Dictate Wins Freedom on the Net
Is it possible to control the email traffic of 130 million Chinese Internet users? Or censor the personal web of the 70,000 Iranian bloggers? It seems that on the Internet, which is the essence of a unique “engine” for the cultivation of free will, this simply cannot be. However , Reporters Without Borders in the Introduction Internet'2006 report states that certain structures, whose job it is to establish their orders on the World Wide Web, work, unfortunately, effectively.
“Reporters” write that the Internet is a fertile environment not only for media know-how. Thousands of informational micro-revolutions occur every day on the Web, because here people do not passively consume information, but create it themselves. And it is clear that millions of separate “tribunes” are a completely different matter than a set of media outlets that have received a license from the state for the right to popularize their thoughts. Therefore, faced with the impossibility of reaching an agreement with each individual blogger, introducing him to the “party policy,” the leaders of countries with dictatorial regimes became deeply thoughtful.
Made in China
')
The flow of consciousness of the army of "writers" is extremely difficult to manage, but you can try to filter this flow. They were the first to understand this in China, where they quickly collected the necessary funds and found people, having begun to thoroughly “analyze” mail traffic and scour the web in search of “subversive” sites. In the country during the years of tough state censorship with specific punitive measures, there were so many precedents that the Chinese learned not only to speak, but, probably, even think about politics in a way contrary to the official government line. Therefore, now the local news about political events looks in an abstract sense only as a reworking of a single state press release.
But it was not always so. A couple of years ago, only individual dissidents were hunted in China. However, after 2004, when a wave of mass discontent connected with government corruption scandals swept through “tea-no”, control from the top was almost total. He expressed himself in the appearance of the so-called "Ten Commandments" prescribed by Chinese users.
Jailers from the internet
The enemies of the Internet are not recognizable in person, but the fruits of their actions are palpable. They are especially clearly represented by residents of countries where “predators” are in power, who, inspired by the experience of China, methodically destroy freedom of speech. “Reporters without Borders”, listing countries with the dictatorship of “predators”, point to Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam - in all these countries censorship is flourishing, which for some dissidents results in severe repression.
Thus, several Iranian bloggers were thrown into prison, including Mojtaba Saminejad, who was imprisoned after publishing material in which the authorities saw attacks against Islam. In Libya, bookseller Abdel Razak al-Mansuri was sentenced to 18 months in prison for allowing himself to speak online about the identity of President Muammar Gaddafi. Two Syrian Internet users were imprisoned for crimes that seem to few people: the first posted on the Internet photos of the Damascus demonstration in defense of the Kurds, the second was imprisoned for sending information by e-mail, which the authorities found illegal.
In addition, the Reporters report that in Cuba, where a state’s permission is required for buying a computer, all sites that are not acceptable to the regime are filtered out. The situation with freedom of speech in the Middle East and North Africa has worsened: in November 2005, the official Morocco thoroughly checked the resources for the independence of Western Sahara. Iran has significantly expanded the list of banned sites: now publications for local users are not available that affect the issues of women's rights. However, according to Reporters, there are countries that have surpassed even the Chinese “big brother” in terms of control over the web: in Burma, the authorities acquired technology that allows filtering Internet traffic and monitoring what is happening on the user's screen — spyware reports are sent to the state archives every 5 minutes.
Big brothers
Researchers at a public organization ask themselves: “What has helped not the most economically prosperous countries to advance in such knowledge-intensive areas as cyber espionage, for example? Do Burma and Tunisia have developed progressive software on their own? ” The answer is no. Software is entirely purchased from foreign, mainly - American companies. For example, web censorship in Tunisia lives at the expense of systems from the company Secure Computing , which filtered out, including the Reporters Without Borders website. The mechanisms of Cisco Systems are working on the Chinese authorities. And the Internet giant Yahoo is completely accused of supplying the Chinese police with confidential user information, which, in particular, was used against cyber-dissident Shi Tao (he was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison).
Reporters Without Borders is also concerned that many democracies claiming to respect the freedom of their citizens find it harder to resist the temptation to control the Web. Motivating their actions in the fight against terrorism, cybercrime and child pornography, the governments of these countries impose restrictions that take away too much of network freedom, leaving only crumbs from past cake.
Without drawing direct parallels with the Chinese "Ten Commandments", the organization says that some of the rules recently approved by the European Union are very disturbing. According to Reporters, the provision by which providers are obliged to keep reports on the online activities of their clients will significantly curtail the right to privacy of personal information.
