Substantial

Pervasive

While there is no universally agreed upon definition of what constitutes "pervasive censorship", organization Reporters without Borders (RSF) maintains an internet enemy list[2] while the OpenNet Initiative categorizes some nations as practicing extreme levels of Internet censorship. Such nations often censor political content and may retaliate against citizens who violate the censorship with measures such as imprisonment.


Cuba

Cuba is on ONI's watchlist and on RSF's internet enemy list. Cuba has the lowest Latin America ratio of computers per inhabitant and also the lowest internet access.[3] Citizens have to use government controlled "access points", where their activity is monitored through IP blocking, keyword filtering and navigation history checking. According to the government, access to internet services by the Cuban population are limited due to high costs and the American embargo, but there are reports concerning the will of the government to control access to uncensored information both from and to the outer world.[4] The Cuban government continues to imprison independent journalists for contributing reports through the Internet to web sites outside of Cuba.


Iran

Iran is in ONI's pervasive category and on RSF's internet enemy list. Iran Internet censorship is delegated to ISPs who attempt to filter contents critical of the government, pornographic websites, and political blogs.[1] Iranian bloggers have been imprisoned for their Internet activities by the Iranian government.[6] Most recently, the Iranian government has blocked access to video-upload sites such as YouTube.com.[7]


Maldives


Maldives is not categorized by ONI and RSF removed it from its internet enemy list in 2006. Maldives filters[citation needed] opposition websites and had imprisoned cyber dissidents in 2004 and 2005, all since released.

Myanmar


Main article: Internet in Myanmar

Burma (also known as Myanmar) is in ONI's pervasive category and on RSF's internet enemy list. Burma has banned the websites of political opposition groups, sites relating to human rights, and organizations promoting democracy in Burma[1]. During the 2007 anti-government protests, Burma completely shut down all internet links from its country.[10]


North Korea


North Korea is not categorized by ONI but is on RSF's internet enemy list. Only a few thousand citizens in North Korea, a tiny minority of the total population, have access to the Internet, which is heavily censored by the national government.[11]


People's Republic of China


Main article: Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. China blocks or filters Internet content relating to Tibetan independence, Taiwan independence, police brutality, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech, democracy, pornography, some international news sources (such as the BBC), certain religious movements (such as Falun Gong), many blogging websites, and Wikipedia.[1][12] Some 52 cyber dissidents are reportedly imprisoned in China for their online postings.[13]

Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions do not censor materials from internet.


Syria


Syria is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. Syria has banned websites for political reasons and arrested people accessing them.[1][14]


Tunisia


Main article: Internet censorship in Tunisia

Tunisia is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. Tunisia has blocked thousands of websites (such as pornography, mail, search engine cached pages, online documents conversion and translation services) and peer-to-peer and FTP transfer. This filtering is performed using a transparent proxy and port blocking. Cyber dissidents including pro-democracy lawyer Mohammed Abbou have been jailed by the Tunisian government for their online activities.


Uzbekistan


Uzbekistan is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. Uzbekistan prevents access to websites regarding banned Islamic movements, independent media, NGOs, and material critical of the government's human rights violations.[1] Some Internet cafes in the capital have posted warnings that users will be fined for viewing pornographic websites or website containing banned political material.


Vietnam


Vietnam is in ONI's pervasive category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. The main networks in Vietnam prevent access to websites critical of the Vietnamese government, expatriate political parties, and international human rights organizations, among others.[1] Online police reportedly monitor Internet cafes and cyber dissidents have been imprisoned for advocating democracy

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Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. The legal issues are similar to offline censorship.

One difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can find it on websites hosted outside the country. 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 objectionable material.

Barring total control on Internet-connected computers, such as in North Korea, total censorship of information on the Internet 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.

In November, 2007, "Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf stated that he sees Government-led control of the internet failing due to private ownership.

The following sections follow the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) categorization scheme: Pervasive, Substantial, Nominal, Indirect, Watchlist