Free speech on the web: Beware, are the doors closing?
The sensational scandal with Google’s departure from China, endless debates about “problem” bills regulating Internet communications in European countries, increasing control over online activity in Russia, attempts to change the notorious law of Ukraine “On the protection of public morality” are all links in one chain. IT Business week will try to analyze what threatens the restriction of freedom of speech on the Internet to the state, business, and society.
On March 12, international human rights organizations held World Day against cyber censorship. “Reporters without borders”, by tradition, presented a report on the situation with the restriction of freedom of speech on the Web. This year, Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam were ranked as “enemies of the Internet”.
It should be noted that the goals and objectives of these countries are quite different. So, rogue countries (North Korea, Burma, Cuba) strive to completely stop using (and, of course, developing) Internet technologies. “Reporters without borders” note similar intentions among Turkmenistan - with a population approaching 5.5 million people, only 127 thousand users have access to the Internet in this country. A number of countries (Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia) do not limit the spread of Internet communications, but the system of total monitoring (and subsequent punitive measures to dissenters) led to the fact that a significant part of Internet users switched to self-censorship.
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The overwhelming majority of other countries soberly assess the surrounding reality and realize that the rejection of Internet technologies will throw the economy a decade ago. Therefore, the fight against undesirable system of online activity occurs on other fronts. First of all, the content filtering system comes into play. It is no secret that in many totalitarian states access to opposition resources (and often to authoritative international news agencies) is blocked at the provider level. However, this is not a discovery. IT Business week invites the reader to pay attention to what is happening in developed countries that call themselves democratic.
In addition to the very obvious list of “Internet enemies”, Reporters Without Borders provided a list of countries under “surveillance.” This year it includes, among others, Russia, Turkey, South Korea and ... Australia. The latter is of the greatest interest, since it is almost a textbook standard of a modern democratic state.
On December 15, 2009, Australian Minister of Communications Stephen Conroy (Stephen Conroy) confirmed that the government plans to vote on a project to filter out "incorrect" content. The decision to add each specific site to the “black list” will not be taken by the court, but by the state structure ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). Moreover, ACMA will be entitled to form a “blacklist” independently, in accordance with the internal rules for content classification, which are inaccessible to either private users or owners of Internet resources. Back to back it was possible to find out that not only sites with extremist content, copyright-infringing objects and child pornography will be classified as prohibited resources, but also “inconvenient” sites, for example, to the problems of Aboriginal people, the medical consequences of anorexia or discussion of the draft law legalization of soft drugs. Despite the unanimous resistance of society (96% of respondents spoke out sharply against innovations), the “cleansing” of the Australian Internet began even before the official adoption of the relevant law. The cynicism of the situation is aggravated by the fact that the contents of the “black list” of sites is a state secret, and even placing a hyperlink to an undesirable ACMA resource is a prohibited action. Thus, the popular Whirpool forum has already been sued for $ 11,000 / day for the entire duration of the finding of a hyperlink to one of the blocked resources. You must admit that this is a very elegant system - it is not inferior to the Heller's “Trick 22”.
Do not assume that the example of Australia can be attributed to the singular and exceptional. On the contrary, it vividly illustrates the state trend of recent years - tightening control over online activity. The Open Net Initiative (ONI) research team has identified the facts of filtering Internet content in 25 countries out of 41. It must be emphasized that the explosive growth of government control over the Network has occurred in recent years. According to John Palfrey of the Harvard Law School, in five years the number of countries that practice traffic filtering has increased from 2 to 25. ONI experts draw attention to the three main motives underlying state Internet control: the policy of the authorities / power structures, threats to security and norms of public morality. At the same time, Rafal Rohozinski, an employee of the University of Cambridge and CEO of The SecDev Group, notes that, being fascinated by filtering Internet content, governments usually begin to expand the "sphere of interest" of censorship, extending their influence to new areas of the Web. .
It would be naive to believe that European countries are not tempted by the ability to control the activities of their citizens in the vast web. Information about new legislative initiatives comes almost every day - so, at the time of delivery of the issue, it became known that the Irish government raised the issue of global introduction of Internet filters to block pornographic resources, file-sharing systems, etc. Experts from a non-profit organization Digital Rights Ireland argue that the innovation will affect national telecom operators, and Vodafone will apparently be directly filtering traffic.
Neighboring UK is actively applying the methods of regulating the Network in practice: the state-controlled structure of the Internet Watch Foundation is consistently looking for resources potentially dangerous to the British visitor. Attempts to dilute the Internet are ridiculous: the other day the customers of the Demon Internet provider reported that they could not access the Wayback Machine site (online storage of archived copies of sites starting from 1996). And the periodic attempts to block Wikipedia (sometimes for the politically incorrect cover of the Scorpions album, then for the article about the capture of a maniac) reduce the already low popularity of British guardians of morality.
Germany’s online policy seems somewhat more adequate: despite the abundance of rhetoric on the part of the authorities (including Prime Minister Angela Merkel), there are really serious limitations only for neo-Nazi resources. Providers wishing to obtain a license sign an agreement on “Voluntary self-monitoring for multimedia service providers”, obliging them to filter websites that have a negative impact on young people. Of course, child pornography resources are also being blocked - in May last year, Ursula von der Lane (Ursula von der Leyen), the German Minister for Family Affairs, initiated the formation of a committee responsible for blocking access to Internet resources. The result of the committee’s activities should be the creation of a “blacklist” of sites that distribute child pornography - and the blocking of these sites by providers.
