Top 10 List of Worldwide Internet Censors

PreacherTom writes "Reports of internet censorship are nothing new and are quite expected from countries whose leadership depends on controlling the popular worldview. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris group that does advocacy work for press freedom, puts a number to the trend with a list of the countries that it says go the furthest to censor the Internet. Photos document the worldwide protests and continuing struggles. Not surprisingly, China is described as the pioneer of internet censors, dedicating more resources than any other country to restrict online freedoms." This week we also discussed the Reporters Without Borders' 13 Enemies of the Internet list.

Summary

[Mr2001]

Myanmar, China, Belarus, Iran, Tunisia, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Syria, and Uzbekistan.

Re:Summary

[Cheapy]

I'm starting to see a pattern emerge here...give me a few more minutes and I'm sure I can come up with it...

Star wars wisdom

[megaditto]

If you live in one of these countries, you can either vote to change things, or (if that fails), pretend to let the Wookie win...
As Han Solo said to Lea in the Return of the Jedi, "a backdoor sounds like a great idea"

Re:

[saviorsloth]

in most of those countries, the wookie *always* wins. people don't really get to vote on much of anything other than feeble local councils, if that

Suspicion

[Mark_MF-WN]

I had this terrible sinking suspicion that the US would make the list. I haven't been this glad to be wrong since the time that my doctor assured me that it wasn't malignant.

Still, it's a great reminder that democracy and free speech are not things that you can take for granted. Given another decade or two of passivity on the part of American voters*, and the USA could wind up taking a place on lists like that. On the other hand, if Americans were to start taking ideas like liberty seriously, they coul

Re:

[Verdict]

"Green vs Libertarian would make for a great election, don't you think?)"

Just so long as the libertarian's don't win, sure. Trendy conservatism packaged as progressive, there's two reasons people espouse libertarianism- They want to fully hand over power to the leading corporations of the day or they're emo hipsters in their 30's.

A List of Fallacious assertions you just made

[Bryansix]

Straw Man Argument - You set up the Libertarians as a party defined by love of corporations when they are better defined for a love of small government

Straw Man Argument - You seek to align Libertarian with Emo Hipsters in an attempt to make them look retarded

False Dichotomy - You state that people who espouse libertarianism are either in bed with the corporations of the day or are emo hipsters. The reality of the situation is much more diverse in nature then you let on
Hopefully you will learn that

Re:

[aduzik]

Look, the only thing that really matters is which party would stay the course and which one would cut and run.

Re:

[Mark_MF-WN]

Hey, don't get me wrong -- I think Libertarians (real Libertarians, that is, not anarchists, neocons, marxists, classical conservatives, liberals, ultraliberals, or any of the other people that call themselves Libertarian and grossly outnumber number actual Libertarians) are idiots who are chasing a fantasy that is only slightly less practical than Communism (Marx's version -- and we all know how realistic that turned out to be).

Still, they're far closer to being genuinely conservative than any party in A

Re:

[HeroreV]

libertarian != Libertarian

Remember to cap the L when referring to the party. There's only one word unlike conservative/Republican and liberal/Democrat.

Re:

[foobsr]

Remember to cap the L when referring to the party.

Which party? Did I miss something? Or did you mean Libertarian Party (like in Republican Party)?

CC.

Re:

[Liam Slider]

I had this terrible sinking suspicion that the US would make the list. I haven't been this glad to be wrong since the time that my doctor assured me that it wasn't malignant.

