Freedom of Speech in the Digital Age

FREEe in the Digital Age ISpeech, Censorship |& Surveilance Reporters without Borders 2014 Enemies of the Internet (http://12mars.rsf.org/2014-en/) 16. United Kingdom. 17. United States Bahrain Belarus China Cuba 6. India Iran 7. 8. North Korea 13. Syria 9. Pakistan 10. Russia 11. Saudi Arabia 12. Sudan 3. 4. 5. 14. Turkmenistan 15. United Arab Emirates 18. Uzbekistan 19. Vietnam Ethiopia Right to Intermet Access Global Internet User Survey 10,000 Internet users in 20 countries Internet Access 51% 73% 50% Strongly agree that access to the Internet Strongly agree that Strongly agree that access to the Internet access to the Internet allows free expressions of opinions on all subject matters allows free seeking of any information should be considered a basic human right on any subject matter 59% 48% 33% 34% Strongly agree on All types of Internet applications information and services to obtain information Agree that Increased government control of the Internet would stifle innovation Strongly agree that Agree that each they have access to individual All of the that is available on the Internet country has the right to govern and express their the Internet the opinions way they see fit 50% Agree that the Internet should be governed in some form to protect the community from harm Global Methods of Internet Censorship Direct Actions IP address blocking Affected: IP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and POP Access to a certain IP address is denied. If the target website is hosted in a shared hosting server, all websites on the same server will be blocked. Turkey August, 2014 50,000 websites blocked for containing prohibited content DNS (Domain Name System) tempering Blocked domain Incorrect IP address is returned via DNS hijacking or other means names are not resolved CHINA Intentionally poisons it's DNS caches with wrong addresses for certain websites, making them inaccessible. Inaccessible *GreatFire.org is an anti-censorship watchdog China is blocking GreatFire.org is monitoring 15,047 IP addresses 5,574 of these China is blocking GreatFire.org is monitoring 29,325 domains worldwide 4,669 of these China is blocking GreatFire.org is monitoring 150,533 URLS 46,953 of these China is blocking GreatFire.org is monitoring 13,347 google searches 13,303 of these URL filtering The URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet censorship _in_China is blocked because it contains this keyword: Other keywords being blocked by the "Great Firewall" of China include: The Great Firewall also blocks specific topics: facebook google "Taiwanese independence", "freedom of speech", "democracy2, "Tiananmen Square protests", "the Dalai Lama", youtube twitter 4 Keyword blocking search Hong Kong Protests Blacklisted search terms in China Tiananmen spy era Falun waging nonviolence Tank Man Github Network disconnection Cut off all routers A technically simpler way of censorship 2007 - Myanmar/Burma 2011 - Egypt 2011 - Libya 2013 - Sudan 6. Computer network attacks Denial-of-service (DD0S) can prevent or limit access to certain websites or other online services In Sept. 2011 the UK government launched DDOS attacks against the group Anonymous, becoming the first Western government to use such tactics DDOS Demand for removal Take-down notice Authorities may demand that an online service remove offensive/ prohibited content or even users' accounts. X. 441,370 DMCA notices processed by Google 62 2008 2012 Deregistration Officials can deregister a site hosting restricted content, effectively making the website invisible. Social Media Censorship & Surveillance f Facebook Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities last updated November 15, 2013 "You will not post content that is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence." f "You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory." "We can remove any content or information you post on Facebook if we believe that it violates this Statement or our policies. Increased global surveillance requests for Facebook user data 2014 January - June 2013 second half 2014 34,946 requests first half including messages, IP addresses and account information +24% 2013 June - December the amount of content censored increased 19% 2 Twitter Twitter Terms of Service last updated September 8, 2014 "We reserve the right at all times (but will not have an obligation) to remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services, to suspend or terminate users, and to reclaim usernames without liability to you." • "We reserve the right to remove Content alleged to be infringing without prior notice, at our sole discretion." X 10,000 new pro-jihadi profiles sinçe May 2014, including 28,000 since the video of the beheading of American journalist James Foley emerged on August 20 12 official ISIS provincial-level accounts upon which they published all news - military, political, social, religious – for that specific area" on August 11 At least 10 other ISIS-linked accounts the same week Images of deceased people and any videos or photos of the beheading of Foley You Tube 3 Youtube Youtube Terms of Service last updated June 9, 2010 "YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content violates these Terms of Service for reasons other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscenity, or excessive length. YouTube may at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, remove such Content and/or terminate a user's account for submitting such material in violation of these Terms of Service." You Tube 4 Google Google Google Terms of Service last updated April 14, 2014 "We may review content to determine whether it is illegal or violates our policies, and we may remove or refuse to display content that we reasonably believe violates our policies or the law." Increased Global government requests for user data from Google 2009 2014 April 2014 September +15% +150% FREE SPEECH It's not enough to simply expose and study internet censor- ship methods around the world. People who care about the fundamental human right of free speech must make their voices heard so that surveillance bodies will no longer be able to oper- ate in the shadows, blocking access to vital social, cultural and political information. What can you do? Register on the crowd-speaking platform, Thunderclap, which Reporters Without Borders launched to help people share important messages Address messages on social networks to the presidents and heads of the governments responsible for censorship of free speech Change your Twitter avatar or your Facebook profile photo to a recognized anti-censorship logo or embed anti-censorship logo/map/image on your website Get involved with the OpenNet Initiative and Herdict to report censorship. Bottom line: don't take your online access for granted! People in other countries are experiencing true oppression, and even the United States is now on RWB's list of Enemies of the Internet. Don't keep silent about censorship! THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY WASHINGTON, DC www.paralegalstudiesdegreeonline.gwu.edu SOURCES https://opennet.net/research/regions/united-states-and-canada http://computer.howstuffworks.com/intemet-censorship.htm http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/01/us-military-blocks-guardian-troops https://opennet.net/about-filtering https://www.intemetsociety.org/sites/default/files/GIUS2012-GlobalData-Table-20121120_0.pdf http://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2014/10/15/nyu-shanghai-responds-hong-kong-protests/ http://www.howtogeek.com/162092/htg-explains-how-the-great-firewall-of-china-works/ http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/17/6350191/egypt-launches-deep-packet-inspection-with-help-from-an-american http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/09/02/turkey-intenet-freedom-rights-sharp-decline http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-and-breaches/british-spies-hit-anonymous-with-ddos-attacks/d/d-id/1113719 http://www.state.gov/jy/drl/rls/hrpt/2012humanrightsreport/index.htm?year=2012&dlid=204181#wrapper http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/28-000-pro-isis-twitter-accounts-created-james-foley-murder-n195401 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11039900/Twitter-suspends-Islamic-State-accounts.html http://mashable.com/2014/08/20/twitter-suspends-accounts- james-foley-beheading-execution/ http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/10/27/russia-step-ups-censorship-of-isis-social-media-content/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/29/china-social-media_n_5901362.html http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/11/global-government-requests-report-3/ https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms https://twitter.com/tos https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/15/google-saysgovernment-demands-user-data-increased-150-five-years/ https://en.greatfire.org/ https://torrentfreak.com/google-takedown-notices-surge-140325/ http://www.thedomains.com/2014/10/24/after-suspended-2359-do- mains-londons-police-ip-crime-unit-gets-3-million-in-funding/ http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government/countries/ https://transparency.twitter.com/removal-requests/2014/jan-jun http://www.intemetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/1488031 SUSPENDED 2] **** *** Instances 711,887%