Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
categories of prohibited websites exist, including those that insult Islam, promote
national discord, pornography, and immoral behavior. In 2006, all websites and
blogs were required to obtain licenses from the Ministry of Islamic Culture and
Guidance or risked being declared illegal. Also in 2006, the government outlawed
internet connections faster than 128 kbps, entailing stiff resistance from business
leaders. The government's surveillance of dissidents was abetted by purchases of
European spy technology from Siemens and Nokia (Rhoads and Chao
2009
),
particularly a technique called deep packet inspection, which allows authorities not
only to block email and Internet telephony but to identify users' names. Foreign
spyware have now been complemented by domestically produced versions
(OpenNet Initiative
2009a
). In 2009, in the face of massive anti-government
protests—themselves organized through social networking channels—the Iranian
regime cracked down yet again, imprisoning dozens of dissenting bloggers under
the aegis of Tehran Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi.
However, Iran has found internet censorship increasingly difficult to administer.
During the 2009 crackdown, for example, amateur videos of government attacks
on demonstrations circulated virally on the Web. In response, the government
slowed down the maximum transmission rates on its internet backbones, making
traffic in videos slow and difficult. Using free, downloadable software to cir-
cumvent government filters called Freegate and Ultrasurf, which were developed
by China's Falun Gong (Lake
2009
), Iranian protestors repeatedly resisted gov-
ernment controls over cyberspace at critical political moments. Some observers
argue that the internet has ''certainly broken 30 years of state control over what is
seen and is unseen, what is visible versus invisible'' (Stelter and stone
2009
).
Turkey briefly blocked a YouTube site that insulted the founder of the modern
Turkish state, Kemal Ataturk. In 2000, the Ministry of the Interior barred internet
cafes from allowing access to websites that espoused anti-secularist (i.e., Islami-
cist) or Kurdish nationalist views. In 2007, after the Turkish parliament passed
legislation regulating internet access there in less than one hour of debate, the
number of websites blocked in the country immediately jumped from zero to 2,600
(Anderson
2009
).
3.2.7 Subsaharan Africa
In Subsaharan Africa, minuscule internet penetration rates and an enfeebled civil
opposition have done little to curtail censorship efforts. Resisting the global tide of
neoliberal deregulation and privatization that has washed over telecommunications
markets worldwide, many African governments have retained state monopolies
over information services. Levels of censorship vary widely across the continent,
of course. At one extreme is Sudan, where internet usage is almost entirely con-
centrated in Khartoum, the government openly boasts of censorship; the govern-
ment's telecommunications monopoly, Sudatel, was blacklisted by the United
States as part of a broader strategy to resolve the violence in Darfur (OpenNet
