Internet Censorship in Armenia

E-Channel carries an interesting analysis on restrictions placed on the Internet during the recent state of emergency by local analyst and blogger, Samuel Martirossian, aka Kornelij. The article looks at the role blogs played, ways to circumvent censorship and why the restrictions were not as wide-ranging as they could have been.

Bloggers were extremely influential at that period – their activeness had increased for a few times. It was the bloggers that started presenting the events of March 1 online, turning into the only information source at that moment. Livejournal bloggers were the most active ones. Moreover, a real informational war started here between the two camps. The quantity of blog visitors drastically increased. Apart from that, dozens of new blogs were opened only for these three weeks.

That is why, there was a danger that NSS would take up measures to block Livejournal and other blogs. Serzh Sargsyan personally saved the situation by deciding to open his blog in Livejournal and to answer to questions, distracting the attention of security officers. Although later a provider blocked a blog where information was being posted from the closed sites. A survey among bloggers showed that it was the result of the enthusiasm of only one provider.