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New Platform for Data on Internet Activity and Content Controls

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The Internet Monitor, a project of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, recently launched its pilot platform at thenetmonitor.org. The platform compiles and presents quantitative data on internet activity and content controls around the world. This should be of interest to anyone following current stories about internet filtering in China, Iran, the United Kingdom, and other countries. The site’s content control data is organized by country, and divided into separate categories such as political filtering, social filtering, and conflict/security filtering.    

Another interesting feature of the platform is its access index, which compiles internet access data by country. The categories of access data are grouped under four main headings: (1) adoption, (2) speed and quality, (3) price, and (4) literacy and gender equality. The adoption data includes the percentage of individuals using the internet and the percentage of households with internet service. Some of the data can be surprising. While it may seem that everyone is online nowadays, only 81 percent of Americans use the internet. Norway rates much higher, with 95 percent of the population online, while in Somalia the number is 1.5 percent.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society was founded in 1998 as a research center for the study of cyberspace. For more information, click here. 

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