domain in India and Pakistan, bloggers and other
loosely based coalitions mobilized quickly to
generate media attention to the blocking and called
for government transparency in the process.
Vigilant monitoring and advocacy by civil
society activists in India, rather than government
disclosure, has contributed to a greater understanding of technical filtering processes there.
For example, the July 13, 2006, notice to block
seventeen Web sites in the wake of the Mumbai
train bombings issued by CERT-IN was not reproduced on any official government Web site but
scanned and posted on an individual’s blog. A
number of individuals have filed requests seeking
greater disclosure about the criteria and authorization for filtering under the 2005 Right to
Information Act, but information has not been
forthcoming.
Similarly, in Pakistan, the government never
provided an official declaration confirming the
blanket block on Blogspot.com since March
2006 or the rationale for it. Rather, the investigation and awareness-building around the controversial overblocking was initiated by two individuals through their “Don’t Block The Blog” campaign. In the months after two Malaysians
became the first bloggers to be sued for defamation in January 2007, bloggers in Malaysia and
around the region formed the protest campaign
“Bloggers United, No Fear,” organized a legal
defense fund trusteed by Datin Paduka Marina
Mahathir, the daughter of former Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad, and initiated a boycott of the
plaintiff New Straits Times.
Many countries in Asia have achieved highly restricted media environments, and the Internet
has become a tool for savvy civil society activists
who must operate in them. Commonly the organization and resources required to shut down the
Internet as an alternative medium of communication are far more expensive than the requirements of transmitting information online. For
example, for many months in 2005 Radio Free
Asia had been reporting about villagers in
Shanwei in China’s Guangdong province. These
villagers had been protesting the construction of
a wind power plant that would threaten their livelihoods and provide them with inadequate compensation for their expropriated land. After news
about the police shooting and killing several
Shanwei villagers broke in December 2005, the
government attempted to suppress information
about the incident by shutting down cybercafés
in neighboring areas, cutting off Internet access
to residents, stopping queries for the town’s
name on search engines, and erasing blogs
mentioning the incident as soon as they were
posted. 49 In spite of a lockdown in the area, a
rights defense group was able to conduct an
investigation into the incident and post it online. 50
Conclusion
Notwithstanding a diverse range of approaches
to Internet censorship, most of the governments
in Asia where ONI conducted in-country testing
are expanding their mandate to filter sensitive
content, both technically and through “soft controls” such as legal regulation and delegated liability. Technical filtering is far from refined in most
Asian countries, but is becoming an increasingly
important tool in an armament of possible controls on free expression and the flow of information. It is also most clearly demarcated along
national lines rather than using any regional or
categorical formula. Accordingly many Asian
governments focus overwhelmingly on content
relating to sensitive political information and in
local languages. Although filtering has been
adopted as state policy for many Asian countries,
the practices and implications of filtering continue to be contested.
Author: Stephanie Wang
Regional Overviews
163
loosely based coalitions mobilized quickly to
generate media attention to the blocking and called
for government transparency in the process.
Vigilant monitoring and advocacy by civil
society activists in India, rather than government
disclosure, has contributed to a greater understanding of technical filtering processes there.
For example, the July 13, 2006, notice to block
seventeen Web sites in the wake of the Mumbai
train bombings issued by CERT-IN was not reproduced on any official government Web site but
scanned and posted on an individual’s blog. A
number of individuals have filed requests seeking
greater disclosure about the criteria and authorization for filtering under the 2005 Right to
Information Act, but information has not been
forthcoming.
Similarly, in Pakistan, the government never
provided an official declaration confirming the
blanket block on Blogspot.com since March
2006 or the rationale for it. Rather, the investigation and awareness-building around the controversial overblocking was initiated by two individuals through their “Don’t Block The Blog” campaign. In the months after two Malaysians
became the first bloggers to be sued for defamation in January 2007, bloggers in Malaysia and
around the region formed the protest campaign
“Bloggers United, No Fear,” organized a legal
defense fund trusteed by Datin Paduka Marina
Mahathir, the daughter of former Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad, and initiated a boycott of the
plaintiff New Straits Times.
Many countries in Asia have achieved highly restricted media environments, and the Internet
has become a tool for savvy civil society activists
who must operate in them. Commonly the organization and resources required to shut down the
Internet as an alternative medium of communication are far more expensive than the requirements of transmitting information online. For
example, for many months in 2005 Radio Free
Asia had been reporting about villagers in
Shanwei in China’s Guangdong province. These
villagers had been protesting the construction of
a wind power plant that would threaten their livelihoods and provide them with inadequate compensation for their expropriated land. After news
about the police shooting and killing several
Shanwei villagers broke in December 2005, the
government attempted to suppress information
about the incident by shutting down cybercafés
in neighboring areas, cutting off Internet access
to residents, stopping queries for the town’s
name on search engines, and erasing blogs
mentioning the incident as soon as they were
posted. 49 In spite of a lockdown in the area, a
rights defense group was able to conduct an
investigation into the incident and post it online. 50
Conclusion
Notwithstanding a diverse range of approaches
to Internet censorship, most of the governments
in Asia where ONI conducted in-country testing
are expanding their mandate to filter sensitive
content, both technically and through “soft controls” such as legal regulation and delegated liability. Technical filtering is far from refined in most
Asian countries, but is becoming an increasingly
important tool in an armament of possible controls on free expression and the flow of information. It is also most clearly demarcated along
national lines rather than using any regional or
categorical formula. Accordingly many Asian
governments focus overwhelmingly on content
relating to sensitive political information and in
local languages. Although filtering has been
adopted as state policy for many Asian countries,
the practices and implications of filtering continue to be contested.
Author: Stephanie Wang
Regional Overviews
163