The Internet Freedom program is a program run by the
U.S. Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
's
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL). Its goal is to promote fundamental freedoms, human rights, and the free flow of information online, through integrated support for
anti-censorship and
secure communications technology, advocacy, digital safety, and research.
The U.S. government started funding internet freedom activities in the early 2000s, mostly initially focused on helping people bypass
firewalls in countries such as
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Iran. In 2008, the Department of State launched its Internet Freedom program, funding internet freedom as a part of its global
human rights agenda, with the goal of "ensur
ngthat any child, born anywhere in the world, has access to the global Internet as an open platform on which to innovate, learn, organize, and express herself free from undue interference or censorship."
Between 2008 and 2010, the DRL gave out $15 million to fund the development of new tools aimed at supporting
freedom of expression by enabling the
circumvention of politically motivated censorship and technological barriers to secure person-to-person communications.
In January 2010, in a speech at the
Newseum, then-
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new
foreign policy
A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
promoting and supporting
internet freedom Internet freedom is an umbrella term that encompasses digital rights, freedom of information, the right to Internet access, freedom from Internet censorship, and net neutrality.
Some believe that Internet freedom is not a human right. They think t ...
.
In 2014, the program offered up to $2.5 million in funding. In 2015, the program again offered up to $2.5 million in funding.
References
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Internet censorship in the United States