Censoring of internet is 'spreading like virus'
By Richard Spencer in Beijing
Last Updated: 6:43am BST 07/06/2007
# Richard Spencer's blog: The great firewall of China
Dozens of countries are copying China's methods of censoring the internet, Amnesty International said yesterday.
In advance of a live webcast to discuss internet freedom, Amnesty gave warning that censorship was a "virus" that was infecting countries round the world.
Tim Hancock, Amnesty's international campaigns director, said: "The 'Chinese model' of an internet that allows economic growth but not free speech or privacy is growing in popularity, from a handful of countries five years ago to dozens of governments today who block sites and arrest bloggers."
China's 144 million internet users face the most sophisticated controls in the world. Software filters hundreds of millions of emails, web-pages, and mobile phone text messages for key words that trigger either automatic blocks or further investigation by censors.
In addition, internet companies in China, including overseas firms, have to operate systems of self-censorship. The Chinese government claims that the rules are in line with international norms for countering crime such as pornography, but does not deny that they also cover political activity.
Shi Tao, an award-winning reporter on a central Chinese newspaper, is serving 10 years in jail for sending details of one censorship order to Human Rights in China by email.
His details were handed over to police by the American internet firm Yahoo!. Amnesty said such practices could change the internet "beyond all recognition" as they are taken up by other countries.
It cited research by an academic study group, the Open Net Initiative, that at least 25 governments employed filtering for censorship. They included Iran, Burma, and Saudi Arabia but also Western-oriented democracies such as India and South Korea.
The webcast discussion will feature Martha Lane-Fox, the dotcom entrpreneur, and Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, which is one of thousands of sites permanently blocked in China.
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