CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘blocking and filtering’ Category

French court orders ISPs to block gambling site: “A French court has told internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to a gambling site that is operated out of Gibraltar and does not have a licence to operate in France, according to news agency Agence France Presse (AFP).“

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

UAE to cut off BlackBerry users: “

Best before 11 October

The United Arab Emirates will impose a ban on the email service on RIM’s BlackBerry devices from October 1st this year because it’s just too secure to be allowed to exist.…

“

(Via The Register – Comms.)

YouTube banned by Russian court | World news | guardian.co.uk

Court in Khabarovsk region orders internet provider Rosnet to block YouTube over ultra-nationalist video

* Tom Parfitt in Moscow
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 July 2010 12.15 BST
* Article history

YouTube The regional ban was made because YouTube hosted Russia for Russians, an ultra-nationalist video. Photograph: The Guardian

Russia’s blogosphere reacted with anger today after a regional court banned YouTube because it carried a single video containing ‘extremist’ content.

The court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Khabarovsk region in the Russian far east ordered Rosnet, a local internet provider, to block YouTube as well as three online libraries and a website that archives deleted web pages.

The regional ban was made because YouTube hosted Russia For Russians, an ultra-nationalist video which was added to the justice ministry’s federal list of banned extremist materials after a separate court decision in Samara region in November.

The other four sites – Web.archives.org, Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru – all carried copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Anton Nosik, Russia’s leading internet guru, condemned the decision. ‘The level of crassness in this court ruling is typical of legal proceedings concerning the internet in Russia,’ he said. Google, the owner of YouTube, said the ruling violated Russians’ constitutional right to freedom of information.

Many bloggers also decried the ban, warning it could be a slippery slope to tighter censorship across the country.

‘I can imagine it now,’ wrote Ghost82 on LiveJournal. ‘Russia in 2015, YouTube is banned everywhere. In search of a gulp of air, people travel to the border with Georgia where they will sit with their laptops and pay unimaginable sums to connect to the internet via powerful Wi-Fi transmitters for a taste of depraved western civilisation.’

Alexander tweeted on RuTvit: ‘YouTube has been given to understand that Russia, Pakistan and North Korea have much in common.’

An engineer with Rosnet said the company had suggested prosecutors should contact the portals concerned directly to request they take down the offensive material, rather than issuing a blanket ban. ‘They [prosecutors] remained deaf to these pleas,’ he told the Gazeta.ru news website. Rosnet is appealing the ruling.

While television is tightly controlled by the state, Russia’s soft authoritarian government has so far done little to rein in the internet. Social media and blogging sites are popular and provide a vital outlet for opposition and civil movements.

However, a package of laws to be reviewed by parliament in October could give the security services new powers to close down sites at short notice.

The YouTube ruling is likely to be an embarrassment for President Dmitry Medvedev, who recently launched his own channel on the video-sharing site.

Other countries that have banned YouTube include China, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran.

Russian court ruling bans YouTube – RT Top Stories:

Published 28 July, 2010, 13:56
Edited 29 July, 2010, 07:22

A court in Russia’s Far East has banned access to YouTube, accusing the video sharing site of hosting extremist ideology.

A court in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur obliged the local Internet provider Rosnet to limit access to five websites, which included YouTube, Lenta.ru reported.

The video-hosting site has come under fire for a video titled Russia for Russians which, according to judges, contains extremist elements.

Other banned websites had electronic versions of Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, branded extremist and prohibited in Russia.

According to Rosnet owner Aleksandr Ermakov, the court decision is absurd.

‘These decisions should not be taken by a court,’ he said. ‘All of mankind is using this website. And providers like ours do not violate Russian law. But we are still being forced to close the website so that our users can not log on and watch the videos. This is absurd!’

‘According to this logic, we have to demolish all buildings that have swastikas on the walls. Or when two people are discussing a bomb over the phone, we have to take away the phones from all people across Russia,’ Ermakov added.

According to journalist Ivan Zasursky, it is not web content that should be subject to control.

’In my view, any kind of content can be allowed to be hosted anywhere, because content by itself does not make things happen,’ he said. ‘Content is there for people to see, and people who view the content are the ones that, under law, are responsible for their actions.’

