I’m liveblogging Secretary Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom at The Morningside Post. You can follow along over there or below:

Posted in ICT, internet censorship, u.s. foreign policy | Leave a comment

It would be hilariously ironic if it weren’t so terrifying: United Nations security forces confiscated a poster mentioning Chinese Internet censorship at this weekend’s meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, a UN body that promotes open discussion on public policy related to Internet governance.

The OpenNet Initiative, a research group headquartered at Harvard that studies Internet censorship worldwide (full disclosure: I’ve worked for them on and off since the fall of 2007, including full time last summer), held a reception during the forum to announce their new book. On the wall was a poster mentioning China’s Great Firewall censorship and surveillance project.

UN officials asked ONI to take down the poster to avoid “creat[ing] a political crisis with a UN member state.” When ONI said no, UN security took the poster away.

According to Ron Diebert, an ONI principle investigator who was at the forum, “We were told that the banner had to be removed because of the reference to China. This was repeated on several occasions, in front of about two dozen witnesses and officials, including the UN Special Rapporteur For Human Rights, who asked that I send in a formal letter of complaint.” Deibert has since filed a complaint with the UN Human Rights Commission.

A video taken at the forum shows the discussion between UN security and ONI representatives:

More info, including links to media coverage of the incident, is at the ONI blog.

Crossposted on The Morningside Post.

Posted in berkman, international politics, internet censorship, the morningside post, united nations | Leave a comment

The summer of 2009 was a hectic one for online social media: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and a bevy of other sites fell under the censors’ axe in China and Iran as political events — namely the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Iranian presidential election — shook both countries.

If you’ve been having a hard time keeping track of whether Twitter is accessible in Tehran or if Fallujah is blocked Facebook, you’re not alone. Luckily, I just completed a project for the OpenNet Initiative to help you out.

Based on testing conducted in 2008-2009, ONI has compiled data on the most frequently blocked social media sites around the world. We are proud to present five new social media filtering maps that serve as easy visual guides to the countries where Facebook, Flickr, Orkut, Twitter and YouTube are blocked.

Visit them now, and lay your social media filtering questions to rest.

Posted in berkman, internet censorship | 2 Comments

Crossposted at the ONI Blog

According to the Chinese government, Namibia — a southern African country with a population of 2 million — does not exist.

Government censors ordered Chinese search engines to show no search results for the country’s name this week, following a corruption scandal involving a Chinese tech company’s dealings with Namibia’s government.

The company, Nutech, was formerly run by the son of Chinese president Hu Jintao. It is under two separate investigations by Namibian and European Union officials for allegedly using illegal methods, including bribery and unfair trade practices, to secure a USD55.3 million contract to sell cargo scanners to the Namibian government.

Though Jintao’s son is not a suspect in the case, government censors have reacted swiftly to the investigation, shutting down two Chinese tech news sites and blocking a list of keywords including “Hu Haifeng, Namibia, Namibia bribery investigation, Yang Fan bribery investigation, Nuctech bribery investigation, [and] southern Africa bribery investigation.” Searching for these words on Chinese search engine Baidu.com produces an error message [ZH] that can be translated as, “Search results may not be in line with the relevant laws and regulations and policies, not shown.”

The past two months have been busy ones for Chinese censors. In early June the government blocked access to Twitter, Hotmail and Flickr in preparation for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Less than a week later, the news broke that the government would begin requiring all PCs sold in the country to come equipped with Internet filtering software. And in July, Internet access was completely shut down in the capital of the Xinjiang region after ethnic riots that left nearly 200 people dead.

For more information on China’s Internet filtering practices, check out the OpenNet Initiative’s recently released China country profile.

Posted in africa, china, internet censorship | 1 Comment

WordPress blocked. Guatemala follows China’s example

Crossposted on the OpenNet Initiative blog

Guatemala’s ongoing political crisis, which began with the murder of lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg and has been fueled largely by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs, reached a new level over the weekend when several ISPs began blocking access to WordPress.com.

Reports of the blocking first reached Twitter on June 26, when user @demuxer noted that some Internet users in Guatemala were unable to access WordPress and wondered if Chapintocables, a political blog created after Rosenberg’s death, was somehow involved:

Some users in Guatemala can’t access wordpress, is it @chapinocables’ fault? #insolitogt #escandalogt

The news spread through Twitter and Facebook, with many Guatemalans encouraging their fellow Internet users to report the blocking on Herdict, which tracks reports of inaccessible sites worldwide. Reports from Guatemala saw a spike over the weekend, with WordPress.com reported inaccessible nearly 30 times.

The block was initially attributed to technical errors, but as WordPress continues to be inaccessible, opinions are changing. Eduardo Arcos of Alt1040 writes [ES]:

Supuestamente se atribuyen problemas técnicos, pero el sentido común dice que se trata de un intento por parte del gobierno guatemalteco de reducir el acceso a información independiente, libre y crítica sobre la crisis política que se vive en el país y la relación con el caso del Twitter de Jeanfer.

[The block has been] allegedly attributed to technical problems, but common sense says that this is an attempt by the Guatemalan government to reduce access to independent information that is free and critical about the political crisis experienced in the country and the respect for Jeanfer of Twitter. [the man who was arrested for criticizing the government on Twitter].

David Alayón of Bitacoras concurs [ES]:

Desde hace unos días, los usuario de Wordpress.com residentes en Guatemala no tienen acceso a este servicio. Se ha descartado la posibilidad de ser un error relacionado con los proveedores de Internet y se baraja el hecho de que el propio gobierno lo haya bloqueado.

For several days, the Wordpress.com users in Guatemala have had no access to the service. The possibility of this being an error related to Internet service providers has been ruled out, and [opinion] has shifted to the idea that the government has blocked it.

Today Chapintocables reported [ES] that three ISPs, Turbonet, Telgua and Tigo, are currently blocking access to WordPress.com:

Actualmente, TurboNet, Telgua, y Tigo son los que tienen restringido el acceso a nuestros blogs, los invitamos gentilmente a que levanten este bloqueo, porque ESTAMOS EN GUATEMALA, NO EN CHINA.

Currently, TurboNet, Telgua and Tico have restricted access to our blogs, we gently invite them to the lift the block, because WE ARE IN GUATEMALA, NOT IN CHINA.

According to Twitter reports, WordPress.com is still accessible through ISP Cybernet de Guatemala S.A.

UPDATE: Renata Avila just posted an update on the situation on Global Voices Advocacy.

Posted in berkman, internet censorship | 4 Comments