funded NGOs) and are therefore wary of leaving
the sector unregulated and without control. Many
now see the Internet and other communications
channels in national strategic terms, and these
countries have increasingly turned to securitybased arguments—such as the need to secure
“national informational space”—to justify regulation of the sector.
In 2006 ONI tested for the presence of
filtering in eight of the eleven CIS countries:
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
Background and baseline testing was also carried out in a further two countries: the Russian
Federation and Turkmenistan, although in these
two cases limitations on the testing methodology
do not allow us to claim comprehensive results.
Of the eight countries in which ONI tested,
our results did not yield significant patterns of
substantial or pervasive filtering. Only Uzbekistan
pursued pervasive filtering of the kind found in
China, Iran, and some parts of the Middle East. 2
In almost all countries some degree of filtering
was present, but this filtering occurred mostly on
corporate networks (such as educational and
research networks) where accepted usage policies (AUPs) dictated that inappropriate content
was not permitted or in “edge locations,” such as
Internet cafés, where the reasons for filtering
were more benign (conserving bandwidth) or left
to the discretion of the Internet café owners
themselves.
At the same time, in all eight countries
authorities had taken steps of one kind or another to restrict or regulate their national informational space. These measures include:
• expanded use of defamation and slander
laws to selectively prosecute and deter
bloggers and independent media from posting material critical of the government or
specific government officials (however
benignly, including, as was the case in
Belarus, through the use of humor);
• strict criteria pertaining to what is “acceptable” within the national media space, leading to the deregistration of sites that did not
comply (Kazakhstan);
• moves to compel Internet sites to register as
mass media, with noncompliance then
being used as grounds for filtering “illegal”
content;
• national security concerns (Ukraine); and,
• formal or informal “requests” of ISPs.
The net effect of these sanctions (legal and
quasi-legal) is to create overall environments that
encourage varying degrees of self-censorship
among ISPs, who are fearful of jeopardizing their
licenses, and among individuals for whom prosecution or imprisonment is too high a price to pay
for voicing criticism, which at times amounts to
little more than a form of digital graffiti.
The CIS region: Ethno-cultural diversity
and a shared historical space
To define the CIS as a region understates the
sheer diversity of the countries and peoples that
fall within the former Soviet Union’s historical
boundaries. Straddling a swath of Eurasia from
the Pacific to the doorsteps of Europe, the Arctic
Circle, and the deserts of Central Asia, this vast
landmass takes in twelve time zones, some 350
million people, and more than a hundred distinct
ethnic groups encompassing all the world’s
major religions and at least three major linguistic
communities (Slavic, Turkic, Farsi). At the ethnocultural level, diversity is a defining commonality
of this region.
At the same time, the CIS forms an historical
community that for seventy years constituted the
world’s second major economic, military, and
political superpower of the twentieth century,
rooted in the same traditions of modernism as
the West but oriented around a different set of
178
Regional Overviews
the sector unregulated and without control. Many
now see the Internet and other communications
channels in national strategic terms, and these
countries have increasingly turned to securitybased arguments—such as the need to secure
“national informational space”—to justify regulation of the sector.
In 2006 ONI tested for the presence of
filtering in eight of the eleven CIS countries:
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
Background and baseline testing was also carried out in a further two countries: the Russian
Federation and Turkmenistan, although in these
two cases limitations on the testing methodology
do not allow us to claim comprehensive results.
Of the eight countries in which ONI tested,
our results did not yield significant patterns of
substantial or pervasive filtering. Only Uzbekistan
pursued pervasive filtering of the kind found in
China, Iran, and some parts of the Middle East. 2
In almost all countries some degree of filtering
was present, but this filtering occurred mostly on
corporate networks (such as educational and
research networks) where accepted usage policies (AUPs) dictated that inappropriate content
was not permitted or in “edge locations,” such as
Internet cafés, where the reasons for filtering
were more benign (conserving bandwidth) or left
to the discretion of the Internet café owners
themselves.
At the same time, in all eight countries
authorities had taken steps of one kind or another to restrict or regulate their national informational space. These measures include:
• expanded use of defamation and slander
laws to selectively prosecute and deter
bloggers and independent media from posting material critical of the government or
specific government officials (however
benignly, including, as was the case in
Belarus, through the use of humor);
• strict criteria pertaining to what is “acceptable” within the national media space, leading to the deregistration of sites that did not
comply (Kazakhstan);
• moves to compel Internet sites to register as
mass media, with noncompliance then
being used as grounds for filtering “illegal”
content;
• national security concerns (Ukraine); and,
• formal or informal “requests” of ISPs.
The net effect of these sanctions (legal and
quasi-legal) is to create overall environments that
encourage varying degrees of self-censorship
among ISPs, who are fearful of jeopardizing their
licenses, and among individuals for whom prosecution or imprisonment is too high a price to pay
for voicing criticism, which at times amounts to
little more than a form of digital graffiti.
The CIS region: Ethno-cultural diversity
and a shared historical space
To define the CIS as a region understates the
sheer diversity of the countries and peoples that
fall within the former Soviet Union’s historical
boundaries. Straddling a swath of Eurasia from
the Pacific to the doorsteps of Europe, the Arctic
Circle, and the deserts of Central Asia, this vast
landmass takes in twelve time zones, some 350
million people, and more than a hundred distinct
ethnic groups encompassing all the world’s
major religions and at least three major linguistic
communities (Slavic, Turkic, Farsi). At the ethnocultural level, diversity is a defining commonality
of this region.
At the same time, the CIS forms an historical
community that for seventy years constituted the
world’s second major economic, military, and
political superpower of the twentieth century,
rooted in the same traditions of modernism as
the West but oriented around a different set of
178
Regional Overviews