‘The point of control should not be the web, it should be the people as responsible citizens that, under the law, should act in a proper way,’ Zasursky added.

YouTube Banned by a Far East Court |The Moscow Times

29 July 2010, By Alexandra Odynova

A Far East court has banned YouTube and four other web sites for ‘extremist’ content in a ruling that promises to raise new worries about free speech.

The Internet is widely recognized as the last uncensored media in Russia, and the ruling nudges the country toward the likes of Iran and Pakistan, which have blocked YouTube.

Incidentally, the court’s decision also bans videos by President Dmitry Medvedev.

The Komsomolsk-on-Amur City Court said Rosnet, a Khabarovsk region Internet provider, must block three online libraries — Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru — as well as YouTube.com and Web.archive.org, which stores archived copies of old and deleted web pages.

YouTube.com was banned for the nationalist video ‘Russia to Russians,’ which was ruled extremist by a Samara court in November and subsequently placed on the Justice Ministry’s federal list of banned extremist materials.

The other four sites contained Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf,’ blacklisted by an Ufa court in March.

Once added to a list of extremist materials, a book or video can only be removed by another court ruling. The list, first published in July 2007, has since swelled from an initial 14 items to 686.

Judge Anna Aizenberg passed her verdict on YouTube on July 16, but the decision was only made public on Wednesday, when Rosnet filed an appeal.

The provider said it has proposed several ways to filter the illegal content without blocking access to the entire web sites, but the court has ignored all alternatives.

‘Not a single one of our employees supports or condones extremism,’ Rosnet said in a statement that also pointed out inconsistencies in the ruling.

YouTube’s parent company, Google, denounced the ruling as unconstitutional. ‘In our opinion, the court’s decision … to limit access of Rosnet users to the whole YouTube.com site, not to a particular video, breaches the right for freedom of information, guaranteed by Article 29 of Russia’s Constitution,’ Google spokeswoman Alla Zabrovskaya said in an e-mailed statement.

YouTube can remove illegal videos after a simple request is submitted to its moderator, she added.

The company is not going to appeal but will follow the case, Zabrovskaya said.

Russia’s courts have banned web sites in the past, but this is the first time that a prominent foreign site such as YouTube has come under fire.

In April 2009, a Cherepovets city court in the Volgograd region banned the Samizdat online magazine, which hosts oeuvres by thousands of authors, including Alexander Pushkin, because writings by one of them were ruled extremist for criticizing the city’s main employer, Severstal.

Earlier this year, YouTube was blocked in Pakistan because some users tried to upload Facebook images of the Prophet Mohammed.

Other countries that have blocked YouTube are China, Libya, Morocco, Turkey and Iran, with only the latter two retaining the ban at present.

Russians are increasingly using YouTube to post video appeals to Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin about official corruption.

Medvedev is no stranger to YouTube himself, having launched his own channel on the site. The Komsomolsk-on-Amur’s court ruling did not comment on the fact that its decision puts a ban on the president’s videos along with the nationalist one.

The Kremlin had no immediate comment about the ruling.

Despite a campaign by Medvedev to promote Internet literacy among officials, many of them remain unfamiliar with the workings of the World Wide Web.

At the same time, extremism charges are frequently seen as a tool used by authorities to limit freedom of speech in Russia.

On July 12, two prominent Moscow art curators were sentenced to heavy fines for staging an art exhibit that angered radical Orthodox groups and the Russian Orthodox Church.

YouTube Banned in Russia Over Racist Video

29.07.2010

A court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia has demanded a Russian ISP block access to YouTube because the site hosted ‘Russia for Russians,’ which was judged to be an extremist video.

The court’s decision also applies to the Internet Archive and three online libraries, Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru, all of which were found to host writings by Adolf Hitler.

With this ruling, Russian authorities join a long list of governments that have blocked access to YouTube (YouTube) at some point or another, including China, Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. YouTube material has also been censored in the U.S. and U.K.

Generally, these bans are instituted because the videos on the popular hosting site show something a government would rather its citizens not see, from state police brutality at a protest to unflattering depictions of its leadership to ‘immoral’ or sexual content.