The only reason I was worried about it was due to possible anti-American bias, you know the same kind of crap where you get reports that the U.S. is one of the top producers of torture impliments in the world (never mind that those things are wire cables, rubber hoses, car batteries, things like that...), and not due to any real Free

Greens

[Mark_MF-WN]

Really? I'm more familiar with the Canadian Greens, who are actually more of a classical conservative party -- outside of the fact that they place a heavy emphasis on enviromental protection, educational funding, and healthcare. These three issues do push them well into the left, but nevertheless, their other policies are supposedly quite conservative, and have been managing to take up to 10% of the popular vote in some elections. But the American Greens could be a totally different manner of beast, no d

Re:

[Liam Slider]

In the US they tend to attract the people who are too left for the Democrats, or occasionally protest votes from Democrats who can't stomach their own candidates. It is true on some issues they might be viewed as conservative, shift towards more decentralized government for instance, but on others...well they support the "decentralization of wealth" (communism) just as much as they support the decentralization of government, mixed with extreme environmentalism. As you can see read for yourself... http://ww [gp.org]

Re:

[Mr2001]

Am I really the only liberal that was disgusted that Americans actually voted for the Democrats as their progressive party?! Lame. Seriously lame.

You misspelled "realistic". See, we live in a two-party system, thanks to Duverger's law [wikipedia.org]. Voting for a third party is more likely to hurt your interests than help them, unless you can convince a plurality to vote with you, and so far the Greens and Libertarians have failed to do that. The alternative is to vote for a major party and work within it to shape it into

Re:

[GrahamCox]

Green vs Libertarian would make for a great election, don't you think?

What if you are green AND libertarian?

Re:

[Mark_MF-WN]

I guess you'd be pretty fucked. Of course, libertarians and greens are totally fucked right now anyway, so if anything it would be a step up.

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

What?

Re:

[name*censored*]

douchebag says what?

Sorry Pope, could you repeat that third word in your post?

'nuff said

Re:

[Mark_MF-WN]

What makes you think I don't believe that Bush needs to be hung, preferably while on fire and covered in something gross and sticky? I think the children of all GOP members need to be sterilized to prevent their murderous evil seed from continuing to taint this world. But that doesn't let people like Clinton off the hook for not having the tiny little shred of ethics necessary to just tell the truth. He lied in front of the supreme court, under oath. Then he ordered a military attack that killed dozens

Re:Summary

[pilgrim23]

and..Mom

Re:Summary

[zeromorph]

Myanmar, China, Belarus, Iran, Tunisia, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Syria, and Uzbekistan.

Technically we have a dupe here, the article [businessweek.com] is actually totally based on the Reporters without borders press release [rsf.org] we discussed [slashdot.org] a few days ago. The list of enemies is also identical with the list of censors:

Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam (Only Burma is called Myanmar.)

Re:

[dfenstrate]

Isn't there significant overlap from that list, and the list of nations seeking to wrest control of the internet from the US Department Of Commerce?

Re:

[cold fjord]

Technically we have a dupe here...

Do you want to know what they [slashdot.org] are?

Thirteen Countries, not Ten.

[OverlordQ]

It was 13 not ten.

Myanmar, China, Belarus, Iran, Tunisia, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Syria, and Uzbekistan

Did anybody (Editors/Submitter) RTFA? I mean the first line of the article is:

Reporters Without Borders calls out China, Myanmar, Belarus, and 10 other countries for quashing online political and religious expression

Some simple math, 1 = China, 2 = Myanmar, 3 = Belarus . . . and then add another 10 . . . That gives you 13, well at least around here it does.

It's 5 countries !

[Chaffar]

Some simple math, 1 = China, 2 = Myanmar, 3 = Belarus . . . and then add another 10 . . . That gives you 13, well at least around here it does.

Around here exotic numeral systems are very popular... for me, I see only 5 countries.

Re:Thirteen Countries, not Ten.

[kfg]

It was 13 not ten.

Don't mix your abstractions, the headline says "Top 10," not "Top Ten."

Base 13, dude. Base 13

I must be serious, because nobody makes jokes in base 13.

KFG

What do you get

[Jaxoreth]

if you multiply six by nine?

42.

Re:

[kfg]

I am not, however, averse to making metajokes in base 13.

KFG

Re:

[sankyuu]

But 13 is sixteen.
You mean Base thirteen.

Re:

[kfg]

As I orginally typed it it was:

"Base 13, dude. Base thirteen."

