Article

Internet Censorship

What do the Nigerian Military Dictatorship and the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party have in common? Neither are very happy about their inability to control information on the internet. Obviously the danger posed by one of these groups of authoritarians is much more than the other, but the same thought processes are at play in both.

The SWP have a number of fraternal organisations internationally, known as International Socialists. An internet discussion list was set up, the IS List. In August 1995 the Central Committee banned SWP members from using this list. They gave three reasons, security, accountability and that the internet is a diversion from paper selling and being ignored in the high street. All of these are fair enough in themselves but one can't help but get the feeling they're simply worried that their members might be exposed to a few new ideas, particularly when they say "we therefore lack the means to make the list accountable to the organisations making up the Tendency" (emphasis added). You can access the document via http://www.tcp.co.uk/~johnboss/isg.

Meanwhile the Nigerian government of General Abacha has turned down a proposal by a private consortium to develop the country's telecommunications infrastructure to facilitate access to the internet.

The consortium had proposed a plan to help Nigeria catch up with other African countries such as Ghana, Zambia, Kenya and Uganda, where the Internet is already further developed. Businesses complain that Nigeria's business and trading relationships are likely to suffer for example where local exporters laboriously mail catalogues to foreign buyers, which take a month to get there, while their competitors, in Ghana, do the same in a matter of minutes electronically. When the consortium raised the money the government replied that the Internet could be detrimental to national security. There is a considerable amount of information documenting Nigeria's dismal human rights record online, and e-mail links would provide a fast and relatively secure means of communication with supproters abroad.