All Content Related to Social filtering

China's latest Internet crackdown

jillian — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:10:19 -0500

This blog post was originally posted at Rebecca MacKinnon's blog, RConversation, and is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license.

Seven different government agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security and the State Council Information Office declared war on Internet smut today. 19 Internet companies, including Google, Baidu, Sina, and others, were cited for "violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people."

The official government online announcement is here. Another Chinese language report, including video of a TV report with footage of computer servers being confiscated by police at an unknown location and unknown time is here.

The meeting was chaired by Vice Minister Cai Mingzhao of the State Council Information Office (the same guy who met a few months back with Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, and who has been emphasizing the need for strategic control of the Internet for the past few years in various speeches). According to Reuters:

"Some websites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations," said Cai Mingzhao, a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office, who chaired the meeting, according to a report on an official news website (www.china.com.cn).

"They have used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging mores on the Internet."

The Information Office is the government face of the Party's propaganda and censorship machine.

Cai told officials to "fully grasp the gravity and threat of the vulgar current infesting the Internet" and said law-breakers face "stern punishment."

Representatives of Google, Baidu, Sina, and others who journalists contacted as of this writing have so far had no meaningful comment.

It is of course unclear to what extent this anti-smut crackdown is or isn't going to lead to a tightening on politically sensitive content as well. Historically in China (if you can call the story of China's Internet "history"), the technology used to censor porn has ended up being used more vigorously to censor political content than smut. The Financial Times has a story today quoting He Zhaohui, marketing manager at TRS Information Technology, "China's leading provider of search technology and text mining solutions." According to the FT, He says TRS is "thriving on the government's desire to better "manage" public opinion, comes as the political leadership is facing growing challenges, mostly voiced through the internet."

The folks over at Danwei.org, who have been following Chinese media regulations for years, aren't about to get their panties in a twist over loss of smut just yet. Alice Xin Liu writes: "This campaign is very similar to countless content cleansing campaigns over the past few years. It does not signify much except that the Net Nanny is making sure everyone knows who is boss before the Chinese New Year starts." Jeremy Goldkorn points out that on the same day this campaign is announced, the People's Daily website among others ran racy photos of Zhang Ziyi. Heck, it wasn't long ago that Xinhua was known widely around the China expat web as "Skinhua"... How quickly people forget...

I heard from a couple of reporters today who asked if there's been any other crackdown like this in the past. It seems that everybody has also forgotten the crackdown on video websites that took place last March, which caused the Chinese YouTube clone Tudou.com to go offline for 24 hours in order to upgrade its censorship and monitoring systems.

One reporter asked me whether this latest crackdown marks a new hard-line phase after the "relative freedom of 2008." I pointed out that the unblocking of a number of prominent foreign websites around the Olympics was only one part of the picture for 2008. Chinese domestic websites hosting blogs, chatrooms, and other user-generated content never let up on political censorship. It's just that foreigners only seem to notice what happens to foreign websites...

UK: Evaluating Internet Content Regulations

charles — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:11:05 -0500

According to the BBC, the UK government is evaluating a number of new Internet safeguards to protect children from content perceived as harmful or offensive.

The UK’s Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, who is spearheading the initiative calling for film-style age ratings, believes that new standards of decency are necessary. He intends as well to collaborate with the United States in creating a global content standard to regulate English-language websites.

Burnham claims that he is not intending to curb free speech, but rather is endeavoring to protect the public from media deemed “unacceptable.” As he stated in the interview with the BBC, “I think we do need to have a debate now about clearer signposting and labeling online because it can be quite a confusing world, particularly for parents who are trying to ensure their children are only accessing appropriate stuff.”

In terms of implementation, Burnham conceded that there are “enormous practical problems” that accompany government-mandated Internet content standards. He continued, stating, “there isn’t…an obvious body that could do this type of classification here in the UK at the moment, but it’s definitely an aspiration that many governments across the world are now reaching to.”

Australian Goverment Releases Paper Detailing Filtering Pilot

jillian — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:38:50 -0500

Ban.This.URL, a blog documenting and examining online censorship in Australia, reports that Australia's The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) has released a paper detailing the technical specifications of Australia's proposed Internet filtering plan.

In the paper [PDF], the filtering pilot is detailed:

"To the extent possible, the aim is to test a range of different types of filtering including:
• ACMA blacklist filtering only (for a blacklist of up to 10,000 URLs); or
• ACMA blacklist filtering plus the filtering of other content using different approaches
to filtering which would, for example, include:
- Index filtering of different sized blacklists;
- Dynamic analysis filtering;
- IP versus URL filtering;
- DNS poisoning.
The Pilot seeks to test a wide range of filtering solutions and is deliberately flexible."

The paper also addresses the issue of circumvention:

It is acknowledged that filtering can be circumvented by motivated people with a
sufficient level of technical knowledge.

The Pilot will seek to test the ease with which different filtering solutions can be circumvented and the capacity of filters to detect and provide warnings on circumvention attempts.

You can download the paper here.

IWF Removes Wikipedia Blacklisting in UK

jillian — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:52:28 -0500

Shortly after we blogged about the blocking of the Wikipedia page for heavy metal band Scorpions' album "Virgin Killer," it was announced that the England-based Internet Watch Foundation had removed the Wikipedia page from their child pornography watchlist.

An unfortunate side-effect of the ban was that a number of UK-based Wikipedia editors had been unable to access the editors' pages of the site.

The IWF said that: "in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove the webpage from our list."

You can read the IWF's statement on the issue here.

UK Blocks Access to Wikipedia Entry on Controversial Scorpions Album

jillian — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:39:37 -0500

On Monday, December 8, it was reported that a number of UK Internet service providers have decided to block access to a controversial Wikipedia entry showing an image of a naked girl. The ISPs acted after online watchdog the Internet Watch Foundation warned them that the image might be illegal.

The entry in question is that of German heavy metal band Scorpion's 1976 album, "Virgin Killer." The cover art of the album depicts a prepubescent girl in a provocative pose, with an image of broken glass superimposed over her genitals (the album cover can easily be found by searching in Google Images).

This isn't the first time "Virgin Killer" has come under fire. The original cover art was banned in the United States and replaced with the above image of the band. Earlier this year the same Wikipedia page was reported to have been investigated by the FBI by WorldNetDaily, a conservative U.S. news site.

While the image most certainly does depict an underage nude girl and is a potential violation of child pornography laws, there are two major questions that need be answered: 1) What is the purpose of the Wikipedia entry? and 2) Could this have been handled differently?

As for the first question, the Wikipedia entry is not meant to be provocative; in fact, the text primarily details the controversy surrounding the album and its cover and the problems that it has caused the band. The entry is, on the whole, an historical record of the album and the controversy which has dogged it for the past 32 years.

And as for the second question, I believe that yes, it could have. An unfortunate effect of the UK block is that a number of Wikipedia editors based in the UK have been unable to access the editors' pages of the site. As the photograph itself has its own URL, there seems to be no reason for the entire entry on "Virgin Killer" to have been blocked; rather, if the offending photo is indeed in violation of child pornography laws, only the photo URL itself need be blocked, or better yet, taken down by court order.

It appears that the Internet Watch Foundation itself is reconsidering its choice. According to The Guardian, the ban is being reconsidered under the IWF's appeals and corrections procedures.

If the ban is upheld, it could have serious repercussions for other web sites which host the album cover.

Internet Censorship in Saudi

charles — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:50:11 -0500

Saudi Arabia has one of the most restrictive Internet filters in the world, yet according to BusinessWeek news reports, the Saudi censorship regime is vastly unlike that of most countries. Employing a mere twenty-five people, the country’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) uses software to “block broad swaths” of the Internet, while relying on citizens who send 1,200 requests daily for offensive sites to be blocked to cover the rest of the Internet.

In addition to pornography and online gambling, which are filtered by the CITC software, Saudi citizens (mostly students and religious figures) voluntarily filter cites that they deem offensive, including those that violate religious and cultural mores. According to consultant Khalid Baheyeldin, “there’s a feeling of moral conviction that obliges people to have these sites blocked.”

