Using Google and LexisNexis as search engines, we found 64 blogger arrest incidents discussed in various news articles, blogs, scholarly articles and informational Web sites. We organized the incidents by blogger name, country, date of arrest, reason for arrest and time in jail. The majority of incidents took place in the Middle East and Asia with some in North America and Western Europe. We recorded only bloggers who were arrested for using electronic media, which included written online blogs, videos and text messages, to discuss or record political issues and events. The online texts we reviewed cited a variety of reasons for the arrests including refusal to give information to the government and violating rules unrelated to state security. Incidents involving pornography or sexual abuse were avoided with the exception of a few select incidents.

View Text Table Summarizing Global Blogger Arrests, 2003-2008

View Color Graphic Summarizing Global Blogger Arrests, 2003-2008

One example, which gained the most press coverage of the incidents researched, is the arrest of Fouad al-Farhan. Considered Saudi Arabia’s most popular online blogger, Farhan was arrested in December 2007 “for violating rules not related to state security,” said Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a Saudi spokesman, to the Washington Post. Farhan’s blog criticized political corruption and called for reform. According to the Post, it is the first known arrest of an online blogger in Saudi Arabia.

We found the majority of arrested bloggers were male. Though ages were not reported in most stories, of those that were, we inferred the average blogger to be between 21 and 45-years-old.

We also found several incidents, which we excluded from our main data set, but placed under an exceptions list. These included arrests of social networking site members who criticized their country’s government and of a blogger who confessed to committing murder via his Web site. We felt it was important to acknowledge these incidents, but because they did not fit our standardized criteria of bloggers arrested for political, cultural and social protest reasons, we excluded them from our main data set.

While researching, we struggled with determining who did and did not constitute a blogger. Some online blogs are kept by citizens who have no ties to the mass media and others are maintained by journalists who are affiliated with the media and often post their blog on a particular publication’s Web site. In the end, we kept with the idea of citizen journalism and recorded arrests of bloggers who were unaffiliated with the mass media. Information regarding select incidents of journalist blogger arrests was added to the exceptions list.

One exception was a list of 344 arrests in Burma that we found via the Committee to Protect Bloggers’ Web site. This table included arrestees’ names, location of arrest and date of arrest. However, the site did not link to a home page or cite any sources for the information. It was also unclear whether all arrestees were bloggers or other activists. We felt it was important to recognize the list because of its magnitude, but its ambiguity prompted us to omit it from our main data set.

Time spent in jail varied from blogger to blogger with the least amount being a few hours and the greatest eight years. We recorded punishment by adding all time in jail in months and finding the average amount of time spent in jail. During the five years we researched, bloggers spent a total of 940 months in jail, while the average prison time for a blogger was 15 months.

Counting the number of arrests in each country during the years 2003 to 2008, we determined which countries were the most dangerous countries for bloggers. Egypt, China and Iran accounted for more than half of all arrests with 14, 12 and eight incidents respectively. The 18 other countries on our list reported three or less arrests each.

During our research, we also found a number of articles regarding blog restrictions in specific countries, namely China, Thailand and Iraq. These served as useful background information for understanding laws and regulations that many bloggers face. We included this information in our data spreadsheet for reference.

Though we found a significant number of incidents from 2003 to the beginning of 2008, we realize there have probably been more arrests than we were able to locate. Many incidents go unreported, while some countries deny access to Web sites. According to OpenNet Initiative, an organization dedicated to investigating and analyzing Internet surveillance practices, there are about 30 countries in which government filters Web sites with political content, conflict/security content and Internet tools such as e-mail and translation. Nearly 50 countries filter social content. In addition, some countries have so little Internet access that few blogs exist, making blogger arrests virtually impossible. Curt Hopkins, founding director of Committee to Protect Bloggers, said in an e-mail that this idea can apply to countries such as North Korea and Cuba. We stress that our data reports the number of known incidents during the years 2003 to 2008.

With the growing popularity of blogs, we also know that the increase in incidents during the past three years could be partially attributed to a growing number of bloggers and the subsequent increased coverage of blogger happenings. In 2004, the word “blog” was the most looked-up word on Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. That year reputable news sources such as CNN and Forbes noted them as legitimate tools, particularly when bloggers played a significant role in exposing forged documents used by CBS reporter Dan Rather in 2004. Furthermore, blog software improvements in 2004 allowed connections between blogs and between bloggers and their readers, making the practice more interactive and accessible.

By analyzing the reasoning for and timing of these incidents, we have found that blogger arrests tend to increase and become more concentrated during sensitive times of political uncertainty. In Egypt, for example, of 14 total incidents, nine occurred in 2007, the year of the country’s political elections. The majority of these nine arrests occurred during the six months leading up to the June elections; the incidents were usually related to political protest or commentary. We also partially attribute the significant increase in incidents occurring in 2007 overall to this large amount of Egyptian blogger arrests during that year.

After surveying our data, we predict that the number of blogger arrests will rise in 2008. The popularity of online blogs continues to grow and inspire more media coverage of arrest incidents. Countries are enforcing greater Internet regulation, which will only increase with the elections in China, Pakistan, and Iran this year. Assuming a pattern similar to Egypt’s occurs, the number of political blogger arrests has nowhere to go but up. With already four incidents in January and February, we expect the number of arrests in 2008 will exceed that of 2007.