The most rigid policy in relation to the freedom of speech on the Web is France. According to Spiegel, the lower house of the French parliament approved the bill under the working title Lopssi-2, which allows the state to control the Network almost unhindered. Apparently, it will be approved in the second reading and will come into force no later than this summer. French President Nicolas Sarkozy - perhaps the most radical European leader - is an apologist for the strictest control of Internet communications. Recall that in 2009 it was he who carried out the HADOPI project (High Authority) that put an end to the quiet life of users (including those who have nothing to do with illegal activities) . The current project assumes that French security services will be able to install Trojan software on remote computers in order to monitor the user's Internet activity. Despite the negative reaction from public organizations, in the Fifth Republic there is a relative calm among the political establishment. Only a representative of the Green Party, Sandrine Bellier, believes that Lopssi-2 is a “serious threat” to freedom of speech on the Web: “Filters and blocking in the network are becoming the standard weapon in the legislative arsenal that without shame violates the personal freedoms of citizens” .
The last straw that prompted attention to the issue of freedom of speech on the Web was the scandal unleashed by Google in China. In general, the history of Chinese online censorship has more than one hundred shameful pages. The Great Chinese Firewall (the unofficial name for the Golden Shield project, which is a filter server system between Chinese providers and international communication channels) is constantly increasing its functionality to reliably protect the Chinese population from the corrupting influence of the West. It should be noted that a few years ago, the three largest players in the Internet market - Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft - signed an agreement to censor Chinese versions of their resources in accordance with the requirements of local law. It must be said, the companies conscientiously fulfilled their obligations - it suffices to recall how much criticism was subjected in 2006 to the CEO of Yahoo! Jerry Yang (a native of Taiwan), when his company issued a correspondence of dissidents to the Chinese secret services, which led to their arrest.
Recall, the conflict broke out on January 12, 2010, when Google Vice President David Drummond (David Drummond), who heads the company's legal department (Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer), said that the mailboxes of Chinese human rights activists and opposition activists were viewed by special services. As a result, it was decided to revise the company's policy regarding the restriction of freedom of speech in the Chinese segment of the Network. On March 22, Google stopped censoring google.cn search engine results and set up automatic redirection to google.com.hk, a Hong Kong server that is not subject to censorship legislation. Sergey Brin said in an interview with the New York Times that “the story is not over yet” and suggested that Chinese users turn to Google’s Google server. Of course, China has blocked the results of the issuance that are not acceptable to the regime, so the question of free access to search engines remains open. Hope for his successful resolution is very illusory - with all due respect to Google, the Chinese IT market will not notice the "loss of a fighter", because most of the market is occupied by the local Internet giant Baidu. Will Google win from such a demarche, time will tell. The only thing that is obvious now is the inviolability of the position of the totalitarian system, which even the world's largest Internet company cannot shake (and is unlikely to).
According to human rights organizations, today there is no censorship of online space in Armenia. Most likely, this is due to a fairly low level of network penetration and technical imperfection of the infrastructure. Geham Vardanyan, editor of the information portal of the public organization InterNews notes that “in Armenia there is no control or censorship in the Internet space. The only case of restriction of freedom was after the March 2008 events. ” Recall that after the 2008 presidential election, the opposition organized riots in the center of the capital - and the authorities decided to limit access to a number of news resources.
About a year ago, Azerbaijan was among the countries practicing control of the Internet space and blocking resources that did not meet the requirements of the regime. At the end of 2009, this conclusion was confirmed by the Media Rights Institute (IPM). Leyla Mathadli, a representative of IPM in Baku, said that the situation with freedom of speech in the country "remains bad and Azerbaijan is inferior to many countries in this indicator."
The hacker community Cryptohippie presented a report based on information from 17 sources dealing with freedom of speech on the Web. In the report “The Electronic Police State” the rating of the countries that most strictly control the online space is displayed. North Korea and China shared the first places, followed by Russia and Belarus. At the same time, the compilers of the report note that there are no open statistics on Belarus - and by this the country does not differ from North Korea. In Belarus, they are not in a hurry to protest against the title of “Internet police state”: for example, Oleg Proleskovsky, director of the Information and Analytical Center at the Presidential Administration, proposed introducing a system of Internet content filters: “In terms of organizational measures, it is necessary to talk about the so-called content filtering. That is, about the software with which users or administrators of local networks could block access from computers controlled by them to sites that contain information that conflicts with current legislation or contradicts the norms of public morality, ”Oleg shared his ideas "Belarusian dumka". Of particular note is the system of responsibility proposed by the authorities: “At the legislative level, it is necessary first of all to strengthen the responsibility for disseminating information on the Internet that is illegal. If such information appeared on a website, the administrator, the owner of this resource, and the provider should be responsible for this. ” In the light of such statements, it is not surprising that a special interdepartmental republican working group has been set up in Belarus, studying the experience of control of the Network, especially the Chinese.
