Published map of countries where the government filters the Internet

Strangely enough, but neither Russia nor Belarus is among the 25 countries of the world where government agencies censor Internet traffic, that is, restrict access of its citizens to “harmful” content, whether it is pornography, gambling or political dissent. There are no facts of political or social censorship in Russia and Belarus (unlike the United States and Europe, by the way), but Belarus is still suspicious of Western experts. Suspicious countries on the map are marked in dark yellow.



The list of countries where network content is filtered is compiled by experts from the OpenNet Initiative , which advocates freedom of information on the Web. Experts studied the situation in only 40 countries, so the real situation with censorship can be even worse. What is most interesting, filtering Internet traffic is not at all evidence of a “lack of democracy.” For example, the United States does not exercise any political censorship, but it does so-called social filtering of traffic, that is, restricting access to online casino sites. Many European countries filter this or that content. South Korea is blocking the propaganda of the communist northern neighbor. In other countries, there are often “social” restrictions, for example, on access to pornographic, gay and lesbian sites.

The most stringent rules for political filtering of Internet content exist in China, Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam. The most powerful “social” filtering is in Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
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The map above shows the situation with political censorship in our region of the Internet. On the map below - the level of social censorship.



Additionally:
Report OpenNet Initiative for the CIS countries

via USA Today