The United States government is giving $25m this year to help political dissidents 'get around internet censorship in autocratic countries.'

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said technology and training were being provided to help digital activists stay one step ahead of the censors.

In the past few weeks, anti-government protests, organised via the internet and mobile phones, have been a feature of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

Mrs Clinton, in a speech at George Washington University, pointed to China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, Syria and Vietnam as countries that impose censorship, restrict internet access or arrest bloggers who criticise the government.

She described the publication of secret US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks as an ‘act of theft’ and insisted US criticism of the website's actions did not clash with Washington's commitment to an open internet.

Mrs Clinton also announced plans to launch Twitter feeds in Chinese, Russian and Hindi, just days after starting Twitter feeds in Arabic and Farsi.

She said the United States would continue to help people in ‘oppressive internet environments’ with censorship circumvention technology but ‘there is no silver bullet in the struggle against Internet repression.’

‘There's no “app” for that,’ she quipped.

Commenting on WikiLeaks, Mrs Clinton said the US government had no role in the decision by a number of US companies, including Amazon, MasterCard, PayPal and Visa, to cut off services to WikiLeaks.

‘Any business decisions that private companies may have taken to enforce their own policies regarding WikiLeaks was not at the direction or the suggestion of the Obama administration,’ she said.

‘WikiLeaks does not challenge our commitment to internet freedom,’ she added.

Mrs Clinton's speech came on the same day as a US judge held a hearing in Virginia into a US government attempt to obtain information about the Twitter accounts of people connected with WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange described the US move on Monday as an ‘outrageous attack by the Obama administration on the privacy and free speech rights of Twitter's customers - many of them American citizens.’