In this country, a situation has emerged that is critical for the freedom of speech and the expression of their views on the web. The Kaznet-Freedom movement recently published a list of resources, access to which is prohibited for users from Kazakhstan. It included not only opposition sites (eurasia.org.ru, kahar.biz, etc.), but also resources such as livejournal.com, blogger.com, blogspot.com, wordpress.com, as well as ... the site of distance education Moscow State University. M. Lomonosov. It should be noted that Kazakhstan was one of the first in the CIS to start filtering online content - back in 1999, a representative of the support service provider Nursat responded to a request for reasons for the inaccessibility of the Eurasia website, “there are and there will be technical reasons why access to "Eurasia" is impossible. " He also mentioned that these reasons apply to all Kazakhstani providers.
Of course, the policy of total control is provided legislative support. On April 30, 2009, a draft law on network regulation measures was approved. Among other things, the law equated blogs and chats to the media, control of which is relegated to the Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan. It was also noted that foreign media can be blocked in the event of a “threat to national security”. And on June 13, 2009, the President of the Republic, Nursultan Nazarbayev, signed the amendments, which equate any Internet resource to the media, without being limited to blogs. From now on, any site can be closed by a court decision, if the content contained on it turns out to be illegal.
Since March 10, 2010, several local and foreign news portals covering events in the country have been blocked in Kyrgyzstan - among them was the Kyrgyz site of Radio Liberty. Soon thereafter, 130 public organizations that formed the coalition “For Democracy and Civil Society” declared their extreme concern about the “coordinated attack of the authorities on freedom of speech and the right to information”. The development of the situation with freedom of speech in the country will obviously show the very near future.
In general, the situation with censorship in the Moldovan segment of the Network remains acceptable. Of the high-profile events that stirred public opinion in recent years, it is worth noting only blocking access to the Odnoklassniki social network on April 9, 2009. It is suggested that this step was associated with the creation of the opposition community "Down with the Communists!"
Unlike many neighboring countries, in Tajikistan, Internet censorship is introduced exclusively during the pre-election period. This was the case in 2006, and it remained the same this year, when on January 11, the Tajiktelecom state structure, executing a government order, blocked access to a number of opposition resources. However, if 4 years ago, the blocking was held for a long time, then this year the restrictions were lifted the very next day - a powerful information campaign unfolding in blogs and media around the world, forced the authorities to abandon tried and tested methods.
It is probably in Russia that the most ambiguous situation has arisen with the censorship of the Internet space. On the one hand, the country is on the watch lists of Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House and other human rights organizations - as a state where there is a threat of total Internet control. On the other hand, against the background of European, North American and Chinese realities, the position of the RuNet does not look so dramatic. After analyzing dozens of reliable information sources, IT Business Week concluded that it would be premature to talk about global censorship of the Russian segment of the Network. A much more accurate definition would be the word "control." Obviously, the authorities are soberly aware that the Chinese experience in Russia is inapplicable: given the development of infrastructure, the technical training of the average Internet user, and the particular mentality, it is better to choose another way. Our guess was confirmed by Ivan Zassoursky, head of the laboratory of media culture and communication at the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University, who frankly stated: “There will be no censorship on the Internet in Russia. There will be a tightening of persecution for post factum statements. ”
However, Oleg Rykov, an adviser to the Minister of Communications and Mass Media, recently said that the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of Russia had received a proposal from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to introduce amendments to legislation that would allow authorities to block access to resources that violate laws of the Russian Federation. In the attached list of resources were listed about two thousand sites - pirated, pornographic and extremist, mainly promoting radical Islamist ideology. It is known that a similar request was sent to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Culture. Shortly after this statement, the RBC daily publication, citing information from the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, reported that the working group dealing with regulation of Internet communications does not plan to create a separate law on web control. Regulatory legislation will be implemented by amending the existing law “On Information”. It is reported that changes are planned to be made by October 2010, and the responsibility for implementing this project will be the working group of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. The authors of the amendments note that the main purpose of the change in legislation is the need to extend to the sphere of the Network laws in effect in the "offline" - including laws on fraud and libel. One can only guess how far the desire of deputies to “clean up” the runet will go.
We deliberately do not consider high-profile cases about the trials of Russian bloggers, nor do we touch upon such problematic topics as the financial (and not only) control of the political elite over social networks and popular Internet resources. This is the topic of a separate material. Moreover, as part of our excursion, we are not able to dwell on the extremely “fertile” topic of the American Network segment. The amount of information available to the editors requires a dozen journal spreads to fully cover this difficult topic.
NEC (National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality) provides a good example of where good intentions can lead. Originally created for the purpose of expert evaluation of audio / video / printed materials, the commission seeks to establish control over Internet resources, explaining this by the need to combat the spread of child pornography. The head of the commission, Vasily Kostitsky, more than once initiated discussions on the need for censorship in the Wannette. Moreover, on February 9, 2010, NEC lobbied for the adoption of Law No. 1819-VI “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine in order to counteract the spread of child pornography,” which actually legalized the surveillance of users. In addition, Law No. 1520-VI “On Amendments to Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine” was passed, which introduces criminal liability for storing pornographic materials on a computer. It is gratifying that the most anti-democratic bill, No. 4042-1 “On Interception and Monitoring of Telecommunications”, was never passed under pressure from the public and non-governmental organizations.
