Freedom on the Net 2009

0100101001100110101100100101001100 110101101000011001101011001001010 011001101011001001010011001101011 0010010100110011010110010010100110 011010110010010100110011010110100Freedom 101001100110101100100101001100110 1011001001010011001101011001001010on the Net 0110011010110010010100110011010110 0100101001100110101101001010011001 1010110010010100110010101100100101a global assessment of internet 0011001101011001001010011001101011and digital media 0010010100101001010011001101011001 0010100110011010110100001100110101 1001001010011001101011001001010011 0011010110010010100110011010110010 0101001100110010010100110011010110 0100101001100110101101000011001101 0110010010100110011010110010010100 1100110101100100101001100110101100 1001010011001101011001001010011001 1010110100101001100110101100100101 0011001101011001001010011001101011 0010110010010100101001010011001101 0110010010100110011010110100001100 1101011001001010011001101011001001 0100110011010110010010100110011010 1100100101001100110101100100101001 1001101011010010100110011010110010 0101001100110101100100101001100110 1011001001010011001101011001001010 FREEDOM ON THE NET A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media April 1, 2009 Freedom House Freedom on the Net Table of Contents Page Overview Essay Access and Control: A Growing Diversity of Threats to Internet Freedom .................... 1 Freedom on the Net Methodology ........................................................................................................... 12 Charts and Graphs of Key Findings ................................................................................................... 20 Country Reports Brazil .......................................................................................................................................... 28 China .......................................................................................................................................... 34 Cuba ........................................................................................................................................... 45 Egypt .......................................................................................................................................... 51 Estonia ....................................................................................................................................... 55 Georgia ...................................................................................................................................... 59 India............................................................................................................................................ 63 Iran ............................................................................................................................................. 70 Kenya ......................................................................................................................................... 76 Malaysia ...................................................................................................................................... 80 Russia ......................................................................................................................................... 85 South Africa .............................................................................................................................. 91 Tunisia ........................................................................................................................................ 95 Turkey ....................................................................................................................................... 100 United Kingdom ...................................................................................................................... 106 Glossary .................................................................................................................................................. 113 Survey Team .......................................................................................................................................... 117 Freedom House Freedom on the Net 1 Access and Control: A growing diversity of threats to internet freedom By Karin Deutsch Karlekar and Sarah G. Cook As the internet and other new media come to repressive regimes, like those in China and Iran, dominate the flow of news and information have created a pervasive, sophisticated, and around the world, governments have responded multilayered system of censorship that with measures to control, regulate, and censor significantly limits the content that citizens can the content of blogs, websites, and text access or post on the internet and transmit via messages. Indeed, the recent case of an Iranian mobile phones, particularly when it comes to blogger who died in police custody is a topics deemed sensitive by the authorities. disturbing reminder that expressions of political Harsh laws, an apparatus of monitoring and dissent or even independent thought circulated surveillance, torture, and imprisonment await through the internet carry as much risk as those those who cross the ―red lines‖ separating circulated via underground journals in an earlier acceptable from unacceptable thought. In era. And just as authoritarian regimes once settings that are somewhat less repressive— devoted massive resources to controlling the such as Egypt, Russia, and Malaysia—the print media and the airwaves, so today China internet has emerged as a haven of relatively employs a small army of functionaries tasked free speech in otherwise restrictive media with monitoring and censoring the content of environments. In these societies, however, the websites and blogs. space for free comment and open circulation of The mounting assault on digital ideas is slowly closing, as governments devise freedom is taking place in an environment of subtle methods to manipulate online discussion explosive growth in the use and, more and apply vague and flexible security laws to significantly, the influence of new media forms. arrest and intimidate bloggers. As with An increasing number of organizations and traditional media, the result of this sophisticated civic initiatives use websites to inform the harassment is an insidious form of self- public about their causes and question censorship among journalists and government performance. Recent years have commentators. Even in more democratic also featured a ―blogging revolution,‖ as countries—such as the United Kingdom, millions of people have begun keeping online Brazil, and Turkey—internet freedom is journals, commenting and sharing opinions on increasingly undermined by legal harassment, a vast number of cultural, social, and political opaque filtering procedures, and expanding issues. This expansion has taken place in surveillance. On the whole, threats to internet developed and developing countries alike, in freedom are growing and have become more countries where the press is under duress as diverse, both in the array of countries that well as in vibrant democracies. impose restrictions and in the range of methods Even as new information sources employed. become more prevalent and influential, This dynamic of increasing digital media governments, and in some cases private actors, use worldwide accompanied by more systematic have begun to push back through the and sophisticated methods of control is the development of techniques designed to control core finding of this study, a pilot report on what people read, view, and discuss. internet and new media freedom. On the basis Predictably, some of the world’s most of a newly developed set of 19 indicators, the Freedom House Freedom on the Net 2 study evaluates the level of internet and mobile- number of forms and can include not phone freedom experienced by average users only technical filtering, but also manual and activists in a sample of 15 countries across removal of content as a result of 6 regions: China, India, and Malaysia in Asia; government directives, intimidation, Cuba and Brazil in Latin America; Egypt, requests from private actors, or judicial Tunisia, and Iran in the Middle East and North decisions. Some regimes even engage in Africa; Kenya and South Africa in sub-Saharan the sophisticated manipulation of online Africa; Russia, Estonia, and Georgia in the conversations using undercover former Soviet Union; and the United Kingdom government-sponsored agents. and Turkey in Europe. Covering the calendar Privatization of censorship: There is a years 2007 and 2008, the index addresses a growing trend toward ―outsourcing‖ range of factors that might affect such freedom, censorship and monitoring to private including the state of telecommunications companies, as opposed to direct infrastructure, government restrictions on intervention by government agencies. access to technology, the regulatory framework In a range of countries with differing for service providers, censorship and content levels of democracy, private entities and control, the legal environment, surveillance, and their employees—including service extralegal attacks on users or content providers, blog-hosting companies, producers. The selected indicators capture not cybercafes, and mobile-phone only the actions of governments but also the operators—are being required by vigor, diversity, and activism of the new media governments or other actors to censor domain in each country, regardless of—or and monitor information and despite—state efforts to restrict

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