Internet Censorship Increases
The governments of at least 25 countries now block websites for political, social or other reasons, according to a study by the Open-Net Initiative. A total of 41 countries were investigated.
The most powerful filters are in China, Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam. The strictest social-filtering is found in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, where pornography, gambling and gay and lesbian sites are blocked.
Censorship is narrow in some countries such as South Korea, which only blocks information about North Korea. No filtering was found in Russia, Israel or the Palestinian territories.
The OpenNet Initiative is a collaboration of researchers at Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the University of Toronto.