Friday, July 13, 2012

Russia approved Internet censure

Under the pretext of "combating pornography and violence" Russia increases government control over the Internet. Several websites have joined in protest.

The Russian Parliament approved unanimously a draft law allowing the government to control the content posted on the Internet.

The bill, designed to combat child pornography, promotion of drugs abuse and youth suicide, now hopes the signing of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The opposition fears that this measure is only the beginning of something similar to what is already happening in China, where there is a closed control that blocks access to several other sites like YouTube.

Russians websites fear "great firewall of China"

Faced with protests, Parliament took into account some of the concerns of critics of this new legislation and withdrew more vague language that would make the authorities' interpretation of what is or is not considered "inappropriate content".

Even so, some of the most popular Russian websites have joined in protest. The search engine Yandex, the blogging platform "LiveJournal" Russian version of Wikipedia and closed access to their pages.

With the temporary closing of the initiative, the sites they wanted to alert you to what will be the "creation of the Russian version of the great firewall of China", as one can read in the press left on the Russian front page of Wikipedia, has now reopened to the public.

China censors "anti-party" and "anti-society" content

In China, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said this week, in a statement, which will enter into force new rules on censorship to broadcast videos online.

Censorship will be reflected in a previous screening that will delete any content deemed unsuitable by the authorities.

Like Russia, and consistent with what has already happened, China has justified the measure on behalf of the fight against pornography, violence, pedophilia, drug use and other content deemed objectionable.

In a statement issued by SARFT, there is no definition of what is considered inappropriate or objectionable, and may pave the way for free agency in the selection of content.

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