The impact of the activities of NEC on the Ukrainian Internet business can be judged by a number of facts, leaving them without comment.On December 10, 2008, the largest file sharing server Infostore was liquidated on charges of distributing pornographic products. On February 4, 2010, the same fate befell the Ukrainian photo hosting site io.ua, despite the fact that the section with erotic (not pornographic!) Photos was allocated by the creators of the resource into a separate project erio.ws. Only in mid-March, the io.ua server was returned to the rightful owners.
Currently, the IT public in Ukraine is closely following NEC’s attempts to establish total control over Internet users. Recall that one of the provisions of Law No. 1819-VI reads: “Operators, communication providers save and provide information about their subscriber’s connections in the manner prescribed by the Law.” Today, this procedure is not defined at the legislative level, but the commission is preparing a draft law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine“ On the Protection of Public Morality ”,” which is designed to maximize the existing framework of censorship of the Network. So, not only pornographic sites will become banned, but all resources that, according to the commission, do not fit into the “norms of public morality”. These norms, of course, will be established by the members of the commission in accordance with their personal considerations.The people's deputy of Ukraine and NEK member Lilia Grigorovich shared the considerations two years ago: “I believe that the moral character of the whole country is formed from the elite that is at the top of power. And who else should demonstrate an example? On January 15, 2010, the people's actor of Ukraine, a member of the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality, Bogdan Benyuk, convincingly demonstrated the moral image of the ruling elite at a press conference: Mr. Benyuk responded to the journalist’s clarifying question about the ambiguous replica of the speaker: “Yes , ....., I’m not talking about you! ”, the peace official of the country was indignant. Sapienti sat.And who else should demonstrate an example? On January 15, 2010, the people's actor of Ukraine, a member of the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality, Bogdan Benyuk, convincingly demonstrated the moral image of the ruling elite at a press conference: Mr. Benyuk responded to the journalist’s clarifying question about the ambiguous replica of the speaker: “Yes , ....., I’m not talking about you! ”, the peace official of the country was indignant. Sapienti sat.And who else should demonstrate an example? On January 15, 2010, the people's actor of Ukraine, a member of the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality, Bogdan Benyuk, convincingly demonstrated the moral image of the ruling elite at a press conference: Mr. Benyuk responded to the journalist’s clarifying question about the ambiguous replica of the speaker: “Yes , ....., I’m not talking about you! ”, the peace official of the country was indignant. Sapienti sat.- remonstrated the guardian of the moral image of the country. Sapienti sat.- remonstrated the guardian of the moral image of the country. Sapienti sat.
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On March 29, 2010, an open letter was issued to public organizations and professional associations on the draft Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine“ On the Protection of Public Morality ”. The letter is about the inconsistency of this document with the existing realities. Representatives of public organizations and professional associations believe that this document in the proposed form will bring much more harm than good.
The leaders of the Internet Association of Ukraine, the Industrial Television Committee, the Union of Advertisers of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Association of Periodical Press Publishers, the All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition, the Independent Association of Broadcasters, the Outdoor Advertising Association of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Direct Marketing Association signed an open letter to the Head of the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality Vasily Kostitsky in which they expressed their dissatisfaction with the proposed wording of the law.
According to the leading players in the media and communications market, the adoption of the document in its current form will lead to a significant deterioration in the conditions for doing business in many domestic industries. The reason is additional licensing for the creation and distribution of erotic products. What exactly is what products will be classified as erotic in the law is not specified.
The letter's authors emphasize that due to the expansion of the powers of the NEC in Ukraine, censorship will resume - and the transfer of control functions to one structure may lead to corruption on the part of officials who will be responsible for censorship. However, experts find the greatest shortcoming of the law is the uncertainty about what kind of products can lead to harm to public morality. According to the compilers of the letter, this is an unequivocal way to monopolize power in the hands of a separate structure.
Public discussions of this document have been taking place since January 11, 2010. It was then that for the first time NEC promulgated the Law of Ukraine “On making some changes to the Law of Ukraine“ On the protection of public morality ”. It is noted that in this case, it is not only about restrictions on the conduct of entrepreneurial media activities, but also about violations of the constitutional rights of citizens of Ukraine. Concerns of leading players in the media and communications market speak of indifference to the current situation and the desire for a dialogue with the authorities in order to resolve this issue, the authors emphasize.
The question of the influence of NEC on the activities of specific Ukrainian Internet projects remains open, but it is already becoming clear that the situation will not improve. Thus, at the time of preparing the issue, it became known that the commission decided to create a working group, which was recommended to develop a procedure for voluntary registration of online media. Whether officials will be able to "destroy to the ground" one of the most attractive European Internet markets - time will tell. Unfortunately, the forecasts of the IT Business week are very pessimistic in this regard.
"Enemies of the Network"
On March 12, international human rights organizations held World Day against cyber censorship. “Reporters without borders”, by tradition, presented a report on the situation with the restriction of freedom of speech on the Web. This year, Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam were ranked as “enemies of the Internet”.
