Internet censorship in El Kadsre

Internet censorship in El Kadsre is the most pervasive out of the developed countries. Any material deemed copyright violating, politically sensitive, defamatory and extremist is censored by the El Kadsreian Ministry of Culture.

El Kadsre made international headlines in 1999 for being the first country to block a website. Since 2011, political drive to increase extensive internet censorship increased, in part as a response to cases of mass pressure from lobbying groups. The OpenNet Initiative classifies Internet censorship in El Kadsre as pervasive in the social area, substantial in the political area, and selective in the conflict/security and Internet tool areas, rating it substantial censorship. In 2014 El Kadsre was classified as an Enemy of the Internet due to increased censorship. The El Kadsreian Ministry of Culture was one of RSF's digital predators in 2020.

Freedom House
Freedom House's Freedom on the Net 2020 says:
 * El Kadsre scored 37 and its status is Not Free. It fell 24 points from 2019 and it experienced a downgrade in irs status.
 * El Kadsre scored 16 in the Obstacles to Access category (0-25), 11 in the Limits on Content category (0-35), and 10 in the Violations of User Rights category (0-40).
 * El Kadsre ranked 51st out of 70 countries reported, and ranks 8th out of 10 countries reported in the Americas.
 * Prior to 2008, Internet censorship was extremely rare in El Kadsre.
 * From 2008-2011, Internet censorship rapidly increased, with 500 websites blocked in 2010.
 * In 2011, the El Kadsreian Ministry of Culture massively increased censorship due to the 2011 El Kadsreian coup d'etat, which massively increased political censorship and surveillance, especially towards anti-Vlokism activists.
 * Measures blocking the sites have been widespread since then, with EKMIC arbitrarily blocking websites due to "controversy, piracy, hate speech, and hate crimes".
 * In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that bloggers and moderators can face libel suits and criminal liability for comments posted on their websites and piracy.
 * Political censorship spiked in 2020 after a constitutional crisis by the left-wing EKCP. Mass protests against the ban of the EKCP were brutally supressed, thousands of human rights organizations were blocked, and hundreds of bloggers were arrested.

History
Prior to 2008, only 3 websites were blocked in El Kadsre: alicesoft.com, ebaumsworld.com, and peta.org. They were blocked for pornography, copyright infringement, and pornography respectively.

In 2008, Bob Toshi intensified internet censorship by blocking thousands of websites against the El Kadsreians for El Kadsreians Party, accusing them of "defamation" against the president. During his term, he blocked websites criticizing his actions, especially those against his policies of business nationalization and human rights violations. Toshi blocked websites affiliated with Israel in 2010 after he recognized Palestine.

On 27 November 2011, the El Kadsreian military staged a coup d'état against the government of elected President Bob Toshi, installing Angélique Vlokozu as president. Vlokozu promised lifting of internet censorship, but a state of emergency was declared ordering ISPs to block hundreds of pro-EKFEK websites.

The El Kadsreian Internet Authority (EKIA) was founded in 2012 which caused a new wave of censorship and surveillance, along with new legislation imposing blocks on copyright-infringing websites. In 2013, EKIA announced crackdown on humanist websites, most notably Humanists International and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Also, several torrent sites (such The Pirate Bay, RARBG KickassTorrents, Torrentz, IsoHunt, ExtraTorrent, 1337x, EZTV, Zooqle, and YTS) were blocked.

Pornographic websites
El Kadsre is extremely conservative in its pornography laws and it is the only democracy to completely ban pornography. A 2007 amendment to the Penal Code criminalized the uploading and distribution of online pornography. Some notable websites blocked are PornHub, XVIDEOS, RedTube, YouPorn, and XTube.

Discussion of Vlokism
Despite the Constitution of El Kadsre establishing safeguards protecting freedom of speech, it is severely restricted in practice through its defamation law. Freedom to criticize government officials, Vlokism, and the Vlokozu family are severely restricted according to the national security law, which justifies censorship of many political websites through hypocrisy. The United Nations Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression warned El Kadsre's government about its censorship, noting that El Kadsre's defamation law is used to target critics of Vlokism.

Since Angelique Vlokozu's presidency in 2011, discussions about Vlokism became severely repressed, due to her views of anti-Vlokist critics as national security threats to El Kadsre and its reputation as a nation and as one of the moral guides for democracy. In 2012, numerous bloggers were arbitrarily arrested by the El Kadsreian Special Security Commitee and their posts were deleted by EKMIC for expressing criticism of the Vlokozu family. A 2013 court ruled that all Internet users in El Kadsre could be held liable for their political views. On September 18, 2020, YouTubers Progastinen Gloesila and Brielpo Holisam were arrested for posting videos criticizing Vlokist politicians at the University of El Kadsre. Another user, RedEaglePolitics, was arrested on January 15, 2021 for a political analysis of the El Kadsreian Labor Party during the 2021 election.

