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Iran on Monday removed online blocks on Gmail but a government Internet filtering committee official said other, additional censorship was being prepared against YouTube, according to reports.

Internet users in Iran found themselves able to freely access their Gmail accounts for the first time since the blocks were suddenly established on September 24.

The secure-protocol HTTPS version of Google search was also made accessible after being blocked at the same time. The unsecure HTTP version of Google search was never blocked.

Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, the secretary of an official group tasked with detecting Internet content deemed illegal, had said in a message last week that "Google and Gmail will be filtered nationwide... until further notice."

But Mohammad Reza Miri, a member of the telecommunications ministry committee tasked with filtering the Internet in Iran, was quoted on Monday by the Mehr news agency as saying the Gmail block was an "involuntary" consequence of trying to reinforce censorship of Google's YouTube video-sharing site.

"Unfortunately, we do not yet have enough technical knowhow to differentiate between these two services. We wanted to block YouTube and Gmail was also blocked, which was involuntary," he said.

"We absolutely do not want YouTube to be accessible. That is why the telecommunications ministry is seeking a solution to fix the problem to block YouTube under the HTTPS protocol while leaving Gmail accessible. That will soon happen."

Iran has censored YouTube since mid-2009, after opposition demonstrators protesting the re-election victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in polls they believed rigged started posting videos online of their gatherings.

A Google website which monitors the amount of traffic for its services in each country shows YouTube has been effectively censored in Iran since then (http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/?r=IR&l=YOUTUBE&csd=1347730200000&ced=1348248600000).

A member of Iran's High Council on Cyberspace, which provides policy advice, Kamyar Saghafi, was quoted by Mehr last week suggesting that the action against Google services was "to boycott" the US company over an anti-Islam film available on YouTube that has sparked Muslim protests worldwide.

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Iran unblocks access to Gmail

Chinese censors blocked information on the blind activist at the center of a diplomatic storm this year.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Draconian laws, brutal attacks against bloggers and politically motivated surveillance are among the biggest threats to Internet freedom emerging in the last two years, according to a new report from free speech advocates, Freedom House.

"Freedom on the Net 2012: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media," looked at barriers to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights in 47 countries across the globe. Estonia was rated as having the greatest degree of Internet freedom, while Iran, Cuba and China were viewed as the most restrictive.

While social media was key in the uprising in Egypt, censorship there continues apace, says Freedom House, a U.S.-based independent watchdog organization.

Although online activism is increasing, the report said authoritarian regimes were employing a wider and increasingly sophisticated arsenal of countermeasures.

Read more: The full report

According to Freedom House, China has the world's largest population of Internet users, yet the authorities operate the most sophisticated system of censorship. Its "great firewall" has become notorious for literally shutting down Internet "chatter" it views as sensitive. Earlier this year, censors blocked related search terms to prevent the public from obtaining news on prominent human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who caused a diplomatic storm when he escaped house arrest to seek refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Read more: News on blind activist's escape

Major web portals and social networking sites, though not state-owned, have had to comply with strict government censorship rules -- or risk being shut down. After launching a campaign to clean up "rampant online rumors," Chinese authorities in March ordered the country's leading micro-blogging sites -- including Sina Weibo -- to disable their comment function for three days. In China, bloggers are also required to register their real names -- though it's not clear how many have complied with the rules.

View original post here:
Big Brother still watching: Internet censorship is up, report says

Chinese censors blocked information on the blind activist at the center of a diplomatic storm this year.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Draconian laws, brutal attacks against bloggers and politically motivated surveillance are among the biggest threats to Internet freedom emerging in the last two years, according to a new report from free speech advocates, Freedom House.

"Freedom on the Net 2012: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media," looked at barriers to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights in 47 countries across the globe. Estonia was rated as having the greatest degree of Internet freedom, while Iran, Cuba and China were viewed as the most restrictive.

While social media was key in the uprising in Egypt, censorship there continues apace, says Freedom House, a U.S.-based independent watchdog organization.

Although online activism is increasing, the report said authoritarian regimes were employing a wider and increasingly sophisticated arsenal of countermeasures.

Read more: The full report

According to Freedom House, China has the world's largest population of Internet users, yet the authorities operate the most sophisticated system of censorship. Its "great firewall" has become notorious for literally shutting down Internet "chatter" it views as sensitive. Earlier this year, censors blocked related search terms to prevent the public from obtaining news on prominent human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who caused a diplomatic storm when he escaped house arrest to seek refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Read more: News on blind activist's escape

Major web portals and social networking sites, though not state-owned, have had to comply with strict government censorship rules -- or risk being shut down. After launching a campaign to clean up "rampant online rumors," Chinese authorities in March ordered the country's leading micro-blogging sites -- including Sina Weibo -- to disable their comment function for three days. In China, bloggers are also required to register their real names -- though it's not clear how many have complied with the rules.

See the original post here:
Big Brother still watching: Internet censorship on the up, report says

Published: Sept. 28, 2012 at 3:13 PM

WAHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Internet censorship is increasing as authoritarian regimes attempt to impose more restrictions on online activism, a U.S. watchdog organization reports.

Free speech group Freedom House said repressive laws, violent attacks on bloggers and government surveillance are among the biggest emerging threats to Internet freedom, CNN reported Friday.

Freedom house analyzed restriction of access, content censorship and violations of users' civil rights in 47 countries.

Iran, Cuba and China were the most repressive in terms of restricting Internet usage and freedoms, the group said.

Authorities in China conduct the most sophisticated censorship efforts, Freedom House said, because major Web portals and social networking sites, even though not state-owned, must obey with strict government censorship rules or risk being shut down.

Beijing's influence as an "incubator for sophisticated restrictions" has not gone unnoticed, the group said, with governments including Belarus, Uzbekistan and Iran following China's model for their own Internet crackdowns.

"The findings clearly show that threats to Internet freedom are becoming more diverse," Sanja Kelly, a project director at Freedom House, said.

"As authoritarian rulers see that blocked websites and high-profile arrests draw local and international condemnation, they are turning to murkier -- but no less dangerous -- methods for controlling online conversations."

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Global censorship of Internet on the rise

Government censorship isnt confined to the religious hotbeds of the Eastern Hemisphere: Googles top executive in Brazil was just released from custody after YouTube refused to take down a video critical of a local candidate. The recently freed Fabio Jose Silva Coelho is set for an undetermined court hearing after YouTube did not remove a salacious video allegedly revealing details of a mayoral candidate demanding her lover get an abortion. Since 1965, Brazil bans content that offend the dignity or decorum of the electoral process. Google is appealing the decision that ordered the removal of the video on YouTube because, as a platform, Google is not responsible for the content posted to its site, the company reports.

Brazil has also sided with a few Middle-Eastern and Asian nations in demanding that Google take down an offensive anti-Islamicvideo responsible for deadly riots around the world. Google agreed to censor the video in a few countries, such as Egypt and Libya, but not take it off the site and is (apparently) not taking it down in Brazil either.

The struggle highlights the growing struggle between self-expression, sovereignty, and the pervasiveness of technology.

[Via The Hill, Via Reuters]

Link:
Censorship In The Americas: Google Brazil Chief Just Released From Custody