Internet Censorship: BBC World Service

A poll of 27,973 adults in 26 countries, including 14,306 Internet users, was conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan using telephone and in-person interviews between 30 November 2009 and 7 February 2010. GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller felt, overall, that the poll showed that:

Despite worries about privacy and fraud, people around the world see access to the internet as their fundamental right. They think the web is a force for good, and most don’t want governments to regulate it.

Findings from the poll include:

• Nearly four in five (78%) Internet users felt that the Internet had brought them greater freedom.
• Most Internet users (53%) felt that "the internet should never be regulated by any level of government anywhere".
• Opinion was evenly split between Internet users who felt that “the internet is a safe place to express my opinions” (48%) and those who disagreed (49%). Somewhat surprisingly users in Germany and France agreed the least, followed by users in highly filtered countries such as China and South Korea, while users in Egypt, India and Kenya agreed more strongly.
• The aspects of the Internet that cause the most concern include: fraud (32%), violent and explicit content (27%), threats to privacy (20%), state censorship of content (6%), and the extent of corporate presence (3%).
• Almost four in five Internet users and non-users around the world felt that access to the Internet was a fundamental right (50% strongly agreed, 29% somewhat agreed, 9% somewhat disagreed, 6% strongly disagreed, and 6% gave no opinion). And while there is strong support for this right in all of the countries surveyed, it is surprising that the United States and Canada were among the top five countries where people most strongly disagreed that access to the Internet was a fundamental right of all people (13% in Japan, 11% in the U.S., 11% in Kenya, 11% in Pakistan, and 10% in Canada strongly disagree).

   Unknown

   No censorship

   Some censorship

   Under surveillance

   Heavy surveillance ("Internet black holes")