However, this particular ruling stems less from a desire to protect a country’s internal PR and more from a desire to keep Russian media — including citizen-generated and social media — free from the possibly harmful influences of ultranationalist, racist and xenophobic speech. The phrase ‘Russia for Russians’ itself is a slogan of hatred used against the multi-ethnic society that exists in Russia today, and searching for the phrase ‘Россия для русских’ on YouTube will return a number of disturbing videos typical of the white nationalist movement around the world.

But intentions aside, this ruling still constitutes what many other governments would consider a prohibition or restriction of free speech.

The owner of Rosnet, the ISP affected by today’s decision, is Aleksandr Ermakov. He spoke to media today, saying essentially that the court had thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

‘All of mankind is using this website. And providers like ours do not violate Russian law. But we are still being forced to close the website so that our users can not log on and watch the videos. This is absurd! According to this logic, we have to demolish all buildings that have swastikas on the walls. Or when two people are discussing a bomb over the phone, we have to take away the phones from all people across Russia.’

More on Rosnet’s legal position can be found at this website.

Moreover, a Google (Google) rep told the Moscow Times, ‘To limit access of Rosnet users to the whole YouTube.com site, not to a particular video, breaches the right for freedom of information, guaranteed by Article 29 of Russia’s Constitution.’

Written by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Associate Professor, Human Rights Law Research Center, Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University, and Director of Cyber-Rights.Org. (lawya@cyber-rights.org)

Published also by Index on Censorship on 29.07.2010

Internet censorship is alive and kicking in Turkey with at least 5.000 websites currently being blocked from the country. Some commentators estimate that number to be around 8.000 while the official blocking statistics are currently being kept secret by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TIB).

While YouTube is the most well known example, several websites are blocked for political reasons (including leftist, and pro-Kurdish news websites) outside the scope of the current law. As was documented by a January 2010 Report of the OSCE on Turkey and Internet Censorship news sites such as Atilim, Özgür Gündem, Keditör, Günlük Gazetesi, and Firat News Agency are blocked indefinitely by the courts. The website of El Mundo, a Spanish newspaper is also currently blocked from Turkey because of a single video clip deemed to be illegal.

In June 2010 the situation in terms of Internet censorship has moved from bad to worse in Turkey as 44 IP addresses jointly used by YouTube and Google were initially blocked by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency, and then by the Ankara’s 1st Criminal Court of Peace. The reason behind the IP address blocking was to make it even harder to access YouTube from Turkey (which was already blocked since May 2008) but the IP blocking paralyzed access to numerous Google related services such as Analytics, Translate, Docs, Books, Map, and Earth. The author of this article together with a fellow academic, Dr. Kerem Altiparmak appealed against the decision of the Court arguing that the blocking of Google related services had no legal basis, remains unlawful, and is regarded as a serious infringement on freedom of speech, and too far-reaching than reasonably necessary in a democratic society. That appeal has been dismissed by the Court and the decision of the Court is final. Having exhausted all the available national remedies an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights is imminent.

So, we marched to protest…
Internet users are known to be glued to their computers and their keyboards, and so far protests have been through Facebook groups, Twitter, and through the popular FriendFeed social network. However, a protest walk was organized by a web based organization called March Against Censorship, and the Istanbul Mayor’s Office was notified by EMO – The Chamber of Electrical Engineers. The whole protest march was organized in less than 10 days but there was lot of media coverage prior to the protest, and social media platforms were extensively used to raise the profile of the event.

Despite it was a weekend day, and really hot, approximately 2000 persons marched against government censorship of the Internet on Saturday, the 17th of July, 2010. The first ever protest march involving Internet censorship started in the popular Taksim Square while the protestors carried a banner that stated “Censorship-free Internet”.

The main placard carried by the protestors read: “Censorship-free Internet”

The one hour long march included demonstrators from several civil society organizations, and Internet groups including Cyber-Rights.Org.TR (run by the author of this article), Young Civilians, ‘Sansüre Sansür’ (Censor Censorship), ‘Sansüre Karşı Ortak Platform’ (Joint Platform against Censorship), the satirical Penguen Magazine, Turkish Netizen movement, and INETD – the Internet Technologies Association. Demonstrators had whistles, portable music systems and tambourines.

