Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

Information used to be free

According to a Reporters Without Border's report China now has 60 cyberdissidents imprisoned for using the net as westerners do every day - to express their opinion. After China, countries with jailed cyberdissidents include Vietnam (7), the Maldives (3), and Syria (2), as documented in "Internet Under Surveillance 2004".

Typically largely unnoticed by the media and the public, censorship laws and activities are increasingly being put in place by governments across the planet. Counter-terror is often the leverage for such measures. Techniques identified as being used to censor include:

• Blocking sites


• DNS hijacking


• Targeted filtering


• Modified mirrors


• Prohibiting Web-based e-mail and ownership of ISPs


• Forcing cybercafe users to show IDs


• Banning access and equipment

Ironically, an Australian Supreme Court ruling is being used internationally by those wanting to silence critical publications to threaten website editors and hosts with prosecution, and thus becomes another instrument of censorship.

RSF is also concerned that inequalities are being created in the name of "equal rights", in response to a French government plan to impose prison sentences as a result of expressing arguably uneducated opinions, as part of a law to combat sexism and homophobia, calling it "a serious step backwards." To jail when education is more effective surely demonstrates a thoughtless reliance on easy punitive solutions, rather than a genuine intelligent concern for fellow humans. It also reduces France, and coutnries with similar laws, to level of the Chinese totalitarian state.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 11:21 am ::