Online censorship in 2012

The number of countries filtering online content has increased. (AFP)

The OpenNet Initiative, which documents attempts to mould the internet, lists IP blocking, DNS tampering, URL blocking using a proxy, keyword blocking and denial of service attacks as the most common forms of filtering.

State-directed censorship, as employed in Iran and China for example, is carried out at the internet backbone, affecting access throughout the country. China's internet restrictions known as "The Great Firewall" are installed on the international internet gateway of mainland China.

YouTube, Google+, Twitter, Dropbox, Facebook and Foursquare are banned. But the firewall, as hackers have proved countless times, has its limitations and cracks.

US President Barack Obama's Google+ account was flooded with comments in February after a temporary gap in the firewall allowed Chinese users to access the social network.

Several of Google's online services were blocked during the country's transfer of leadership this month.

Closed network Iran is launching a closed national computer network in 2013 that will cut itself off from the global internet. It claims foreign powers are trying to disrupt its development. In 2010 a computer worm caused centrifuges to fail at its main uranium enrichment facility.

But Al Jazeera reports the proposal may find opposition in unexpected quarters. "The country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has his own website in 13 languages and accounts on Twitter and photo-sharing site Instagram. Any interruption to Iran's global internet access is likely to also affect his followers."

Transparency In September this year Google blocked the Innocence of Muslims film in Libya and Egypt. Censoring the video went against Google's bias in favour of free expression. The company said the video fell within its guidelines but "given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted access in both countries". Google often complies with user-data requests and take-down notices from governments and companies.

Reasons given for removing content include defamation, pornography, hate speech, national security, religious offence and copyright and trademark law. So Google's not a court but it's increasingly acting like one. It determines whether to comply with a government's request and takes into account the country's laws. It publishes a transparency report every six months documenting how much data it's removed and where. South Africa requested Google to remove content for the first time this year and was successful. The South African courts submitted three removal requests between January to June 2012. The reason given for all three was defamation. South African government agencies and courts did not ask Google for any user information.

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Online censorship in 2012