14 DAY TRIAL // The Internet has been around for quite a while now but only recently has it gotten a wide enough spread and become accessible to enough people in developing countries that it is beginning to be a target for totalitarian regimes from Cuba to Italy. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is known for his increasingly strong grasp over the country and, having forced traditional media into submission, is now looking to do the same for the web.
Only recently, he called Twitter users terrorists in one of his lengthy, but assuredly fascinating, TV broadcasts which are aired, compulsory, by all broadcasters and cable networks in the country. Who needs Jay Leno when you have the Tonight Show with Hugo Chavez? Every night. At the time, he hinted at some kind of regulation, which he would impose over the web and he is now making clearer similar threats.
"The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms," Chavez said, according to Reuters. The president then exemplified this by claiming that Noticiero Digital, a local political opinion website, had run a false story about one of his senior ministers having been assassinated, which he says was up for a full two days.
"We have to act. We are going to ask the attorney general for help, because this is a crime. I have information that this page periodically publishes stories calling for a coup d'etat. That cannot be permitted," he stated. He went on to point at social networks, which he claims are also a hotbed for false and unfounded rumors. His conclusion is that wild web must be regulated to stop the spreading of such false and detrimental rumors.
The discussion on Internet freedom has been heating up lately especially after Google announced it would no longer censor search results in China, which may lead to the very likely departure from the Chinese search market. Democratic countries are also, worryingly, starting to impose greater regulations of the online space with such examples as Australia and Italy.