America, the champion of democracy and freedom, actually has more Internet censorship than some countries in Africa and South America according to an infographic based on Internet censorship research conducted by the OpenNet Initiative.

The U.S. and Canada are listed as "some censorship" along with much of Western Europe. Russia and Australia ranked lower as "Under Surveillance," while China and parts of the Middle East ranked at the bottom for "Pervasive Censorship."

As for what kinds of content is censored, the research found that "blogs" were the most censored content at 20% while "militant groups" only ranked at 1%. Surprisingly, locally focussed NGOs tied for third-most censored at 9%.







Even though the research from OpenNet comes from top minds at at The Citizen Lab, University of Toronto, and the Harvard Law School, it raises some inherent problems with defining "censorship." For example, screening out child pornography and illegal file sharing technically registers as "censorship" even though most people wouldn't consider that a human rights offense. It would be naive, however, to assume that all that surveillance was well-intentioned, especially when applied in countries that restrict social networking sites or limit access to the Internet.

Perhaps that's why locally focussed NGO's sometimes rank so highly in types of censored content. Quashing protest or opposition is much different from removing illegal content. Even still, it's strange to see local efforts so outrank international NGOs, regional NGOs and even independent media.

It's also possible that the results could be skewed by the quantity of people on the Internet and their available bandwidth.







The OpenNet research and the infographic (created by a Design & Technology MFA candidate at Parsons, NY) is imperfect. Still, it offers an interesting glimpse at how "developed" countries stack up against the rest of the world and what content — if any — is targeted for censorship. You can sign a petition against censorship at the bottom of the graphics page.

Let us know your thoughts and conclusions in the comments below.