But I ultimately decided, in the interest of safety, not to go for the strange loopy metametajoke. They tend to be explosively unstable.

KFG

Re:

[cold fjord]

Base 13, dude. Base 13

There is a great disturbance in the force.... as if all over the globe, people are taking off their left shoe, and dropping it with a thunk!

Re:

[kfg]

. . .dropping it with a thunk!

Just so long as what they thunk was "Don't Panic!"

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go off in a minute and a huff, but how irrelevant got into my pajamas, I'll never know.

KFG

Re:

[chickenandporn]

Maybe the Spanish Inquisition worked in Base 13; that would add obscurity to its three main weapons: fear, surprise, 13, and a maniacal devotion to the cause. Fear as a base? Nay -- unlucky numbers as the base, fear as the sum! No one expects the Spanish Inquisition to use 13...

Re:

[AgNO3]

Do to local laws some numbers have not been shown.

Re:

[owlnation]

It's more than that, but the other countries they seem to have ignored. And curiously for a French organisation they have omitted France, whom along with Germany, heavily censors anything Nazi. (Thus driving the large and ever growing larger numbers of Nazi Germans more underground, and obscuring their danger).

Another X prize

[Harmonious Botch]

From TFA: "In North Korea...Dictator Kim Jong-Il has absolute control of North Korea's media, and grants only a few thousand citizens access to the Internet. When these privileged Net surfers log on, however, they find only around 30 Web sites, which are filled with photos of the leader and praise for the government."

I suggest a multi-thousand dollar prize for the first hacker who can open up their servers so the N.K. citizens can see the whole web.

Re:Another X prize

[megaditto]

Get real. The first order of business for NK-ans should be getting some food and some freedom.

Owning a tunable radio receiver (as opposed to the one with only the DearLeader presets) is a crime in North Korea. Computers/internet access, as nice as that sounds, just isn't an option.

Re:

[cheater512]

What if you accidentally drop a small capacitor in through the ventilation slit?
Is it still illegal then?

I can imagine it now. Instead of smuggling illicit items accross the border, they will start smuggling capacitors.

Re:

[Ilmarin77]

If you intend to actually listen to this radio you have much bigger problem - making sure that nobody around you will squeal on you to the authorities.
Most of the citizens of NK actually believe in what their government is doing.

Re:

[Jesus_666]

What if you accidentally drop a small capacitor in through the ventilation slit? Is it still illegal then?

Probably yes.

Re:

[KDR_11k]

Yes and then Il has everyone who looked at an unapproved website executed.

Re:Another X prize

[cold fjord]

I suggest a multi-thousand dollar prize for the first hacker who can open up their servers so the N.K. citizens can see the whole web.

I can't say there is much to recommend it. It is likely that there would be no meaningful payoff that would last more than minutes. Even if you were successful in creating temporary access to a wider range of internet sites, it is likely that the few North Koreas who use the web would be too terrified to make use of it, assuming they even knew about it. Given the nature of the regime, you can assume that their secret police record, monitor, review, and act on the traffic in ways that far exceed the most lurid fantasies about the NSA. Surfing unauthorized web sites would likely constitute a punishable act, especially if an unauthorized site was visited that contained unvetted political, economic, or religious [nysun.com] information. If you've stepped over the line in North Korea, you could easily fall prey to the "heredity rule", developed the Dear Leader's father. Under that rule, the North Korean secret police arrest and imprison three generations of a family [signonsandiego.com] for the misdeeds of one of them, often for life, which can be short in a North Korean "prison camp" AKA death camp.

Besides, the international incident with the paranoid, now nuclear armed, barbaric [guardian.co.uk] regime which is starving [timesonline.co.uk] its people wouldn't be worth it.

If anyone still insists on it, I suggest you stay away from at least the Koreas and Japan as North Korea has a long history of kidnapping people from those countries for various reasons. Given their ties to organized crime, due to their many criminal enterprises [heritage.org], they could reach even further. Life there is tough even when you are useful to them [cbsnews.com].