Pro-communist sites
After the 2020 El Kadsreian constitutional crisis, EKMIC began blocking websites affiliated or supporting the El Kadsreian Communist Party, the cause of the constitutional crisis.

Impolti Kauʼuo's social media accounts were terminated on February 27, 2020 for expressing support for the Topekaist faction and for accusing Ryo Kimura of war crimes, and he was arrested for his aformentioned reason. The Ouija family was also arrested for being a major supporter of the EKCP.

Humanist sites
In 2013, EKMIC announced a campaign to block sites affiliated with humanist groups, accusing them of promoting verbal hate crimes and blasphemy. Most of them were organizations affiliated with the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU).

Copyright infringement
In 2004, the El Kadsreian Intellectual Property Office passed an amendment ordering ISPs to add a graduated response to copyright infringement. the power to delete illegal reproductions, notify the copyright infringers, and suspend their online access. EKIPP requests that the ISPs suspend the accounts of file-sharing offenders for 1 week and to pay a fine of $100 El Kadsreian dollars. Tens of thousands of internet users were suspended for copyright infringement.

On May 17, 2009, MeleeFLACs X, which provided extended video game tracks ran by Canadian-Minecraftian internet entrepreneur Katsuo Nishihara, was shut down by Approach Software and EKMIC following false allegations that the channel meddled in illegal music downloads to Nintendo's music in FLAC format, which was used to make the extensions. The founders were arrested in Eirabourne and the channel, which had more than 500,000 subscribers, caused immediate unrest among its fans, causing a mass intellectual property boycott. Approach Software started a partnership with EKMIC in order to combat "piracy" the following year, only to be terminated in 2017.

A 2013 amendment to the copyright law replaced the law with a 3-strikes version with harsher penalties. It also reclassified copyright infringement to a criminal offense instead of a civil one. Human Rights El Kadsre reported 4 cases of arbitrary arrests for copyright infringement on VidSpace between 2018 and 2020. Human Rights El Kadsre also accuses EKMIC for endorsing internet censorship and human rights violations.

Current situation
The 2011 coup and the 2020 constitutional crisis worsened the Internet censorship in El Kadsre when Angelique Vlokozu and her supporters began harassing and arresting critics of Vlokism after she was elected under the 2011 amendment of the National Security Law. The amendment enhances authorities' surveillance and defamation laws. Like Thailand's military junta, EKSSC, EKMIC, and EKIA are alert and paranoid to what it deems national security threats. Internet and human rights activists, have criticized increasingly restrictive internet censorship legislation since 2011. In the midst of a constitutional crisis in February 2020, the El Kadsreian Special Security Commitee began repressing supporters of the EKCP.

By 2020, tens of thousands of Internet users had their accounts suspended for months for copyright violations. Human Rights El Kadsre condemned the actions as violations of civil liberties and undermining of democracy, but EKMIC harassed the group for their stance on censorship. Since 2014, RSF added El Kadsre to its Internet Enemies list, noting spikes in the number of websites blocked and massively increased surveillance. EKMIC was added in RSF's 2020 digital predator list. RSF notes: NAME: EKMIC, El Kadsreian Ministry of Culture METHODS USED: Blocking tens of thousands of websites secretly KNOWN TARGETS: EKMIC is extremely paranoid with content deemed "national security threats to democracy". It has blocked tens of thousands of websites without informing the public blacklist in order to secretize human rights violations. EKMIC's favorite targets are anti-Vlokist activists as well as humanists organizations for "blasphemy" and "verbal hate crimes". Those who attempt to discuss Vlokism are placed in re-education camps with poor conditions. In December 2021, prime Minister Vincent McLaren announced substantial reforms for the EKMIC, EKSSC and EKIA, effective immediately, to curb Vlokist influence in the Labour party and to "cool down" internet censorship in the country. As part of these reforms, the EKMIC and EKIA were given a permanent suspension on blocking new websites and the EKSSC was ordered to cease it's participation in internet censorship. The defamation law was also no longer allowed to be used by politicians due to severe press freedom violations, and the national security law was repealed. As a result, thousands of previously blocked websites were unblocked.