In their ‘plan for real action to protect Australian Families Online‘, the Liberals contend that an Internet filter would give parents “a false sense of security when it comes to the safety and wellbeing of their children” and that “the best protection parents can give children is guidance about appropriate internet usage and the dangers that can arise from inappropriate usage”. Furthermore, they argue that the filter would be easy to circumvent via via proxy networks and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).

Internet filtering will, however, not be completely out of the picture when the Liberal-National Coalition wins the upcoming elections. The Liberals do propose a filtering plan of their own: voluntary PC-Based Internet filtering software, which will be provided for free to all Australian families. “PC-based filters are much more dynamic and can assess a wider range of content than a static ISP level filter. They are increasingly easy to use, so that with the right technical support, parents can take control of their family’s Internet use”, say the Liberals in their plan.

In opposing mandatory filter plans, the Liberals join other parties that have long been opposed to this measure. ”The Australian Greens have welcomed the Coalition’s announcement that it will not back the ALP’s proposed internet filter, effectively drawing a line under the hugely unpopular plan”, wrote the Green communications spokesman, Senator Scott Ludlam.

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It is not shocking then to suspect that nations which see Wikileaks as threat to national security may try to censor them through digital means. Our reports here at Herdict show a definite, sharp rise in the reporting of inaccessibility for the site immediately after the documents were released. Then, as the graph below shows, there has been a substantial increase in reporting activity continuing thereafter.

Considering that in a recent press conference, the U.S. Department of Defense suggested that it may take some sort of action against Wikileaks (hypothesized that it may invoke a “clear and present danger” argument to challenge Wikileaks’ first amendment rights), the Herdict admins have been following the situation closely to see what happens with accessibility to the site worldwide.

Help the global community monitor the state of accessibility for Wikileaks by using the Herdictreporter or by reporting through Twitter @herdictreport.

Check back for more updates as the situation develops.

Following the recent controversial showdown between the Chinese government and Google that ended with China renewing Google’s operating license, the possibility of this type of possible retaliation from China caught many off guard. Again, Google has not confirmed if this is merely a technical issues or censorship by the Chinese government, but it has all parties on edge to see what will evolve from the current situation.

Google Mainland China Service Availability

If you are in China and can report on the accessibility of any Google services, please use our reporter or tweet us @herdictreport with “china” “www.google.cn” and either “up” or “down”.

We here at Herdict have been keeping a close eye on worldwide accessibility reporting for Wikileaks, and our reports so far show that there has been a definitely spike in inaccessibility for the site. While it is unconfirmed if these are actual government blockages of the content, or if there has simply been server-side errors do to the high demand for the information, this increase in reported inaccessibility is always something to take seriously.

We strongly encourage you to user the Herdict reporter and help contribute to this real-time mapping of Internet accessibility and censorship.

In total, a Prosecutor for the city of Komsomolsk-na-Amure sought 5 websites to be blocked by court order on the local ISP, ROSNET.
lib.rus.ec
zhurnal.ru
thelib.ru
web.archive.org
YouTube.com

Although the ISP used a “common carrier” argument, saying that the sites themselves were not responsible for the content created or uploaded by their users (a la section 230 of the CDA here in the US ), the court ruled in favor of the Prosecutor and forced the ISP to block the sites. Allegedly, the first four mentioned sites had copies of “Mein Kampf” and on YouTube the video “Russia for Russians”. The court considered all of these materials to be “extremist materials” and thus ordered the IP blocks to prevent access. Further note that the fourth listed site is the popular “WayBack Machine” that simply caches older versions of websites in a library database.

While the Russian government has engaged in some small-scale censorship activities in recent years, mostly citing “extremist materials” as being the target of their censorship or filtration orders, this ruling has to be one of their most naive and messy attempts at keeping content out of citizens’ hands. None of the sites were specifically hosting the targeted materials for overall political poignancy, but rather each site has a large amount (vast majority of data) that is in no way subject to the Russian classification of “extremist materials”. By blocking these sites, substantial quantities of free expression have been hindered.

If you are in Russia and want to help spread the word, go to our reporter for Russia and test out the websites. You can also report to use via Twitter @herdictreport.

Physical protests of Internet policy are really a never-before-seen occurance, even with all the twists and turns of cyberspace regulation that have occurred in the past decade. While the protests thankfully remained peaceful, they drove home a strong point of disapproval to the Turkish government that will hopefully be heard and acknowledged.

The direct law in question is number 5651 which is the foundation for Turkish Internet censorship policy. This law has been a launching point for a concerning increase in censorship in the past few years. From the initial ban of YouTube in 2007 all the way through the wide-spread IP blocking that crippled Google services in Turkey, politicians have used this law as a crutch to support any claim trying to limit Internet access for Turkish citizens.

This is not the first time though that this law has been met with challenges from within Turkey. Earlier this summer, hackers launched an Internet attack against some government websites that represented the organizations responsible for the censorship. The most shocking protest was actually just before that, when the President of Turkey himself Tweeted his disapproval of the ways that Turkey was censoring the net.

Photo: CyberLaw Blog

This rise in frequency of protests for Turkey is really unexpected and nothing quite like it has yet happened in other nations who practice Internet censorship. There is substantial hope that this increase in the vocalization of dislike towards the current policies will incite some change and that other nations with similar policies will start to experience similar responses from their citizens. Whether or not this most recent protest will catalyze change in Turkey is unclear, but the Turkish government needs to take this historic event seriously unless it wants to see its people get even angrier and take more rash means of protest. As it stands though, the people of Turkey deserve substantial respect for their ability to continue to peacefully yet firmly express their anger through protest and we can only hope that the government becomes more realistic with its views on censoring the web.

In October 2009, a Dutch court had already ordered the Pirate Bay to stop offering its torrent downloads to people in the Netherlands. The torrent website, however, never complied with that Dutch court ruling. Unable to stop the Pirate Bay at the source, BREIN then set sights on Dutch ISP Ziggo.

BREIN argued that Ziggo’s services were used by third parties to infringe on copyrights. Under Dutch law it is possible to have a claim against an online intermediary that provides services that are used to infringe copyrights. However, to successfully make such a claim, BREIN had to prove that Ziggo’s services were actually used to infringe copyrights. BREIN brought forward that 27% of all Ziggo subscribers download and upload copyrighted works via the Pirate Bay.

In its interlocutory judgment the Dutch Court of First Instance held that this was not enough, as there was no majority of Ziggo users downloading and uploading copyrighted works. Furthermore, the court held that blocking the Pirate Bay was not a proportional measure. BREIN could have also asked Ziggo to release personal data of certain infringers so that BREIN could target these individual users.

BREIN announced that it will appeal the decision.

It appears as if the US has shut down a server that hosted around 73,000 blogs due to copyright concerns. The site, blogetery.com, has a message up saying that they are “trying to resolve the situation” even thought it seems likely that the U.S. may not be thrilled with that happening.

Try to access the site and report to Herdict through our reporter or through Twitter @herdictreport with the country, www.site, and up/down. If your blog was affected by this, we’d love to hear back from you as well!