This isn't the first time a Moroccan internet user faces such charges. In 2008 Fouad Mourtada, a young engineer, was sentenced to three years in prison for impersonating the king’s brother on Facebook. An international outcry and a campaign of support forced the authorities to release Mr Mourtada a month after his arrest.

Walid Bahomane's arrest is the first since a constitutional reform last summer (theoretically) revoked the “sacred” character of the monarch. The king is still, however, the focus of a great deal of devotion in the country.

A copy of the police report filed against Mr Bahomane emerged on the internet, revealing a first: according to the document, items seized by the police are “two Facebook pages (sic) containing phrases and images insulting the sacred values, and an IBM computer.​​”

Copy of the police report filed against Mr. Walid Bahomane as posted on Facebook.

Despite calls for his release the judge decided to send Walid to a juvenile detention facility near the capital pending his trial. A group of netizens have reacted to the arrest of Mr Bahomane by creating a support group on Facebook called “Mohammed VI, my freedom is more sacred than you!“, where members are invited to publish and share cartoons of the king.

Cartoon representing king Mohammed VI posted on Facebook

The group's preamble reads [ar]:

هذه مجموعة تضامنية مع الشاب وليد بحمان، 18 سنة، معتقل بسجن الأحداث بسلا بتهمة إهانة قداسة محمد السادس على الفيسبوك. فلنثبت لمحمد السادس أن حريتنا أقدس منه

Zineb El Ghazoui, a co-creator of the group, writes on her blog [fr]:

[cette arrestation bat] en brèche la propagande de l'Etat marocain autour du changement et des prétendues avancées démocratiques.

On Twitter, some are timidly following suit. Musique Arabe tweets [fr]:

@MusiqueArabe Opération soutien à Walid Bahomane - publions tous sur nos profils la caricature de notre choix.

Despite the recent constitutional reforms in Morocco the regime does not seem prepared to tolerate any violation of its red lines. In July 2011, a few days after the adoption of the new constitution, a French newspaper, Le Courrier International, was censored [fr] in Morocco because it contained an irreverent caricature of the king.

The independent press has often suffered the wrath of the regime when it dared tackle the sensitive subject of the monarchy. So much so that the Internet seems today the last frontier where most Moroccans can still exercise their right to free expression.

Something Moroccan netizens seem to be fully aware of. Inspired by the Arab spring, they seem determined to close ranks and show solidarity with Mr Bahomane.

As a result, exercising censorship will be even more difficult for the regime.

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Most of this report was researched and written by Weiping Li and Mera Szendro Bok, and edited by Sarah Myers.

In the past few weeks, we have witnessed how Internet companies -  the sovereigns of cyberspace - struggle with the conflict between market demands for global expansion and the demands of their users for freedom of expression online. A mark of its rise in global prominence, Twitter announced a decision to block tweets in certain countries to comply with local laws, and Google’s Blogger said that the service is going to restrict content in some countries by redirecting readers to country-specific domains.

Although both companies defended their decisions by pointing out that the transparency of the new policies actually promote free speech and all for continued flow of information in countries where the Internet is controlled, they have triggered fury among netizens who organized protests online. Among the protesters is Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who said he would stop tweeting if Twitter begins censoring. An article in techdirt lamented the possible end of global Internet if other Internet companies follow Blogger and Twitter’s steps to censor content country-by-country.

However, Twitter’s move did receive praise not only from the countries which restrict content, but also from activists who defend free speech. Unsurprisingly, Thailand and China welcomed the decision. Standing on the other side of the spectrum of free speech, Jillian York and Mike Masnick also acknowledged the companies’ efforts to be transparent and to provide users in restrictive online environments ways to skirt the blocks.

Twitter and Blogger are not the first and will not be the last Internet companies practicing geolocational content blockades. As netizens concerned about the fate of Internet freedom, we will keep watching the trend closely and make sure they still stick to the baseline, just as Eva Galperin has suggested.

Below are other trends and stories for the fortnight that you may want to dig into:

Censorship

As mentioned previously, there has been an increased trend in Internet companies complying with the demands and laws of governments in certain countries. The latest example is Facebook's and Google's removal of content deemed “offensive” to comply with an Indian court’s order. At a recent Media Access Project event, Google's Bob Boorstin pointed to India, Korea and Brazil as critical countries in the battle over internet freedom.

In an Index on Censorship interview, Moez Chakchouk, the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) chief, discussed how the agency’s role has been transformed from a censorship instrument to a unit which maintains “network neutrality”. The chief also talked about how they are handling censorship machinery passed on from the past regime, and their relationships with the foreign companies whose equipment facilitated the former regime’s censorship.

Faced with criticism for censoring the word “Palestine” in a late-night music show, BBC maintains that it was the right decision, and has insisted that it was improper to express a one-sided political viewpoint during a music show.

Over the past two weeks, several Tibetan blogs have been shut down during fierce protests by the Tibetan people against Chinese rule. Meanwhile, according to a Guardian report, the Chinese government has cut off Internet and phone connections in areas of unrest in Sichuan province.

Also in China, the microblog real-name registration system has resulted in protests over the freedom of speech: several famous Chinese intellectuals who are renowned for their outspoken criticism of the Chinese government closed their Sina microblog accounts because of the tightened controls.

A piece from On the Media reveals the redactions made to Wikileaks documents by the US government in a comparison between the published versions and those recently obtained by the ACLU in a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request.