China has the most????

[www.sorehands.com]

What they don't say is the amount per user. China has the greatest number of internet users, which would take more people to handle the internet censoring. If you only allow 3,000 people to access the internet it is very easy to limit them. When you have 200,000,000 people it take more -- especially when there are many people trying to hack through their blocks.

Re:China has the most????

[pedantic bore]

Agreed -- I don't understand the accounting here, either. China at least allows access to a high fraction of the internet, and doesn't make general limits on who can see things. North Korea, on the other hand, is essentially off the net. It goes far beyond censorship -- NK is trying to pretend the whole thing doesn't exist.

Re:

[omegashenron]

This is because US Telco carriers charge firstly to connect to US networks and secondly for data transmitted in both directions

I recall reading about one African country (I don't think it was South Africa) which had it's internet completly disconnected due to failure to pay access charges

South Africa's reasons (and I suspect some of the other poorer countries on the list) is purly financial.

I would like to say...

[sid77]

CENSORED COMMENT

Re:

[BakaHoushi]

In response to your comment, I think the US Government is... *DOING A FANTASTIC JOB!*

I mean, seriously, why the fuck... *HAVEN'T THEY BEEN GIVEN MEDALS YET?*... I was surprised they weren't on the list... *OF SEXIEST POLITICIANS EVER.*

You know what? The government can go suck... *A DELICIOUS LOLLIPOP BECAUSE THEY CERTAINLY DESERVED IT. VOTE INCUMBENT! GOD BLESS AMERICA!*

(Note: This comment is a joke. As much as I hate some of the things America does on the Internet [and off it, but let's not get into that(Y

China #1???

[krotkruton]

I don't know why anyone would think China is the worst, just listen to the Chinese government [newstarget.com]. They just have trouble accessing the internet sometimes, so you can't blame them for that. I mean, I'm sure they know if they're censoring their own people or not, and why would they lie to us anyway? What could they gain from that??? (was that sarcastic enough? I can never tell...)

Re:

[samuraiz]

When you access a blocked page in China, it just looks like the web site doesn't exist. 404 error.

What's more, we really do have outages that shut off access to large swaths of the foreign internet for a couple of minutes/hours/days.

Sometimes I have to fire up TOR to tell the difference between censorship and a plain old DNS problem or server failure.

No question that the government stooge in question was either a liar or a fool, but it is at least plausible to me that he just didn't know any better. He woul

Re:

[jacksonj04]

Technically it would be a server not found error, because 404 (Not Found) would indicate that there was a server on the other end able to send the error message. But I get your point.

Dupes these days, they're getting harder spot!

[pasamio]

FTA:"Reporters Without Borders calls out China, Myanmar, Belarus, and 10 other countries for quashing online political and religious expression" (3 countries, plus 10 others makes 13, not the top ten).

Last line of summary: "This week we also discussed the Reporters Without Borders' 13 Enemies of the Internet list."

The dupes are getting harder and harder to spot! This is just BusinessWeek's spin on it, isn't it interesting how news changes?

Duplicate!

[DrMindWarp]

What a surprise. Another duplicate article.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/07/13 28259 [slashdot.org]
I'll come back next week and point it out again.

Top 10 List of Worldwide Internet Censors

[SeaFox]

Nothing to see here, please move along.

Drat! Foiled again!

Or does this mean Slashdot is on the list?

