Internet Censorship: How Cute Cats Can Help [18+]

Ethan Zuckerman, Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University
(Nov 13, 2008 at Princeton University, Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP))

The rise of the internet as a publishing medium has been paralleled by a rise in censorship of political material by concerned governments. More than forty governments filtered or censored the web in some fashion in the past year, and Web 2.0 technologies, which enable average users to publish, are the subject of much concern to state censors.

The creative use of Web 2.0 tools by activists can help create common cause between politically active and naïve web users, exposing government censorship. Some governments, notably the Chinese government, are ahead of the curve and are changing strategies for censorship, baking it in to new Web 2.0 tools rather than blocking content at ISP or gateway layers.

We explore a wide range of ways activists have used the read/write web to advocate online, evade internet censorship and build bridges between activist and apolitical web users.