Wikimedia Foundation Legal department/Censorship

This page records laws and proposed legislation around the world that could affect free expression.

Brazil

• Draft Bill Proposition on Civil Rights Framework for Internet in Brazil (English translation) - This draft bill was debated online and underwent revision before being introduced to Congress.

India

• See en:Internet censorship in India#2011
• In April 2011, new "IT Rules 2011" (NOTIFICATION, MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (Department of Information Technology) THE GAZETTE OF INDIA, 11th April, 2011) were adopted as a supplement to the 2000 Information Technology Act (ITA) as amended by the 2008 Information Technology (Amendment) Act. Before the amendment, section 79 of the IT Act shielded intermediaries such as Google, Facebook and Twitter from any liability for user generated content [1]. The new "Intermediary Guidelines" make it necessary for the intermediaries to observe "due diligence" and not to host information that is blasphemous, grossly harmful, harassing, invasive of another's privacy, racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, belongs to another person and harm minors in any way [2]. The rules enable any individual or public or private institution to get content removed from websites in 36 hours, in most cases simply by notifying the website owners or intermediaries such as Google, Yahoo and others. Takedown requests can be based on any of 15 vaguely drafted parameters, without stating any reasons or requiring any judicial or quasi-judicial order in support [3]. In case intermediaries don’t act within 36 hours, they are exposed to legal liability, both civil and criminal, under the Information Technology Act, 2000 [4].
  • October 2011 the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) carried out an undercover investigation into the “chilling effects”, with six out of seven major websites removing innocent content online without proper investigation, after a CIS researcher had sent “fraudulent” takedown letters to seven internet companies making claims without providing any evidence that certain third-party content violated provisions under the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules [5]. Report: Intermediary Liability in India: Chilling Effects on Free Expression on the Internet 2011
  • In January 2012, a Delhi Court issues summons to Google, Facebook headquarters for objectionable content [6]. Top executives from al subpoenaed companies were originally scheduled to make a court appearance im March 2012, but court date moved to May 23 [7].
  • March 2012 Kerala-based advocate Shojan Jacob filed the first ever writ challenging the rules in the Kerala High Court [8] [9].
  • April 24, 2012: P Rajeeve, Member of Parliament has tabled a motion to annul the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) rules, 2011 and told ET that the Left parties are "more or less" in support of the motion and that it has been accepted for discussion [10].
• Following the August en:2012 Assam violence, the Government of India ordered more than 300 specific URLs blocked, including i.a. Wikipedia (apparently an article on the Danish cartoon controversy [11], of the 3 indicated Wikipedia URLs 1 didn't exist [12])

Italy

• Bill w:DDL intercettazioni, proposed since 2008 (Paragraph 29 requiring all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image), no longer pursued after Italian Wikipedia "strike" in October 2011.
• Mr. Fava's proposed amendment to Italian Legislative Decree 70/2003 (Italian) - Dismissed on February 4, 2012
• Digital Censorship - Italian Judge Close Down Disaster Information Site, February 20, 2012
  • See also, german NZZ, german futurezone, italian corriere, italian repubblica
  • Freedom of press and expression: The blocking of access to users Italians adopted through the seizure of the the Italian providers’s IP and DNS, in case of alleged defamation is illegal, an Italian Court said. March 12th, 2012 (decision by the Court of the Freedom of Belluno, Italy, on March 9, 2012 accepting the claim of the 200 Internet Service Provider of Confcommercio, belonging to the Association “Assoprovider”, that had protested to the amplitude of the measure imposed by the judge for preliminary investigations of Belluno.)
• resurrection in April 2012 of "blog killer law" / "comma ammazza-blog" by Paola Severino ([13], [14], text comparison (italian))
  • deadline for the parties to submit further amendment proposals by May 4, 2012 [15].
  • Italian Wikipedia is discussing open letter/banner (it/en-translation by google)
  • June 11, 2012: banner/sitenotice on Italian Wikipedia (See info in italian [16], french [17] and german [18]) until 28 giu 2012
• protest sitenotice with it:Wikipedia:Comunicato 24 ottobre 2012 until changed to a single sentence in November 1 (and removed on November 15, 2012). Followed by discussion of protest [19] [20]

Mexico

• December 2013: proposed amendment to the Industrial Property Law, Federal Law on Copyright and the Federal Penal Code, recently presented at the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, very similar to SOPA and the Sinde Law in Spain, would affect the functioning of the Wikimedia projects in Mexico.[21] position draft

Pakistan

• On 19 and 20 May 2010, Pakistan's Telecommunication Authority (PTA) imposed a ban on Wikipedia and other websites in response to a competition entitled en:Everybody Draw Mohammed Day on Facebook.
• This Isn't a Hoax: Pakistan Requests Proposals for a National Filtering and Blocking System, February 24, 2012.

