WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Internet has expanded the opportunities of citizens to express their views that challenge the authoritarianism of repressive regimes, as seen, for example, in China, Iran and Burma. Other digital media, such as mobile phones, have also played a significant role in getting news and pictures out to the world as well as facilitating communications between critics of repressive governments.
Applications like the social-networking site Facebook and Twitter, the video-sharing site YouTube, and the blog-hosting site Blogspot, are providing new outlets for expression, which can be highly threatening to totalitarian regimes.
Repressive regimes have responded with increasingly sophisticated controls that censor online content, monitor Internet users and intimidate and punish their critics.
To discuss the growing threats to Internet freedom in repressive nations, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing June 16 on Capitol Hill. Representatives from five human rights organizations voiced their concerns on the measures being taken by repressive regimes, and advocated for the Global Online Freedom Act of 2009, which if enacted would prevent U.S. internet companies from cooperating in the censorship and surveillance by repressive regimes.
The methods being used by the repressive regimes are becoming more menacing and insidious. This was especially evident on the day of the hearing when the lead news story was about the huge protests in Iran over the June 12 presidential election.
“…the government intensified its Internet filtering, disrupted social networking sites such as Facebook, and jammed transmissions of text message on mobile phones in an apparent attempt to prevent Iranian citizens from voicing their suspicions of electoral fraud,” said Daniel Calingaert, Deputy Director of Programs, Freedom House.
China is by far the most “advanced” country in applying layers of surveillance, filters, and general policing to the Internet and mobile phone communications. In early June, China announced that the installation of its censorship software, Green Dam, would be mandatory on every PC sold in China. This software, claiming to filter pornography, does much more. In addition to filtering out political content the regime opposes, it will stop e-mails it regards as incendiary, and keep a record of a user’s activity even after the computer is shut down, “with dire implications for the freedom of Chinese computer users,” says the Washington Post (June 13).
