Web freedom and censorship grows as a global issue

The free speech taken for granted in Western democracies is opposed by many other countries. Photo: Illustration: Matt Davidson

Government censorship of the internet is a cat-and-mouse game, and despite more aggressive tactics in recent months, the cats have been largely frustrated while the mice wriggle away.

But this year the challenges for technology companies will mount, with Russia and Turkey in particular trying to tighten controls on foreign-based internet companies. Companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google are increasingly being put into the tricky position of discovering which laws and orders to comply with around the world, and which to ignore or contest.

Russian president Vladimir Putin recently signed the latest version of a personal data law that will require companies to store data about Russian users on computers inside the country, where it will be easier for the government to get access to it. Few companies are expected to comply with the law, which goes into effect on September 1, so a confrontation may erupt.

Anton Nosik, a prominent Russian blogger whose work has been censored by regulators, says it is absurd for a government to think itcan easily stamp out an article or video when it can be copied or found elsewhere with a few clicks. "The reader wants to see what he was prevented from seeing," he says. "All that blocking doesn't work."

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The Turkish government faced similar embarrassment when it tried to stop the dissemination of leaked documents and audio recordings on Twitter in March. The administration of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was then prime minister and is now President, ordered the shutdown of Twitter within Turkey after the company refused to block the posts, which implicated government officials in a corruption investigation.

Not only did the government lose a court fight on the issue, but while Twitter was blocked, legions of Turkish users also taught one another technical tricks to evade the ban, even spray-painting the instructions on the walls of buildings.

"We all became hackers," says Asli Tunc, a professor of communication at Istanbul Bilgi University. "And we all got on Twitter."

Despite such victories for free-speech advocates, governments are stepping up efforts to control the internet, escalating the confrontation. "The trendlines are consistent," says Colin Crowell, Twitter's global vice-president of public policy. "There are more and more requests for removal of information."

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Web freedom and censorship grows as a global issue