free speech

Google is struggling with governments all over the world to remove Internet censorship and the fight is going worse, said Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of the company. Schmidt noted he fears his own colleagues faced mounting danger of occasional arrest and torture.

As rebels and revolutionaries in Arabian countries such as Egypt and Tunisia used the Internet to communicate with each other and support their move, governments in many other sates focused more closely on restricting access to the worldwide web like they did with the television.

Sina, a top Chinese microblog, has blocked searches for such words as “Hillary Clinton” and “Hillary” in the Chinese language so as to prevent the country population from reading the content which is sensitive for the Beijing. The restriction comes several days after US State Secretary gave a speech urging governments to end Internet censorship.

The page resulting to the search query explains: "In accordance with the relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search result did not display.”

Hillary Clinton spoke at George Washington University to address Internet Freedom’ and ways that the U.S. can ensure free internet access around the world. The speech was related to the measures taken by Egypt over the past weeks to restrict access in the country as many protestants were communicating to the world via Facebook and Twitter.

Due to the events in Egypt the projected bill to allow the US President powers to shut down the Internet will unlikely have chances for adoption. The supporters and advocates of the bill wanted to protect US interests from cyber attacks while opponents claimed it would hurt free speech principles.

As is known during Egyptian protests the country president shut down the Internet so as to prevent organization efforts of anti-government protesters. Now the Internet is connected again.

Wednesday the websites of the giant credit card networks MasterCard and Visa came under intense cyber attack by supporters of WikiLeaks in revenge for the massive international move against Julian Assange after he released U.S. diplomatic cables that angered and embarrassed Washington.

Expressing your discontent with any company online may end up with a lawsuit launched against you over the spoiled reputation and losses suffered by the business you have allegedly abused with your post.

On Monday Venezuelan officials confirmed that the government is not planning to censor the Internet and shut down social networks such as Twitter and Facebook in the country. Concerns over the potential censorship that takes place in Cuba, Iran and China arose after President Hugo Chavez called for regulation of the Internet.

A new survey conducted for the BBC World Service revealed that 4 out of 5 adults think access to the Internet is a fundamental right. The survey polled 27,000 adults in 26 countries and showed 78% of users believed the Web gave them greater freedom and 9 in 10 said it was a good place to learn.

The poll further shows that users in the United States are above the average in believing the Internet is for greater freedom and they are also more confident than most in expressing their opinions online.

 In his speech delivered during town hall meeting in Shanghai on Monday the US President Barack Obama encouraged China to abate the government censorship and strengthen free speech on the Internet. While we have already reported the news yesterday the interesting point about it is that the national authorities in the Celestial Empire unsurprisingly showed their commitment to the usual repertoire by again censoring the US leader’s words on their local media. Only one channel in China delivered the live speech without any cuts.