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Internet censorship is a widely studied and important field of research with implications for society, politics, and business. However, little focus has been spent on cross‐country comparisons of online content control. This article aims at reducing this research gap by performing a comparative literature review of Internet censorship practices in France, Turkey, and Iran. The historic development and current status of each country is studied, focusing on censorship levels, institutional characteristics, legislative environments, and current challenges. The assessment discloses several similarities and differences across the countries and allows for the identification of five key driving forces for online content control across France, Turkey, and Iran; namely, the ruling system, institutional setup, national identity, technical ability, and political opportunity. These findings will support future research and political debate on the freedom of expression and unrestricted access to content.

AbstractBy establishing an infrastructure for monitoring and blocking networks in accordance with European Union (EU) law on preventive measures against the spread of information, EU member states have also made it easier to block websites and services and monitor information. While relevant studies have documented Internet censorship in non‐European countries, as well as the use of such infrastructures for political reasons, this study examines network interference practices such as website blocking against the backdrop of an almost complete lack of EU‐related research. Specifically, it performs and demonstrates an analysis for the total of 27 EU countries based on three different sources. They include first, tens of millions of historical network measurements collected in 2020 by Open Observatory of Network Interference volunteers from around the world; second, the publicly available blocking lists used by EU member states; and third, the reports issued by network regulators in each country from May 2020 to April 2021. Our results show that authorities issue multiple types of blocklists. Internet Service Providers limit access to different types and categories of websites and services. Such resources are sometimes blocked for unknown reasons and not included in any of the publicly available blocklists. The study concludes with the hurdles related to network measurements and the nontransparency from regulators regarding specifying website addresses in blocking activities.

European Union (EU) member states consider themselves bulwarks of democracy and freedom of speech. However, there is a lack of empirical studies assessing possible violations of these principles in the EU through Internet censorship. This work starts addressing this research gap by investigating Internet censorship in Spain over 2016-2020, including the controversial 2017 Catalan independence referendum. We focus, in particular, on network interference disrupting the regular operation of Internet services or contents. We analyzed the data collected by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) network measurement tool. The measurements targeted civil rights defending websites, secure communication tools, extremist political content, and information portals for the Catalan referendum. Our analysis indicates the existence of advanced network interference techniques that grow in sophistication over time. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) initially introduced information controls for a clearly defined legal scope (i.e., copyright infringement). Our research observed that such information controls had been re-purposed (e.g., to target websites supporting the referendum). We present evidence of network interference from all the major ISPs in Spain, serving 91% of mobile and 98% of broadband users and several governmental and law enforcement authorities. In these measurements, we detected 16 unique blockpages, 2 Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) vendors, and 78 blocked websites. We also contribute an enhanced domain testing methodology to detect certain kinds of Transport Layer Security (TLS) blocking that OONI could not initially detect. In light of our experience analyzing this dataset, we also make suggestions on improving the collection of evidence of network interference.

European Union (EU) member states consider themselves bulwarks of democracy and freedom of speech. However, there is a lack of empirical studies assessing possible violations of these principles in the EU through Internet censorship. This work starts addressing this research gap by investigating Internet censorship in Spain over 2016-2020, including the controversial 2017 Catalan independence referendum. We focus, in particular, on network interference disrupting the regular operation of Internet services or contents. We analyzed the data collected by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) network measurement tool. The measurements targeted civil rights defending websites, secure communication tools, extremist political content, and information portals for the Catalan referendum. Our analysis indicates the existence of advanced network interference techniques that grow in sophistication over time. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) initially introduced information controls for a clearly defined legal scope (i.e., copyright infringement). Our research observed that such information controls had been re-purposed (e.g., to target websites supporting the referendum). We present evidence of network interference from all the major ISPs in Spain, serving 91% of mobile and 98% of broadband users and several governmental and law enforcement authorities. In these measurements, we detected 16 unique blockpages, 2 Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) vendors, and 78 blocked websites. We also contribute an enhanced domain testing methodology to detect certain kinds of Transport Layer Security (TLS) blocking that OONI could not initially detect. In light of our experience analyzing this dataset, we also make suggestions on improving the collection of evidence of network interference.