Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
against restrictions to access. In the former Yugoslavia, internet censorship was
widespread under the government of Slobodan Milosovic in the 1990s. Cyber-
repression included: the arrest and persecution of the journalist Miroslav Filipovic,
who wrote about military human rights abuses; politically motivated tampering
with websites during the 2000 presidential elections; filtering of academic net-
works; and ordering some ISPs to close politically ''unsuitable'' websites. The
overthrow of the Milosovic regime in 2000 greatly improved that country's affairs
in this regard.
While European countries are generally relatively open in terms of internet
access, there too several governments attempt to restrict what is said in cyber-
space. Generally, however, censorship in economically developed countries
focuses more on social concerns such as pornography or intellectual property than
overt attempts to stifle political dissent. Often moves to restrict access are stren-
uously opposed by privacy advocates and some ISPs. Indeed, most attempts to
censor the government in Europe have backfired. In addition to large, mobilized
constituencies that advocate internet liberties, economic integration has reduced
European states' room to maneuver on this issue: for example, in 2008, the
European Parliament passed a proposal that treats internet censorship as a free
trade barrier. While aimed at EU trade relations with countries such as China, the
measure also limits domestic censorship.
Despite these obstacles to censorship, some European countries do engage in
mild forms of internet censorship, to widely varying degrees. Northern Europe
tends to be especially mild, with Reporters Without Borders reporting zero
interference in Scandinavia. However, in Finland, a nation widely celebrated as a
bastion of high tech democracy, when hacker Matti Nikki's website criticized
government efforts to regulate the internet, the government added it to its list of
proscribed child pornography sites, blocking access by ISPs. A Finnish gov-
ernment attempt to censor internet message boards in 2003 was met with stiff
resistance from telecommunications and media companies. In the United
Kingdom, it is illegal to look at any of a list of websites kept by the internet
Watch Foundation (Anderson
2009
). Starting in the mid-1990s, the German
government attempted to shut down foreign sites that promoted racial hatred;
more recent efforts, led by the Minister of Family Affairs, have focused on child
pornography. Similarly, in France, the government in 2000 banned Yahoo! from
allowing access to websites that promote racial hatred or sell Nazi memorabilia
or those portraying child sexual abuse. In both France and Germany it is
impossible to search for Nazi materials on-line using Google (Conway
2007
).
More recently, government officials have tracked down bloggers who insulted
them and filed intimidating legal challenges (Sayare
2009
). With some of the
world's
toughest
antipiracy
laws,
the
government
now
fines
persons
who
repeatedly download illegal material.