Surveillance

U.S. congressman Edward Markey proposed a bill to tackle the issue of mobile phone surveillance. According to the draft of the bill, mobile companies should inform consumers that the devices they provide are installed with software like CarrierIQ, which tracks users’ activities on smartphones, and should obtain consumers’ consent before they start monitoring.

A piece by Malicia Rogue on the Global Voices Advocacy blog traces out FBI indicators for terrorism online. According to FBI documents, “attempts to shield the screen from view of others”, or “use of anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address”, show evidence of terrorist activity that should arouse suspicion among FBI officials.

Hawaii’s House of Representatives introduced a bill to require Internet service providers to keep record of customers’ information and Internet destination history information, such as IP addresses and domain names for two years. Not surprisingly, the bill has attracted plenty of criticism and some lawmakers have already decided to back away from the legislation.

Thuggery

Park Jeonggeun, a South Korean activist, was charged with “helping the enemy” and violating South Korea’s National Security Law. The charges were issues for re-tweeting the message “long live Kim Jong-il” from North Korea’s official Twitter account, with the intent to ridicule North Korean leaders.

What are the plights that the journalists face in Iran? Who are the journalists detained in jail? A new Iranian website is dedicated to covering these issues. Though most of the articles are written in Farsi, some of them have been translated into English and are a good insight into issues from the Iranian perspective.

Netizen activism

The online community Reddit played an important role in the anti-SOPA/PIPA protest. Now the community is exploring the possibility of creating a bill together to fight against any future interference with Internet freedom.

Equipped with the power of social media, Africa’s oldest community radio station not only connects more closely with its audience, but also gains the wide support to show the financial backers the reasons to keep the station running.

Once again social media has brought together people around the world to protest against the massacres in Syria. Activists are spreading news through Twitter and Facebook, asking people to protest outside of the Syrian embassies. Many Syrian people answered the call and expressed their anger outside the embassies in Kuwait, London, Berlin and Washington D.C.

National Policy

According to the Akamai State of the Internet report for the third quarter of 2011, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan are ahead of other countries in broadband adoption, while China and India lag behind.

UK media reported that North Korea has prohibited its people from using mobile phones during the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-il for fear of spurring discontent toward the government.

Sovereigns of Cyberspace

Facebook’s filing for an IPO hit the headlines on February 1st. The IPO is not only a big event for the global market, but also has important implications for human rights and privacy issues on the global social network. Elisa Massimino, the CEO of Human Rights First, explains the importance of Facebook's mega-IPO from the human rights viewpoint . An article in Ars Technica also pointed out that Facebook going public means that cases of inquiry and investigations of Facebook led by the FTC and attorney general, which in the past would be kept private, will now be public.

Google’s new privacy policy consolidating users’ personal information across its services goes live on March 1st, and has instigated serious concerns over customers’ privacy. For users, this means that Google may make predictions about your age and preferences, which they provide to ad companies.

For the past two weeks, Google has been busy clarifying “myths” about its new privacy policy. It also responded to Congress’ question in a 13 page letter and guaranteed “the new privacy policy will not change how Google archives or deletes user data”.

Meg Roggensack, Senior Advisor for Business and Human Rights at Human Rights First examined the responsibility of private telecom companies in an authoritarian regime.

Google has proposed a number of Internet standards changes to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which is the transport layer protocol used by applications that require guaranteed delivery of data.

Copyright

After 22 European countries signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), anti-ACTA protests prevailed in Europe. In the last weekend of January, protestors in the Czech Republic, Belgium, Ireland, UK and France took to the streets to protest against the agreement. Hackers battled on the Internet to express their discontent - however a piece by Timothy B. Lee in ars technica overviews accurate and inaccurate claims made about the treaty on both sides.

The protests online have proven successful in Europe: the European Parliament's rapporteur for ACTA resigned and criticized the negotiation process, and the Polish parliamentarians wore Guy Fawkes masks to show their opposition. The Slovenian ambassador apologized publicly for signing the agreement and Prime Minister of Poland has also suspended the ratification on the agreement. Most recently, the Czech government suspended its ratification of the treaty.

A note from European Parliament member Marietje Schaake outlines actions that citizens can take in opposition to the treaty.

Rashmi Rangnath wrote a piece on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which would also have implications for free speech online, available at Public Knowledge.

According to news reports, the data saved at Megaupload may be deleted. The file-hosting service was charged with illegal file-sharing and  its assets have been seized by the U.S. government for investigation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent a letter to the Eastern Virginia office and to lawyers for Megaupload, asking them to retain the data for innocent users. In Europe, the Pirate Party of Catalonia is also planning to sue the U.S. FBI in a Spanish court for legitimate users.

Being concerned about the personal security of the officials, prosecutors, and their family members, the U.S. government decided not to reveal the names who are investigating the Megaupload case in the press release and public statement. The government officials said that there is a great possibility that hackers will retaliate against the agencies involved in the case.

In a recent interview, Yochai Benkler also discussed the targeting of Megaupload by the U.S. Department of Justice, just days after netizens showed “effective political force” against SOPA. Benkler says seizing the assets and people working on Megaupload without a trial is a “fairly aggressive and expansive” move.

In UK, a judge’s rule on photo copyright infringement may further blur the idea/expression distinction in copyright law and restrain creativity.

Cybersecurity

A group of hackers who support Syrian president Bashar al-Assad attacked and posted pro-Assad messages on Al Jazeera English’s “Syria Live Blog”. The blog has been devoted to covering the unrest in Syria.

According to the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Risks for 2012 report, cyber-attacks against governments and the private sector is ranked as number 4 among global risks which may become real. The report also calls for “correcting information asymmetries’ over cyber risks to improve global Internet security.

