Censorship in cyberspace is often treated as a separate issue from censorship of offline material, but the legal issues are similar.

The major difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can often find it on web sites hosted elsewhere. Conversely, attempts by one government to prevent its citizens from seeing certain material can have the effect of restricting foreigners, because the government may take action against Internet sites anywhere in the world, if they host material it objects to.

Total censorship of information on the Internet, however, is very difficult (or impossible) to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Freenet) allow unconditional free speech, as the technology guarantees that material cannot be removed and the author of any information is impossible to link to a physical identity or organization.

Censorship by governments

The majority of Internet access in Muslim Countries is through government-controlled proxy servers that block access to sites that are considered to be 'immoral'. This can include not only directly pornographic websites but also certain chat forums discussing any issues of sexuality, controversial blogging hosts, sites showing nudity of any description (including online businesses selling women's lingerie), as well as politically sensitive or controversial topics, such as websites that compare Islam to other religions. Copies of pages are reviewed and eventually blocked when they do not meet set criteria. Examples include:

• Morocco, as of March 2006 had blocked access to many blogging sites, such as LiveJournal.
• Tunisia has blocked thousands of websites (such as pornography, mail, and translation services) and peer-to-peer and FTP transfer. This filtering is performed using a transparent proxy and port blocking.
• The United Arab Emirates forcibly censors the internet using Secure Computing's solution. The nation's sole ISP Etisalat bans pornography, politically sensitive material, and anything against the moral values of the UAE.
• Denmarks biggest internet service provider TDC A/S launched a DNS-based child pornography filter on October 18, 2005 in cooperation with the state police department and Save the Children, a charity organisation. Since then, all major providers have joined and as of May 2006, 98% of the Danish internet users are restricted by the filter. [1]. The filter caused some controversy in march 2006, when a legal sexsite named bizar.dk was caught in the filter, sparking discussion about the reliability, accuracy and credibility of the filter. [2]. MySpace was blocked from the months during the Cartoon Controversy, to prevent Denmark citizens from being lured by terrorists.

Other countries may censor the Internet for political reasons:

• Burma maintains the restrictive Myanmar Wide Web.
• The People's Republic of China has set up systems for Internet censorship that are collectively known as the Great Firewall of China.
• Cuba has made Internet usage illegal without a permit. For the most part only medical doctors can get permits, making the neighbourhood doctor the place to go to send e-mail to family abroad, but the Cuban government has been trying to restrict this.
• French courts demanded Yahoo! block Nazi material in the case LICRA vs. Yahoo. The case is currently on appeal for an en banc rehearing.
• The Maldives has prosecuted citizens for publishing articles critical of the Government on the internet.
• In Singapore, 3 people were arrested and charged with sedition for posting racist comments on the Internet, of which two have been sentenced to imprisonment.
• South Korea has ordered its internet service providers not to allow access to various sites it considers too sympathetic to North Korea.
• Syria has banned websites for political reasons and arrested people accessing them.
• Significant efforts have been made in Thailand to oppose sites that are representing illegal activities. Activities such as gambling, drug usage and pornography are strictly banned, using DNS control in Thailand and, more effectively, a transparent proxy.This makes the website appear to be inaccessible. Also, the government has banned sites that discuss circumventing internet censorship.
• The United States of America enacted in 1996 the Communications Decency Act, which severely restricted online speech that could potentially be seen by a minor – which, it was argued, was most of online speech. Free speech advocates, however, managed to have most of the act overturned by the courts. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes the discussion and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms, and makes it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement on the Internet.

Other forms of censorship:

• In Brazil, the state of São Paulo was the first state to enact an act requiring cybercafés to keep a user's list with address, full name, date of birth, phone number, and an identity card number. [3]
• Italy bans the use of foreign bookmakers over the internet by mandating certain edits to DNS host files of Italian ISPs. [4] [5]
• United Kingdom, the new Home Office Minister Vernon Croaker set a deadline of the end of 2007 for all ISPs to implement a “Cleanfeed”-style network level content blocking platform. Currently, the only web sites ISPs are expected to block access to are sites the Internet Watch Foundation has identified as containing images of child abuse. However such a platform is capable of blocking access to any web site added to the list (at least, to the extent that the implementation is effective), making it a simple matter to change this policy in future. The Home Office has previously indicated that it has considered requiring ISPs to block access to articles on the web deemed to be “glorifying terrorism”, within the meaning of the new Terrorism Act 2006. [6]

Censorship by organizations

• The efforts of Scientology to stifle online discussion of its activities has been seen by many as a form of censorship. [7]

Censorship by online communities

Forums and chatrooms frequently have moderators, who will edit or remove material against the rules of that community. The scope of these rules varies from community to community - some will want material to be suitable for a specific audience, whilst others only require discussions to be kept within the law. Many USENET groups are unmoderated.

Commonly Censored Websites

• Pornographic websites
• MySpace
• Wikipedia
• Political blogs and websites
• Religious websites

See also

• Censorware
• Internet censorship in mainland China
• Internet censorship in Australia
• International Freedom of Expression eXchange — monitors Internet censorship worldwide
• Tunisia Monitoring Group
• Geolocation
• Geolocation software
• Computer surveillance
• Jingjing and Chacha

External links

• PEACEFIRE: Open Access for the Net Generation. HOWTO disable internet blocking software.
• HOWTO bypass Internet Censorship
• Wikibooks:Bypassing Internet Censorship (step-by-step instructions)
• Your Freedom One of the HTTP/HTTPS Tunnel Services, to bypass Internet censorship.
• Cuba cracks down on internet use BBC, 11 January 2004.
• Open Net Initiative
• Syrian jailed for internet usage BBC, 21 June 2004.
• Chilling Effects Clearinghouse
• Amnesty International — Maldives Case
• A Time for Censorship, a Time for Freedom
• Read Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Legislative attempts to protect children from unsuitable material on the web
• Web-based proxy services at Curlie