Today the World Day against Cyber-Censorship which is the initiative of UNESCO and "Reporters Without Borders" activists organization. The goal of the campaign is to draw public attention to the problem of cyber-censorship and limited access to the global network in many countries.
The campaign is being held on the website of Reporters Without Borders. Any user can enter it to express its protest against censorship in the Internet which is widely used by the governments of some states. The black list of the Internet enemies includes in particular the governments of China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
They are on the list on different reasons. In Myanmar people simply do not have access to the Internet due to lack of technical facilities and on Cuba the access to the global network is a very expensive thing. China is on the list thanks to its "Great Chinese Fire-wall", political repressions against bloggers. Other states are accused of ostracism, the information control and also the repressions against internet dissidents.
But there are two sides of the same coin. If we remove all restrictions in the Internet it will lead to anarchy, Alexander Treshchyov, authorized representative of the Chamber of Lawyers of the EU in Russia says:
"It would be naïve of us to think that the Internet is all about infinite freedom. This thing does not exist and it should not exist. But we should admit that political censorship is inadmissible and unacceptable. It would not help anyone to barricade from the outside world. However the freedom of speech is a relative thing. In the US they believed that the Beatles and Coca Cola had removed boundaries between the countries. There is a grain of truth in it but if we look at the US society we will see what tough censorship they have and how everything is regulated by the authorities".
Advocating for the freedom of speech Reporters Without Borders believe that by publishing the list of the Internet enemies they will be able to influence both users and the authorities. In general this campaign is a large-scale flesh-mob activity. Reporters Without Borders has designed a logo to symbolize the defense of online free expression. It represents a computer mouse freeing itself from its chains. The logo can be downloaded free of charge from the Reporters Without Borders website and is available in various colours.
Please rate: