Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Messages of 140 characters threaten autocracies

"I dream of a country where not only people like Silvio Rodríguez domestic Internet access, but also people like me." "What happened in the Middle East is a great lesson for Cuban citizens." "We are under the dark informative. What about Libya? Please send us is welcome news by SMS. " "Now the enemy is social networking, as were The Beatles and long hair." Yoani Sanchez screams in 140 characters.

And although it has access to the web, has managed, through cell phone messages, sending information to Twitter, the "one lawyer" (has more than 100 thousand followers) to the regime that it considers a "mercenary" in service foreign groups. Yoani Sanchez, one of the Internet is more uncomfortable for the government of Havana, which has achieved international fame thanks to his blog, Generation Y, an area of complaint, led by her.

Cuba is a country that controls the internet, but, as in most authoritarian nations, people have found ways to access the network, because it is the only place where you can freely discuss ideas and where you can think of modern revolutions , as Yoani dream and many other Arab countries have prompted demonstrations.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), social networks have become a tool of social change and in all countries should have free internet access. In the report "Internet Enemies", made in 2010, the organization notes that in 2009 about 60 countries engaged in some kind of censorship on the web, which is doubled compared to 2008.

Since the inception of the Internet, about 120 bloggers and cyber-dissidents have been behind bars for expressing their ideas. The country with the detainees is China, with 72, followed by Vietnam and Iran. The data suggest that increasing numbers of internet repression, even in democratic countries like Australia, France, Italy or Britain, where it begins to regulate the network traffic, saying the fight against child pornography or rights Copyright.

The risk, according to RSF, is that the Internet is increasingly becoming a tool of political control. No information on the number of users in a total population of 22 million. The cost is eight dollars an hour internet. It is the most secretive and most people do not have internet access and even many not even know it exists.

There are seven million 700 thousand internet users among its 28 million 686 thousand inhabitants. The cost per hour is navigating between two and four dollars. It is considered one of the most repressive countries in this field. There are nearly 22 million users, 88 million people. In prison there are 17 Internet users and the cost of internet access per hour is about three dollars.

The system monitors and dissidents who question the policies of China. On the grounds of combating child pornography, the government implemented systems never before seen in democratic countries, because it passed a law banning anonymous online in election periods. The Internet has become one of the most free to share information in Russia, even though bloggers are persecuted by the authorities as "extremists."

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