Thank you Sibal! We are now enemies of the Internet

In an annual report on cyber-censorhip, freedom of information group Reporters without Borders have placed India ‘under surveillance’ for its increased efforts to monitor internet activity.

The report said that India is one of a number of countries trying to pressure private internet companies to engage in surveillance and censorship. Referring to Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal's calls for social media companies to pre-moderate material that might offend religious groups, the report said:

“The authorities there are trying to persuade them to provide a preview of content so that anything ‘shocking’ or liable to provoke sectarian strife can be eliminated.”

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The report attributes stepped up internet surveillance in India down to national security policy and increased efforts to monitor the Internet after the 2008 bombings in Mumbai.

Western countries ‘under surveillance’ too

India is simply ‘under surveillance’, meaning that Reporters without Borders is monitoring whether these increased efforts lead to outright censorship.

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Some countries were removed from the list after fears of stricter internet controls didn’t materialise. Venezuela passed legislation last year that could have restricted internet freedom, but thus far, Reporters without Borders has not found evidence of it, and has removed the South American country from the ‘under surveillance’ list.

Some of the countries under surveillance come as no surprise; for example Russia, which has seen protests against Vladimir Putin returning as president.Russia has long been slipping from democracy back towards autocracy, and the report cited arrests of bloggers and other internet users in an effort to stifle debate as part of this ongoing erosion of democracy.

However, some western democracies are also on the ‘under surveillance’ list including Australia, which has rolled out a highly contentious content filtering system. France is listed because of its “three-strikes” policy that could see people have their internet access cut off if they are accused of illegally downloading copyrighted content.

Although not under surveillance, the UK came in for criticism because of politicians’ calls to shut down social media sites in the wake of the riots last August. The US was censured because of its treatment of WikiLeaks, and the report accused the US government of “(u)sing Visa and MasterCard to cut off its access to funds”.

‘Enemies of the Internet’

The report also listed ‘Enemies of the Internet’, countries that not only censor the Internet but also intimidate, detain or even torture those who use the internet to campaign for human rights or political reforms.

China, Syria and Iran have long been on the list for the controls the countries place on the internet and also the level of real world pressure placed upon activists who use the internet.

Despite the triumph of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, with decades-long dictatorships being toppled in North Africa, Bahrain and Syria, the last two on the list have used not only censorship but also torture to silence their online critics, the report alleged.

Syria and China were also two of the countries singled out for their sophisticated use of propaganda to counter critics. The Chinese government has hired bloggers known as “50 cents” to post propaganda messages in comment threads and in the burgeoning micro-blogging services in China, known collectively as weibo.

In Syria, the government’s cyber-army has attempted to spread misinformation via #Syria on Twitter, directing people to sports results or tourist photos of the country, the report said. The cyber-army also monitors dissidents’ use of social networks and, like the 50 cents in China, flood opposition websites with pro-regime messages.

Pakistan isn’t on the list but the group cautioned the country not to proceed with efforts to create a “ national internet filtering and blocking system”. Reporters without Borders said, “If they go ahead, Pakistan could be added to the Enemies of the Internet in 2013.”