Censorship
12 September 2007
Call for bomb recipe searches to be blocked in EU Sydney Morning Herald
Internet searches for bomb-making instructions should be blocked across the European Union, the bloc's top security official said on Monday. ISPs should also prevent access to any site giving instructions on how to make a bomb, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview.
09 September 2007
IFJ concerned over Google Censorship Deal with Thailand International Federation of Journalists
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is dismayed to hear that Google, search engine and owner of video-sharing website YouTube, has cut a censorship deal with the Thailand government. Thailand this week lifted its five-month ban on YouTube after Google installed filters to block Thais from accessing any videos deemed "offensive" to the monarchy. The deal echoes Google and Microsoft censorship deals in China.
Zimbabwe Experts Say 'Don't Panic' As Snooping Equipment is Installed AllAfrica.com
There are reports that mobile and internet service providers in the country have already begun installing surveillance equipment to comply with the controversial snooping bill passed last month. A report in the weekly Financial Gazette quoted Shadreck Nkala, the Chairman of the Zimbabwe Internet Access Providers (ZIAP) saying, 'we are putting in place projects to see that we comply.' Nkala however refused to disclose the costs involved in the project and where the equipment is being installed.
08 September 2007
Bloggers Held Under New Thailand Computer Crime Law Dark Reading
If you thought Germany's new computer crime laws were strict, try posting an offensive comment on the Web in Thailand. According to the independent newspaper Prachatai, at least one person is being detained in the Bangkok Remand Prison for crimes against the new Computer Crime Act, which went into effect in July. The new legislation, which was initially positioned as a crackdown on online pornography, outlaws the posting of "offensive" material.
Wikipedia blocked in China yet again ComputerWorld
Wikipedia's English site is blocked again in China after over two months of being accessible, continuing a saga of on-again, off-again availability.
07 September 2007
Will China Take Over the Web or Be Ensnared in It? E-Commerce Times
With some 1.3 billion people in its emerging economy, the lure of China's market is compelling. "The temptation is huge, not just for corporations but for the U.S. government itself," Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, told the E-Commerce Times. "We are dependent on China in so many ways, it makes it more difficult for us to criticize them."
Censorship in Belarus - Lukashenko's customised Internet E-Belarus.org
Internet-community "Third Way" prepared a birthday present for Belarusian acting president A. Lukashenko - the most advanced version of the Internet - LuNet. The event, "Give Lukashenko his Lunet", that has started today, is intended to show how dangerous and absurd are Lukashenka's demands of control over the Internet in Belarus. Lunet consists of Lundex search engine, LuTube video service, LuJournal blog service and the most "honest" portal tut.lu. "Internet surveillance may concern millions of Belarusians. That's why we consider it very important and timely to attract Belarusian and foreign media, politicians, and community's attention to the issue. We can't allow the last bastion of freedom in Belarus to fall. It's time to show that even in virtual world we can demonstrate real solidarity. We mustn't allow Belarus to turn into internet-hostile China!" - said one of the action initiators Pavel Morozov.
02 September 2007
YouTube ban lifted in Thailand ABC
Thailand's military junta has finally lifted a ban on the video sharing website YouTube, four months after it was blocked for posting offensive images of King Bhumipol. Also includes Reporters sans frontières news release.
01 September 2007
Chinese Online Gaming Brings New Legal Considerations China Tech News
The rapid development of online gaming in China is challenging government regulators on a wide range of commercial and legal issues.
31 August 2007
China to Put Cartoon Cops on Internet Patrols Der Spiegel
Big Brother will soon be making regular appearances on the screens of Internet users in China, but the velvet fist will take the unexpected form of a cute pair of manga cartoon cops.
30 August 2007
Call to regulate the net rejected by Vint Cerf BBC
The internet should not be used as a scapegoat for society's ills, said Vint Cerf, Google's net evangelist and a founding father of the network.
Internet censorship should be trade barrier: Google ZDNet
Internet censorship should be treated as a barrier to trade, according to the chief executive of search and advertising giant Google. Speaking last week at a conference organised by US thinktank the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Eric Schmidt said that to defend freedom of speech, governments should use Internet censorship as a non-tariff trade barrier.
29 August 2007
Yahoo to Court: Dismiss Chinese Torture Case New York Times
Earlier this year, a Chinese political prisoner and his wife sued Yahoo in federal court in San Francisco, accusing the company of abetting in the commission of torture by helping the Chinese government to identify political dissidents who were later beaten and tortured. Another political prisoner has since joined the case. Now Yahoo has asked the court to dismiss the case.
