At least 25 nations restrict their citizens’ access to certain Web sites, for either political reasons or cultural ones, a new study has concluded.
The study was conducted by the Open Net Initiative — a consortium, created by Harvard University Law School and the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Toronto, that tracks Internet censorship. The group was only able to study 40 countries and the Palestinian territories, according to the Associated Press, so it’s entirely possible that more governments than those identified by the initiative have actually put Web filters in place.
China and Iran top the list of countries that aggressively block political content, along with Myanmar, Syria, Tunisia, and Vietnam. And Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen are the most assertive in filtering out material they deem socially unacceptable, like sites featuring pornography, gambling, and gay themes. —Brock Read
