<IT WORLD> Asia cracks down on
Internet By Martin J
Young
HUA HIN, Thailand - According to the
Freedom on the Net 2012 report released this week
by Freedom House, an independent watchdog
organization, government attacks against bloggers,
politically motivated surveillance, proactive
manipulation of web content, and restrictive laws
regulating speech online are the biggest emerging
threats to Internet freedom in the last two years.
Throughout Asia there have been several
changes in the freedom online rankings,
unfortunately for netizens in the region most have
been in the wrong direction. The ratings for each
country, which categorize them as "free", "partly
free" or "not free", were compiled from a number
of factors including barriers to Internet access,
limits on content, and violations of user rights.
Pakistan and Egypt saw the biggest
declines from 2011, with
India, China, Malaysia,
and South Korea, showing a slight decline in
freedom online. Still ranked "not free" in 2012
are Thailand, Myanmar, China, Vietnam, Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.
Indonesia
and Myanmar showed improvement in rankings
following recent reforms and the Philippines
remained the country with most Internet freedom in
the region.
According to the report, new
laws or directives in 19 of the 47 countries
analyzed have been passed since January 2011.
These have been implemented to restrict online
speech, violate user privacy, or punish
individuals who post content deemed objectionable
or undesirable.
In 26 of the countries,
including several "democratic" states, at least
one blogger or Internet user was arrested for
content posted online or sent via text message,
indicating a notable increase in crackdowns on
political speech on the web.
China, home
to the world's largest Internet population, has
intensified its war on the web with authorities
abducting and arresting dozens of activists and
bloggers and tightening controls over social and
blogging websites. It has one of the most
technologically advanced systems of control over
the Internet, so much so that other countries such
as Iran and Uzbekistan are looking towards it for
guidance.
Iran, Pakistan and Egypt are all
witnessing unprecedented levels of web censorship
and surveillance following civil unrest and the
dissemination of ostensibly insulting and
blasphemous content. In extreme cases, the death
sentence has been imposed on violators.
Bandwidth throttling, blanket censorship,
mobile phone surveillance, keyword filtering,
virtual private network (VPN) bans, and social
media culling are all commonplace in these
countries. Iran is even taking steps to cut itself
off from the global Internet all together and
establish its own highly controlled national
intranet.
The Russian government has also
taken steps to tighten controls over Internet
communications following anti-government protests
that began in December 2011.
Thailand is
intensifying its censorship efforts and spending
more state funds on chasing down those that
violate the draconian lese majeste laws within the
Kingdom while Vietnam is more concerned with
suppressing bloggers that are posting
anti-Communist Party news.
The Freedom
House report findings and projections are very
bleak for Asia where there are increasingly fewer
and fewer bastions of Internet freedom.
Software The next iteration of
Microsoft's flagship Windows operating system is
still not ready for deployment according to
microchip giant Intel. Chief Executive Paul
Otellini told employees at a company event in
Taiwan that Windows 8 is being released before it
is fully ready.
Microsoft is eager to get
Windows 8 out to the public in time for the coming
holiday and spending season in the west. The
tablet friendly touch screen operating system can
then compete with rivals from Apple and Google
during the shopping season which traditionally
sees an increase in sales.
According to
Bloomberg other analysts have echoed Intel's
concerns stating that the operating system is
fundamentally sound but lacks a wide range of
robust applications and still has outstanding
issues with drivers - the software that enables
connectivity with hardware such as printers,
scanners and cameras.
Research firm
Gartner praised the software for offering a
positive experience on touch screen devices but
stated that it will struggle on the business
desktop which is still heavily reliant on a
keyboard and mouse for productivity.
Telecoms Blackberry maker
Research In Motion reported a narrower than
expected loss for the second fiscal quarter which
resulted in renewed enthusiasm and a 20% surge in
share prices in after-hours trading on the day of
the announcement. The implications are that the
company has plentiful cash reserves to bolster the
production of its new Blackberry 10 smart-phones
which are due early next year.
In recent
times the company has fallen far behind its
rivals, primarily Apple and Google, in a market it
once dominated. Research In Motion's net loss for
the second quarter was US$235 million, better than
the $518 million loss in the previous quarter, but
still a steep drop from the net income of $329
million in the same quarter a year earlier.
Shipments of BlackBerry handsets last
quarter were 7.4 million, compared with 10.6
million a year earlier. The decline was reflected
in the revenue figures; $2.9 billion for the last
quarter, up from $2.8 billion in the first
quarter, though down 31% from $4.2 billion a year
ago. The company, which has now put all its
digital chips on a win for the Blackberry 10,
still faces an uphill struggle in an increasingly
crowded market place.
Martin J
Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent
based in Thailand.
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