Behind the Great Wall

[ebonum]

As an American who has relocated to work in China, I have yet to have problems with the censors. The ping times and transfer rates to and from the US are really slow, but I can get to everything I need. I can read the NYTimes, WSJ, CNN and, most importantly, ./. I can even read this post and all the comments, even the ones that bash the Chinese Government. I don't think it's because the censors are asleep today. For instance, there was a story today in the WSJ today that covered the riots at a hospital in southern China. I'm sure the official news, Xin Hua, forgot to cover the even, but that didn't stop me from reading the story. To say that the government has this firm grip on the Chinese people is nothing more than a clear sign of ignorance. There are far to many people here for the government to even think about trying to keep an eye on everyone or maintaining tight control. Also, the techniques that are highly effective for tracking people in the US don't exist here. This is a cash society. You can go for months or years without leaving any electronic record of your existence. In the US, you can't even drive down the road without your license plate number being picked up or buy breakfast without your debit card indicating that you where Noah's Bagels on University Ave. at 7:07AM and that you bought the Kona Blend. Organizations such as the NSA have deep pockets, tremendous resources, and some very smart people.

        For 99.99% or the people here, we are free to go about our business. As long as you are not advocating the overthrow of the government or engaging in illegal activities you aren't going to have too many problems here. (disclaimer: business where there is a lot of money at stake are another matter) I need not remind you how the laws have been changing in the US for anyone implicated in overthrowing the US government. Try going to websites that advocate the overthrow of the US government and have bomb making instructions. Better yet, set one up inside the US and see how long it is till you get censored. See if the two governments are really all the different. Governments defend themselves. You might not agree with the ways they do it, but they do it nonetheless. And of course the US government has NEVER tried to cover anything bad they they did up...

I'm not implying that I'm a big supporter of the Chinese government. There are a lot of things they need to improve on and change. The list is very long. However, the Chinese government is making massive improvements every year and should be given credit for doing so.

I write this b/c I think there is a tremendous amount of misunderstanding in the US of what it is really like to live in China.

Re:

[zptao]

Be careful!... the above poster could be a Chinese lackey spreading disinformation!

Re:Behind the Great Wall

[Lorean]

Oh really? I live in Beijing myself. Here are some websites for you to try accessing:
www.wikipedia.org (do a wikipedia search on tiananmen massacre and then see what happend)
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4960762.stm
www.blogspot.com

Oh here's an interesting tidbit of knowledge for you slashdoters. Accessing most Western websites from China is blasted slow. But running bittorrent is just as fast as if I was back home. (For some reason I recently started to be able to stream youtube videos, haven't quite figure that one out)

Re:

[schwieter]

Add google.com to that list, at least here in Xi'an. It starts to load, but is quickly replaced by a TCP reset error.

It sure is annoying when the website you use most often is blocked. Fortunately, there are proxies, and the searchmash.com site mentioned earlier on /. isn't blocked.

Re:

[R2.0]

You are clearly missing the point. Let me simplify for you:

US=BAD
Everyone Else=Good

Once you learn to accept that, everything will go a lot smoother

Re:

[chrnb]

Concerning bittorrent: I seems like home connections are blocked for incoming connections, and thus results in very slow upload, but everytime you go a netcafe, the speed is incredible. wonder why

Re:

[Lorean]

Strange, I'm not having that problem. I've uploaded as fast as 60kB/s. Maybe it's ISP specific?

Re:

[gfreeman]

So here's an idea - why not torrent some global news services? If the Chinese people can download torrents, they have access to (relatively) uncensored news.

I say "relatively" as news programs are generally biased in some way, but it's a start, eh?

Re:

[kinko]

are you accessing websites written in english or chinese? how many chinese people read english?
(of course, I agree with you - people generally have the worse misconceptions about foreigners)

Re:

[Shag]

I'm happy that you're enjoying access to the resources you want.

I was in Beijing from October 14-23 at an international (read: U.N.) conference hosted by China at the Beijing International Conference Center, not far from where the Olympics will be in 2 years.

While American press web sites were pretty readily accessible, the BBC rather pointedly was not. (I'm American, but I like some diversity in my news.)

Also, when it came time to upload some coverage of the last day of the conference to a web site in Can [www.iisd.ca]

Re:

[D H NG]

For the most part, sites in the local [opennet.net] language [opennetinitiative.net] are much more likely to be censored than foreign-language sites.

