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May 5, 2000
By CARL S. KAPLANBio

Governments Learn How to Censor the Internet, Report Says

 Conventional wisdom dictates that governments cannot really control speech on the Internet. Try to stamp out an idea or a conversation, the theory goes, and users of the global network will re-route around the local "damage" and continue talking as before.


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The theory is wrong. In reality, many governments around the world are doing a pretty good job of censoring or restricting speech online. That is the conclusion of a report on world press freedom released this week by Freedom House, a respected New York-based human rights organization.

"The Internet is the new technology, and we're seeing censorship in many kinds of countries now," said Leonard R. Sussman, a senior scholar at Freedom House and author of the report. It includes an essay, "Censor Dot Gov: The Internet and Press Freedom 2000," and a 30-page annual survey of press freedoms in 186 countries.

"We're in an early transitional stage" of online censorship, Sussman said. "The clobbering can become so institutionalized in some countries that it can become just as successful as censorship of older media. Or things can open up. I'm optimistic in the long run, but right now some governments are heavy-handed -- just as they were in the old days of the blue pencil," he said.

Sussman is a long-time observer of press freedoms; the current report is the 22nd annual survey he has compiled for Freedom House. Like its predecessors, it employs several criteria to measure the degree of freedom for newspapers and radio and television stations in many countries. The report also includes brief anecdote-laden summaries of the state of press freedom in each surveyed country.

This year, for the first time, Sussman decided to write an introductory essay on global Internet censorship, based on the evidence that he amassed in his research. The country summaries in the survey are also chock-full of Internet censorship episodes. All in all, the report is an important contribution to the fledgling field of scholarship covering Internet censorship.

Why some countries censor information on the Internet is no secret, Sussman said. They do it for the same reasons they censor print and television: certain information is "displeasing" to those in power. Banned information runs the gamut from political dissent to certain forms of expression that are deemed harmful to a country's religious or ethnic values.

Countries use a variety of methods to control online speech, Sussman explained in his essay. At the first level, some simply prevent a majority of their citizens from gaining access to the Internet, either passively through a high-cost telecommunications infrastructure that limits participation, or more directly through laws or licensing. At least 20 countries, including Myanmar, Cuba, North Korea and Iraq, thoroughly restrict their citizens' access to the Internet, Sussman wrote. In Myanmar, for example, owners must report computers to the government or face a 15-year prison term.

At the next level, some countries that allow widespread Internet access control what citizens may see by employing various filtering and blocking schemes on state-run or state-influenced Internet service providers (ISPs).
Countries use a variety of methods to control online speech.

"In China, for example, many government offices and institutes are wired, but the official ISP limits content, particularly incoming news from abroad," Sussman wrote. Online dissidents there have been imprisoned, and state security operatives inspect Web sites to make sure they include no state secrets. Based on such surveillance, Sussman said, some domestic Web sites have been shut down and e-mail has been censored. Even controversial Web sites on servers overseas have been crippled by denial-of-service attacks from sources based in China, Sussman said.

Other countries that routinely block Internet sites considered offensive include Iran and Saudi Arabia, Sussman said.

The final level of censorship is a sophisticated form of online surveillance akin to tapping a telephone. A government that uses this method not only controls speech but induces a high degree of self-censorship. In Russia, for example, the successor to the KGB has begun forcing ISPs to install surveillance equipment. Indeed, security services can monitor Internet communications without a court order, and ISPs can lose their licenses for denying security forces access to private online traffic.

To be sure, there are many small victories over censorship and control, Sussman said. Newspapers censored in Algeria, Egypt and Jordan, among other places, have placed banned articles online, where they were available to foreigners and emigrants. Even in some of the most censored countries in the world, like Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, cybercafes provide cheap public access to the Internet -- although in most of these, the government-controlled ISPs limit content and can employ surveillance techniques.

For his part, Sussman said that what Freedom House and other organizations monitoring press freedom can do is expose instances of Internet censorship and shame the culprits. "Even the most oppressive countries don't like to be seen as oppressive," he said. "The key is to publish this type of information and add to the shame. That's what we did during the cold war. You've got to let certain governments know they are being watched."

Kristina Stockwood the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX), a free speech clearinghouse based in Toronto, said she agreed that online press and speech censorship is an increasing problem in many countries. "I think it's getting worse because people have developed more sophisticated methods for controlling information," she said.

"In a country like Vietnam, for example, which is a developing country, they can monitor your e-mail," Stockwood said. "Say anything that threatens national security, and you can be in trouble. And 'national security' is a broad phrase that is used to cover just about anything the government disagrees with."


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Internet links of interest to Cyber Law Journal readers

 David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which is a founding member of a worldwide consortium of online free speech groups, said that the Freedom House report was "a good exercise" that he hoped would expand next year to include more data on online censorship.

He added that the report points up a hidden danger. Some groups, led by businesses in the United States and Europe, are developing voluntary rating systems for online content. They hope to make voluntary blocking easier and head off government regulation. It sounds good, but "if you create tools for voluntary purposes, that architecture is likely to be mandated by more repressive governments," he said.


CYBER LAW JOURNAL is published weekly, on Fridays. Click here for a list of links to other columns in the series.

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Carl S. Kaplan at kaplanc@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions.


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