Do-It-Yourself Censorship
U.S. firms, spooked by export rules, seem to be practicing a kind of self-censorship oddly similar to what Chinese firms do
NEWSWEEK -- Excerpts from the magazine issue dated Mar 16, 2009
Yaraslau Kryvoi was no stranger to censorship. After all, he grew up in Belarus, one of the last “outposts of tyranny” in Europe, as former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice once put it. On Feb. 20, he got a notice from his Web-hosting firm that his account was being suspended and that he had 10 days to remove his content. Like many citizens of authoritarian states, Kryvoi had found himself on a blacklist.
Trouble is, this story takes place in Washington, D.C. Kryvoi, a 29-year-old graduate of Harvard Law School, works at a reputable law firm. In his spare time, he administers a blog for the local chapter of the Belarussian American Association (BAA). Since the government of Belarus is subject to U.S. trade sanctions, Bluehost, the Provo, Utah, company that hosts Kryvoi’s Web site, decided to cut him off…
So why the ban? Although Bluehost is one of the world’s biggest hosting companies, it probably doesn’t have the time or resources to match the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) list with its own customer ranks. Banning everyone from
Belarus takes much less time and effort. Indeed, Bluehost’s contract with customers—the “terms of service” to which all users must agree when signing up, but which few ever read—states that the firm won’t do business with citizens of Belarus, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Zimbabwe and the Balkans. Kryvoi might have triggered an alarm when he paid his Bluehost bill by credit card while visiting his family in Belarus…
The situation is not doing much to advance the interests of the United States abroad. For instance, Kubatana, a portal in Zimbabwe known for its ardent stance against President Robert Mugabe, got a cutoff notice from Bluehost in February. Eventually the U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe contacted officials at the U.S. Treasury Department who confirmed that Kubatana is not subject to sanctions; Bluehost then reinstated the service. But this is not a smart way to promote democracy. Purging customers from Belarus or Zimbabwe raises hurdles for pro-democracy groups—many of them funded by the U.S. government—while allowing dictators to broadcast their propaganda unabated.
This article appeared in
Belarusian Review, Vol. 21, No. 1
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Copyright 2009 Belarusian Review
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Evgeny Morozov
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