Rebecca MacKinnon is the co-founder of www.GlobalVoicesOnline and a former CNN Beijing bureau chief.
Writing in The Guardian in "Censorship is alive in the free world" [republished in The Age] she points out that whilst there is all the controversy about Google in China at the moment, that China is by means alone in net censorship. MPS can report that even this site was subjected to a Net Filter when visiting Syria a few weeks ago. The site was simply not be accessible.
"GOOGLE'S stand against Chinese censorship and surveillance will be rightly lauded by defenders of human rights. But when it comes to Google's vow not to ''do evil'' by its users, China is by no means the company's only headache. And we should remember that the Chinese are not the only ones putting pressure on Google in ways that are arguably harmful to freedom of expression.
According to the Open Net Initiative, the number of countries that censor the internet has gone from a handful a decade ago to almost 40 - and the censorship club's fastest growing membership segment consists of democracies.
Google's woes in many countries have to do with something lawyers call ''intermediary liability'': the intermediary service, which serves as a conduit for customers to post videos, photos or blogs, send messages, search for web content, or whatever, is held liable and can potentially be sued, prosecuted or otherwise punished for what its users do on its service."
Writing in The Guardian in "Censorship is alive in the free world" [republished in The Age] she points out that whilst there is all the controversy about Google in China at the moment, that China is by means alone in net censorship. MPS can report that even this site was subjected to a Net Filter when visiting Syria a few weeks ago. The site was simply not be accessible.
"GOOGLE'S stand against Chinese censorship and surveillance will be rightly lauded by defenders of human rights. But when it comes to Google's vow not to ''do evil'' by its users, China is by no means the company's only headache. And we should remember that the Chinese are not the only ones putting pressure on Google in ways that are arguably harmful to freedom of expression.
According to the Open Net Initiative, the number of countries that censor the internet has gone from a handful a decade ago to almost 40 - and the censorship club's fastest growing membership segment consists of democracies.
Google's woes in many countries have to do with something lawyers call ''intermediary liability'': the intermediary service, which serves as a conduit for customers to post videos, photos or blogs, send messages, search for web content, or whatever, is held liable and can potentially be sued, prosecuted or otherwise punished for what its users do on its service."
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