As far as blogging is concerned, the majority of the country’s 2,000 bloggers post anonymously, fearing repercussions. Earlier this year a local blogger was jailed for advocating political reforms.

CITC states that only 40 percent of Saudi citizens are concerned with Internet filtration. Haitham Abu Aisha, general manager of a Riyadh ISP claims that censorship can be defined “in many ways.” “We want censorship of pornography and harsh ideas,” he continues. Regardless of the interpretation or voluntary aspect of Saudi’s censorship regime, this type of Internet filtration violates the right to free access of online content.

Turkey's Capricious Filtering - Just Too Easy

jillian — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:31:33 -0500

Turkey has made headlines lately for its capricious filtering; although previous incidents involved filtering sites which insulted Kemal Ataturk or "Turkishness" in general, lately, the filtering seems nearly impulsive.

A site entitled List of websites blocked by Turkish Telecom...or how Turkey disgraces herself shows that, while many of the blocked sites are pornographic by nature, there are plenty which aren't. One can search by categories on the site: the category entitled "Harun Yahya/Adnan Oktar" refers to Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar, who of late has come under fire in the news for his incessant filtering requests in Turkish courts; another category entitled "Mistake/Overkill" shows that the Turkish Telecom isn't even careful: "imbd.com" appears to be filtered in place of popular film database "imdb.com" (why that site was meant to be filtered in the first place remains unknown).

It seems that the majority of filtered sites not relating to gambling or pornography fall into two categories: those which insult Turkishness (including those insulting Kemal Ataturk) and those which Adnan Oktar has managed to get shut down. As we said earlier, it's amazing that one man has the ability to get so many sites filtered.

The administrator of Mindtrick.net pointed me to a Turkish site to which anyone may submit a filtering request. The site [in Turkish] breaks sites down into nine simple categories, making it simple for anyone to register a complaint.

In other words, anyone could play the role of Adnan Oktar. It seems that, without change, it won't be long until Turkey has censored the entire Internet.

Users' initiatives to block Web sites

ONI-MENA — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:34:34 -0400

An Arabic Web site called Ehjeb (Arabic for the verb "to block") is becoming increasingly popular especially in Web forums. The site, still in beta version, offers to facilitate blocking of web sites by sending URLs of questionable Web sites submitted by users to the censors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Qatar, and Yemen, all of which already filter various Internet content pervasively. The site promises to add more countries to its list. The site offers the service free of charge and it uses Islamic expressions, which implies that the motive behind the initiative is religious. The site also offers customized banners and encourages Web sites to place them on their sites and blogs to promote the initiative. The Arabic text in the banners says, "Help us block access to bad sites".

Some Arab Internet users in some North African countries where there is no social filtering have also organized online campaigns to demand filtering of sexually explicit content. In Egypt and Algeria for example, there are online user-organized campaigns (e.g., http://www.as4ev.com/egy) protesting the accessibility to pornography online (ISPs in Egypt and Algeria do not block access to online pornography). Participants in these campaigns disseminate desktop filtering software, some of which were developed and/or customized by the users themselves, and also research on the impact of online pornography on societies in general and on Arab youth in particular.

Just this week, a prominent Saudi scholar of Islam, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Munjid, demanded (Arabic) that ISPs in Saudi Arabia use in their blockpages verses from the Quran that prohibit pornography, instead of the standard message that read: "Dear User, sorry the requested page is unavailable." The Sheikh said placing Quranic texts in the blockpage will discourage the Muslim users from attempting to access porn by reminding them that they are not supposed to do so according to Islam.

The users' efforts to limit access to Web content seem to target sexually explicit content and they come amid an increase in the availability of Arabic sexually explicit content online, and also amid reports that many users in Arabic countries do try to access blocked content. See ONI Middle East and North Africa regional overview.

The Pirate Bay Back Online in Italy!

jillian — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:16:56 -0400

Good news for The Pirate Bay today: An Italian court has deemed a prior block on the site's torrent tracker is unlawful, and the site is accessible once again.

In August, we blogged that a ban in Italy on The Pirate Bay had inadvertently increased traffic to the site. Following a copyright investigation by an anti-piracy group in Milan, a judge had ordered all Italian ISPs to block the file-sharing site.