Governments, terrorists, and crime organizations have been more and more sophisticated in using Internet skills to surveil their targets — and many of the targets are journalists. However, many journalists haven’t equipped themselves with cyber-security technical skills. An article from the Columbia Journalism Review blog examines cyber-security education in the U.S. journalism school.

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Two of those in jail, Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson are Swedish journalists who have been labeled by Prime Minster Meles Zenawi as terror accomplices. They are serving 11 year sentences for “helping” and “promoting” the outlawed Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebel group and entering the country illegally.

Three other local journalists received 14-16 year sentences and heavy fines recently for “terrorism-related” offenses. Exiled blogger Elias Kifle was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment. One other journalist and blogger, Eskinder Nega, who is indicted with six different terrorism charges is facing the death penalty.

Jailed in Ethiopia: left, Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson. Photo courtesy of freejohanandmartin.org

Nicholas Kristof draws attention to Ethiopia’s worsening situation of journalists with his wounding criticisms of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government:

In countries like Ethiopia, there are no reliable institutions to look after human rights and create checks and balances. There isn’t a free election system, independent court system, opposite party structure or all the other mechanisms that keep a regime honest. So one of the few ways to provide accountability is through journalists, local and international. And when Meles or another dictator arrests these journalists or drives them into exile, the losers are all the citizens of the country.

Human rights and free press advocacy organizations are incessantly campaigning for the release of imprisoned journalists. The New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters Sans Frontières, Index on Censorship and the International Federation of Journalists are all protesting the government’s treatment of journalists.

Facebook image calling for the release of all political prisoners. Image courtesy of Ethiopia Mitmita Facebook page.

Endalk summarises the global press outcry and highlights the context in which the Swedish journalists were being tried in Ethiopian court. He adds:

My reporting has included analyses of how the Ethiopian media both private and government media is covering court proceedings; how David Isaac, Eritrean-Swedish, was reported in Ethiopia’s media and the state of freedom of expression in Ethiopia such as continues brandish of arrests and accusations of journalists and opposition leaders. These malaises are most visible in Ethiopian media landscape since the ratification of the contentious anti-terrorism proclamation in 2009 which lead to the closure of independent newspapers, accusations, detentions and kicking out of journalists and bloggers out of their country.

Netizens' opposition to Meles Zenawi's government gained new momentum after Kristof asked his Twitter followers to report Meles sightings in Davos, Switzerland. Kristof wanted to ask Meles why he has driven more journalists into exile over the last decade than any other leader in the world. He wrote:

I’m in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, and so is Meles I’ve been pursuing him for the last few days, trying to confront him and ask him about his worsening pattern of brutality. He has refused to see me, so I enlisted (https://twitter.com/nickkristof )my Twitter followers to report Meles sightings. I want to ask him why he has driven more journalists into exile over the last decade than any other leader in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York City.

Ethiopian blogger and journalist, Eskinder Nega, is facing the death penalty. Photo courtesy of FreeEskinderNega.com

One anonymous reader responded to Kistof’s opinion piece:

Meles has hoodwinked or scared many Western journalists from writing the plight of the Ethiopian people. Kristof is the exception to lay it out there. Meles is the most sophisticated dictator who cornered the market in PR or deception by buying senators, congressional representatives, columnists and professors with money and lies, thus piling up himself as a leader. At the same time, he is running Ethiopia as his fiefdom by confiscating land and industries, by denying access to technology and property rights, while applying the severest punishment to journalists and civil society members who oppose his policies. To stave off any Arab Springs type revolt, he has crafted an anti-terrorism law, where he stands as the most dangerous terrorist of all as far as the Ethiopian people are concerned.

Addis Neger’s Facebook page shared a link of a petition demanding the release of Swedish journalists in Ethiopia. Over 1300 people have signed Kelsey Crows petition and the number of petitioners are growing quickly about a pace of 100 signatures/hour. However, netizens wonder why the petition does not take into account the Ethiopian journalists who are suffering with Swedish journalists.

Ethiopia Mitmita comments on Addis Neger's page:

Where is the petition for our journalist????

Another Facebook user asks:

Why is the petition only for the Swedish journalists? It is really very depressive.

Habtom Gabreegziabher says:

Ethiopia has done nothing that any other country cannot do if it faces with the same situation.
every body has to know the reason behind the arrest was not because the Swedish were Journalist, they were arrested because they crossed sovereign border of a country called Ethiopia.
let me ask you a question,
How many peoples are arrested in the united states because of crossing the border from south America regardless their occupation??
The Americans has the right to protect their border.
the difference in our case is, the criminals who cross our border are Swedish and Europeans and we are Ethiopians and Africans.
JUST BECAUSE SOME BODY IS RICH HE DOES NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO COME INTO MY BACK YARD AS HE WISH. HE HAS TO ASK ME POLITELY TO DO THAT.

A highly politicized trial of a blogger Eskinder Nega will continue in March in the midst of a global outcry for his release.

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Park's profile picture in Twitter.

Amnesty International called for Park's release yesterday, February 2, 2012. “This is not a national security case, it's a sad case of the South Korean authorities' complete failure to understand sarcasm,” Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director said in its statement.

Park's arrest is very controversial as he and his political party (Socialist Party) has been very critical of North Korea. But such ludicrous charge is not an isolated case. Two months ago in December 2011, another netizen, Kim Seung-kyu was prosecuted for reposting articles, songs and other available information about North Korea on his blog and calling the NSL a government attempt to suffocate the people. The materials that he posted are widely accessible in western media.

