Along with other global campaigns to affect social and political transformation (such as Amnesty International), Article 19 is an organization designed "to combat censorship by promoting freedom of expression and access to official information." With offices in London and South Africa, the organization has partners in over 30 countries, and monitors, researches, publishes, and litigates on behalf...

CACI: Children Accessing Controversial Information through computer networks mailing list has now moved from media.mit.edu to cygnus.com. Here's the updated list description: A lot of kids are getting online these days--sharing data about acid rain, talking about social issues, meeting adults as well as kids, and learning about other cultures. Computer networks hold tremendous promise, but also...

This morning, three federal judges overturned the Children's Internet Protection Act and ruled that public libraries cannot be forced to use Internet filters designed to block pornography. In the 195-page decision, judges asserted that the Act went too far because the filters could also block access to other legitimate sites, which is a violation of the First Amendment. The Act, which was signed...

Under the banner of “Advancing freedom worldwide through information and technology”, the Digital Freedom Network is primarily concerned with providing the general public with information about current events around the world that may impinge on a variety of individual freedoms, particularly in the realm of journalism and related activities. One of the highlights of their site is the “Literature...

Established in 1994 by Howard Jonas to expose and combat censorship and human rights abuses around the world, DFN attempts to "fulfill the promise of the Internet" by publishing banned and censored material. The core of the site is a collection of banned material from seventeen countries, arranged by region and frequently updated. Among the dissident authors featured at the DFN website are Bao Ge...

This recently released report from the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) reports on their research about products and software used to filter Internet content. Over the spring and summer, NCAC's Free Expression Policy Project reviewed all of the studies and tests it could find covering the nineteen most common Internet filtering tools. This report, summarizing the review, gives a...

Published on September 5, 2002, this report looks at how the September 11 terrorist attacks affected online content and changed the way Americans feel about Internet use. The 65-page document is divided into seven chapters, and its findings are based on research and surveys by the Pew Internet Project. Some of the material describes Americans' views on electronic information protection, such as...

How can the open spirit and free exchange of ideas be kept alive on the Internet? Can any organization combat Internet filtering and surveillance practices? The OpenNet Initiative works to do just that. The Initiative consists of a partnership between four academic institutions, including the University of Toronto and Harvard University. Their work is focused on exposing and analyzing practices...

Psiphon is a proxy and VPN service designed to circumvent internet censorship. The first version of Psiphon was developed at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. This initial version allowed users in countries that do not censor the internet to provide proxy services for their friends in countries where the internet is censored. In 2007, Psiphon, Inc was founded as a Canadian company separate...