It should be noted that the goals and objectives of these countries are quite different. So, rogue countries (North Korea, Burma, Cuba) strive to completely stop using (and, of course, developing) Internet technologies. “Reporters without borders” note similar intentions among Turkmenistan - with a population approaching 5.5 million people, only 127 thousand users have access to the Internet in this country. A number of countries (Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia) do not limit the spread of Internet communications, but the system of total monitoring (and subsequent punitive measures to dissenters) led to the fact that a significant part of Internet users switched to self-censorship.
')
The overwhelming majority of other countries soberly assess the surrounding reality and realize that the rejection of Internet technologies will throw the economy a decade ago. Therefore, the fight against undesirable system of online activity occurs on other fronts. First of all, the content filtering system comes into play. It is no secret that in many totalitarian states access to opposition resources (and often to authoritative international news agencies) is blocked at the provider level. However, this is not a discovery. IT Business week invites the reader to pay attention to what is happening in developed countries that call themselves democratic.
In addition to the very obvious list of “Internet enemies”, Reporters Without Borders provided a list of countries under “surveillance.” This year it includes, among others, Russia, Turkey, South Korea and ... Australia. The latter is of the greatest interest, since it is almost a textbook standard of a modern democratic state.
Legislative Surrealism
On December 15, 2009, Australian Minister of Communications Stephen Conroy (Stephen Conroy) confirmed that the government plans to vote on a project to filter out "incorrect" content. The decision to add each specific site to the “black list” will not be taken by the court, but by the state structure ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority). Moreover, ACMA will be entitled to form a “blacklist” independently, in accordance with the internal rules for content classification, which are inaccessible to either private users or owners of Internet resources. Back to back it was possible to find out that not only sites with extremist content, copyright-infringing objects and child pornography will be classified as prohibited resources, but also “inconvenient” sites, for example, to the problems of Aboriginal people, the medical consequences of anorexia or discussion of the draft law legalization of soft drugs. Despite the unanimous resistance of society (96% of respondents spoke out sharply against innovations), the “cleansing” of the Australian Internet began even before the official adoption of the relevant law. The cynicism of the situation is aggravated by the fact that the contents of the “black list” of sites is a state secret, and even placing a hyperlink to an undesirable ACMA resource is a prohibited action. Thus, the popular Whirpool forum has already been sued for $ 11,000 / day for the entire duration of the finding of a hyperlink to one of the blocked resources. You must admit that this is a very elegant system - it is not inferior to the Heller's “Trick 22”.
Do not assume that the example of Australia can be attributed to the singular and exceptional. On the contrary, it vividly illustrates the state trend of recent years - tightening control over online activity. The Open Net Initiative (ONI) research team has identified the facts of filtering Internet content in 25 countries out of 41. It must be emphasized that the explosive growth of government control over the Network has occurred in recent years. According to John Palfrey of the Harvard Law School, in five years the number of countries that practice traffic filtering has increased from 2 to 25. ONI experts draw attention to the three main motives underlying state Internet control: the policy of the authorities / power structures, threats to security and norms of public morality. At the same time, Rafal Rohozinski, an employee of the University of Cambridge and CEO of The SecDev Group, notes that, being fascinated by filtering Internet content, governments usually begin to expand the "sphere of interest" of censorship, extending their influence to new areas of the Web. .
European education
It would be naive to believe that European countries are not tempted by the ability to control the activities of their citizens in the vast web. Information about new legislative initiatives comes almost every day - so, at the time of delivery of the issue, it became known that the Irish government raised the issue of global introduction of Internet filters to block pornographic resources, file-sharing systems, etc. Experts from a non-profit organization Digital Rights Ireland argue that the innovation will affect national telecom operators, and Vodafone will apparently be directly filtering traffic.
Neighboring UK is actively applying the methods of regulating the Network in practice: the state-controlled structure of the Internet Watch Foundation is consistently looking for resources potentially dangerous to the British visitor. Attempts to dilute the Internet are ridiculous: the other day the customers of the Demon Internet provider reported that they could not access the Wayback Machine site (online storage of archived copies of sites starting from 1996). And the periodic attempts to block Wikipedia (sometimes for the politically incorrect cover of the Scorpions album, then for the article about the capture of a maniac) reduce the already low popularity of British guardians of morality.
Germany’s online policy seems somewhat more adequate: despite the abundance of rhetoric on the part of the authorities (including Prime Minister Angela Merkel), there are really serious limitations only for neo-Nazi resources. Providers wishing to obtain a license sign an agreement on “Voluntary self-monitoring for multimedia service providers”, obliging them to filter websites that have a negative impact on young people. Of course, child pornography resources are also being blocked - in May last year, Ursula von der Lane (Ursula von der Leyen), the German Minister for Family Affairs, initiated the formation of a committee responsible for blocking access to Internet resources. The result of the committee’s activities should be the creation of a “blacklist” of sites that distribute child pornography - and the blocking of these sites by providers.