The United States, by the way, is also no longer considered the benchmark of network love for freedom, since legal interception of online traffic and filtering the web in public libraries have become commonplace in the country.
“Reporters” write that the Internet is a fertile environment not only for media know-how. Thousands of informational micro-revolutions occur every day on the Web, because here people do not passively consume information, but create it themselves. And it is clear that millions of separate “tribunes” are a completely different matter than a set of media outlets that have received a license from the state for the right to popularize their thoughts. Therefore, faced with the impossibility of reaching an agreement with each individual blogger, introducing him to the “party policy,” the leaders of countries with dictatorial regimes became deeply thoughtful.
Made in China
')
The flow of consciousness of the army of "writers" is extremely difficult to manage, but you can try to filter this flow. They were the first to understand this in China, where they quickly collected the necessary funds and found people, having begun to thoroughly “analyze” mail traffic and scour the web in search of “subversive” sites. In the country during the years of tough state censorship with specific punitive measures, there were so many precedents that the Chinese learned not only to speak, but, probably, even think about politics in a way contrary to the official government line. Therefore, now the local news about political events looks in an abstract sense only as a reworking of a single state press release.
But it was not always so. A couple of years ago, only individual dissidents were hunted in China. However, after 2004, when a wave of mass discontent connected with government corruption scandals swept through “tea-no”, control from the top was almost total. He expressed himself in the appearance of the so-called "Ten Commandments" prescribed by Chinese users.
Jailers from the internet
The enemies of the Internet are not recognizable in person, but the fruits of their actions are palpable. They are especially clearly represented by residents of countries where “predators” are in power, who, inspired by the experience of China, methodically destroy freedom of speech. “Reporters without Borders”, listing countries with the dictatorship of “predators”, point to Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam - in all these countries censorship is flourishing, which for some dissidents results in severe repression.
Thus, several Iranian bloggers were thrown into prison, including Mojtaba Saminejad, who was imprisoned after publishing material in which the authorities saw attacks against Islam. In Libya, bookseller Abdel Razak al-Mansuri was sentenced to 18 months in prison for allowing himself to speak online about the identity of President Muammar Gaddafi. Two Syrian Internet users were imprisoned for crimes that seem to few people: the first posted on the Internet photos of the Damascus demonstration in defense of the Kurds, the second was imprisoned for sending information by e-mail, which the authorities found illegal.
In addition, the Reporters report that in Cuba, where a state’s permission is required for buying a computer, all sites that are not acceptable to the regime are filtered out. The situation with freedom of speech in the Middle East and North Africa has worsened: in November 2005, the official Morocco thoroughly checked the resources for the independence of Western Sahara. Iran has significantly expanded the list of banned sites: now publications for local users are not available that affect the issues of women's rights. However, according to Reporters, there are countries that have surpassed even the Chinese “big brother” in terms of control over the web: in Burma, the authorities acquired technology that allows filtering Internet traffic and monitoring what is happening on the user's screen — spyware reports are sent to the state archives every 5 minutes.
Big brothers
Researchers at a public organization ask themselves: “What has helped not the most economically prosperous countries to advance in such knowledge-intensive areas as cyber espionage, for example? Do Burma and Tunisia have developed progressive software on their own? ” The answer is no. Software is entirely purchased from foreign, mainly - American companies. For example, web censorship in Tunisia lives at the expense of systems from the company Secure Computing , which filtered out, including the Reporters Without Borders website. The mechanisms of Cisco Systems are working on the Chinese authorities. And the Internet giant Yahoo is completely accused of supplying the Chinese police with confidential user information, which, in particular, was used against cyber-dissident Shi Tao (he was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison).
Reporters Without Borders is also concerned that many democracies claiming to respect the freedom of their citizens find it harder to resist the temptation to control the Web. Motivating their actions in the fight against terrorism, cybercrime and child pornography, the governments of these countries impose restrictions that take away too much of network freedom, leaving only crumbs from past cake.
Without drawing direct parallels with the Chinese "Ten Commandments", the organization says that some of the rules recently approved by the European Union are very disturbing. According to Reporters, the provision by which providers are obliged to keep reports on the online activities of their clients will significantly curtail the right to privacy of personal information.
The United States, by the way, is also no longer considered the benchmark of network love for freedom, since legal interception of online traffic and filtering the web in public libraries have become commonplace in the country.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4120/
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