I was very surprised while being in China that I did not have opportunity to use Facebook and Google. That made me literally crazy when I could not find a free way to search on the internet like normally I did. It turned out, that not only China has some prohibitions as for internet and digital services, but a lot of countries as well. Here I would like to present a list of banned technologies all over the world.
The high speed of technology development often provokes distrust and even fear for new products. Famous sites, like Facebook, face censorship, while encoding information in applications like WhatsApp leads to prohibitions on a national scale. This is reported by Technoworld.
1. VPN in Russia
Vladimir Putin signed a law banning technologies that provide access to blocked Russian sites, Reuters informs.
The ban will enter into force in November this year and will not allow the use of a virtual private network (VPN), which makes possible to remain anonymous whule searching in the internet, and other tools to access content that has been censored.
2. Video games after midnight in South Korea
"Cinderella's Law" came into force in May 2011. It does not allow persons under the age of 18 to play online video games after 00:00 and until 6:00 to prevent child addiction. However, this does not apply to game consoles and phones.
3. WhatsApp, Facebook and Viber in Bangladesh
In 2015, Bangladesh imposed a ban on the use of WhatsApp, Facebook and Viber due to security reasons. This is not the first time when social applications have been censored - in 2010 the country Facebook was temporarily disabled.
4. Blackberry in Pakistan
In Pakistan in 2016, a ban was put on the use of Blackberry phones for security reasons. The phones of this brand use encryption, aimed at business and confidentiality, which other countries have disapproved in the past. In 2010, Saudi Arabia banned sending and receiving of messages through such phones.
5. iPad in Israel
It was not the longest "ban" in history, but for two weeks in 2010 new iPad was banned in Tel Aviv. The government said that this device was brought into compliance with the standards of the United States and not Israel, so its emissions could interfere with smooth functioning of military communications waves.
6. Mobile Communications in Cuba
Until 2008, the island experienced banning of mobile communication, until this issue was not resolved by President Raul Castro. The previous president, Fidel Castro, imposed such a ban because of suspicion towards mobile networks coming from the US.
7. View of streets through Google in Austria and Greece
Because of private information protection, the authorities of the two countries were not allowed to shoot the streets of Austria and Greece for GoogleMap. At the moment, the ban is lifted, but there are a number of rules regarding the privacy of data.
8. Facebook in Pakistan
In 2010, the social network was temporarily banned, because it had communities that hosted portraits of Muhammad. The ban was lifted Facebook assured that Pakistanis will not be shown any offensive material on this topic.
9. Music for marathoners in the USA
In 2007, the US track and field organization prohibited the use of portable players during marathons to ensure the safety of runners.
10. Apple News in China
To the already banned Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, SoundCloud, Instagram and other sites in China Apple News was added to the list.
In October 2015, iPhone users saw a message that these news are not supported in the region (except for access via VPN).
11. Free internet access
In 2016, India banned free access to Facebook. This scheme of work offers free Internet access to certain sites and is aimed at providing the Internet to less developed countries, offering a more acceptable Internet service.
This action caused outrage due to the violation of network neutrality: the main principle is that every user should receive equal treatment oregarding any kind of data and there should be absence of differentiated payment for the same traffic.
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