citizen428.blog()

The web is a great tool for sharing ideas and freedom of expression. However, efforts to try and control the Internet are growing. Internet repression is reported in countries like China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. People are persecuted and imprisoned simply for criticising their government, calling for democracy and greater press freedom, or exposing human rights abuses, online.

But Internet repression is not just about governments. IT companies have helped build the systems that enable surveillance and censorship to take place. Yahoo! have supplied email users’ private data to the Chinese authorities, helping to facilitate cases of wrongful imprisonment. Microsoft and Google have both complied with government demands to actively censor Chinese users of their services.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It is one of the most precious of all rights. We should fight to protect it.
http://irrepressible.info/about

I’ve signed the pledge and have added irrepressible content to this blog (in the sidebar on the left) and I encourage you to do so too!

There are also two other petitions which I deem worthy of your support:
Flucht is kein Verbrechen – Keine Schubhaft für AsylwerberInnen (in German)
Protect the Baltic Sea while it’s still not too late!

Setting Orange, Confusion 49, 3173 YOLD

While reading netzpolitik.org yesterday, I found a link to an article on the OpenNet Initiative Blog, explaining how the filtering of Google.cn works. Now let’s have a closer look at some of the blocked sites:

site:hrw.org
site:hrichina.org

Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China. Who is surprised that they get blocked? Nobody? Guessed so…

site:rfa.org

Radio Free Asia describes itself in the following way: “RFA is a private, nonprofit corporation that broadcasts news and information in nine native Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. The purpose of RFA is to provide a forum for a variety of opinions and voices from within these Asian countries.“

site:tsquare.tv

A pretty informative site about the incident on Tiananmen Square in 1989. You really should try to see the documentary, it’s probably the best I’ve seen so far on this topic.

http://64memo.com/

The Tianmen Massacre Memorial Museum. I haven’t read any of the articles on this site yet, so it’s hard to tell how exactly they are dealing with the subject.

site:news.bbc.co.uk
site:voa.gov

Ok, the BBC and Voice of America may not be the most objective news sources one can find in the world, but blocking them seems a little harsh.

site:boxun.com
site:peacehall.com

Both domains will lead you to the Boxun News Network, a site writing a lot about censorship, free speech and similar topics.

site:freechina.net

After having a look at the goals of The Free China Movement, it should be pretty obvious why the Chinese government wants this site blocked.

site:geocities.com

Free web hosting == free expression? It seems so…

site:falundafa.org
site:epochtimes.com

After having been at a conference with participants from these groups I have to say that I don’t feel any sympathy for them, but that definitely isn’t an excuse for locking them up and censoring their sites.

site:savetibet.org

It should be pretty obvious why this got blocked.

site:topforum.com

A dynamic index of Chinese forums websites.

site:laogai.org

Since 1992 the Laogai Research Foundation is trying to gather information on Chinese penal camps and other “systemic human rights violations in China, including public executions, organ harvesting from executed prisoners, the coercive enforcement of China’s population control policy, and persecution of religious believers.“

I guess that sites like the China Labour Bulletin and related worker’s movements get filtered as well, but I can’t personally confirm this currently.

Boomtime, Chaos 27, 3172 YOLD

Today when I talked with a non-techy friend from the Midde East on IM, the topic of free speech on the net came up. I then started telling him about Tor and how hidden services could be a solution to this. But when I sent him the links, he couldn’t open them, but instead saw the following:

We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of [insert country here].

I guess it should have been obvious that countries which censor the net wouldn’t easily give their citizens the information needed to circumvent this censorship, but still I was pretty baffled by this.

So please everyone, spread the word about Tor and consider if you want to volunteer or donate something to the effort!

Boomtime, Chaos 22, 3172 YOLD