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Singer Barbra Streisand and the governments of Turkey and Pakistan have little in common. But there is one thing: All have tried to censor the Internet, and all have failed miserably.

In a new paper, Zubair Nabi, with IBM Research's big data and analytics research group in Ireland, details how the so-called "Streisand effect" plays out over and over again when authoritarian governments try to censor information online, either by blocking or partially blocking "offensive" websites, throttling access speeds, or out-and-out manipulating content. Increased knowledge about the futility of censorship could help activists and researchers fight back against it and force regimes to rethink their censorship actionsor at least thats the hope.

The Streisand effect took its name when the Funny Girl star unsuccessfully sued to have an aerial photo of her Malibu beach house removed from the website of a photographer who had posted it along with thousands of other images of the California coastline. (He was actually aiming to document coastal erosion.) Prior to her lawsuit, only a few people had seen the image of Streisands house. After the ensuing lawsuit-related publicity, hundreds of thousands of people saw it.

A similar phenomenon played out in Turkeyone of the most connected nations in the worldearlier this year, when the government blocked access to SoundCloud to stop access to leaked recordings implicating the Turkish prime minister and other officials in corruption. Two months later, in March, the government also blocked access to Twitter and YouTube, also related to leaked recordings.

All of these efforts seemed to have failed, Nabi shows. Alexas rankings of website popularity show that YouTube stayed in the top 10 most-visited websites in Turkey during the censorship period. Google Trends showed that searches for the Twitter handle "Haramzadeler," which initially began uploading leaked recordings earlier in 2013 to no fanfare, spiked significantly when the government blocked SoundCloud in January 2014 and stayed high through late March. At the same time as the censorship events, searches for anti-censorship tools like "Tor," "Spotflux," "Ultrasurf," and terms like "unblock" and "proxy" also spiked, showing that people were actively working to get around the censors.

Last, Nabi analyzed YouTube statistics to see whether people searching for blocked content were actually able to access it. This was difficult in many cases because many videos were later taken down and because YouTube only shows graphs, not the actual data. However, Nabi was able to pinpoint YouTube stats for one video, which reveals the Turkish prime minister discussing construction permits with a business tycoon friend and was among the videos causing Youtube to be blocked in March. "It is clear from the graph that even though the video was uploaded in February 2014, its popularity spiked in March, after YouTube was censored," he writes.

More than 60 countries around the world today censor the Internet in some form, according to the paper. However, Nabi cautions that this Streisand effect does not manifest itself in all instances of censorship. Its existence in some cases only underscores the need for political activists and citizens to continue to develop and disseminate tools, such as VPNs and proxies, that circumvent censorship, he says.

The study also shows the Streisand effect at work in recent censorship episodes in Pakistan. However, it's also difficult to prove in many cases where data the data that companies like Google and Alexa provide is not granular enough or put into context. Nabi calls on more companies to open up more data to help the cause of anti-censorship activists.

"While the Streisand Effect is a handy instrument to keep censorship in check, it is only one of the many means to an end, not an end in itself. The end being an open, universally accessible Internet," he writes.

[Illustration: Daniel Salo]

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Government Internet Censorship Isn't Just Ineffective: Here's Proof It Backfires Horribly

Twenty years after the genocide that killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, the situation in Rwanda is now seen as largely stable. But that stability has a price: many journalists still can't work freely and critical reporting is often suppressed - even though press freedom and freedom of information are basic rights in Rwanda's constitution.

That is the conclusion that the most recent report by the New York-based NGO Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reaches. The report (published on December 8, 2014) was written by Anton Harber who runs the journalism program for the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and heads the South African Freedom of Expression Institute.

Internalised self-censorship

Harber spoke to over 25 Rwandan journalists, publishers and government representatives for his report. Many critical journalists complained that they were being harassed and their work impeded by public authorities, random police questioning and anonymous threats, Harber told DW.

"All the journalists I spoke to said there's a great deal of self-censorship," he said. "For many, it's an issue of survival. They feel that if they don't self- censor, then they will be harassed, closed down, threatened or driven into exile."

Rwandan journalists have become used to self-censorship

In his report, Harber quotes Fred Muvunyi, chairman of the self-regulatory Rwanda Media Commission: "Self-censorship is flowing like blood in the arteries and veins. There is no [direct] censorship, but there are things that journalists don't do because they are not confident of what will happen."

Journalistic hopes shattered

In the past few years, many people hoped there might be a liberalization in Rwandan journalism. After all, four years ago a critical report by the state authority for media pointed out that journalists were not free to carry out their work unimpeded. According to the government report, the Rwandan government officially stands for a liberal attitude towards free speech, but Rwanda's political culture is repressive when it comes to dissenting opinions. At the time, the report called for a change to this culture.