27 August 2007
Yahoo and MSN promise to 'protect China' The Daily Telegraph
Yahoo and MSN, the internet giants, have confirmed they had signed up to new attempts by the Chinese government to censor and control blogs behind the country's "Great Firewall".
The companies both keep internet servers inside the country in an attempt to capitalise on the fast-growing Chinese market.
Ban gang videos, says British MP The Observer
Video clips glamorising gang culture posted on popular internet sites such as YouTube should be blocked, a government minister and a leading children's charity said last night. The calls come amid growing fears about the glorification of violence among young people sparked by the fatal shooting of Rhys Jones, 11. He was shot dead last Wednesday in Croxteth Park, Liverpool, an area plagued by gangs.
24 August 2007
Slavery and freedom on the Internet Jerusalem Post
The Internet - the free and open Web of ideas - has become the new symbol of freedom, or at least one of its more visible prophets. Howard Rheingold, a scholar of the early Internet era, predicted a utopian vision where the "electronic agora" would change the public space and create a free, global society, or an "Athens without slaves."
Free speech in Australia? Not while we're on sheep's back Sydney Morning Herald
No price is too high to pay to protect the Aussie woolgrower. With marked contempt for the effect it would have on freewheeling public debate, Peter Costello has introduced a little bill to clobber campaigners against the bloody business of mulesing sheep. But not only them: his strategy will snare anyone calling for customer boycotts. So if you're asking Australians not to buy lipstick tested on caged rabbits, rugs woven by Pakistani slaves or suits made with mulesed wool, then pray your boycott calls don't succeed, for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is about to be given the power to sue you out of the water if they do. Gagging public debate with such threats has been an old ambition of the Howard Government.
19 August 2007
Thai legal experts, webmasters slam govt for illegally blocking websites AsiaMedia
Internet law experts and webmasters yesterday lashed out at what they said was the government's illegal blocking of websites and the use of threats and intimidation tactics against webmasters by government officials. Paiboon Amornpinyokiart, an internet and IT law expert, said nowhere in the controversial Cyber Crime Act -- which was pushed through by the military-appointed government and took effect on July 19 -- does it say the government has the authority to freely block websites. The law says any move to block a website must be backed by a court order.
Wikipedia and the art of censorship The Independent
It was hailed as a breakthrough in the democratisation of knowledge. But the online encyclopedia has since been hijacked by forces who decided that certain things were best left unknown.
18 August 2007
China - censorship, porn and jailing writers
A few stories on censorship in China. One is the government announced it was cracking down on "false news reports, unauthorized publications and bogus journalists." Another says as a result of publishing pornographic novels, 348 websites in China have either been punished or will soon be punished. The last is on China jailing an internet writer for subversion.
Program shows CIA behind Wikipedia entries ABC
The world according to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is in a constant state of update, as tens of thousands of contributors work to ensure the site's content is correct. But now an innovation on the site has confirmed a long-held suspicion: that Wikipedia is a prime target for spin-doctoring. A new identification program on the site reveals that some of the most prolific contributors to Wikipedia are the CIA, the British Labour Party and the Vatican - and they are not just updating their own entries.
16 August 2007
Companies and party aides cast censorious eye over Wikipedia The Guardian
Editing your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province of vain celebrities keen for some good PR. But a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that have been editing the site in order to improve their public image.
12 August 2007
Proceedings against journalists in Germany must stop, says OSCE Media Freedom Representative OSCE
The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, called on Germany to cease criminal proceedings against the 17 journalists who published allegedly classified information. The documents are related to the work of the German parliamentary committee examining certain activities of the German intelligence services, and were published in leading national media outlets such as Der Spiegel, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, Die Welt, and Stern.
11 August 2007
Editorial: Harassing Germany’s Media New York Times
Germany would seem to be one of the last places to find the government trying to intimidate its journalists these days. News of secret C.I.A. flights that whisked prisoners through the Continent to places where torture is allowed has horrified many Europeans in recent years. The German courts have been in the forefront of condemning "extraordinary rendition" -- the practice of loading terrorism suspects onto planes and secretly flying them to Afghanistan or Syria or other particularly dangerous spots for anyone behind bars.
uk: MoD issues gag order on armed forces The Guardian
Sweeping new guidelines barring military personnel from speaking about their service publicly have been quietly introduced by the Ministry of Defence, the Guardian has learned. Soldiers, sailors and airforce personnel will not be able to blog, take part in surveys, speak in public, post on bulletin boards, play in multi-player computer games or send text messages or photographs without the permission of a superior if the information they use concerns matters of defence.
