World Day against Cyber Censorship

Today, 12th March, is the World Day against Cyber Censorship, recognizing a movement or action against any censorship proposed by the governments on using Internet technology and resources. The movement started on March 12th, 2008 at the request of Reporters without Borders and Amnesty International. This event is intended to take every possible organized action by regrouping every supporter of unrestricted use of internet against the government agencies trying to take control of this virtual world. According to the Reporters Without Borders, For the first time since the creation of the Internet, 118 netizens (Internet Users) are behind bars around the world just for using their right to express their opinion without fear and hundreds of websites and blogs have been shut down permanently in the last year alone.

Freedom of the Press Worldwide

The official World Day against Cyber Censorship website describes the motive behind celebrating the day as: “World Day Against Cyber-Censorship (on 12 March 2011) is intended to rally everyone in support of a single Internet without restrictions and accessible to all.”
Google Inc., Microsoft and other internet companies support the efforts being done in this concern. Google calls this day a refresher of its approach, outlined 4 years ago, of removing content. It is worth noting that Google discloses a report after a six-month period containing the number of requests from different government agencies and courts around the world to remove content from its services and hand over user data. On its official blog Google says, “At Google, we have a bias in favor of free expression—not just because it’s a key tenet of free societies, but also because the more information generally means more choice, more power, more economic opportunity and more freedom for people.”
Reporters without Borders (or RWB) published a report called Press Freedom Index on 25 January 2012 for the year 2011-12 ranking 178 countries around the world according to press freedom violations. The report also includes a graphic version of the index in the form of a world map of press freedom. Singapore, the base for the movement, ranked 135 in Press Freedom Index.