Internet Censorship: As Bad As You Thought It Was [News]

IEEE Spectrum ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (11) ◽  
pp. 20-22
Author(s):  
Mark Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Internet Censorship

Government regulation of the Internet as instrument of digital protectionism in case of developing countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 016555152110141
Author(s):  
Nikolai Topornin ◽  
Darya Pyatkina ◽  
Yuri Bokov
Keyword(s):  
Government Regulation ◽  
Payment Systems ◽  
Strategic Development ◽  
Tariff Barrier ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Internet Freedom ◽  
Technological Stage ◽  
Internet Censorship ◽  
Scientific Value

The research is devoted to the study of digital protectionism technologies, in particular, Internet censorship as a non-tariff barrier to digital trade and the determination of the strategic motives of states to use them. The reports ‘Freedom on the Net’ and ‘The network readiness index 2020’ acted as a basic data source for the study of modern instruments of government regulation of interactions in the digital environment. Internet censorship technologies have been considered in six countries with varying levels of Internet freedom: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia and Estonia. The key instruments of digital protectionism as a non-tariff barrier of the digital economy have been identified, such as: localisation requirements; restrictions on cross-border data flow; system of national protection of intellectual property rights; discriminatory, unique standards or burdensome testing; filtering or blocking; restrictions on electronic payment systems or the use of encryption; cybersecurity threats and forced technology transfer. Internet censorship technologies have been demonstrated and their influence on the strategic development of trade relations between economies in cyberspace has been determined. The scientific value of the article lies in substantiating the understanding of Internet censorship as a natural tool for regulating the development of a digital society and international trade relations. Each state at one time goes through a technological stage of development, which leads to the emergence of different levels of digital isolation and integration; and Internet censorship is a natural element in the system of building a national platform economy and consolidating the country’s internal technological and innovative advantages in digital realities.

Google Politics: The Political Determinants of Internet Censorship in Democracies

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Meserve ◽  
Daniel Pemstein
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Relative Influence ◽  
Digital Content ◽  
The Political ◽  
Information Flows ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Political Determinants ◽  
Country Characteristics ◽  
User Data ◽  
Internet Censorship

The expansion of digital interconnectivity has simultaneously increased individuals’ access to media and presented governments with new opportunities to regulate information flows. As a result, even highly democratic countries now issue frequent censorship and user data requests to digital content providers. We argue that government internet censorship occurs, in part, for political reasons, and seek to identify the conditions under which states censor. We leverage new, cross-nationally comparable, censorship request data, provided by Google, to examine how country characteristics co-vary with governments’ digital censorship activity. Within democracies, we show that governments engage in more digital censorship when internal dissent is present and when their economies produce substantial intellectual property. But these demand mechanisms are modulated by the relative influence that democratic institutions provide to narrow and diffuse interests; in particular, states with proportional electoral institutions censor less.

Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology Use in Human Rights Organizations: An Exploratory Analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 285-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carleen F Maitland ◽  
Herschel F Thomas (Trey) ◽  
Louis-Marie Ngamassi Tchouakeu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Systems Security ◽  
Human Rights Organizations ◽  
Security Research ◽  
Organizational Effects ◽  
Organizational Informatics ◽  
Internet Censorship ◽  
Censorship Circumvention ◽  
Depth Interviews

Using an organizational informatics approach, this study explores the implications of human rights organizations’ use of censorship circumvention technologies. Through qualitative analyses of data collected through in-depth interviews, the research examines the factors influencing the use of circumvention technologies and the organizational effects of their use. The outcomes include a revised model of censorship circumvention technology use as well as a new model situating human rights organizations and their audiences in bidirectional information flows. The research provides recommendations for practice as well as insight for organizational informatics and information systems security research in the areas of protective technologies, awareness, detection, and physical security.

scholarly journals Contriving the Future by Tampering with the Past: A Deferral Tactic in Chinese Internet Censorship

