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Netizens invited to leave "Cyber Tag" messages on “Internet Enemy” embassies
Reporters Without Borders PRESS RELEASE | 12.03.2012
Every year on 12 March, World Day Against Cyber-Censorship, Reporters Without Borders releases an updated survey of the state of online freedom of information worldwide called the “Enemies of the Internet.”
One Internet user in three does not have access to an unrestricted Internet. Around 60 countries censor the Internet to various degrees or harass netizens. At least 120 people are currently in prison just because they used the Internet to express themselves freely. These are chilling figures. While the Internet has been playing a key role in the Arab Spring uprisings, more and more governments are trying to manipulate online information and remove content.
This year, to draw attention to this situation, the JWT Paris ad agency came up with the idea of a temporary website dedicated to combating cyber-censorship. Called Cyber Tag (www.cyber-tag.net), it allows Internet users to pin messages on virtual versions of the embassies of the 10 countries that Reporters Without Borders has identified as “Enemies of the Internet.”
Inspired by the slogan “It’s ink that should flow not blood” which Reporters Without Borders activists painted during a protest outside the Syrian embassy in Paris in May 2011, the Cyber Tag site invites Internet users to stage virtual demos outside the embassies of their choice and to leave messages on their facades.
Launched this morning, this temporary website has been designed to guide Internet users who want to participate in these virtual demonstrations and to provide facts about violations of online freedom of information. It is also intended as a way to pay tribute to the solidarity that netizens show each other.