The most rigid policy in relation to the freedom of speech on the Web is France. According to Spiegel, the lower house of the French parliament approved the bill under the working title Lopssi-2, which allows the state to control the Network almost unhindered. Apparently, it will be approved in the second reading and will come into force no later than this summer. French President Nicolas Sarkozy - perhaps the most radical European leader - is an apologist for the strictest control of Internet communications. Recall that in 2009 it was he who carried out the HADOPI project (High Authority) that put an end to the quiet life of users (including those who have nothing to do with illegal activities) . The current project assumes that French security services will be able to install Trojan software on remote computers in order to monitor the user's Internet activity. Despite the negative reaction from public organizations, in the Fifth Republic there is a relative calm among the political establishment. Only a representative of the Green Party, Sandrine Bellier, believes that Lopssi-2 is a “serious threat” to freedom of speech on the Web: “Filters and blocking in the network are becoming the standard weapon in the legislative arsenal that without shame violates the personal freedoms of citizens” .
Last chinese
The last straw that prompted attention to the issue of freedom of speech on the Web was the scandal unleashed by Google in China. In general, the history of Chinese online censorship has more than one hundred shameful pages. The Great Chinese Firewall (the unofficial name for the Golden Shield project, which is a filter server system between Chinese providers and international communication channels) is constantly increasing its functionality to reliably protect the Chinese population from the corrupting influence of the West. It should be noted that a few years ago, the three largest players in the Internet market - Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft - signed an agreement to censor Chinese versions of their resources in accordance with the requirements of local law. It must be said, the companies conscientiously fulfilled their obligations - it suffices to recall how much criticism was subjected in 2006 to the CEO of Yahoo! Jerry Yang (a native of Taiwan), when his company issued a correspondence of dissidents to the Chinese secret services, which led to their arrest.
Recall, the conflict broke out on January 12, 2010, when Google Vice President David Drummond (David Drummond), who heads the company's legal department (Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer), said that the mailboxes of Chinese human rights activists and opposition activists were viewed by special services. As a result, it was decided to revise the company's policy regarding the restriction of freedom of speech in the Chinese segment of the Network. On March 22, Google stopped censoring google.cn search engine results and set up automatic redirection to google.com.hk, a Hong Kong server that is not subject to censorship legislation. Sergey Brin said in an interview with the New York Times that “the story is not over yet” and suggested that Chinese users turn to Google’s Google server. Of course, China has blocked the results of the issuance that are not acceptable to the regime, so the question of free access to search engines remains open. Hope for his successful resolution is very illusory - with all due respect to Google, the Chinese IT market will not notice the "loss of a fighter", because most of the market is occupied by the local Internet giant Baidu. Will Google win from such a demarche, time will tell. The only thing that is obvious now is the inviolability of the position of the totalitarian system, which even the world's largest Internet company cannot shake (and is unlikely to).
CIS: RING IS SUGGESTED
Despite the fact that in most CIS countries, the attitude towards Internet censorship is rather democratic, experts point out negative trends that have manifested themselves in the last year or two. This is mainly due to plans to tighten legislation on the control of Internet communications. As in Western countries, it is planned to place responsibility for online offenses not only on administrators of prohibited resources, but also on providers, and business owners (for example, online media), and end users.
Armenia
According to human rights organizations, today there is no censorship of online space in Armenia. Most likely, this is due to a fairly low level of network penetration and technical imperfection of the infrastructure. Geham Vardanyan, editor of the information portal of the public organization InterNews notes that “in Armenia there is no control or censorship in the Internet space. The only case of restriction of freedom was after the March 2008 events. ” Recall that after the 2008 presidential election, the opposition organized riots in the center of the capital - and the authorities decided to limit access to a number of news resources.
Azerbaijan
About a year ago, Azerbaijan was among the countries practicing control of the Internet space and blocking resources that did not meet the requirements of the regime. At the end of 2009, this conclusion was confirmed by the Media Rights Institute (IPM). Leyla Mathadli, a representative of IPM in Baku, said that the situation with freedom of speech in the country "remains bad and Azerbaijan is inferior to many countries in this indicator."
Belarus
The hacker community Cryptohippie presented a report based on information from 17 sources dealing with freedom of speech on the Web. In the report “The Electronic Police State” the rating of the countries that most strictly control the online space is displayed. North Korea and China shared the first places, followed by Russia and Belarus. At the same time, the compilers of the report note that there are no open statistics on Belarus - and by this the country does not differ from North Korea. In Belarus, they are not in a hurry to protest against the title of “Internet police state”: for example, Oleg Proleskovsky, director of the Information and Analytical Center at the Presidential Administration, proposed introducing a system of Internet content filters: “In terms of organizational measures, it is necessary to talk about the so-called content filtering. That is, about the software with which users or administrators of local networks could block access from computers controlled by them to sites that contain information that conflicts with current legislation or contradicts the norms of public morality, ”Oleg shared his ideas "Belarusian dumka". Of particular note is the system of responsibility proposed by the authorities: “At the legislative level, it is necessary first of all to strengthen the responsibility for disseminating information on the Internet that is illegal. If such information appeared on a website, the administrator, the owner of this resource, and the provider should be responsible for this. ” In the light of such statements, it is not surprising that a special interdepartmental republican working group has been set up in Belarus, studying the experience of control of the Network, especially the Chinese.