The South Korea NSL was passed 60-years ago in 1948 to protect the country from its wartime enemy, North Korea. It prosecutes those who “praise, disseminate or cooperate with anti-state groups” if such acts endanger democracy and national security.

In the past, the NSL has been used to investigate left-wing activists. Between 2005-2009, there were an average of 58 cases a year. However, “since Lee Myung-bak came to power in 2008, the Korean government re-activated the law to investigate not just left-wing activists but also ordinary people who are talking about North Korea online”, said Yoon Ji-Hye, the Korean Alliance of Progressive Movements to NPR in December 2011. Investigation has surged to 91 in 2010 and by 2011 August, there were already 150 cases.

Deletion of webpages has been increased from an annual figure of 1,500 in 2008 to 14,430 in 2009 and 80,449 in 2010. (The graph below is from North Korea Tech)

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FBI's leaked flyer. Source: Public Intelligence

As you can see it, any use of “anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address” is considered as a suspicious activity such as terrorism. Additionally, if you use encryption or are somehow “overly concerned about privacy” or attempting to “shield the screen from view of others”, you are suspicious of being potentially engaged or supporting terrorists.

This means that using a proxy or the Tor network makes you automatically suspicious. This puts you in the same basket as a woman wanting to remove her nail polisher who buys some acetone or the cute granny from the house around the corner buying fertilizers for her lovely petunia.

But the delirious indications of potential terrorists are not the only concern in this flyer. I am also disturbed by the “Be Part of The Solution” invitation. Actually this transforms a citizen into a walking surveillance device. Either you report what is defined as suspicious and you can help prevent some (un)likely terrorists to commit their rogue acts, or you don't and you are actually in the bad situation of likely supporting these activities… More clearly, if someone uses HTTPS next to you in the library, you should open your eyes and double-check what the person spends his/her spare time on. We missed you, McCarthy…

This flyer is one more amongst the already rich collection of 25 such documents the FBI has produced and gathered under the name “Communities Against Terrorism”. They are aimed at being widely distributed and provide some basic tools for ordinary people to report “suspicious activity”. The latter can be encountered in quite a few threat areas such as airport service providers, hobby shops or tattoo shops… You might also remember the case of the Casio F-91W digital watch that was claimed to be used in terrorism. More notably, as The Guardian was telling it, this watch was “the sign of al-Qaida” and the mere fact of possessing it was considered as a contributing factor to continued detention at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. This would sound funny if it was not tragic: a whole list of detainees exists…

Who is next? The EFF for promoting HTTPS Everywhere, the guys from the Tor project for providing a tool to protect your online privacy or myself as any security-conscious employee for using a VPN to connect from home to my computer at work in the week-end?

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These questions provide the general framework for discussion in Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom, a new book by Rebecca McKinnon, co-founder of Global Voices (and co-author of the twice-monthly Netizen Report on GV Advocacy).

A comprehensive and timely effort, it is a call to action for every blogger or user of Twitter or Facebook, and particularly for cyber-activists at large, to collectively address the urgent issue of how technology should be governed to support the rights and liberties of citizens around the world. With a rigorous analysis and a positive tone, the final message is to get involved in a struggle that all of us have the power and ability to influence (even in small ways), if we only try to understand the complex forces at work, and how we might help shape them.

Divided in five major sections (Disruptions; Control 2.0; Democracy’s challenges; Sovereigns of cyberspace; What is to be done?), the book covers a variety of events over the past decade and is quite up to date, with parts devoted to the Arab Spring and the Egyptian government’s surveillance capabilities, privacy and control in Western democracies, and the rise of “Facebookistan and Googledom”. The book's companion website offers fresh updates and more resources.

The Global Voices network is mentioned here and there, with direct quotes and references. For instance, the book preface speaks briefly about the community's inception, growth, and crucial role in recent events:

As protests erupted in Tunisia in late 2010 and demonstrations spread around the Middle East and North Africa in early 2011, Global Voices contributors worked around the clock to spread information about what was happening in multiple languages, on our own site as well as Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms.

The first part of the book focuses on interconnections in technology, society and business that fueled the Internet's development so far, giving rise to a “digital commons” that includes innovative practices, digital activism, and people's empowerment. This is an exciting environment that nonetheless faces opposition, defined as “Control 2.0”: “…how opaque, unaccountable relationships with Internet and telecommunications companies enables authoritarian governments to control and manipulate citizens.”

China is a primary case study here, with a detailed description of its refined censorship system and recent developments to maintain authoritarian control, while at the same time enabling, “…high levels of lively and even contentious online debate and deliberation, within certain limits.”

After describing similar (or worse) situations in countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Syria, the focus shifts to Western democracies — who unfortunately appear inclined to emulate authoritarian regimes, even if in subtle and insidious ways. That is, technology companies are establishing equally opaque and unaccountable relationships with government agencies, and fail to, “…take responsibility for their power over citizens’ political lives, and their lack of accountability in the exercise of that power.”

Image © Shutterstock.com

The various examples discussed here include WikiLeaks, privacy complaints on Facebook, ‘Big Brother' Apple, and Net Neutrality. Along with the on-going battle about intellectual property vs. free speech and sharing (see the global initiative against SOPA-PIPA, and the recent ‘selective censorship‘ announced by Twitter). Also addressed are lesser-known issues, such as a 2011 proposal to create a “single European cyberspace” that would block “illicit content” at Europe’s borders.