Download Full Dataset of Incidents

Public libraries serve a broader clientele, often by providing internet terminals and access to electronic databases. But not every country’s library infrastructure is up to the challenging task of being an information gateway for citizens. Not all national, university, and public libraries have the capacity to maintain a website, and not all provide website access in the range of languages that their citizens read, write, and speak.

GRAPHIC: Comparing the World’s Wired Libraries

Three fourths of national libraries have Web sites but only 54 percent load in the country’s national language. For example, Tajikistan’s national library offers online access in Russian, but not Tajik. Sixty-nine percent of national libraries load in English but only 20 to 25 percent of the world’s people speak English.

Researchers assembled information from the UNESCO website and the UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, as well as the Internet Systems Consortum website, and listed each country with its respective statistics before recalculating the data according to geographic regions. Much like we expected, book production figures were high in core countries such as those located in Europe. What is surprising, though, is that large portions of Latin America and Asia – regions that are predominantly made up of developing countries – had the second highest book production figure.

In addition to this, we also noticed that most underdeveloped countries had very low book production, but relatively high numbers of web hosts. From this we concluded that those countries may have skipped the age of written information and jumped straight to online records, a trend that could be attributed to the flow of foreign aid from more advanced nations. It should be noted, however, that the figures UNESCO labeled as current 2003 data seemed to be the same figures the organization listed for 1999. Despite this, we still believe that there is enough of a pattern using statistics from the other years to safely assume that developing countries are drastically behind in book production as compared to wealthy, core countries.

It is difficult to measure the amount of cultural content each country produces, but “web hosts” are a reasonable proxy measure because they let us make rough comparisons between countries over time. Just as books can be thick or thin, a web host can have a lot of content or very little.

While Europe and Asia produce the most books, the fastest rates of increase in book production are in Asia and Africa. Europe and Asia also have the most web hosts, but the fastest rates of growth in web hosts are in Asia and Latin America. Globally, the number of books being produced increased by 44 percent over the six-year period while the number of web hosts being established increased by over 600 percent. Weighting the publication of books and procurement of web hosts by population actually suggests that Africa and North America are publishing cultural content in book form at a greater rate than they are developing new web hosts. In Latin America and Asia, many countries are developing new web hosts at a significantly faster rate than they are publishing books. ((Download WIA Spreadsheet Book and Web Host Production))

We sampled 165 countries around the world and researched their facilities. ((Staff Research. (2006). World Information Access Report. Seattle, WA: World Information Access Project, Department of Communication, University of Washington.)) About three quarters of the national libraries had a website, while the rest were either not found or did not load after repeated visits. ((Download WIAÂ spreadsheet National Libraries Online))

Only ten percent of the national libraries offered online users a language choice before entering their website, or were multilingual throughout their site. While 32 percent of the websites loaded in English, fully 69 percent either loaded in English or offered English translations.

English was not the only favored language, however, and 16 percent of the national libraries load in a language other than one of the national languages (usually English or French). While 52 percent of the websites were unilingual, 48 percent were multilingual. Of all the national libraries in the world with an internet presence, 39 percent stated that they offered public internet access, some for free and some for fees.

Surprisingly, the rate of growth in online Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) based within a country is faster than the rate of growth in online civic groups working in a country. ((Downlaod WIA spreadsheet Civic Groups Online in 152 Countries, 1995-2005)) The majority of civic groups working in poor countries are International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) that are actually based in developed countries. But in comparing the two periods, 1995-99 and 2000-04, we find that the number of online INGOs doubled while the number of NGOs increased five-fold. This is a good thing, because it means that an increasing number of local civic initiatives in developing countries are using the Internet for organizing themselves, promoting their work, and offering services to their citizens. The degree of civic engagement online, however, does not always match the degree of Internet use within a country.

To compile this data, researchers catalogued the NGOs and INGOs listed at www.oneworld.net. ((Staff Research. (2006). World Information Access Report. Seattle, WA: World Information Access Project, Department of Communication, University of Washington.))  Although civic groups must volunteer for registration, this website has one of the best long term collections of registered online NGOs and INGOs.  This compiled data was merged with data on numbers of internet users from 2000 and 2005. ((Staff calculations based on data from: International Telecommunication Union. (2006). International Telecommunication Indicators. Geneva: International Telecommunication Union; Miniwatts Marketing Group. (2005). Internet World Statistics: http://www.internetworldstats.com/.))

In sum, we can point to four important trends. First, in some developing countries, civil society online is dominated by groups that are working there but actually based in developed countries. Countries such as Thailand, Nicaragua, Brazil, Nepal and India have a significant online civil society, but a relatively small portion of those groups are actually from the countries they serve. Second, other countries have a vibrant civil society that is online and populated by local groups. Countries such as Honduras, Slovakia, Zambia, Martinique and Oman have a comparatively vibrant and local online civil society. Third, in some countries civil society is particularly vibrant, and growing at a rate greater than the growth rate of Internet users. In Palestine and many small island states, the number of civic groups online has grown significantly. Fourth, online civil society actually seemed to shrink in countries where the number of online civic groups has not kept pace with the rapid rise in the number of Internet users. In Brazil, Poland, Turkey, Taiwan and Mexico more Internet users may not necessarily mean a more vibrant civil society online.

