there are 193 states in the world (or more if you are considering some that aren't fully recognized) then the list may even be incorrect.

  • Around the would?

    How about "around the won't" like in "I won't read this article" because subby is an idiot.

    --
    BMO

  • Bahrain? (Score:5, Informative)

    by chemicaldave ( 1776600 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @08:04AM (#35928390)

    You mean Iran? Did you even read TFA?

    And not even a link to the original report? It's really not hard to find. [freedomhouse.org]

  • And how is freedom on the net even measured without a subjective component?

  • ...Estonia because it only exists on the Internet (www.ee [www.ee]): noone can actually point it's location on a map.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      Its on the east end of the Baltic sea, along with Latvia and Lithuania. It was part of the USSR for a while.

      I know they dont teach world geography in US schools.

      I have never met anyone from Estonia, but I did know an old lady from Latvia.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Its on the east end of the Baltic sea, along with Latvia and Lithuania. It was part of the USSR for a while.

        I know they dont teach world geography in US schools.

        I have never met anyone from Estonia, but I did know an old lady from Latvia.

        Well, they do teach geography very poorly - it's not covered as a separate subject - it's more of an aside in history classes ("this event happened here, for example ");.

        Because nothing of major importance to world history happened in Estonia other than it being occupied by various other countries during WW2, most US students will have no idea where it is, or even know that it is an actual country.

        Really, knowing about all the countries in the world is good thing, but other than trivia value it's

        • Really, knowing about all the countries in the world is good thing, but other than trivia value it's not that useful in your day to day life.

          It's not as if anyone is requiring you to name every country's capital, population, main cities, GDP per capita etc. Just knowing a country exists and approximately in what part of the world is a good thing, especially when you happen to meet somebody from that country or have to do business with it. It also comes in handy when planning a trip. More, it can help you avoid looking like complete arse. ("Oh, Estonia, I thought you just mispronounced Australia. Yes, Estonia... It's somewhere in Africa, between

        • Because nothing of major importance to world history happened in Estonia

          It was one of the two Nazi-occupied countries that were declared Judenfrei (completely free of Jews - usually achieved through eradication), along with Luxembourg.

          • Which was an easy thing to do, unfortunately - both countries are tiny. But while larger than Luxemburg, Estonia is much less important. I should know - I was born there.

          • Yeah, that's the black eye. The Jewish community was very small, the majority of them managed to flee from the Nazis to Russia, quite many were hidden from the Nazis by Estonians themselves, but a visible bunch were indeed murdered.

  • Sorry state of affairs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When Germany places third in Internet Freedom, then the bar must be pretty low. Germany censors web sites. Germany recorded everyone's connection meta data about phone calls and internet connections. Germany makes people who provide open wireless LAN access take the fall for crimes which are committed by other people via that WLAN. In Germany, blog operators are liable for comments if they fail to perform a fair amount of editorial supervision. Germany requires every web site which is written for a public a

  • Just like in Independance Day (Score:3)

    by rikkards ( 98006 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @08:17AM (#35928492) Journal

    Canada is nowhere to be seen.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Canada is nowhere to be seen.

      Well, depending on the whims of the moment, you can lump it in with either the UK, France, or the USA. Sooner or later they should just pick one and give up the charade.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      lots of nations where no where to be seen.
      Spain, Japan, France Sweden, Norway, Finland...
      Just take a look at all the white on the map http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/Map.pdf [freedomhouse.org]
      In other words this is just about useless because how free the internet is in large part comes down to opinion. In some nations "hate speech" is illegal, in some sexually explicit pictures of 16 year olds is perfectly legal. Which limitation or lack of them makes that nation more or less free?
      It is pretty easy to say that Cu

  • "the US silver"

    This enough is proof how bogus this ranking is.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      "the US silver"

      This enough is proof how bogus this ranking is.

      I think they only look at government suppression, not government sanctioned corporate suppression, nor government surveillance.
      Also keep in mind that this is a US company, who would be sawing off the branch they sat on if they said that their internet was suppressed.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Well, they didn't include every country, and they certainly excluded some countries that would have ranked higher than the US (Canada, which is currently PATRIOT ACT free, is one that immediately comes to mind).

      • Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Haedrian ( 1676506 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @09:16AM (#35928950)

        Right, so basically the US is the second most internet-free country, from a list of countries.

        Hold the presses.

        I'm the richest man in the world if we only take homeless people as my 'world'.

      • Depending on how you do the weighting, Canada could still come out behind. Among other things, it has done much more than the US to forbid reporting of some current legal proceedings. Obviously, it's a really subjective list (some countries should obviously rank poorly because they're bad on all or almost all metrics, but it's much less clear near the "free" end of the list which factors should matter the most).

  • .. where did Australia [slashdot.org] rank?

  • US officials can seize your domain without a court order while in Iran or China, they would just block you! Remember the massive domain seizure that ended up being wrong?

    Freedom? That's strictly up for debate!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      Freedom? That's strictly up for debate!

      Only if you've paid your Subversive Activities Registration Act fee [cbsnews.com] to South Carolina.

    • US officials can seize your domain without a court order while in Iran or China, they would just block you! Remember the massive domain seizure that ended up being wrong?

      Freedom? That's strictly up for debate!

      Well considering that the US can seize your domain regardless of what country is hosting your content, that ability probably shouldn't even be considered, as it is the same everywhere.

      • Every domain name ultimately comes from ICANN, which is located in California, and therefore if the US government tells them that they can't sell (well, rent) a domain to someone, they can't. That is one of the limitations of any centralized service: it has to abide by the laws under whose jurisdiction it operates. However, domain names are luxuries: any properly-configured* website can be accessed by its IP address rather than its domain name, and if your server is located outside the US, they can't actual

  • if its own editors don't even read it. because just scanning the headlines for one minute a day and having a barely workable human memory would send off dupe alarm bells

    so taco: please tell us what website you are reading so we can stop reading here and go there instead, since you obviously don't consider slashdot worth your time. you obviously think slashdot is beneath your interest level

    its insulting to slashdot's readers, and it just leaves you with the feeling that if the powers that be around here don'

  • with the HADOPI and LOPSI laws... isn't it woth of evaluating or the response would be scary at best?

  • Not a single scandinavian country (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lord of the Fries ( 132154 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @10:07AM (#35929400) Homepage

    You hear about the zeal for progressive freedoms in the Scandinavian countries from time to time it seems to me. Things like the Pirate party in Sweden. And Iceland wanting to make a free press safehouse out of its country. And DVD Jon in Norway. I was kinda shocked that none of Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, or Finland was in this report. Kind of a stupid report IMO.

    • As far as I know, here in Chile we have the only net-neutrality law worldwide. We do not have censorship due to intelligence, nor deep-package inspection nor any other bullshit. No ridiculous laws about child pornography (yes, VERY illegal, but the actual measures taken are IMHO, much wiser). I don't think we are even mentioned.

  • the table in the article shows Thailand being worse than Bahrain, or am I missing something?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pbjones ( 315127 )

      ooooops sorry, I missed the it was best to worst (100) which still leaves several countries Worse than Bahrain, so is it a crap article, or do they fudge their own figures?

  • Well, China can't be far up there, since the report is quite clearly hard-blocked (which means the connection is always reset when trying to access it). Interestingly enough, imdb is also blocked, which just seems stupid. I really need to get a vpn.

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