Finally, the last section of the book attempts to answer the question of “What is to be done?”, proposing the development of a Netizen-centric Internet. This part explores efforts by some governments, a few companies, and a growing number of concerned citizens to address the threats to freedom in cyberspace through new initiatives and movements. Some suggestions include: boosting corporate transparency; building processes for corporate engagement with users, customers, and other stakeholders; and building a more citizen-driven information environment.

At the end of the day, this Struggle For Internet Freedom is taking place here and now — in Arab countries, in East Asia and even in Western nations. It is a common struggle, and it is up to each and all of us, as netizens and citizens of the world, to monitor the state of affairs and make sure the Internet remains a force for freedom of expression and political liberation — rather than a tool for alienation, censorship and repression.

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Photo by Yogesh Mhatre

Most of this report was researched and written by Weiping Li, Mera Szendro Bok, and edited by Sarah Myers.

Netizens around the world took collective action with a mass Internet blackout on January 18 to protest the United States' Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act, which, in its effort to enforce copyright online, would have compelled Internet service providers and platforms to monitor and censor their users or risk being blocked or penalized in the United States, and would have weakened the Internet's domain name system, among other things. Global Voices and Global Voices Advocacy participated in the protest along with over 7,000 websites,  including Mozilla, Wikipedia, Reddit, Flickr, TwitPic, Boing Boing. Advocacy groups including Public Knowledge and Free Press blacked out their sites and posted information about how to get involved in the fight against these bills.

Many protest websites tracked the bill's Congressional Representatives'  supporters, ultimately pressuring many representatives to withdraw their support. In the end, Congressman Lamar Smith, SOPA's sponsor, pulled the bill and said it would not go to a vote until “issues are addressed”. Inspired by the American protests, netizens took action around the world on digital rights, including Chinese activists. An article in Ars Technica neatly summed up the impact of the legislation on the rest of the world.

After SOPA and PIPA’s Death

Now it seems that SOPA and PIPA are dead. But concerns about illegal file-sharing persist, and commentators warn that similar bills may be reincarnated. Ben Huh, The CEO of I Can Has Cheezburger?, states that we still have more work to do in order to defend Internet freedom and sustain the engine of netizen mobilization. His opinions echo an article by Alex Howard on O’Reilly Radar, which argues that citizens need to band together to work out alternatives to SOPA. Internet and Politics guru Micah Sifry discusses the broader political environment that produced the bills, and the need for Internet companies and netizens to work for political reform. Internet law Professor Yochai Benkler offers seven lessons and four proposals on where we go from here.

Censorship

Major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have enforced a registration system that requires users to register their real name on Weibo, the prominent Chinese microblog. Although the new regulation has been widely criticized by Chinese netizens, including Pony Ma (Ma Hauteng), the founder of Chinese Internet service company Tencent, the Chinese authority still plans to implement the rule in other parts of the country.

In contrast, South Korea, which adopted online real-name registration in 2007, has taken steps to abandon the practice. Having faced criticisms of infringing freedom of expression and concerns over hacking, some Internet companies have decided to stop asking customers’ resident numbers, and the Korea Communications Commission is also planning to abandon the real-name registration requirement.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has jumped on the bandwagon of using social media for his presidential election campaign, but he has also been reported to have censored comments left on his website: only those comments which support his election are allowed to stay on the site.

An Indian journalist sued Google, Facebook and other companies for not taking down offensive content from their websites. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the journalist claimed that messages which contained objectionable content about Hinduism, Islam and Christianity could cause commotion across India. He said action was meant to remind Internet companies to act in socially responsible ways.

Surveillance

The Argentinean government is launching a program to build a national biometric service named “the Federal System of Biometric Identification (SIBIOS)“. This system combines Argentinean citizens’ biometric information with other databases and be used by law enforcement. According to Katitza Rodriguez’s report for Global Voices Advocacy, the information gathered through the SIBIOS system would include not only biometric identifiers but also “an individual's digital image, civil status, blood type, and key background information”. The program has raised serious concerns over the government’s unrestrained power to surveil its people.

Sprint has promised to remove CarrierIQ tracking software from the cell phones using its network, making good on its word to improve security for its users.

To fight against the government’s intrusion into netizens’ personal Internet information, EFF and ACLU filed an appeal to challenge the U.S. district court’s decision to refuse disclosure of all orders in the Twitter/Wikileaks case.

A hacked document revealing that RIM, Nokia, and Apple provided the Indian government backdoor access to users’ communications may be fake. The three companies and security company Symantec have argued this document was full of incorrect information, and is not from the Indian directorate general of military intelligence.

Thuggery

Iran’s government has relentlessly pursued the Internet activists Parastoo Dokouhaki, Marzieh Rasouli, and Sahamoddin Bourghani, who were recently arrested. They were accused of “propaganda against the system” or “acting against national security”. The Iranian Supreme Court also confirmed the death penalty of a web programmer whose web program was misused by others to upload pornography.

After being detained for 10 months, Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil, who was convicted of  “insulting the military” by an Egyptian military court, was released.

Chinese activist Li Tie was sentenced to 10 years in prison for writing articles advocating democratic reform; poet Zhu Yufu was also charged with subversion for poems published online.

Several Ethiopian journalists and bloggers were convicted of terrorism and may face the death penalty.

The Myanmar government released several journalists and bloggers and at least 600 dissidents from prison under the government’s amnesty program.

Netizen activism

A recent study found that in Colombia, the Internet is changing the media landscape. The research pointed out that online journalism emphasizes local perspectives and incorporates more interaction with readers.