Re:

[YH85]

I really don't know whether this gentleman's comments are due to his unbelievable ignorance or just plain pure bias. It is really funny for me (as a Chinese who are living in US right now) to read his sentence like this: "As long as you are not advocating the overthrow of the government or engaging in illegal activities you aren't going to have too many problems here." He conveniently forgot or just doesn't have a clue that the definition of "advocating the overthrow of the government" is completely in th

Re:

[DNS-and-BIND]

I can even read this post and all the comments, even the ones that bash the Chinese Government. I don't think it's because the censors are asleep today.

No, it's because THIS WEBSITE IS IN ENGLISH. Duh! You think the Chinese censors give a shit about what overseas websites talk about in their native languages? Hint: No. Try zonaeuropa.com sometime.

I write this b/c I think there is a tremendous amount of misunderstanding in the US of what it is really like to live in China.

Yeah, because you're the f

Re:

[Guy Harris]

In the US, you can't even drive down the road without your license plate number being picked up or buy breakfast without your debit card indicating that you where Noah's Bagels on University Ave. at 7:07AM and that you bought the Kona Blend.

Noah's won't take cash? I'm not a breakfast person, but I might have to try that, just to see whether your second claim has any validity at all. (I'm not doing 7 AM, though. I don't do mornings.)

Well, this shows what is wrong with voting

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly did North Korea NOT end up at the top? From the article itself only 3000 people got internet access at all and that is limited to 30 websites. Not 30 websites that are blocked, no, 30 websites is all the web there is in North Korea.

How does this then compare to China wich allows most of its citizens access except to certain sites.

The first is a dictator's wetdream, you, the ruler in total control of all the information. The second is just trying to put out the fire in a vulcano with a spoon.

The

Re:

[Lorean]

Can you site sources verifying that Chinese citizens accessing censored information have been arrested in the last 5 years? I understand that you can be arrested for preaching but not just for listening.

They forgot Denmark

[SlashGeO]

They forgot Denmark on that list. The danish courts have already started building the great firewall of Denmark. It's sad to see a country priding itself on their freedom of speech, allow private organisations to determine what the danish internet users should see or not see. I'm thinking of the IFPI vs Tele2 case in which the court decided that Tele2 should block access to the AllOfMp3 site. Mark my words... This is the beginning of the end of uncensored internet in Denmark. This is truly sad times.

Re:

[gfreeman]

I'm thinking of the IFPI vs Tele2 case in which the court decided that Tele2 should block access to the AllOfMp3 site.

I'm not familiar with the case, but wouldn't the court have decided that Tele2 could block access to the AllOfMp3 site, rather than should block access?

Re:

[SlashGeO]

Well this case opens up for IFPI to dictate which sites to close without going to court. Basically it creates precedence for any private organisation to censor sites they don't like for any reason. Right now this is going to the supreme court but if they find that the verdict was right it will basically force ISP's to create a filter of sites which features material that a private organisation, in this case IFPI, find intrusive on their bussiness (or the business of their clients)

Re:

[tomjen]

We already got a filter in place to prevent access to cp. It has been abused in at least on case and it has not been a year yet.

The worst part is that it is trivial to break (certain sites return a fake ip) so it does nothing, but look nice.

list composition

[cucucu]

What is our list made of?
6+4+3=13
6 Muslim countries (Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Syria), 4 communist countries (China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam), 3 dicatorships (Myanmar, Belarus, Uzbekistan).
While I am not sure about Uzbekistan, I feel pretty safe about the classification. Countries classified as muslim/communist probably can be tagged as dictatorships too (or as undemocratic to say the least).

So it can be safely said that internet censors are those with ideologies that are/were opp

Re:

[CapitalT]

I think it's unfair to put emphasize the word Muslim on your post, mainly because their problem is with porn only.

I'm saying this from Qatar where even sites that insult governments and respected people every hour on the hour are not censored (even though they have been targeting Qatar government for a lot of time lately), but sites like Newgrounds.com are censored because of porn.

