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internet Censorship status in the world

The Television was considered a flop attempt at the times when it was introduced, buy then slowly it became a part of the day to day life of every one and same is the story of internet, though the rapid increase in the internet usage has been witnessed that it has quickly became the essential part of daily lives. Internet which was launched for public first time in mid 90s, the World Wide Web saw a huge increase by the end of the same decade. This rapid growth in the popularity helped many businesses to grow like, Personal Computers, Internet Service Providers that caused decrease in prices of internet with increase in service qualities, making internet go more forward from a facility to a utility.

Besides such a growth of the internet world wide signifying it as a successful facility, it also allowed freedom to access any information from any part of the world instantly, this made many governments, oppressive leaders and some organization lose credibility and they couldn’t bear this. This brought internet amid heavy restrictions in some parts of the world, limitations, bans and censorships become a normal practice around the world, Here we have sorted some worst censoring countries in the world,

1. North Korea

North Korea a country that has been in headlines in last days due to its tensions with USA, anyone with a little interest in current world news and affairs would know a lot about North Korea. This nation is widely criticized for its lower living standards for its citizens; current conflicts with US and nuclear warhead launch at the borders aiming US, Hence this won’t surprise anyone It’s the Top censoring government keep a close eye over internet activities of its citizens in the world and has restricted the freedom of internet. The percentage of North Korean citizens having internet access to the internet is just 40% and that’s censored heavily. Internet is main source for the government to give orders, spread new information and keep in touch.

2. Iran

Iran, the historical country with Persian background has also been in the world news these days due to its bad ties with the west and especially USA, making it an ally of the North Korea, International pressure has been continuously increasing on Iran to stop its nuclear programs that it announces for peaceful purposes only. Country has a managed internet censoring system that restricts the internet users that wish to access any anti government, anti Islamic or ethically inappropriate websites, some news about bloggers propagating anti government content being punished, also appeared into main stream media world over. Iranian Government has set strict punishments over the internet censorship violations and is ranked top 2 in the world’s most internet censoring countries.

3. Burma

The Burma a small country in the south East Asian nations is also considered the highly censoring government in the world. Though it was cut off from the rest of the world for long period of time, The internet freedom state is worse because the only ISP is the government of Janta Party in Burma.

4. China

China world leading economy, world largest population, a highly developed nation but has been relatively strict on internet in its country it has developed its own version of every popular website of the world, including Google and Facebook. The great firewall of china that blocked 1.3 million websites in the year 2010, according to this news by BBC, China is the only country in the world blocking highest number of websites in the world.

5. Turkmenistan

This nation is considered as oppressive state with significant amount of internet censorship in the country. This is also one of the countries having control over the only Internet Service running in the country. While no human right associations are allowed to operate in the country. Satellite TV broadcasts were also terminated in the 2008, keeping internet the only true means of information for the people. Well, only the news in favor of the government, are broadcasted on main media.

5. Syria

People of Syria being in state of war since last year are suffering highly for basic human needs and rights, the civil war has nothing to do with state of internet freedom because the sanctions imposed on internet were much before the war had commenced. Besides from on and off bans on popular websites like Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia, the whole internet is heavily supervised by the government with terrible penalties for those who try to confront this ban.

7. Vietnam

According to the standings by the media without Borders, Vietnam holds its position in the top 10 listing of ‘Enemies of the Internet’. Apart from blocking adult websites, Vietnam also heavily supervises the internet for material that challenges its governmental policies and state viewpoint. Bloggers are often locked up for speaking out against corruption and the national government.

8. Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan also stands along with top 10 censoring countries at no 7, due to its anti internet freedom policies. It has substantially censored the internet for content based on radical religious ideas, independent news agencies, NGOs, and human rights organizations.

9. United Arab Emirates

The internet is highly censored in the United Arab Emirates; especially the VoiP services, adult material and free media broadcast. The government of UAE monitors heavily for any violation of laws, through the large telecom giant in the region Etisalat, the government authorities are very strict against the activities that confront with the cultural, moral, political and social laws of the government. Interestingly majority of the citizens support these restrictions.

10. Australia

Yes, believe or not Australia is also among the world’s leading countries which censor internet and limit internet freedom for their citizens. Australia holds to make it to the top 10 of the list because of its 2007 approval of a bill that helps the government to censor access to any website it sees inappropriate. Since then, websites having terrorist themes, child abuse themes, and phishing tools have been blocked.

How to avoid Censorship

Though people around the world have been protesting and recording their expression against high level of censorships. The bills like PIPA and SOPA are the best examples for which big internet portals like, Google, Wikipedia and Mashable also participated. However there are ways to avoid censorship through using proxies and tools like Personal VPN services
, the services like Pure vpn, proxpn, hideip vpn
, vpngaurd, astrill and hotspot shield are popular for allowing freedom of internet activities.

Conclusion

The state in which internet has come today is the result of a long journey that started long way before in late 80’s, internet has evaluated itself very much from its simple commencing 20 years earlier. Internet is considered top most resource for free and fair information and unrestricted freedom of expression for every user, any nation that imposes smallest bit of restriction is actually censoring the free and fair internet information, violation of a basic human right of access to the information and freedom of expression. However there are remedies to avoid such censorships in the form of VPN tools.