INFOGRAPHIC: 3 WAYS TECHNOLOGY IS OUTSMARTING INTERNET CENSORSHIP

Can Technology Outsmart Internet Censorship?
By KeriLynn Engel, Who Is Hosting This, 12 August 2014.

The invention of the Internet has sparked a new age of global unity. More than ever before, people around the world can connect with each other regardless of physical location. Millions of people are no longer limited by what knowledge is available in their local library, but can now access information on any topic, freely and anonymously.

Unfortunately, many countries consider this new-found freedom to be a threat. Countries like Iran, Cuba, China, Syria, and more have tightly controlled their local media for decades, and in the past few years have begun to place similar restrictions on Internet access.

Fearful of how unrestricted access to the Internet could affect their citizens, these countries strictly censor the information available online. Blogs by individuals that oppose the government are often blocked, as well as anti-government media sites, and other sources of information that may disagree with the regime and their ideologies. Social media services such as Twitter, where those with similar anti-government views can express their views and connect with each other, have also been frequently blocked. In some cases, such as in Egypt during the revolutionary Arab Spring movement in 2011, the government blocked all access to the Internet as a whole.

Or at least, they tried to. Every time a government has begun restricting Internet freedom, the millions of people affected by censorship have found ways to fight back.

During the Arab Spring revolution, many Egyptians found ways of getting online despite the government attempting to block all access to the Internet. Thousands of people went online via foreign ISPs using modem connections through their landlines, and sent tweets through a voicemail service provided by Google and Twitter.

The government’s attempt to stamp out Internet freedom during the revolution actually had the opposite effect: ten times the number of tweets were sent out during the Internet blackout than during the previous week, and by the end of the year the number of Egyptians with Facebook profiles doubled to over 10 million.

Using technological tools such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Tor (a.k.a. The Onion Router), and web proxies, anyone in any country can bypass censorship and protect themselves from government surveillance by accessing the Internet anonymously.

By using these tools, millions of people in countries affected by censorship can exercise their rights to freely access and disseminate information, and fight back against censorship.

Infographic courtesy of Who Is Hosting This

[Source: Who Is Hosting This.]