Russia's Chinese Wall to Block the Internet
By Leonid Bershidsky Jul 11, 2012 11:31 AM CT
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On July 10, the Russian-language Wikipedia greeted its millions of users with a largely blank page and a message asking them to “imagine a world without free knowledge.” The impetus for the web site's one-day protest: Russia's leaders are moving toward the creation of a "great firewall," along Chinese lines, to limit what the country's Internet users can see and read.
The next day, the lower house of Russia's parliament passed a bill that, while ostensibly aimed at protecting children from information that could be “harmful to their health and development,” allows broad censorship of the Internet. It sets up an official roster of websites containing forbidden information, including child pornography, “propaganda of drug use,” information that “may cause children to undertake actions threatening their life or health” or “any other information banned by court decisions.”
The government is supposed to contract a Russian organization, to be named later, to compile the roster of banned websites. The only way to appeal inclusion in the roster will be to go to the courts, which are notoriously loyal to the Kremlin. “Unfortunately, the practice of Russian law enforcement suggests a high probability of the worst-case scenario,” protested the blog service LiveJournal, which provides a platform for a host of opposition activists.
President Vladimir Putin's own increasingly liberal Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights denounced the bill: “Many Internet resources with legal content may suffer from mass blockage since the system introduces tough restrictions on the basis of subjective criteria and judgments.”
more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-11/russia-starts-building-chinese-wall-to-block-internet.html
