Your Censored Internet in Southeast Asia
September 15th, 2009 Posted in Cheap Asia Travel, Destination reports, GeneralWhether you are traveling with a netbook or popping into cyber cafes, there’s one aspect of your online experience you don’t hear much about in cheery travel articles: censorship of your surfing. You won’t encounter much in some destinations, such as Indonesia, but if you go online in Vietnam you may as well be in heavy-handed China or North Korea.
That’s the gist of this Wall Street Journal article, Web Censoring Widens Across Southeast Asia.
“Malaysia has recently used its colonial-era Internal Security Act, which allows detention for up to two years without trial, to muzzle bloggers. Thailand is ramping up its reliance on a recently introduced Computer Crimes Act to restrict criticism of its royal family and limit the spread of what the government calls seditious material. Vietnam, an authoritarian Communist state, has been arresting people caught posting thoughts that run contrary to government policy, and has detained lawyers who try to defend them.”
Of course the situation is even worse in Burma (Myanmar), where the military junta has followed the model employed by Cuba and North Korea: keep everyone from getting online in the first place and there’s less need to censor. Only 0.2 percent of the population even has access!
Thankfully there are bright spots. Communist Laos has been characteristically laid-back about censoring posts and Cambodia has also not made many moves to restrict content. Indonesia and the Philippines have mostly kept the Web open, despite their very real issues of dealing with home-grown terrorists and separatists.
The coolest part of the article linked above is this interactive censorship map, which lays out the level of censorship across Asia and the Middle East in four areas: political, social, security related, and internet tools. What’s amazing is how consistent they are. Countries that engage in censorship in one area often apply that heavy hand to all areas: think China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
You can also click on individual countries for their percentage of the population that is online. South Korea rules with 78% logging in. At the other end of the scale, Yemen isn’t much better off than Burma: penetration is 1.2%. Something tells me nobody will be having this “print media is dying” conversation in Yemen anytime soon.
2 Responses to “Your Censored Internet in Southeast Asia”
By Mrugesh on Sep 15, 2009
North Korea and Burma (Myanmar)are the scariest countries of Asia. I have been to both places, it’s living hell. No human rights at all.
By Renato on Sep 17, 2009
Great post Tim. Actually in many of those countries more than “print media is dying”, you would have a “free media is dying” conversation, whatever printed or not.