Digital censorship grows as media moves online

NEW YORK (AP) — The Committee to Protect Journalists says governments worldwide are developing new tools to censor reporters as the media increasingly moves online.

In a report released Monday on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, the committee looks at 10 common strategies that governments are using to suppress information.

Those tools include state-supported email designed to take over journalists’ personal computers in China, the shutting down of anti-censorship technology in Iran, monopolistic control of the Internet in Ethiopia, and synchronized cyber-attacks in Belarus.

The press advocacy group says the sophisticated censorship techniques are often coupled with physical intimidation of online journalists.