Iran, Yemen, China, North Korea and many other countries in the world, including Turkey (which blocked access to Twitter), have developed a protection for the national internet network in order to censor some sites web . These restrictions serve above all to prevent the right of free and unmanipulated information and the possibility of being able to let people say what they think.
So, while in countries like Italy, although there have also been attempts to create restrictions, you can still open a blog or social network to say what you want about politics or the government, in other countries like Turkey it is A site like Twitter, which lives on political discussions but not only, has been prevented and blocked.
Without going here to explain obvious things about why censorship is always a dictatorship attitude and, therefore, is a crime against humanity, in this blog we are interested in understanding how countries censor the internet, what effective methods are used and why they do .
There are many reasons for a government to prevent the population from communicating freely and without control over the internet .
In poorer countries with more or less veiled dictatorships, the government fears that people may organize themselves in street riots via the internet as has actually happened in Egypt and Tunisia.
The Internet is an effective medium for organizing events, flash mobs and riots.
Governments then block the most used social networks in the country, often Facebook and Twitter, but also chats like Whatsapp and Skype, to prevent people from spreading messages and organizing meetings .
In wealthier nations like Turkey, the reason for internet censorship is due to the will of the head of government to remain in power by trying to block the spread of news and comments against his government .
In China, this is the reason for the censorship of all western sites that the government cannot control, but it is not the only one.
Those in power are afraid of ruining their image outside and want to hide what's going on inside the borders .
In countries like China and, above all, North Korea, they are very concerned about hiding from the population what they think of them externally and, at the same time, they care about showing only positive things to other nations around the world.
In some countries like the Arab ones there is also a "social" censorship on the internet, to prevent the population from seeing sites that deal with topics such as sex, gambling, illegal drugs, etc.
Another type of complaint is related to the methods of overcoming these blocks.
In essence, the reason for internet censorship is to prevent certain news and information from becoming public
The most blocked websites in the world are Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, the Google engine, free blogs made with Blogger, Wordpress, Tumbrl and others.
How do governments block the internet in a country "> The government therefore forces routers to think that the IP address of a site like Youtube is hosted within the country, preventing it from being accessed.
Overcoming the blockages is still possible and I have listed in another article about the best ways to get around censorships and blocks of the internet
Governments rely heavily on the ignorance of the population (encouraged by themselves) that they should not know these methods.
The countries that censor most internet are:
- Internet use in North Korea is extremely limited.
Some North Koreans (4%) can access an internal intranet that connects to state newspapers.
Only visiting foreigners are allowed full Internet access in some hotels.
- In Iran, most Western and American websites like Facebook and Twitter are blocked, as are political opposition and sexually explicit websites.
However, methods of getting around blocks like proxy servers and other VPN software work.
Iran has long announced its intention to create its own closed and fully monitored Internet network.
- China is famous for its "Great Fire Wall" which is a firewall that functions as a controlled barrier for internet access.
The Chinese can therefore freely browse the allowed sites.
There are no Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Blogger, but there are equivalent sites for the Chinese.
Even Google can't do anything and is used by very few people.
Searches for controversial topics such as politicians' corruption scandals are filtered and prevented.
Users evade controls using special proxy servers.
- Cuba has recently opened the internet so few Cubans are surfing.
Access to the Web occurs through public structures where people must first register by identifying themselves.
- In Arab countries, political sites are monitored or blocked.
Since the Arab Spring, authorities across the Gulf have intensified the arrests of opposing bloggers and people who have published news and content deemed offensive to rulers.
- The Internet is censored in almost all the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, with stronger restrictions in dictatorial countries such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
- Eritrea is one of the countries with the least fundamental freedoms in the world, so much so that the authorities can also read emails without asking for permits.
The vast majority of people, however, do not have access to the Internet and, probably, it is not the main problem either since it is one of the poorest countries in the world.
- Turkey has blocked access to Twitter these days and the head of government, now almost a true dictator, has also announced that he wants to extirpate all social networks.
The Google site of transparency on the internet lists the requests for removal of the sites from the search index by the authorities of each country in the world and the relative motivation.
Those who travel and those who are curious can read this infographic with the world map of internet censorship taken from the Whoishostingthis website