Kazakhstan
In this country, a situation has emerged that is critical for the freedom of speech and the expression of their views on the web. The Kaznet-Freedom movement recently published a list of resources, access to which is prohibited for users from Kazakhstan. It included not only opposition sites (eurasia.org.ru, kahar.biz, etc.), but also resources such as livejournal.com, blogger.com, blogspot.com, wordpress.com, as well as ... the site of distance education Moscow State University. M. Lomonosov. It should be noted that Kazakhstan was one of the first in the CIS to start filtering online content - back in 1999, a representative of the support service provider Nursat responded to a request for reasons for the inaccessibility of the Eurasia website, “there are and there will be technical reasons why access to "Eurasia" is impossible. " He also mentioned that these reasons apply to all Kazakhstani providers.
Of course, the policy of total control is provided legislative support. On April 30, 2009, a draft law on network regulation measures was approved. Among other things, the law equated blogs and chats to the media, control of which is relegated to the Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan. It was also noted that foreign media can be blocked in the event of a “threat to national security”. And on June 13, 2009, the President of the Republic, Nursultan Nazarbayev, signed the amendments, which equate any Internet resource to the media, without being limited to blogs. From now on, any site can be closed by a court decision, if the content contained on it turns out to be illegal.
Kyrgyzstan
Since March 10, 2010, several local and foreign news portals covering events in the country have been blocked in Kyrgyzstan - among them was the Kyrgyz site of Radio Liberty. Soon thereafter, 130 public organizations that formed the coalition “For Democracy and Civil Society” declared their extreme concern about the “coordinated attack of the authorities on freedom of speech and the right to information”. The development of the situation with freedom of speech in the country will obviously show the very near future.
Moldova
In general, the situation with censorship in the Moldovan segment of the Network remains acceptable. Of the high-profile events that stirred public opinion in recent years, it is worth noting only blocking access to the Odnoklassniki social network on April 9, 2009. It is suggested that this step was associated with the creation of the opposition community "Down with the Communists!"
Tajikistan
Unlike many neighboring countries, in Tajikistan, Internet censorship is introduced exclusively during the pre-election period. This was the case in 2006, and it remained the same this year, when on January 11, the Tajiktelecom state structure, executing a government order, blocked access to a number of opposition resources. However, if 4 years ago, the blocking was held for a long time, then this year the restrictions were lifted the very next day - a powerful information campaign unfolding in blogs and media around the world, forced the authorities to abandon tried and tested methods.
Russia
It is probably in Russia that the most ambiguous situation has arisen with the censorship of the Internet space. On the one hand, the country is on the watch lists of Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House and other human rights organizations - as a state where there is a threat of total Internet control. On the other hand, against the background of European, North American and Chinese realities, the position of the RuNet does not look so dramatic. After analyzing dozens of reliable information sources, IT Business Week concluded that it would be premature to talk about global censorship of the Russian segment of the Network. A much more accurate definition would be the word "control." Obviously, the authorities are soberly aware that the Chinese experience in Russia is inapplicable: given the development of infrastructure, the technical training of the average Internet user, and the particular mentality, it is better to choose another way. Our guess was confirmed by Ivan Zassoursky, head of the laboratory of media culture and communication at the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University, who frankly stated: “There will be no censorship on the Internet in Russia. There will be a tightening of persecution for post factum statements. ”However, Oleg Rykov, an adviser to the Minister of Communications and Mass Media, recently said that the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of Russia had received a proposal from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to introduce amendments to legislation that would allow authorities to block access to resources that violate laws of the Russian Federation. In the attached list of resources were listed about two thousand sites - pirated, pornographic and extremist, mainly promoting radical Islamist ideology. It is known that a similar request was sent to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Culture. Shortly after this statement, the RBC daily publication, citing information from the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, reported that the working group dealing with regulation of Internet communications does not plan to create a separate law on web control. Regulatory legislation will be implemented by amending the existing law “On Information”. It is reported that changes are planned to be made by October 2010, and the responsibility for implementing this project will be the working group of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. The authors of the amendments note that the main purpose of the change in legislation is the need to extend to the sphere of the Network laws in effect in the "offline" - including laws on fraud and libel. One can only guess how far the desire of deputies to “clean up” the runet will go.
We deliberately do not consider high-profile cases about the trials of Russian bloggers, nor do we touch upon such problematic topics as the financial (and not only) control of the political elite over social networks and popular Internet resources. This is the topic of a separate material. Moreover, as part of our excursion, we are not able to dwell on the extremely “fertile” topic of the American Network segment. The amount of information available to the editors requires a dozen journal spreads to fully cover this difficult topic.
Ukraine: the beginning of the end?
The national expert commission on the protection of public morality is turning into an Orwellian “Ministry of truth” by leaps and bounds, trying to take control of the Ukrainian segment of the Network.