This table shows the cost of using an Internet café for one hour in the 24 largest cities around the world. ((See graphic Portion of Average Daily Income Spent on 1 Hour at Commercial Internet Access Point in 24 Largest Cities, 2005))

Researchers contacted cybercafés in the world’s “mega-cities” to find out how much an hour of interent access cost. ((Download WIA spreadsheet Portion of Average Daily Income Spent on 1 Hour at Commercial Internet Access Point in 24 Largest Cities, 2005)) Researchers contacted at least three internet access points in each of 24 cities, and calculated average values for those cities.  This pricing information was then merged with data on GDP (PPP) per capita in 2005 to estimate what portion of an average person’s daily income would go towards an hour of Internet access. ((Staff calculations based on data from:Â World Bank. (2006). World Development Indicators. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.))

In nine of the 24 most populated cities, the average person spends at least 10 percent of their daily income for an hour of Internet access at a commercial access point (Karachi, Mexico City, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Dhaka, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Lagos). ((Staff Research. (2006). World Information Access Report. Seattle, WA: World Information Access Project, Department of Communication, University of Washington.))Â Some countries have fewer Internet hosts than other countries, and eight of the most populated cities are actually in countries at the bottom quartile for number of Internet hosts. In other words, the people in those eight cities who can afford an hour of access may be able to browse the World Wide Web, but may not find a significant amount of content on hosts in their own country.

Internet users in Manila and Seoul are likely to spend the smallest portion of their average daily income for an hour of access (5 percent), while Internet users in Cairo and Lagos are likely to spend the largest portion of their average daily income for the same amount of time online (20 percent).

Eight of the 24 most populated cities are in countries with proportionally fewer website hosts. This pricing data was then compared with the latest calculations about how many websites are registered with each country in the world. ((Staff calculations based on data from: Zook, M. (2006). Geo Calibration of Domains – Com, Net, Org and Country Coded Top Level Domains.)) Thus, people in London or New York spend a small portion of their daily income on Internet access, and find a significant amount of content in English and of cultural interest. But when people in Cairo or Jakarta spend a large portion of their daily income on Internet access, they find relatively less cultural content on .eg and .id websites.

Certainly the number of Internet hosts a country has does not precisely measure the amount of content available in that country’s language. But as a metric, comparing the number of Internet hosts across many countries allows for a rough gage of relative amount of cultural content available online. Thus, people in London or New York could spend a small portion of their daily income on Internet access, and find a significant amount of content in English and of cultural interest. When people in Cairo or Jakarta spend a larger portion of their daily income on commercial Internet access, they find relatively less cultural content.

Researchers contacted cybercafés around the world to find out how many users, on a average day, came in to play games online. ((Staff Research. (2006). World Information Access Report. Seattle, WA: World Information Access Project, Department of Communication, University of Washington.)) They surveyd three cybercafés in each of 19 cities. The cities were chosen for geographical spread and assumed cultural differences. The researchers asked:

1. How many Internet users did they normally have during one day?
2. What percentage of Internet users use the Internet for gaming purposes?

After the data was collected from each researcher, the numbers of Internet users and the percentage of gaming users were averaged for each city. ((Download WIA Spreadsheet Gaming Online in 19 Cities))

As a result, about 50 percent of all Internet users that pay for Internet access at cybercafés use the Internet for gaming purposes. On average, one-third of total Internet users in developing cities were using the Internet for gaming purposes. In developed cities, however, two-thirds of total Internet users were using the Internet for gaming purposes. This data tells us a realistic number of what the world is using the Internet to access. London, Seoul and Athens had the largest number of total Internet users per day, and consequently, the most gaming users as well. Conversely, cybercafés in cities such as Cairo reported fewer users on a average day, and a smaller portion of online gamers. With connection speeds and costs varying widely around the world, it is not surprising that online gaming has become a luxury activity in many cities.Â

If someone in Cairo were to use the Internet everyday, roughly 26 percent of their average daily income would go towards Internet use which causes Internet use to be significantly lower in developing cities compared to developed areas. In wealthy global cities such as London, cybercafés are accessible, widespread, and convenient. Internet rates are also more feasible compared to average income, making up only 5 percent of a Londoners average daily income. ((Staff calculations based on data from: World Bank. (2006). World Development Indicators. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.))

The most surprising statistic from a global city would be the data that was retrieved from Nairob’s Internet cafés. With an average of 150 Internet users per day, each cybercafé surveyed reported that none of its users were using the Internet for gaming purposes. Nairobi is perhaps the poorest city polled and yet had the least amount of gaming users. Developed cities such as London, Seoul and Athens had the most gaming users. This contrast suggests that perhaps people in Nairobi can not access the Internet as easily compared to those in wealthier cities, and therefore, use the Internet for more practical purposes.