In many countries, internet censorship has become one of the key human rights issues of the twenty-first century.

Best-selling author Antony Loewenstein conducts a searching examination of the ways the internet is threatening the rule of some of the planet's most repressive governments, including in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, Egypt and Syria. With first-hand investigative reporting, Loewenstein discovers the ways that Western multinationals are assisting the restriction of information in these countries, how bloggers are leading the charge for change and how, thanks to the web, we in the West now have a unique insight into cultures at once radically different from and yet distinctly similar to our own.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist and author. He has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun-Herald, The Australian, The Bulletin, Znet, Crikey, New Matilda, The Big Issue and Counterpunch. He is a board member of Macquarie University's Centre for Middle East and North African Studies.