Philippines

• On October 5, 2012 the en:Tagalog Wikipedia (Philippines) put a protest sitenotice on its pages with the words "blackout" and en:Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

Russian Federation

• On July 10, 2012 en:Russian Wikipedia protested with a 24 hour blackout against the en:Federal law of Russian Federation no. 139-FZ of 2012-07-28 creating the en:Russian Internet blacklist that went live on November 1, 2012

Saudi Arabia

• In 2011, the Saudi government introduced new Internet rules and regulations that require all online newspapers and bloggers to obtain a special license from the Ministry of Culture and Information. The CITC is responsible for regulating the Internet and for hosting a firewall which blocks access to thousands of websites, mainly due to sexual and political content, including articles of the English and Arabic Wikipedia, en:Wikipedia:List of articles censored in Saudi Arabia. The legal basis for content filtering is a resolution by the Council of Ministers dated 12 February 2001. See en:Censorship in Saudi Arabia#Internet.

Turkey

• June 2015 Banner:
  • Wikipedia releases warning on Turkey’s censorship, monitoring hurriyetdailynews.com
  • Wikipedia official criticizes increasing censorship against Turkish Vikipedi todayszaman.com, 2015-06-19
• en:2017 block of Wikipedia in Turkey, [22]
  • Response to 2017 ban in Turkey
  • "Wikimedia Foundation urges Turkish authorities to restore access to Wikipedia". Wikimedia Foundation Blog. 2017-04-30. 

UK

• 2008 blocking of Wikipedia, see "Virgin Killer" album and en:Internet Watch Foundation and Wikipedia
• There have been several governmental projects to intercept and control telecommunications, see en:Communications Data Bill 2008, en:Interception Modernisation Programme, en:Communications Capabilities Development Programme (2012) and en:Internet censorship in the United Kingdom. Jimmy Wales criticised the UK government's "snooper's charter" in 2012 and said Wikipedia would move to encrypt all its connections with Britain if UK internet companies were mandated by the government to keep track of every single page accessed by UK citizens.

Ukraine

• 21 January 2014 Banner, uk:Вікіпедія:Закон № 721-VII: "Ukrainian Wikipedia community expresses its strong protest against the Parliament passed and the President signed Law 721-VII «On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine" On the Judicial System and Status of Judges "and procedural laws for additional measures to protect the security of citizens" which, when implemented can seriously damage the freedom and openness of the Internet, including Wikipedia. (...) Community announces the establishment of a banner in protest and announce the daily 30 minute strike from 16:00 to 16:30 Kyiv time Ukrainian-language section of Wikipedia, from Tuesday 21 January 2014, during which the page will not be accessible to readers of all the world every day." (See en:Anti-protest laws in Ukraine)

USA

• en:Stop Online Piracy Act protest blackout of english Wikipedia in January 18–19, 2012

Uzbekistan

• Wikipedia Articles In Uzbek Blocked, February 16, 2012
• Have you heard about the Uzbek Wikipedia? Neither have the Uzbeks. Submission Wikimania 2012
• While the Uzbek Wikipedia is blocked in the territory of Uzbekistan, there was a mirror of the Uzbek Wikipedia at http://wiki.zn.uz (2008 - June 2012) which is overtly affiliated with governmental websites. Similarly, in February 2012 RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reported that a website had been set up to mirror the site of RFE/RL's Uzbek Service with its logo and branding, in what could be a phishing scheme to harvest user information. ("Attack Of The Cloned Websites...This Time In Uzbekistan". RFE/RL. 15 February 2012, Blocking of Wikipedia/Knockoff Wikipedias. Submission Wikimania 2012)

Other resources

• Censorship on Meta
• en:Censorship of Wikipedia
• Internet censorship by country on Wikipedia
• Global Censorship Chokepoints
• World Press Freedom Index 2011-2012, Reporters WIthout Borders
• Freedom on the Net 2011, Freedom House
• OpenNet Initiative