Way back in 1998, US president Bill Clinton signed into law a measure called the Child Online Protection Act. And it's never actually been enforced.

As the name suggested, the law was intended to help protect kids from the dangerous things that can be found on the internet, specifically pictures of naked people. But critics said it limited free speech, and didn't make it clear how to distinguish between sexually explicit internet content and educational web sites. For example, would a web page showing young women how to perform self examinations for breast cancer be banned?

Before the law could ever take effect, it was challenged in the courts, and it's been bouncing from one court to the next for the last 10 years. Today, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, effectively killing the law and keeping the web safe for pornographers and health professionals alike. Until Congress passes another law aimed at protecting kids.

Freenet is a tool that lets users publish pretty much anything online "without fear of censorship." The software stores your data on a decentralized, anonymous network of nodes made up of other Freenet users' computers. Freenet communications are encrypted and routed through those nodes, making it difficult for anyone to trace what you're doing. The service is useful for communication where a right to free speech is not guaranteed, and for privacy nuts and conspiracy theorists in countries where free speech is supposed to be a universal right, but may not be.

Freenet 0.7 was released this week, marking the first major update in three years. The latest version not only lets users upload data anonymously, but also lets users mask the fact that they're using the service at all by connecting only to computers of people you know and trust.

You can use the Freenet network to share files, publish websites, send emails, or communicate via message boards. The software is Java based and works with Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.

[via Slashdot]

While China has a history of blocking computer users' access to many sites on the world wide interwebs, many clever Chinese citizens have figured out that RSS feeds provided a way around the Chinese firewall. Until now.

Ars Technica reports that China has started blocking any URL that starts with "feeds," "rss," and "blog." That makes it pretty difficult to access the feeds for an awful lot of websites, including pretty much any site syndicated by FeedBurner.

It looks like some Chinese users are having success with online feed-readers like Newsgator. We'll see how long it takes before China bans Newsgator. In the meantime, there's always proxies and anonymous web browsers like Tor.

If you want to find out if your website is blocked in China, Website Pulse has a Great FireWall of China testing tool.

[via TechCrunch]

Users of Facebook in the United Arab Emirates have been left wondering if their access to the site will continue after major telco Etisalat appeared to have blocked the site today. Many Web sites are actively blocked in the Persian Gulf country which is home to a large expatriate community from India, the US, Europe and other countries in the Middle East.

The Muslim nation blocks many sites on the basis that they are against the moral or religious values of the UAE, however the selection of sites in the past has often been arbitrary and includes a ban on VOIP, which appears to be more focused on maintaining profits at the two main telcos than concerns over moral values. Earlier this year the
social networking site Orkut fell afoul of UAE's blocking policies which also prevent access to dating sites.

The move may not be permanent as Facebook users are currently just experiencing a 'Page Not Found' error instead of the 'UAE Screen of Death' (as pictured) so the authorities may just be testing the waters. UAE Facebook users have been concerned about this possibility for some time and have set up an online petition.

You've probably heard about internet censorship in those "other" parts of the world. Political, social, or tool (the blocking of specific types of packets) blocking is more common than you'd think. OpenNet Initiative, a group funded in part by the MacArthur Foundation, has given us a visual tool that shows us exactly how blocked the citizens of some countries really are.

The interactive map shows Political, Social, Conflict/Security or Tool based censorship and allows you to drill down and get a good look in places where the countries (and censorship levels) are really dense.

[via Boing Boing]

See Also:
Google shareholders submit proposal to resist censorship

Google rides a fine line when it comes to censorship. They've given in on a few points -- tried searching Tiananmen from China lately? -- and held fast on a few as well -- No justice department, we won't roll over on our users search data just cause you said so -- but it looks as if Google's shareholders want to get tough on censorship, for real.

A proposal tabled for Google's next shareholder proxy vote asks Google's management to implement some minimum standards to adhere to, modeled on the UN's declaration of human rights, rather than on the behest of authoritarian governments.

The resolution would force Google's management to adhere to these 6 statements:

• Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.
• The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.
• The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.
• Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.
• Users should be informed about the company's data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.
• The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.

Solid policy, or shareholder suicide? Can Google compete in oppressed parts of the globe and hold fast to its credo of "Do no evil?"

[via Slashdot]

It looks like Google is working with Thai officials to bring YouTube back to Thailand. Government officials had blocked access to YouTube earlier after users had posted a video mocking the country's king.

The video in question showed an picture of King Bhumibol Adulyadej superimposed with images, including a pair of women's feet. The users removed the video after the government ban was put in place.

Now Google has agreed to help Thailand limit access to individual videos that the government finds offensive. Rather than removing the videos entirely, the videos will not be viewable in Thailand. Google officials say that removing single videos might not have helped, as users would be able to upload the files again.

Since the original clip was posted, several other videos designed to insult the Thai leader have been posted on YouTube.

[via NewTeeVee]

Psiphon is a new open source project from the University of Toronto that aims to give people unfettered access to censored web sites, particularly those blocked by oppressive governments. Basically it works by allowing people with uncensored internet access to act as proxies for those without. Unlike with Tor, the "psiphonite" (i.e. the person in the censored country--memo to U of T: this awful terminology is likely to scare away novices) doesn't need to install any software--they just connect to the psiphonode's unique address. Psiphon isn't based on a central server, and psiphonodes' addresses are distributed organically, i.e. by word of mouth. This means Psiphon isn't anonymous like Tor, but it is secure and encrypted. Currently the psiphonode server software is available for Windows and Linux, with Mac support promised soon. For more information check out the Psiphon FAQ.

[Thanks, Ramesh!]