According to the Statistical Report on Internet Development published by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the number of Chinese Internet users hit 513 million in 2011, which is almost equivalent to the number of Twitter users. Half of the the 513 million netizens are microblog users.

Is citizen journalism rising in China? Maybe. With the prevalence of digital cameras, videos, and social media, more and more Chinese citizens shoot newsworthy events and are uploading the clips to websites. Media scholars expect this trend may promote societal progress.

Want to know more about hacktivists who often hit the Internet activism headlines? This documentary may provide the audience with insight into hacktivist group Anomymous.

National Policy

The European Union delineated more details on its ban on exports of surveillance technology to Syria. The banned items include equipment which can probe email content or intercepts text messages.

The Indian government plans to build an “m-Government” framework by which people can access public services more easily via their mobile phones.

The Canadian government has historically prohibited the revelation of election results to areas where the votes have not been closed. Last year, Twitter users breached the law in an election by tweeting the results. The Canadian government announced (via Twitter) on January 17 it plans to lift the ban.

Swedish government agencies let different Swedes demonstrate their ways of life in the nation’s official Twitter account, hoping to let more people around the world understand and be interested in Sweden.

Sovereigns of Cyberspace

Twitter has announced that it now has the capability to restrict content from appearing in certain countries. The company says this will allow it to comply with local laws in different countries without having to remove content globally. When content is restricted in this way, the action will be reported to users through the Chilling Effects website.

Twitter also acquired a start-up company which has developed a service to summarize social media content and solve the information-overload problem.

Google announcement of an “upgrade” of its privacy policy and terms of service that integrates user information across its search engine, GMail, YouTube and its 57 other services stirred criticism from privacy groups and some members of Congress. In the weeks before the announcement, Google launched a “Good to Know” campaign to educate the public on how to stay safe online. Meanwhile, Google is also readjusting its China business strategy. Setting its past confrontations with the Chinese government over censorship aside, Google has decided not to miss out on this big market and plans to introduce more services.

Copyright

The anti-SOPA and PIPA action in the U.S. helped spark another round of protests in Europe. Now Polish netizens are fighting against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The provisions in the treaty require Internet companies to monitor their online users. What irritated the Polish netizens was not only the censorship-like regulation, but also the opaque negotiation process around the legislation.

On January 19, one day after the mass protest against SOPA, the FBI seized the file sharing Web site Megaupload and charged seven people connected with it with running an international enterprise based on Internet piracy. Seven Europeans now face legal indictments in the United States of “racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.” European officials and digital rights advocates are protesting the legal action because they believe it sets a bad precedent for international intellectual property law.

Research archive JSTOR will soon open more resources to the public for free access.

Pirate Bay has begun shifting from torrents to “magnets” as another way of sharing data that would help the site go further underground.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on January 19th to uphold a law which grants copyright protection to foreign works that had been freely availably in the public domain.

Cybersecurity

Cyberspace has become a new battleground for pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli hackers took down websites and waged distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attack) on each other.

Cool things

There could be easier ways to let the public understand obscure technologies on the horizon. New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative has explored methods such as visual language to explain their mesh wireless network projects to communities.

Internet Rights as Human Rights

Amnesty International has responded in a blog to Vint Cerf’s article on internet rights as human rights, saying “in places from Sub-Saharan Africa to the most impoverished communities here in the US, loss of access could mean an immediate threat to lives and livelihoods.”

In a letter by Joy Liddicoat of APC responding to Vint Cerf's article, APC encourages discussion and increased dialogue between technologists and human rights advocates.

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor gave a keynote address at the State of the Internet conference statingthe U.S government’s view on “Internet freedom as a foundation for the 21st Century human rights agenda” and the role of media in the “Arab Awakening”.

Publications

Reporters Without Borders released its Press Freedom Index for 2011-2012. Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen got their worst-ever rankings.

Freedom House released its 2012 Freedom in the World report. A chilling overall result was that despite the gains won by the Arab Spring, “slightly more countries registered declines than exhibited gains over the course of 2011. This marks the sixth consecutive year in which countries with declines outnumbered those with improvements.”

“Mapping Digital Media,” a new Open Society Paper reports on the impact of digitization on democracy in 60 countries around the world.

China Internet expert Hu Yong reviews trends of China’s Internet in 2011.

The Center for the Study of Free Expression (CELE) at Argentina’s University of Palermo released Towards an Internet free of Censorship: Proposals for Latin America with contributions by leading policy experts from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.

Vivek Kundra, who served as the White House's first Chief Information Officer until August 2011, writes on Innovation through Open Data and the Network Effect.

According to research conducted by Facebook, social networks can help spread diverse points and novel information. Slate’s technology columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote an article responding to the research.

EVENTS: For upcoming events related to the future of citizen rights in the digital age see the Global Voices events calendar.

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Book cover. Design by Patricia Fiuza.

Drawing on current debates in five of the region’s strongest economies—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico—all of which boast high Internet penetration rates for Latin America, contributors provide a sketch of legislation, judicial decisions, and policies that affect free expression and privacy online. Book editor and CELE Executive Director Eduardo Bertoni writes:

El debate global sobre la regulación en Internet ha evolucionado desde aquella pregunta inicial acerca de si es necesaria y deseable alguna regulación en la red. […] Los artículos de esta publicación abordan [estos temas] no con la idea de arribar a soluciones últimas, sino con la intención de plantear algunas de las cuestiones legales involucradas en estos temas y pensar el efecto que pueden tener estas políticas sobre la libertad de expresión.

The book’s authors urge policymakers to rely on international and regional human rights instruments—the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights—as crucial sources of guiding principles in making policy for the digital age.

