Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace

Citation

Mason, D. (2011), "Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace", The Electronic Library, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 409-410. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471111141142

This book is the latest output from the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) an international collaboration by three universities, and is a follow on from their previous work Access Denied. This book updates and expands the regional and country analyses of the 2007 original. The purpose of the book is to give a state‐of‐the‐world review of freedom of the internet, examining what governments are doing to regulate or prevent the spread of information.

The ONI monitors and reports on the actions by governments to restrict freedom of information. Governments routinely try to censor information that they deem to be indecent, blasphemous, extremist, insulting, or simply critical of that government. These controls are not restricted to theocratic regimes: democracies are just as likely to legislate to block access to anything they deem to be “unacceptable”. Filtering is not restricted to total denial of access: governments also indulge in surveillance of their citizens' browsing habits, impose technical requirements on internet providers, impose legal regulations on ISPs, appoint third parties as nominated watchdogs, install monitors at key communications chokepoints, and generally restrict what information can be posted, hosted, accessed or communicated online. Every new race hate incident, religious libel and security leak is used to turn the screws a little more tightly.

The book is the result of charting these attempts to monitor and control access to information. The object of Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace is to make the efforts of the various governments more transparent, to provide a factual basis for comparing one country with another, and to map the changes over time.

ONI uses multiple techniques to uncover evidence of filtering by governments including data mining, field investigations and extensive real time testing of selected sites from with each country. The ONI does not take an overtly political viewpoint, other than to state that its position is to favour more as opposed to less internet freedom. Their view is that there is an almost irresistible urge for all governments, everywhere, to shape and influence the information their populations are exposed to. This is nowadays most conveniently justified by appealing to concerns over terrorism, pornography and cybersecurity.

There are chapters outlining exactly how second and third generation internet control is being implemented, the unexpected consequences of trying to suppress child pornography and cybercrime, and an outline of the information policies of the largest geopolitical blocks. The bulk of the book is a country‐by‐country analysis of what political controls are being maintained or proposed. In keeping with a book on internet access, fully updated profiles of each region and country are available on the book's web site.

Overall, this is an essential reference source for anyone working in the field of cyber security, information policy and international development.