DAMN YOU PERVERTS, give us newgrounds back!!

Re:

[cucucu]

I didn't emphasize the word Muslim, other than inadvertently putting it in Uppercase. Some may claim this is a Freudian slip, but probably it was Firefox's spell checker.

While I don't think it is the work of a government to protect me from pornography, TFA speaks about censoring political opposition and bloggers. And yes, censoring governments usually justify their censorship as a way to protect the people from obscene contents, while actually silencing legitimate political discussions.

Re:list composition

[gfxguy]

But Qatars not on the list, and has always been a step above the other muslim countries in the region as far as freedoms are concerned (even if that might not be saying much).

You might consider it inflamatory that he pointed it out (someone did), but that doesn't make it any less true, and it's certainly (IMO) an interesting point. As a previous poster pointed out, there's a lot of overlap with these countries and those that would like to wrest control of the internet away from the U.S.

One thing that does bother me is that pre-war Iraq probably wouldn't have been on this list, and yet we still have economic and political relations with China, Saudi Arabia, and a lot of other countries that we ought not be dealing with. This goes beyond and political divisiveness; both parties cow-tow to the nations that are precieved to bring us economic gain as if that's more important than human rights.

Re:

[cold fjord]

Although there are elements of truth to what you have to say, the stark manner in which you have presented it will cause the Slashdot mainstream to vilify you and force you to wear a polka dot hat.

Let us hope that the Commander Tacoyev reforms of 2007 are accepted. Then, Slashdot will be as civilized as any other blog and:

- You will no longer be forced to wear polka dot hat.
- I can continue to drink fermented barley water
- Pretty girls riding the bus can ask sit on my lap

Goodbye! Dzienkuje!

Also...

[xenobyte]

Denmark (believe it or not) - because there is a 'voluntary' system (all ISPs participate anyway) to block access to known pedophile sites, and a court order for ISPs (Tele2 so far) to block access to allofmp3.com because IFPI belives it sells unauthorized copies of music. The matter is currently under appeal to a higher court, which suspends the banning order awaiting the decision. The ISPs intends to take the appeals onwards to higher courts as needed because they believe that the dispute between IFPI and

Yeah right up there on my 2-do list

[gelfling]

With "Provide solid gold Prostitutes to starving people in Africa"

Internet Freedom Test

[rlp]

Want to know if you have freedom of speech on the Internet. Try this simple test. Post a message stating:

<Name of my national leader> is a drooling idiot

If shortly thereafter, we never hear from you again, your nation does not enjoy freedom on the Internet. Judging from posts to Slashdot, the US enjoys truly extraordinary freedom.

Re:

[jginspace]

Nguyn Minh Trit is a drooling ^NO CARRIER

i said this before

[mapkinase]

and I am saying it again.

Government should be delegated a right to censor Internet the same way the censor any public media: television, radio, newspapers by various means.

There is nothing new about and nothing to worry. You have to worry WHO you elect to the government.

Censorship is just a tool. You can use it bad way or good way depending on the person using it.

Same concerns all social institutions.

Grow up.

Re:

[arevos]

Government should be delegated a right to censor Internet the same way the censor any public media: television, radio, newspapers by various means.

There is nothing new about and nothing to worry. You have to worry WHO you elect to the government.

Politicians are voted in and out of office depending on the information the voters possess. If you give politicians unrestricted access to censor the information the voters receive, the democratic process collapses. Voters cannot make informed choices if their c

Re:

[mapkinase]

You are talking about the details of censorship. I am talking about the right of censoriship. The fact of how much censorship is there does not necessarily mean that "politician" have unrestricted control or that the population is against or pro censorship. It is a matter of the local customs, of local morality system.

All the lists comparing different aspects "human rights" in different countries are just plain vanilla idiotic imperialistic propaganda machines for one simple reason: peopple of different cou

Re:

[arevos]

All the lists comparing different aspects "human rights" in different countries are just plain vanilla idiotic imperialistic propaganda machines for one simple reason: peopple of different countries have different notions of "human rights".

