Tuesday, 1 February 2011

#Egypt Blocked in China: Is Internet Access A Human Right? | ZDNet

#Egypt Blocked in China: Is Internet Access A Human Right?

By Violet Blue | January 31, 2011, 8:28pm PST

Summary

China has blocked searches for #Egypt on its State-approved, State-controlled version of Twitter.
Searches for #Egypt on Sina (with over 50 million users) returns the message, “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown.”

As we all know, to the shock and surprise of millions around the world, on January 27 Egypt [...]

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Jason Perlow

Jason Perlow
Jason Perlow is a technologist with over two decades of experience with integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies. A long-time computer enthusiast starting the age of 13 with his first Apple ][ personal computer, he began his freelance writing career starting at ZD Sm@rt Reseller in 1996 and has since authored numerous guest columns for ZDNet Enterprise and Ziff-Davis Internet. Jason was previously Senior Technology Editor for Linux Magazine, where he wrote about Open Source issues from 1999 to 2008.

In his spare time, Jason is an avid amateur chef and food writer, where his work reviewing New Jersey restaurants has appeared in The New York Times. He is also the founder of the popular food web site eGullet and blogs about restaurants and cooking at OffTheBroiler.com.

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Scott Raymond

Scott Raymond
Scott Raymond has been a technologist and system administrator for over 20 years. Starting as a hobbyist in his teens, Scott quickly learned that he could translate his passion and knowledge into a full-time career. He currently works as the lead systems administrator for a neuroscience marketing company. He has written technology articles for various publications in the past and began contributing to ZDnet as a guest blogger on Jason Perlow’s Tech Broiler. Scott and Jason met in New York in the 1990s where they co-managed the New York City Palm Pilot Users’ Group with Scott’s wife Rachel.

In his spare time, Scott is a trained chef and avid bicycling enthusiast, as well as a voracious reader of historical, science and horror fiction. He is a huge fan of pop culture, with a wide range of interest in TV shows, movies and games.

Violet Blue

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Violet Blue

Violet Blue
Violet Blue (tinynibbles.com, @violetblue) is a Forbes Web Celeb, SF Appeal contributor, a high-profile tech personality and one of Wired's Faces of Innovation. She is regarded as the foremost expert in the field of sex and technology, a sex-positive pundit in mainstream media (MacLife, Forbes.com, The Oprah Winfrey Show, others) and is regularly interviewed, quoted and featured prominently by major media outlets (from ABC News to the Wall Street Journal). A published feature writer and columnist, Violet also has many award-winning, best-selling books; her books are featured on Oprah's website. She was the notorious sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She headlines at conferences ranging from ETech, LeWeb and SXSW: Interactive, to Google Tech Talks at Google, Inc. The London Times named Blue one of the 40 bloggers who really count.

China has blocked searches for #Egypt on its State-approved, State-controlled version of Twitter.

Searches for #Egypt on Sina (with over 50 million users) returns the message, “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown.”

As we all know, to the shock and surprise of millions around the world, on January 27 Egypt pulled the plug on its citizens Internet access. Egypt is a very big place, a lot of people were effectively cut off from the outside world.

This is a frightening thing. But I don’t think may people realized just how much it would terrify them on a personal level.

Not in the I’m-afraid-I-won’t-get-my-Twitter-distraction-fix kind of way. Far from it.

We Identify With Egypt

The online sentiment is that what Egypt has done, is wrong. More and more, we want the Egyptian people to have their rights - to the Internet - back.

It is scary to think about a government denying its citizens access to the outside world. Basic access to information. Access, if needed, to cry for help and expose exploitation - remember Haiti after the earthquake?

The people of Haiti needed water, medical help, and security: they needed their basic human rights. Seeing it on the Internet, outside cable news channels in media messages powered by people, no one could deny this.

Never before have ordinary citizens with little to no means been able to show what they are seeing, and in some cases, to expose horror and abandonment by a government that fails its citizens when needed most.

Remember what happened when people defied the police state in New Orleans and brought back Internet access?

We don’t need to reflect on Internet history to know that abuse, torture, murder, and mass genocide happens when there is a communication blackout.

When Egypt shut off the Internet, people have gone wild looking for images of Egypt - what is happening there they don’t want us to see?

The obsession with how they did it became a fixation. The technical aspects were explained, but that didn’t settle the nagging feeling growing in all of us with free and unrestricted Internet access.

Which is why the hunger for understanding how to get around an Egyptian-style block is unsated.

Make a list of ways to defy an Internet blackout, and you’ve got our attention. It’s like a zombie survival handbook: we think it can’t possibly happen, but we still need to know how to survive.

We want to make sure this never happens to us.

That China is attempting an embargo on information about Egypt is not surprising to anyone. Countries that traffic and trade in human rights abuses are studying Egypt right now like it’s time to get an MBA in communication.

They are blocking #Egypt because they are scared. They should be terrified.

The top three countries that censor the Internet are North Korea (#1), China (#2) and Burma (#3). On January 14, Barney Warf, professor of geography at the University of Kansas, published a definitive study of the geography of Internet censorship. Warf cited Myanmar, Iran and North Korea as among the most severe cases of governments that censor people’s access to the Web.

In 2010 a BBC poll found that 4 out of 5 people globally believe that Internet access is a fundamental right.

Anyone want to bet we’re at 5 out of 5 now?

[Image: from The Women of Egypt Facebook Album.]

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Violet Blue is a Forbes Web Celeb, SF Appeal contributor, a high-profile tech personality and one of Wired's Faces of Innovation.

Disclosure

Violet Blue

I am currently freelancing part-time (only) for ReadWriteWeb for their general news blog and their Start (startup tools) channel; this was made in agreement that I would not write about anything that might conflict subjects in my blog (no sex content). I'm under contract to publisher Cleis Press for editing three more books (only) with the topics of women's/couples' erotica. I have been writing and editing books for Cleis Press for ten years on the subjects of erotica and human sexuality (guidebooks). I'm not under exclusive contract anywhere/to anyone/to anything, I have no investments.

Biography

Violet Blue

Violet Blue (tinynibbles.com, @violetblue) is a Forbes Web Celeb, SF Appeal contributor, a high-profile tech personality and one of Wired's Faces of Innovation. She is regarded as the foremost expert in the field of sex and technology, a sex-positive pundit in mainstream media (MacLife, Forbes.com, The Oprah Winfrey Show, others) and is regularly interviewed, quoted and featured prominently by major media outlets (from ABC News to the Wall Street Journal). A published feature writer and columnist, Violet also has many award-winning, best-selling books; her books are featured on Oprah's website. She was the notorious sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She headlines at conferences ranging from ETech, LeWeb and SXSW: Interactive, to Google Tech Talks at Google, Inc. The London Times named Blue one of the 40 bloggers who really count.

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