“Freedom of expression – the freedom to send, receive, share and access information and ideas (in any media) – is a core right, vital to the exercise of most other rights; if it is compromised online it will undermine free expression and other rights offline as well as in the digital world. Yet we see a rapid increase in the number of governments – some authoritarian, but some democratic – stepping in to increase their control of the internet. We also see a number of corporations (web hosts, ISPs, telecom companies and others) sometimes working with governments when they engage in censorship, surveillance or other harmful interventions in the internet….”
These are quotes from the introduction of Index on Censorship, Standing up to threats to digital freedom Can we keep the internet free?, a paper presented at a conference of the Internet Governance Forum in Baku, 2012. Although it was written two years ago, this paper treats the topics of this day (viz. the recent attempts to curb the social media in Turkey). It is presented on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day on May 3.
As the Institute is collecting more and more digital material emanating from organizations originating on the Internet, it will also encounter the problems dealt with in this paper.
Due to changes in the schedule of his work, this contribution is the last one in the May 3 Press Freedom sequence by Huub Sanders.
Earlier Contributions by Huub Sanders on World Press Freedom Day :
2013: Louise Michel
2012: Ruedo Iberico
2011: 'Vrank en Vrij' versus the occupying forces
2010: Freedom Press, Circular Letter
2009: Marx and the Rheinische Zeitung
2008: Freie Presse a weekly against Hitler
2007: The Alexander Herzen Foundation against censorship in the Soviet Union
2006: Press Now. Independent media and Yugoslavia
2005: A Dozen Press Freedom Posters
2004: Jacob Brandsteder and the Suppression of the Free Press
2003: Koos Koster in El Salvador