NEC (National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality) provides a good example of where good intentions can lead. Originally created for the purpose of expert evaluation of audio / video / printed materials, the commission seeks to establish control over Internet resources, explaining this by the need to combat the spread of child pornography. The head of the commission, Vasily Kostitsky, more than once initiated discussions on the need for censorship in the Wannette. Moreover, on February 9, 2010, NEC lobbied for the adoption of Law No. 1819-VI “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine in order to counteract the spread of child pornography,” which actually legalized the surveillance of users. In addition, Law No. 1520-VI “On Amendments to Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine” was passed, which introduces criminal liability for storing pornographic materials on a computer. It is gratifying that the most anti-democratic bill, No. 4042-1 “On Interception and Monitoring of Telecommunications”, was never passed under pressure from the public and non-governmental organizations.The impact of the activities of NEC on the Ukrainian Internet business can be judged by a number of facts, leaving them without comment.On December 10, 2008, the largest file sharing server Infostore was liquidated on charges of distributing pornographic products. On February 4, 2010, the same fate befell the Ukrainian photo hosting site io.ua, despite the fact that the section with erotic (not pornographic!) Photos was allocated by the creators of the resource into a separate project erio.ws. Only in mid-March, the io.ua server was returned to the rightful owners.
Currently, the IT public in Ukraine is closely following NEC’s attempts to establish total control over Internet users. Recall that one of the provisions of Law No. 1819-VI reads: “Operators, communication providers save and provide information about their subscriber’s connections in the manner prescribed by the Law.” Today, this procedure is not defined at the legislative level, but the commission is preparing a draft law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine“ On the Protection of Public Morality ”,” which is designed to maximize the existing framework of censorship of the Network. So, not only pornographic sites will become banned, but all resources that, according to the commission, do not fit into the “norms of public morality”. These norms, of course, will be established by the members of the commission in accordance with their personal considerations.The people's deputy of Ukraine and NEK member Lilia Grigorovich shared the considerations two years ago: “I believe that the moral character of the whole country is formed from the elite that is at the top of power. And who else should demonstrate an example? On January 15, 2010, the people's actor of Ukraine, a member of the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality, Bogdan Benyuk, convincingly demonstrated the moral image of the ruling elite at a press conference: Mr. Benyuk responded to the journalist’s clarifying question about the ambiguous replica of the speaker: “Yes , ....., I’m not talking about you! ”, the peace official of the country was indignant. Sapienti sat.And who else should demonstrate an example? On January 15, 2010, the people's actor of Ukraine, a member of the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality, Bogdan Benyuk, convincingly demonstrated the moral image of the ruling elite at a press conference: Mr. Benyuk responded to the journalist’s clarifying question about the ambiguous replica of the speaker: “Yes , ....., I’m not talking about you! ”, the peace official of the country was indignant. Sapienti sat.And who else should demonstrate an example? On January 15, 2010, the people's actor of Ukraine, a member of the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality, Bogdan Benyuk, convincingly demonstrated the moral image of the ruling elite at a press conference: Mr. Benyuk responded to the journalist’s clarifying question about the ambiguous replica of the speaker: “Yes , ....., I’m not talking about you! ”, the peace official of the country was indignant. Sapienti sat.- remonstrated the guardian of the moral image of the country. Sapienti sat.- remonstrated the guardian of the moral image of the country. Sapienti sat.
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On March 29, 2010, an open letter was issued to public organizations and professional associations on the draft Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine“ On the Protection of Public Morality ”. The letter is about the inconsistency of this document with the existing realities. Representatives of public organizations and professional associations believe that this document in the proposed form will bring much more harm than good.
The leaders of the Internet Association of Ukraine, the Industrial Television Committee, the Union of Advertisers of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Association of Periodical Press Publishers, the All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition, the Independent Association of Broadcasters, the Outdoor Advertising Association of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Direct Marketing Association signed an open letter to the Head of the National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality Vasily Kostitsky in which they expressed their dissatisfaction with the proposed wording of the law.
According to the leading players in the media and communications market, the adoption of the document in its current form will lead to a significant deterioration in the conditions for doing business in many domestic industries. The reason is additional licensing for the creation and distribution of erotic products. What exactly is what products will be classified as erotic in the law is not specified.
The letter's authors emphasize that due to the expansion of the powers of the NEC in Ukraine, censorship will resume - and the transfer of control functions to one structure may lead to corruption on the part of officials who will be responsible for censorship. However, experts find the greatest shortcoming of the law is the uncertainty about what kind of products can lead to harm to public morality. According to the compilers of the letter, this is an unequivocal way to monopolize power in the hands of a separate structure.
Public discussions of this document have been taking place since January 11, 2010. It was then that for the first time NEC promulgated the Law of Ukraine “On making some changes to the Law of Ukraine“ On the protection of public morality ”. It is noted that in this case, it is not only about restrictions on the conduct of entrepreneurial media activities, but also about violations of the constitutional rights of citizens of Ukraine. Concerns of leading players in the media and communications market speak of indifference to the current situation and the desire for a dialogue with the authorities in order to resolve this issue, the authors emphasize.
The question of the influence of NEC on the activities of specific Ukrainian Internet projects remains open, but it is already becoming clear that the situation will not improve. Thus, at the time of preparing the issue, it became known that the commission decided to create a working group, which was recommended to develop a procedure for voluntary registration of online media. Whether officials will be able to "destroy to the ground" one of the most attractive European Internet markets - time will tell. Unfortunately, the forecasts of the IT Business week are very pessimistic in this regard.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/92679/
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