The Internet is a global wide area network(WAN) that connects computer systems across the word, providing a variety of information and communication facilities.
Its origins date back to the 1960’s and its original purpose was the interconnection of regional academic and military networks. Later it evolved until in the early 1990’s many more computers were connected to the network and it was no longer financed by the government.
Nowadays, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies.
The Internet has become the largest platform for free speech in the world. This means unrestricted access to information that may empower individuals like no time before, giving voices and sight to those who otherwise wouldn’t be heard or see. That leads us to the censorship.
Censorship seeks the suppression of the free exchange of ideas and information considered threatening or unacceptable by a party in power. Censorship threatens the open nature of the Internet.
But, who censors?
Governments: The most obvious episodes of censorship are those put in place by law and in particularly, by national governments.
Corporations: An Internet Service Provider(ISP) or internet company may censor content on behalf of a government authority. They also censor content that they think may damage their public image or to protect their own assets.
Individuals: The right to be forgotten is an European concept that enables individuals to request the removal of their personal data from the history of search engines.
There are different reasons for censorship, some examples are:
- Political concern: In order to stop the Internet to become a political tool use to distribute a certain political, social o religious message contrary to the State policy.
- Religious reasons
- Social and moral issues: in the case of topics deemed contrary to the values and moral of the society.
- Economic interests and copyright
- Security issues
There are also different methods of blocking content:
- Blocking the IP address: ISP’s can be ordered by governments to block the IP addresses and domain names of specifics websites and apps.
- Keyword Filtering: it identifies and blocks content that contains keywords deemed inappropriate by an authority.
- DNS hijacking: It occurs when corrupt DNS data causes traffic to be diverted to the wrong IP address.
- Network tools. In certain countries it will be easier to block the network tool or application that enables the proliferation of undesired messages (media sharing websites, social networks, email providers or even censorship circumvention sites.)
- Manual enforcement: If all automated methods fail, humans may do the work, as the China’s Internet Police
Error 451
One message you may receive when content is blocked on the Internet is HTTP 451. HTTP 451 (Unavailable For Legal Reasons) is an error status code requested in 2013, but finally activated in December 2015. This message informs us that the website is not available, as a result of a court order.
This code is used for censoring a website that either is considered dangerous for national security, or is breaking a copyright law (or similar laws).
The responses using this status code, should include an explanation with the details of the legal demand: the party who is accusing of breaking the law, the applicable legislation or regulation in charge of it, and what kind of person and resource is applying to.
Some example of censorship
Its name refers to the novel by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, temperature on which the paper ignites and burns itself. This novel recreates a world where the mission of firefighters was burning books.
There are many cases of censorship on the Internet, let’s look over few examples taking place in different countries:
- During the revolts of the Arab Spring in Egypt, several activists called for demonstrations through social media. The government of Hosni Mubarak, decided to cut off the Internet access thought the consequence of that measure, was the opposite expected: much more people joined the demonstrations.
- In China, the government has 50.000 people monitoring the Internet, filtering all the traffic through a simple three central routing system. This makes easier for censors, the duty of reviewing all the data that enters and leaves the country.
- Turkey has a blacklist of 100.000 websites.
- In Ethiopia it is not possible to have access to Social Media. Besides that, the most popular smartphones, tablets, operating systems and browsers being used in the country, were developed by the government, and the content of the about 5.000 available websites, is strictly controlled.
- In Saudi Arabia, sites about the “Chií” minority, women, human rights, political organizations and other similar things, are often blocked.
As a matter of fact, censorship on the Internet coexists with the manipulation of information and nowadays, and political bots, pro-government media and the popular “fake news”, are too frequent.
To end
Everyone’s internet browsing is limited to some extent. Often we are unaware of how companies, internet service providers, and governments decide to censor the information we receive.
In favor of a freedom of information and expression, there are several organizations that denounce this, such as “Reporters Without Borders”. They have been defending freedom of expression since 1985.
We wanted to take advantage of this space to make a complaint about how information is controlled and to make people aware of what is happening in the world.
To learn more visit :
Article written by Loreto Vaquero and me.