According to Wired blogger Chris Snyder, in reference to the site's traffic:

Days after the initial order it backfired, and the Pirate Bay’s Italian web traffic actually increased 5 percent as new and old users found ways of circumventing the block.

And today The Pirate Bay has even more reason to celebrate. According to Torrentfreak, which broke the news:

The Court of Bergamo decided that this block was unlawful, and earlier this week they explained why. According to the court statement (Italian), no criminal court is allowed to issue an order to ISPs to block traffic to a foreign website, based on alleged copyright infringement. Italian law implements an European Directive, 2000/31 CE, which this means that this ruling should be valid in other European countries as well.

“Under Italian law, this is possible only for child porn and for unauthorized gambling, but there is no such provision for copyright infringement,” Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi explained to TorrentFreak.

On his own blog, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde (aka brokep), writes:

The Pirate Bay won the case in Italy. The lawyers have done a fantastic job!

Will report on this later!

Update: Even though I don’t think the site is accessible in Italy via many ISPs yet, the site had a new record in visitors coming from Italy today. By 12%!

There is a chance that IFPI could appeal but for now both The Pirate Bay's founders and its users are rejoicing.

Three Easy Steps to Block Sites in Turkey

jillian — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:12:05 -0400

In a clear instance of vexatious litigation, a Turkish court has blocked the Web site of prominent evolutionist Richard Dawkins following complaints from Islamic creationist and author Adnan Oktar. Oktar, who writes under the nom de plume Harun Yahya, filed the complaint last week; when Turkish Internet users now attempt to access Dawkins' site, they are presented with a message that reads: 'access to this site has been suspended in accordance with a court decision'.

This is not the first time Oktar has been involved in such litigation. In April 2007, Oktar successfully filed a defamation complaint against Turkish online news site Eksi sozluk. Oktar filed the complaint because of comments that users of Eksi sozluk had posted about him; a similar site, Superpoligon, was also blocked. Access to Eksi sozluk was restored shortly after the complaints were filed, and the offending remarks removed by the site's administrator.

Less than four months later, Oktar appealed to Wordpress.com to remove a number of blogs which he deemed slanderous. Following an unfavorable reaction from Wordpress, Oktar again filed a complaint with the Turkish judicial system, which in turn blocked Wordpress within Turkey. Oktar's complaint was based on a number of blogs created by rival Edip Yuksel, a prominent dissident. To date, Wordpress remains blocked, despite numerous campaigns to unblock the site. Turkish bloggers now use Wordprexy, a mirror site set up by activist group Great Firewall of Turkey, to read and post to Wordpress blogs. Less than six months later, Oktar filed a complaint against Google Groups, which led to that site being blocked within Turkey as well (Google.com remained accessible; only the subdomain groups.google.com was filtered). It is once again available.

Oktar's latest rancor is directed at Richard Dawkins, a British ethologist and evolutionary biologist. Following the release of Oktar's creationist book, Atlas of Creation, Dawkins wrote on his Web site:

"I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content."

Oktar, who was involved in the attempt to ban Dawkins' book The God Delusion in Turkey, retaliated by filing a complaint in regards to Dawkins' Web site. A Turkish judicial court sided with Oktar, and ordered Turk Telecom to ban the site.

In each instance, the foreign press was quick to assume that the blockings were related to Turkey's rising Islamist party, the AKP. It is perhaps more alarming that politics had little to do with it. It is surprising that Oktar, considered a charlatan by the Turkish public, and having so recently run afoul of the law, carries so much weight in the Turkish judicial system.

In fact, Oktar carries neither more nor less weight than anyone else. According to a recent Reuters article, a law passed in May now allows the Telecommunications Directorate to close down websites based on complaints by individual users, thus enabling anyone with a complaint to get a site blocked. The problem therefore lies in the ease with which anyone can file such a complaint.

On Oktar's Web site, HarunYahya.com, there is a quote from the Qur'an: "Truth has come and falsehood has vanished. Falsehood is always bound to vanish." If Dawkins' work is the falsehood Oktar is referencing, then indeed he has succeeded in making it "vanish"...if only from the Turkish Internet.