“Against the enemies of the internet” – this is the short but incisive message for today’s World Day Against Cyber Censorship, organised by press freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Jean-Francois Julliard, secretary-general of RSF, explains the day in this video:
To mark the day, RSF has published an article, ‘Web 2.0 versus Control 2.0’, emphasising the idea of the internet as a force for democracy and freedom.
The fight for free access to information is being played out to an ever greater extent on the Internet. The emerging general trend is that a growing number of countries are attempting to tighten their control of the net, but at the same time, increasingly inventive ‘netizens’ demonstrate mutual solidarity by mobilizing when necessary.
Last night RSF, with support from Google, awarded the inaugural Netizen Prize to the Iranian creators of website Change for Equality, “a well-known source of information on women’s rights in Iran […] and rallying point for opponents of the regime.”