It was a demand that led to several reforms: The country introduced a duty of disclosure for the government. Journalists were also given an ombudsman to turn to if they are harassed.

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Rwanda: Censorship or self-censorship?

Vodafone UK isnt letting its customers access the website of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), one of the oldest and largest associations of computer hackers in Europe.

Its not clear why the mobile operator has blocked the ccc.de website since late last week, but the CCC believes its because its site has been misclassified in the Internet filtering system used by Vodafone.

Since its founding in 1981 in Berlin, the CCC has highlighted security risks in technology affecting a large number of people, has exposed government surveillance and has advocated for privacy and freedom of information online. Every year the group organizes the Chaos Communication Congress, the largest hacker convention in Europe.

Vodafone UK did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For years ISPs in the U.K. have blocked access to websites that host images of child sexual abuse based on a list maintained by an organization called the Internet Watch Foundation. However, in 2013 the U.K. government convinced ISPs to build their own Internet safety filters in order to block sites that host content unsuitable for minors, including pornography and drugs.

The initiative was criticized by human rights and Internet advocacy groups because it allows ISPs to judge what is right or wrong for young people and opens up the door to over-blocking, where users are prevented access to non-harmful and even helpful websites and information.

When these filters were introduced, their abuse was imminent, said CCC spokesman Dirk Engling in a blog post Friday. Today, we are shocked to learn that they not only block access to our site, but also to our conference. We see this as proof that censorship infrastructureno matter for which reasons it was set up, and no matter which country you are inwill always be abused for political reasons.

According to a check on http://www.blocked.org.uk, a website maintained by U.K.-based Open Rights Group (ORG), ccc.de was being blocked by both Vodafone and Three, another U.K. mobile operator, as of Sunday. The Chaos Communication Congress tickets site, tickets.events.ccc.de, was only being blocked by Vodafone.

Overblocking is a major issue when it comes to filters that are designed to stop children and young people from seeing adult content, said Pam Cowburn, ORGs communications director, Monday via email. When we tested the Alexa 100k websites, we found that almost 1 in 5 sites were blocked. Although many of these may have been deliberately blocked because, for example they are pornography, this high figure suggests that there is a real problem with over blocking.

Sites that have been incorrectly blocked in the past include political blogs, sites about womens rights and even a Porsche sales site, Cowburn said. A site that offers support to victims of sexual abuse and rape, aged 16 and higher, was also blocked and so were some sites that belong to charities, she said.

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Vodafone blocks Chaos Computer Club site, fueling 'Net censorship concerns in UK

The premiere of Chinese director Jiang Wen's forthcoming 3D epic Gone with the Bullets has been delayed because of censorship issues, the film's production company Buyilehu Films said, but it should be ready for its Dec. 18launch date.

"There are some new last-minute developments regarding censorship, and we have to take time to make some adjustments, so the premiere will be postponed," the company said in a statement on its WeChat social media page.

Jiang, one of Chinas most talented actors and writers, is no stranger to censorship headaches. The one-time bad boy of Chinese cinema, he was banned for seven years from filmmaking after Devils on the Doorstep back in 2000.

Social media were speculating the film wouldn't make the launch date, but producer Ma Ke insisted it would go ahead as planned.

"We will take great care until the last minute. We are sure will not disappoint anyone," he said in a statement.

Many media figures are already in Beijing for the premiere and the producers apologized for the delay in getting their formal release approval from the Film Bureau.

"We tried our best, but unfortunately all the conditions are not in place. Thanks for your understanding. We will have the premiere on another date," the company said.

There have reportedly already been some adjustments made, such as changing some prostitute characters into less morally suspect dancing girls, and also changed some words related to social issues of the time.

A sequel to the wildly successful Let The Bullets Fly in 2010, has already run up more than $19.5 million in pre-ordered tickets weeks before its theatrical release.

The film's midnight bow IMAX pre-sale tickets have surpassed the same figure for the year's current box office leader Transformers: Age of Extinction, producers told a recent news conference in Beijing.

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'Gone With The Bullets' Chinese Premiere Delayed Over Last-Minute Censorship

This Week in Unnecessary Censorship | JimmyKimmel
This is our weekly tribute to the FCC where we bleep and blur things whether they need it or not. This week we feature Peyton Manning, Monica Lewinsky and mo...

By: Jimmy KimmelLive

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This Week in Unnecessary Censorship | JimmyKimmel - Video