Underlying much of the analysis and discussion in the text are three fundamental questions:

• When Internet users post content, store personal data, and search for information on the web, what are their rights and responsibilities?
• How can governments protect citizens’ rights to privacy and free expression while still upholding defamation and copyright law and ensuring that law enforcement officials can carry out legitimate criminal investigations online?
• What role do Internet intermediaries—ISPs, search engines, or platforms for user-generated content, such as YouTube or WordPress—have in implementing government policy?

Numerous debates surrounding Internet regulation in Latin America focus on copyright violations and threats to honor or reputation (also known as defamation). Many courts in the region take these infractions seriously (both on and offline), and some legislators argue that they justify implementing tighter regulations on Internet activity.

In Colombia, the proposed (though currently shelved) Lleras Law would allow copyright holders to demand that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) remove infringing content from the web, a process known as “notice-and-takedown.” Under current Colombian law, ISPs can only be required to remove content if they receive an order from a judge. But Ley Lleras would eliminate this requirement, leaving ISPs with the burden of determining whether or not takedown requests were valid.

Art by Tomaz Garzia. CC BY-NC 2.5

Internet search engines also have been held liable for providing access to defamatory content. In Argentina, singer Virginia da Cunha filed a defamation suit against both Google and Yahoo! Argentina, after the companies had denied da Cunha’s request that they filter (remove) search results for her name that led to sexually explicit content. A judge initially ruled in the singer’s favor, but an appellate court later overturned the decision.

Contributing authors Claudio Ruiz [es] and Juan Carlos Lara, of the Chilean NGO Derechos Digitales, warn that under the Lleras Law, ISPs likely would comply with most takedown requests before fully considering their validity, as the alternative could leave them vulnerable to prosecution. The da Cunha case could have led to a similar result, where search engines would agree to filter results upon request, so as not to risk punishment. These examples illustrate the need to protect intermediaries from liability for content created by their users.

Brazilian legal scholar Joana Varon and her co-authors, all researchers at the Centro do Tecnologia e Sociedade, discuss these issues in a chapter on content filtering. Although there is little evidence that Latin American governments (with the exceptions of Cuba and Venezuela) engage in widespread filtering, legislators have considered various filtering mandates that would combat copyright violations and defamation online. But the authors note that there is a problem with this approach:

…técnicas de filtrado no son precisas…es casi imposible bloquear solo un determinado contenido sin afectar otros…[A]demás, muchos de esos mecanismos utilizados para regular y censurar información son cada vez más sofisticados, utilizando…muchas camadas de control que generalmente están escondidas del usuario común, quien probablemente ni se dará cuenta de que la información a la que accede ha sido objeto de filtrado.

Other contributors include Universidad de los Andes scholar Lorenzo Villegas, who describes the challenges of protecting personal data in the digital age, and Eduardo Bertoni, who discusses the issue of jurisdiction in defamation cases where the poster of the defamatory content is located in one jurisdiction and the offended party is in another. Towards an Internet free of censorship also features articles by George Washington University Professor of Law Dawn Nunziato, Derechos Digitales' Alberto Cerda, and University of Puerto Rico legal scholar Hiram Meléndez Juarbe.

The Center for Democracy & Technology's Cynthia M. Wong, James X. Dempsey, and Ellery Roberts Biddle co-authored the final chapter of the book, which places current policymaking debates in Latin America into broader international context. They note that the issues being debated in Latin America are very similar to those raised elsewhere in the world, a convergence that is not surprising given the global nature of the medium.

However, while policymakers around the world are confronting the issues of free expression, privacy, copyright protection, defamation, and government power, approaches vary substantially from region to region, and country to country. Some have turned towards repression, jeopardizing not only human rights but also economic innovation and human development. As the book shows, Latin American policymakers have looked to both Europe and the U.S. when debating these issues. But they also have the unique advantage of working in a region where country-to-country relations are generally friendly, and legislators often are able to “borrow” policy solutions from one country and apply them in another.

Towards an Internet free of censorship aims to take advantage of this cooperative dynamic by initiating new conversations, collaborations, and policy initiatives that will help to protect and strengthen online free expression, freedom of information, and privacy throughout Latin America.

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—

It has been six years since the highly controversial Data Retention Directive (DRD) was adopted in the European Union. Conceived in the EU and steamrolled by powerful U.S. and U.K. government lobbies, this mass-surveillance law compels EU-based Internet service providers to collect and retain traffic data revealing who communicates with whom by email, phone, and SMS, including the duration of the communication and the locations of the users. This data is often made available to law enforcement. Europeans have widely criticized the DRD, and year after year, it has inspired some of the largest-ever street protests against excessive surveillance.

The European Commission has begun mounting a defense for this highly controversial mass-surveillance scheme, though they have thus far been unable to show that the DRD is necessary or proportionate. For the DRD to be legal in the EU, any limitation to the right to privacy must be “necessary” to achieve an objective of general interest and “proportionate” to the desired aim. This requirement is important to ensure that the government does not adopt severe measures to address a problem that could be otherwise solved in a way that is less harmful to civil liberties.  But the Commission has been arguing that all uses of retained data illustrate that the Directive is “valuable.” This doesn’t meet the legal standard. Instead, the Commission should provide evidence that in the absence of a mandatory data retention law, traffic data crucial to the investigation of “serious crime” would not have been available to law enforcement.

