Europe launches investigation into internet censorship

The European Parliament has passed an amendment to the budget that would allow research into internet censorship in authoritarian states. The budget should cover anti-censorship software and services.

Jules Maaten, as MEP member of the Committee on Human Rights and Foreign Affairs, submitted the addition to the budget that the European Parliament discussed on Thursday positive agreed. He plead ensure that citizens who want to make a negative statement about the governments of countries such as China, Cuba and Tunisia can get a platform via the Internet. Of course, the ‘ordinary’ citizens of those and other totalitarian states should also be able to use the internet safely, according to the European Parliament.

Earlier this year, the VVD, of which Jules Maaten is also a member, proposed introducing legislation at European level that would oblige companies to place their servers in Western countries. At that time, Maaten also argued in favor of this measure, which is referred to as the Global Online Freedom Act in the United States. According to Maaten, America has already made 15 million dollars available to break through the ‘Great Chinese Firewall’.

The budget of 11 million euros for 2009 should be used to research the development of software and services to circumvent censorship. However, Maaten hopes to raise that amount to 20 million euros. Those software and services should be developed within the EU, with the distribution of the money among producers of anti-censorship software and services on competitive terms. For example, the software or service developed must be safe, fast and of high quality, and both the distribution of and updates to the software must be simple.