#internet-censorship

#internet-censorship

Last week, Nepal's government ordered authorities to block 26 social media platforms for not complying with a deadline to register with Nepal's ministry of communication and information technology. Platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have millions of users in Nepal, who rely on them for entertainment, news and business. But the government had justified its ban, implemented last week, in the name of tackling fake news, hate speech and online fraud.

Geedge Networks, a company founded in 2018 that counts the "father" of China's massive censorship infrastructure as one of its investors, styles itself as a network-monitoring provider, offering business-grade cybersecurity tools to "gain comprehensive visibility and minimize security risks" for its customers, the documents show. In fact, researchers found that it has been operating a sophisticated system that allows users to monitor online information, block certain websites and VPN tools, and spy on specific individuals.

Every day, some 2 billion people around the world use privacy-protection tools supported by the Open Technology Fund. When people in China escape their government's firewalls and censorship software-now so dense that the system has been called the "locknet"-or when users in Cuba or Myanmar evade cruder internet blocks, they can access material written in their own languages and read stories they would otherwise never see.

"Her phone buzzes-no bars. Wi-Fi icon: dead. The protest footage from last night sits trapped in her device like a caged bird with clipped wings. She filmed everything: the tear gas clearing, protesters linking arms, riot shields retreating."