Several exciting banners coloured the march including “Do not click on our freedom,” “Censorship protects you from the truth,” “Do not touch my porn”, “This placard has been banned by a court order”, “Say no to censorship on political websites,” and “Censorship offends me”.

The anti-censorship protest march ended in the Galatasaray square with a press declaration that called for the abolishment of Law No. 5651 entitled Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Suppression of Crimes Committed by means of Such Publication which forms the basis of the Turkish Internet Censorship Infrastructure.

The demonstrators demanded unrestricted Internet access from the government in the name of freedom of speech and freedom of information. The members of the Joint Platform against Censorship announced that there will be several protest events including marches at the capital city of Ankara, and in Izmir, the third biggest city in Turkey. It remains to be seen whether the government will listen but certainly the users raised their voice, this time in the streets rather than in front of their keyboards.

Political Economy – Morning briefing: China says Google will obey censorship laws, Britain’s deficit shrinks slightly: “China says Google will obey censorship laws, Britain’s deficit shrinks slightly

By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post, 20.07.2010

*China said Tuesday that Google’s license to operate in the country had been renewed after the company pledged to obey censorship laws.

The remarks were Beijing’s first comments about Google since the search giant shocked the Internet world in January with the announcement that it would end four years of self-censorship and pull out of the country entirely after alleged intrusions into its network by hackers.

In March, Google raised the stakes in its censorship row with China by shutting down its search service in the mainland and redirecting searches to Hong Kong, which is semi-autonomous and enjoys greater freedom of speech.

Zhang Feng, an official with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at a news conference on Tuesday that Google had promised to ‘obey Chinese law’ and avoid linking to material deemed a threat to national security or social stability.

Zhang also talked about Google’s planned ‘rectification and reform,’ referring to the U.S. search company’s decision to stop switching users automatically to its Hong Kong search site. Instead, users arrive at a screen that allows them to click to get to Google Hong Kong. ‘The rectification and reform in the annual application basically conforms to regulation,’ Zhang said.

A Google spokeswoman would not comment directly about Zhang’s remarks but reiterated that ‘the products we are keeping on Google.cn (Music, Translate, Product Search) do not require Google to censor.’ She said Web search is being offered from Google.com.hk without censorship.

‘There is no censorship being done by Google on either domain,’ she said.”

(Via .)

BBC News – Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for ‘blasphemy’: “Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for ‘blasphemy’

25.06.2010

Google website – file Pakistan says the main website will be unaffected

Pakistan will start monitoring seven major websites, including Google and Yahoo, for content it deems offensive to Muslims.

YouTube, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail and Bing will also come under scrutiny, while 17 less well-known sites will be blocked.

Officials will monitor the sites and block links deemed inappropriate.

In May, Pakistan banned access to Facebook after the social network hosted a ‘blasphemous’ competition to draw the prophet Muhammad.

The new action will see Pakistani authorities monitor content published on the seven sites, blocking individual pages if content is judged to be offensive.

Telecoms official Khurram Mehran said links would be blocked without disturbing the main website.
Cartoon controversy

The ban on Facebook was lifted after about two weeks, when the site blocked access to the page, called Everybody Draw Muhammad.
Protesters condemn a page of Facebook – May 2010 The Draw Muhammad page on Facebook sparked protests in Pakistan

Facebook itself is not on the new list of websites to be monitored. A number of links from YouTube will be blocked but not the main site itself.

Many Muslims regard depictions of Muhammad, even favourable ones, as blasphemous.

In 2007, the government banned YouTube, allegedly to block material offensive to the government of Pervez Musharraf.

The action led to widespread disruption of access to the site for several hours. The ban was later lifted.

Approximately 2000 persons marched against government censorship of the Internet on Saturday, the 17th of July, 2010. The protest march started in the popular Taksim Square and ended in the Galatasaray square with a press declaration that called for the abolishment of Law No. 5651 which forms the basis of the Turkish Internet Censorship Infrastructure.

I was on the frontline with fellow civil society representatives and the participation to the protest was better than we expected. Media presence was also brilliant and both local and international press representatives followed the protest march. (Dr. Yaman Akdeniz)