Nonsense. Utter rubbish. How do you define a country? It's just a grouping of people and property through a set of constructed constraints. Saying "People of different countries have different notions of 'human rights'" is the same thing as saying, "People have different

Re:

[mapkinase]

Taiwan belongs to China (same people), Tibet - does not (different people). Criterium is very simple: self-identification. North and South Korea are the same country.

It is not moral relativism, because I have my moral and I am living by it, but when there is a whole country with a different moral, I do not interfere. Let the history decide.

". But if you believed that, then you'd have no problem with powerful countries trying to force their notion of human rights on other countries." Do not put your words in

Re:

[arevos]

Taiwan belongs to China (same people), Tibet - does not (different people). Criterium is very simple: self-identification.

Just self-identification? That's an unusually generous criteria. By that logic, anyone individual who considered themselves to be independent of their native land could claim to be a sovereign country.

I'm also curious about your non-interventionist policy. You claim Tibet is a separate country, yet it is controlled by China. Should we interfere and liberate Tibet? And if not, does tha

Re:

[mapkinase]

Individual is not enought. It has to be self-sustainable self-reproducing enthic minority (homosexuals do not qualify, software engineers do not qualify).

"Should we interfere and liberate Tibet? " No. YOU, personally, as American, exhausted your interference quota up to 1000 years ahead.

"would you consider them a sovereign country". Sure.

"What population does the country have to have? A million? " It is not defined by population size. It is defined by willingness of people to die for the independence. For e

Re:

[arevos]

Individual is not enought. It has to be self-sustainable self-reproducing enthic minority.

Why? Also, what about countries that were founded from a mix of ethnicities, such as the US? And what about countries that would collapse if not for the food aid they get, such as North Korea?

"Should we interfere and liberate Tibet? " No. YOU, personally, as American, exhausted your interference quota up to 1000 years ahead.

What makes you think I am an American?

"What population does the country have to have? A mill

Re:

[mapkinase]

Dude, we can continue this for a long time. But I am bored. I have been doing this for 20 years now and I know all your analogies. There is really nothing original you can say to me that will raise my expectations and motivate me to continue this discussion.

So long.

North Korea??

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

It's my understanding the North Korea does not maintain ANY Internet connectivity. So they should either be #1 on the list or not included at all (since they're not even in the game).

Privatized Censorship?

[Doc Ruby]

Is it censorship if the Internet content/connection suppression is performed not by the government, but by a cartel of corporations [eff.org] that control the nation's traffic on their backbones?

China is the LEAST censored

[illegalcortex]

...if you measure it per capita!

Related Story

[the eric conspiracy]

"Some 17,000 attendees of the protest voted for the nation they believed is most in need of greater Internet freedom, and China came in second, with 4,100 votes. Myanmar, under the militaristic regime of the Junta party, was believed by 4,500 participants to present its citizens with the greatest threat to freedom of press on the Internet. The remaining nations, in descending order of votes received, were Belarus, Iran, Tunisia, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Syria, and Uzbek

Major hole in story ...

[jc42]

China is described as the pioneer of internet censors, ...

Not even close. Back around 1990, when the commercial world was first discovering that new interweb thing, lots of local ISPs (and a few big ones) were forming rapidly in North America and Europe. Right off, there were widespread reports of ISPs that blocked or seriously interfered with their customers' attempts to access competitors' web sites.

China is now doing the same sort of thing, where "competitor" is meant partly in a political sense. But

Re:

[hr raattgift]

Back around 1990, when the commercial world was first discovering that new interweb thing

Er, the first web site in the world wasn't even up until late summer 1991. Well into 1992, practically every web site or home page in existence was documented and linked to by Berners-Lee on his. There weren't many. NCSA Mosaic wasn't released until 1993.

lots of local ISPs (and a few big ones) were forming rapidly in North America and Europe

You're right in part about Europe, in that EUNET was using Internet protocols