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
YUSUNG SU ◽  
Siyu Sun ◽  
Jiangrui Liu
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Online Discussions ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Political Event ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Internet Censorship

How do Chinese information inspectors censor the internet? In light of the assumption that inspectors must follow specific rules instead of ambiguous guidelines, such as precluding collective action, to decide what and when to delete, this study attempts to offer a dynamic understanding of censorship by exploiting well-structured Weibo data from before and after the 2018 Taiwanese election. This study finds that inspectors take advantage of time in handling online discussions with the potential for collective action. Through this deferral tactic, inspectors make online sentiments moderately flow regarding an important political event, and thereafter, past discussions on trendy topics will be mostly removed. Therefore, reality is selectively altered; the past is modified, and the future will be remembered in a ``preferable" way.

scholarly journals Basis of legal regulation and Internet censorship in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Do Lin'
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
User Data ◽  
Internet Censorship ◽  
The One ◽  
Automated Instruments

This article examines the basis of legal regulation and Internet censorship in China. The genesis, development and relevant regulatory basis of legal regulation of Internet in China is examined. The author comes to the conclusion that on the one hand, Internet in China is subject to tight control due to the rapid development of technologies of observation and increase of police access to user data. Currently, China is one of the leaders in engineering and export of automated instruments for monitoring social networks. The citizens face restrictions based on the control of login accounts that give access to the Internet; blockchain apps and their developers are also subject to control and must provide registration of real names of the users; international corporations, such as Apple, Microsoft, Linkedin, are forced to bend to the demands of Chinese authorities and help to determine and punish the users who do not adhere to the censorship requirements in China. On the other hand, Chinese government makes everything possible for the large scale implementation of information technologies into socioeconomic life of the country, namely industrial and commercial sectors. Usage of internet in the sphere of sociopolitical life restricted, since China justifiably sees a threat to political stability and social security of the country.

scholarly journals Topics of Controversy: An Empirical Analysis of Web Censorship Lists

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Weinberg ◽  
Mahmood Sharif ◽  
Janos Szurdi ◽  
Nicolas Christin
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Design ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Experimental Technique ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Access Network ◽  
Network Resources ◽  
Internet Censorship

AbstractStudies of Internet censorship rely on an experimental technique called probing. From a client within each country under investigation, the experimenter attempts to access network resources that are suspected to be censored, and records what happens. The set of resources to be probed is a crucial, but often neglected, element of the experimental design.We analyze the content and longevity of 758,191 webpages drawn from 22 different probe lists, of which 15 are alleged to be actual blacklists of censored webpages in particular countries, three were compiled using a priori criteria for selecting pages with an elevated chance of being censored, and four are controls. We find that the lists have very little overlap in terms of specific pages. Mechanically assigning a topic to each page, however, reveals common themes, and suggests that handcurated probe lists may be neglecting certain frequently censored topics. We also find that pages on controversial topics tend to have much shorter lifetimes than pages on uncontroversial topics. Hence, probe lists need to be continuously updated to be useful.To carry out this analysis, we have developed automated infrastructure for collecting snapshots of webpages, weeding out irrelevant material (e.g. site “boilerplate” and parked domains), translating text, assigning topics, and detecting topic changes. The system scales to hundreds of thousands of pages collected.

A Comparative View of Censored and Uncensored Political Discussion

2017 ◽  
pp. 269-282
Author(s):  
Qihao Ji
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Internet Censorship ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The Impact

Through a content analysis on Chinese online dissidents' social media discourses, this study examines the impact of Internet censorship on Chinese dissidents' political discourse in two social media platforms: Weibo and Twitter. Data was collected during a time period when China's Internet censorship was tightened. Results revealed that Chinese online dissidents are more likely to post critical opinions and direct criticism towards the Chinese government on Twitter. In addition, dissidents on Twitter are more likely to engage in discussing with others, while Weibo dissidents tend to adopt linguistic skills more often to bypass censorship. No difference was found in terms of dissidents' civility and rationality across the two platforms. Implications and future research are discussed in detail.

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