Foreword
Imagine if an unknown person entered your home on a regular basis and removed
books from your bookshelves. You would never be told which books were being taken
away, and you would never be given a reason except that someone, somewhere, somehow, deemed them ‘‘extremist,’’ ‘‘indecent,’’ or simply ‘‘insulting,’’ or felt that they
might ‘‘incite’’ some form of hatred. Imagine if the books removed included historical
research on disputed facts, secular depictions of religious images, and irreverent
accounts of the conduct or policies of political leaders.
Couldn’t happen in a democracy? Guess again.
Under the guise of protecting citizens from ‘‘smut’’ and ‘‘offensiveness,’’ Internet filtering programs routinely block access to thousands of World Wide Web search results,
home pages, chat rooms, newsgroups, and other Internet options—in democratic
countries as well as in authoritarian states. In most cases the criteria are based on an
arbitrary and politicized understanding of what is ‘‘smut’’ or ‘‘offensive.’’
Online surveillance and censorship are growing in scale, scope, and sophistication
around the world. This growth is not surprising given the importance of the medium.
But there is increasing cause for concern about the implications of these trends for
media freedom, for unhampered discussion of matters of public interest, and even for
political activism.
In charting these developments, surveys carried out by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI)
are indispensable tools in my own daily job of reminding governments of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of their commitments concerning the free flow of information.
Published in 2007, ONI’s first global survey of Internet filtering, Access Denied: The
Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, revealed that ‘‘state-mandated net filtering’’ was carried out in a only ‘‘a couple’’ of countries in 2002—but by 2007, it was
under way in 25 out of the 41 countries scrutinized.
In its new publication, Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in
Cyberspace, ONI goes further.
Imagine if an unknown person entered your home on a regular basis and removed
books from your bookshelves. You would never be told which books were being taken
away, and you would never be given a reason except that someone, somewhere, somehow, deemed them ‘‘extremist,’’ ‘‘indecent,’’ or simply ‘‘insulting,’’ or felt that they
might ‘‘incite’’ some form of hatred. Imagine if the books removed included historical
research on disputed facts, secular depictions of religious images, and irreverent
accounts of the conduct or policies of political leaders.
Couldn’t happen in a democracy? Guess again.
Under the guise of protecting citizens from ‘‘smut’’ and ‘‘offensiveness,’’ Internet filtering programs routinely block access to thousands of World Wide Web search results,
home pages, chat rooms, newsgroups, and other Internet options—in democratic
countries as well as in authoritarian states. In most cases the criteria are based on an
arbitrary and politicized understanding of what is ‘‘smut’’ or ‘‘offensive.’’
Online surveillance and censorship are growing in scale, scope, and sophistication
around the world. This growth is not surprising given the importance of the medium.
But there is increasing cause for concern about the implications of these trends for
media freedom, for unhampered discussion of matters of public interest, and even for
political activism.
In charting these developments, surveys carried out by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI)
are indispensable tools in my own daily job of reminding governments of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of their commitments concerning the free flow of information.
Published in 2007, ONI’s first global survey of Internet filtering, Access Denied: The
Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, revealed that ‘‘state-mandated net filtering’’ was carried out in a only ‘‘a couple’’ of countries in 2002—but by 2007, it was
under way in 25 out of the 41 countries scrutinized.
In its new publication, Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in
Cyberspace, ONI goes further.