Survey shows China as the worst abuser of Internet freedom/ENG

2015. október 30./Phayul.com/TibetPress

eredeti cikk

By Tenzin Monlam

DHARAMSHALA, October 30: A Washington-based Internet freedom watchdog has named China “the world’s worst abuser of Internet freedom in the 2015” and rated them “Not Free” in their annual survey, which involved analytical reports and numerical scores for 65 countries worldwide.

Freedom House’s ‘Freedom on the net 2015’ reveals a decline in the Internet freedom worldwide for a fifth consecutive year as more governments censored information of public interest while also expanding surveillance and cracking down on privacy tools.

With 100 being the worst score, China scored 88 beating conflict-hit regions like Iran and Syria. Rampant crackdown on Internet users with ‘cyber sovereignty’, Chinese President Xi Jinping has made it a top policy strategy to squash any rumors, tighter controls on undesirable contents and monitor the online contents of both local and international companies.

According to the report, 169 of top 1,000 websites in the world were blocked in 2014, up from 62 the year before. The blocked website includes Google, Facebook, Flickr, SoundCloud, and WordPress.

“All of Google’s content and communication services were fully blocked during the coverage period, marking an escalation in censorship from that experienced by the company’s user base in Mainland China in previous years,” the report said.

The report highlighted the case of Tibetan blogger Dawa Tsomo who was detained “for violating China’s internet rules and regulations” after she had criticized the government’s mishandling of the welfare and living conditions of Tibetans still living in Kyegudo, the site of a devastating 2010 earthquake. Her whereabouts following the detention were unknown.

It also stated the imprisonment of reporters involved with websites that reported on Tibetan or Uyghur issues.

The watchdog accused China of excessive monitoring, content manipulation and removal and systematic censorship.

The report states, “A range of issues are systematically censored, including independent evaluations of China’s human rights record, critiques of government policy, and the authorities’ treatment of ethnic minorities.”

Routine censorship is reinforced during politically sensitive events. For example, during the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and Hong Kong’s the Umbrella Revolution.

The report highlighted China’s content manipulation through “50 Cent Party”, who are paid to post pro-government remarks and influence online discussions. They also report users who have posted offending statements. Even though Twitter is banned in China, they recruit and pay commentators abroad to post pro-government remarks, according to the report.

The report said, “Approximately 2,500 “50 Cent” users on Twitter follow and retweet one another in order to create confusion and mislead the public.”