The future of the Internet is very much up in the air

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in internet on (#SJXV)
There are a growing number of toll roads on the information superhighway. There are now more countries with a heavily censored Internet than there are ones with a completely free Internet.

Worst among the 65 countries assessed is China, which also happens to be the country with the largest number of internet users (641 million). Thanks to a new law passed last month, Chinese internet users are now even more vulnerable to criminal charges if they are found to be spreading “rumors” or politically delicate information online.

In the United States, President Barack Obama advocated for an open internet earlier this year. But the US takes the fifth spot after Iceland, Estonia, Canada, and Germany.

As more and more countries follow China's example and clamp down online, a great ideal of the Internet seems to be on the decline, if not already lost. “The future contours of the Internet are definitely up for grabs,” says Crawford.

“Very interesting countries hang in the balance, like India, where 1.2 billion people could be online — only about a quarter of them are right now,” she says. “Cuba is just coming online, and so is much of Africa. Who are they going to follow? My hope is that they look to the United States, Australia, Canada, and the EUas a model of openness. Not just for economic purposes, but for the thriving of human beings.”

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-03/future-internet-place-open-exchange-ideas-very-much-air

History

2015-11-05 10:11
The future of the Internet is very much up in the air
evilviper@pipedot.org
There are a growing number of toll roads on the information superhighway. There are now more countries with a heavily censored Internet than there are ones with a completely free Internet.

Worst among the 65 countries assessed is China, which also happens to be the country with the largest number of internet users (641 million). Thanks to a new law passed last month, Chinese internet users are now even more vulnerable to criminal charges if they are found to be spreading “"rumors”" or politically delicate information online.

In the United States, President Barack Obama advocated for an open internet earlier this year. But the US takes the fifth spot after Iceland, Estonia, Canada, and Germany.

As more and more countries follow China's example and clamp down online, a great ideal of the Internet seems to be on the decline, if not already lost. “"The future contours of the Internet are definitely up for grabs,”" says Crawford.

“"Very interesting countries hang in the balance, like India, where 1.2 billion people could be online —- only about a quarter of them are right now,”" she says. “"Cuba is just coming online, and so is much of Africa. Who are they going to follow? My hope is that they look to the United States, Australia, Canada, and the EUas a model of openness. Not just for economic purposes, but for the thriving of human beings.”"

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-03/future-internet-place-open-exchange-ideas-very-much-air
Reply 3 comments

Hmm (Score: 1)

by axsdenied@pipedot.org on 2015-11-05 03:22 (#SMD0)

The parts of the quote in the last paragraph are quite contradictory to the ONI (OpenNet Initiative) classifications, see here. Some of the "nice" countries are not that "nice":
  • US is classified as "enemy of internet" with pervasive censorship.
  • Australia is "changing".... definitely for worse.
And let's not forget about Internet surveillance with a nice analogy:
- the door is closed in the censorship countries
- the door is open in the non-censorship countries.However, be prepared to bend over as the "big brother" will be watching. And here come US and Australia again...

Developing countries following US and AU is probably not the best idea.

Re: Hmm (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-11-05 05:35 (#SMKR)

I don't see where you got that, as I found your source saying precisely the opposite:

"Of the 41 separate countries classified in these two years, seven were found to show no evidence of filtering (Egypt, France, Germany, India, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States),"

Reporters Without Borders flagged the United States for their SURVEILLANCE of internet users, NOT censorship.

Re: Hmm (Score: 1)

by axsdenied@pipedot.org on 2015-11-05 12:11 (#SNG3)

You quote statistic that is 6-8 years old. Things got worse in the meantime. For example, scroll down to the list of countries, specifically to the US:
" Internet access by individuals in the US is not subject to technical censorship, but can be penalized by law for violating the rights of others. As in other countries, the potential for legal liability for civil violations, including defamation and copyright, constrains the publishers of Internet content in the United States. This can have a "chilling effect" and lead to self-censorship of lawful online content and conduct. Content-control software is sometimes used by businesses, libraries, schools, and government offices to limit access to specific types of content.[117]
In 2014, the United States was added to Reporters Without Borders's (RWB's) list of "Enemies of the Internet", a category of countries with the highest level of Internet censorship and surveillance. RWB stated that the U.S. ""¦ has undermined confidence in the Internet and its own standards of security" and that "U.S. surveillance practices and decryption activities are a direct threat to investigative journalists, especially those who work with sensitive sources for whom confidentiality is paramount and who are already under pressure."[2]"

Some more interesting parts from the main article about the US censorship:
"The strong protections for freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship are rooted in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. These protections extend to the Internet and as a result very little government mandated technical filtering occurs in the U.S. Nevertheless, the Internet in the United States is highly regulated, supported by a complex set of legally binding and privately mediated mechanisms."

"Significant public resistance to proposed content restriction policies have prevented the more extreme measures used in some other countries from taking hold in the U.S"

"Public dialogue, legislative debate, and judicial review have produced filtering strategies in the United States that are different from those found in most of the rest of the world. Many government-mandated attempts to regulate content have been barred on First Amendment grounds, often after lengthy legal battles.[3] However, the government has been able to exert pressure indirectly where it cannot directly censor. With the exception of child pornography, content restrictions tend to rely more on the removal of content than blocking; most often these controls rely upon the involvement of private parties, backed by state encouragement or the threat of legal action.[4] In contrast to much of the rest of the world, where ISPs are subject to state mandates, most content regulation in the United States occurs at the private or voluntary level."

And so on... it is not direct as in other parts of the world but it is there.