Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Initiative 2009b ). The other end of this censorship spectrum is South Africa, which
has negligible government interference in cyberspace. Most African states fall in
between these poles. In Kenya, the administration used several censorship strat-
egies, such as restricting bandwidth offered to ISPs through the state-owned
internet backbone and demanding that ISPs turn over their subscriber lists (Africa
ICT Policy Monitor 2006 ). In 2000, the Communications Commission of Kenya
ordered the closure of the month-old Kenya Internet Exchange Point, ostensibly on
the grounds of preventing its use by 'terrorists' but more likely because it infringed
upon Telkom Kenya's monopoly. Zimbabwe's government issued numerous laws
to limit freedom of expression of the media, including the Broadcasting Services
Act, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Commercialisation Act, and the
Public Order and Security Act (POSA). Its Monitoring and Interception of
Communications Centre may compel ISPs to install software to intercept infor-
mation deemed necessary by the state (Burnett 2005 ). The government also blocks
certain websites using legislation such as POSA: For example, the website of the
Movement for Democratic Change ( www.mdczimbabwe.com ) has been shut down
a number of times ( http://www.privacyinternational.org ) .
3.2.8 Latin America
Latin American Internet censorship is typically less egregious than that found in
other parts of the world. The region's most restrictive policies by far are found in
Cuba, where internet and e-mail access is jealously guarded by the government,
which controls the country's only internet gateway and four national ISPs (Kalathil
and Boas 2001 ). In 1996, the Cuban Executive Council of Ministers initiated
Decree Law 209, which governed internet access in that country. With six com-
peting ministries vying for control, however, it proved to be bureaucratically
unfeasible, and in 2000 censorship authority was passed to the Ministry of
Computing and Communications. Faced with high prices of computer equipment,
partly due to the long standing U.S. trade embargo, Cuba has rejected a market-led
model of internet development in favor of a collective, government-led one that
emphasizes institutions, not individuals. As a result, ''individual access to the
Internet has been essentially prohibited'' (Kalathil and Boas 2003 , p. 55). Com-
mercial ISPs are allowed to provide individual accounts only to people who have
obtained sponsorship from government agencies. Until recently, all internet
accounts had to be registered through the National Center for Automated Data
Exchange at the cost of $260 a month (the average Cuban makes $240 per year).
Relaxation of this restriction in 2006 helped to fuel the boom in Cuban internet
access, which now includes about 14 % of the population. Nonetheless, differential
pricing ensures that access to the nation's intranet remains considerably cheaper
than international networks. Access to internet cafes with international connec-
tions must be paid for in U.S. dollars, which are scarce among Cubans.
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