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Advancing democracy, prosperity, and a low carbon economy

By Juliette Terzieff, Senior Director, Global Stakeholder Initiative, Labor & Transparency Programs, Future 500

Netizens owned 2011. From Egypt and Bahrain, to the U.S. and Russia, people around the world turned to the Internet-and social media in particular-to push for change. In places including Yemen, Syria and Bahrain authorities viewed bloody crackdowns on reform movements and Internet censorship as a means to quiet the streets...instead they helped catapult the issue of universal broadband access onto public consciousness and sparked a renewed drive by stakeholders to see it realized.

The United Nations has characterized uncensored Internet access as a human right and the world body's Commission for Digital Development has set a 2015 target to have 60 percent of the population in developing countries set up with Internet access.

To make universal broadband access a reality for people around the world governments, the private sector and development advocates will face many challenges associated with infrastructure and cultural concerns, as well as clashes with repressive governments who see the Internet as a threat. Beyond ensuring basic access for people around the world stakeholders are looking for guarantees from the private sector that companies will not aid government censorship efforts either through the sale of technology or by responding to government requests.

Beginning in Tunisia and Egypt in January 2011 and spreading like wildfire across the Arab world, Netizens looking to push reform used the Internet and mobile telephones to drive protests, raise issues onto a global stage and win support from people, governments and rights advocates spanning the globe. Their efforts sparked a global outpouring of support that lit up popular Internet social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Human rights stakeholders blasted multinationals including Nokia Siemens and Cisco for their alleged roles in facilitating repression as governments sought to quell public protests. Nokia Siemens found itself accused of directly aiding repression by Bahraini authorities who used transcripts of cellular telephone text messages to force confessions of anti-government activity. But even in cases where technology was used to aid repression, stakeholders shy from calling on corporations to cease operations in countries with repressive regimes and broadly support Internet access as a powerful tool for change.

Internet censorship in China landed back in the spotlight during 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings. China's ability to forestall the use of Internet-based tools to drive public protests, and to successfully block searches for events like the Egyptian protests in January 2011 that dominated the global airwaves are both a demonstration of the government's continued strength and an admission by authorities that the potential power of technology worries them. China's track record of Internet censorship remains perhaps the world's most robust example of controlling the flow of information via the Internet.

Chinese authorities have argued they are only doing the same as other countries; that Internet censorship is an 'international practice'. Foreign minister Jiang Yu, at a daily media briefing, said, "We are willing to work with other parties to step up communication and exchanges about the Internet and push for sound development of the cyberspace. But we oppose using Internet freedom as an excuse to interfere in other countries' internal affairs." The People's Daily reported that the United States used online media "to stir up "online warfare" against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president" during the Egypt protests.

The United Nations disagrees. In a recent report Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur for the UN, raises concerns about restrictive Internet controls - calling attention to countries like China, Egypt, and Iran, who censor the Internet vigorously, as well as more liberal environments such as France and the United Kingdom with their "three strikes" laws that can remove or block users for repeated copyright infringement. La Rue is "alarmed by these regulations," stating in the report that blocking Internet access "as a response to copyright infringement is disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

Censorship of the web in China really ramped up in 2009 during the Iranian protests, and again as Arab Spring uprising unfolded throughout 2011. But China was not the only country that displayed a willingness to censor the web.

In January 2011, Egypt was temporarily successful in turning off the Internet throughout the country in a bid to end protests against the regime of longtime President Hosni Mubarak. The Internet blackout shocked many observers around the world, especially as it occurred in a country with such a robust Internet community. And while Egypt maintained strong control over Internet service providers and could impose limits, the ultimately unsustainable shutdown attempt required a disruption of the country's entire communication systems. It was hardly a surprise that the Mubarak regime's ability to curtail communications at such a level raised concerns among human rights advocates across the stakeholder spectrum.

South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication can likewise regulate Internet content with the Internet Content Filtering Ordinance, passed in 2001, which requires "that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) block access to Websites on a government compiled list, that the Internet be accessible to the youth, that public libraries and schools install filtering software, and that an Internet content-rating system be introduced."

During 2009 protests over disputed elections that kept incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in power, Iran was able to disrupt Internet service, but didn't completely shut down state-controlled communication systems because their markets depend on the activity. The post-election period in Iran was perhaps the largest event-specific case up to that point where a repressive regime's efforts to control Internet- and cell phone-based communications demonstrated an acknowledgement that global communications networks are changing the way citizens mobilize for change.

North Korea, Burma, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba all maintain strict controls over access to the Internet and practice broad censorship.

Around the world, most countries have Internet censorship to some degree, but there are several that do not censor the Internet. Mexico, and a few countries in Latin America like Chile, as well as most of middle Africa, Mongolia, and Papua New Guinea all do not practice censorship of the Internet.

China's control over the Internet is such that it "filters to corps of human monitors, in order to block material deemed pornographic or politically objectionable to the authoritarian government." With 400 million citizens connected to the Internet in China, that's quite a bit of monitoring. Many observers wonder how long China can maintain such strict controls as computer aficionados, activist stakeholders and others continue to work at devising patches to sidestep official controls.

Individuals and communities desiring change will continue to look to the Internet and ICT tools to help push for change as the world moves into 2012. The recent post-election protests in Russia, where organizers turned to Facebook and other social media to help organize, are just the latest in a growing series of such events. With the support of a broad array of prominent activist stakeholders, private sector players and governments for the Internet as a force for positive change, repressive regimes will find it increasingly difficult to silence the street.