Despite the European Commission’s efforts to preserve the Directive as-is, a leaked letter confirms that the Commission has been scrambling to conjure evidence for the “need” of a DRD scheme in the European Union. It also underscores the fact that there is no system of oversight that would allow citizens to monitor the impact of the proposed program on their privacy rights. Perhaps the most disquieting detail that has been confirmed by the letter is that service providers have already been storing instant messages, chats, uploads, and downloads. This type of data collection falls outside the scope of the DRD. Moreover, the letter indicates that “unnamed” players seek to broaden the uses of the DRD to include prosecution of copyright infringement including “illegally downloading.” Since this is not a serious crime, this legally falls outside the scope of the DRD.

In response to this leak, EDRI stated, “The leaked document however shows that the Commission can neither prove necessity nor proportionality of the Data Retention Directive - but still wants to keep the Directive.” The leaked letter also disclosed that the EU Commission is evaluating the possibility of amending the Directive. The Commission has commissioned a study into data preservation in the EU and around the world. According to the letter, this exercise is to be completed by May 2012.

Ending Data Retention: Constitutional Challenges

Constitutional courts have begun weighing in on the legality of this mass-surveillance scheme. In a decision celebrated by privacy advocates, the Czech Constitutional Court declared in March 2011 that the Czech data retention law was unconstitutional. Earlier this month, the same Court dealt another blow to data retention by annulling part of the Criminal Procedure Code, which would have enabled law enforcement access to data stored voluntarily by operators. Most importantly, the Czech Court used compelling language in articulating the importance of the protection of traffic data. The Court stated that the collection of traffic data and communication data warranted identical legal safeguards since both have the same “intensity of interference”.

We couldn't agree more. Sensitive data of this nature demands stronger protection, not an all-access pass. Individuals should not have to worry whether one sort of private information has less protection than another.

Jan Vobořil of Iuridicum Remedium, which led the legal complaint against the Czech data retention law, told EFF:

I believe that both decisions will help ensure that new legislation enforces the same restrictions as exist for use of wiretap. These include strong privacy safeguards for government access to citizen's data, the obligation to inform individuals about the use of their data, and so on.

Several other courts in EU member states have also ruled on the illegality of data retention laws. Earlier in 2009, the Romanian constitutional Court rejected the imposition of an ongoing, sweeping traffic data retention program. The Court rightly emphasized that mandatory data retention overturns the presumption of innocence in a way that treats all Romanians like potential suspects. Despite this court decision, a new draft data retention bill was introduced in the Parliament, but the Senate finally rejected it at the end of 2011.

In March 2010, the German Court declared unconstitutional the German mandatory data retention law. The Court ordered the deletion of the collected data and affirmed that data retention could “cause a diffusely threatening feeling of being under observation that can diminish an unprejudiced perception of one's basic rights in many areas.” The lawsuit was brought on by 34,000 citizens through the initiative of AK Vorrat, the German working group against data retention.

Over in Ireland, the Court is referring to the European Court of Justice the case challenging the legality of the DRD, thanks to the complaint brought by Digital Rights Ireland. The Irish Court acknowledged the importance of defining “the legitimate legal limits of surveillance techniques used by governments”, and rightly emphasized that “without sufficient legal safeguards the potential for abuse and unwarranted invasion of privacy is obvious”. The Courts in Cyprus and Bulgaria have also declared their mandatory data retention laws unconstitutional.

The DRD compels EU member countries to implement the Directive into national law. Fortunately, many member states have not yet done so. The Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Romania, and Sweden have not adopted this piece of legislation, despite pressure from the European Commission to do so. In Austria, the data protection law will take effect in April 2012.  AK Vorrat Austria plans to use all legal means to challenge the legality of the DRD. They have also handed over a petition to the Austrian Parliament asking the government to fight against the DRD at the EU level and to review all existing anti-terror legislation. (If you are Austrian, sign the petition today at zeichnemit.at.) In Slovakia, the NGO European Information Society Institute is opposing the Slovakian data retention implementation law.

Meanwhile, civil society groups are resisting and campaigning against this oppressive data retention law. EDRI, along with EFF and AK Vorrat, has fought to repeal the DRD in favor of targeted collection of traffic data. EDRI has previously reported that Deutsche Telekom, a German telco, illegally used telecommunications traffic and location data to spy on roughly 60 individuals including journalists, managers, and union leaders. They also reported that two major intelligence agencies in Poland used retained traffic and subscriber data to illegally disclose journalistic sources without any judicial oversight. These are only a few examples in which data retention policies have directly threatened individuals’ expression and privacy rights.

The DRD is a threat to Internet privacy and anonymity, and has been proven to violate the privacy rights of 500 million Europeans. EFF, together with EDRI, will keep fighting to repeal the DRD in favor of targeted collection of traffic data.

Mandatory Data Retention in the United States

Two bills introduced in the U.S. Congress in 2009 would have required all Internet providers and operators of WiFi access points to keep records on Internet users for at least two years to assist police investigations. Neither bill became law. Some legislators and law enforcement officials continue to argue, however, that mandatory data retention is necessary to investigate online child pornography and other Internet crimes. In January 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security held a hearing that discussed whether Congress should pass legislation that would force ISPs and telecom providers to log Internet user traffic data. In May 2011, H.R. 1981, which would require retention of such traffic data, was introduced in the House of Representatives. This bill is still alive and continues to be a threat to the privacy and anonymity of all Americans. EFF has joined civil liberties and consumer organizations in publicly opposing H.R. 1981. Please join EFF, and help us defeat this bill before it is made law. Contact your Representative now.

Katitza Rodriguez is International Rights Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. @txitua

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