Censorship
12 November 2012
Google is back online in China after blocking PC World
Access to Google services in China appeared to return Saturday morning after they were blocked briefly as the country prepares to appoint new leadership.
Pakistani officials consider options for filtering YouTube Washington Post
For two months, Pakistanis have been unable to call up YouTube to watch an anti-Islam video that sparked deadly riots here and elsewhere in the Muslim world. But neither have they been able to use the service to view the U.S. presidential debates, to catch the "Gangnam Style" craze or even to laugh at silly kitties in the Friskies Internet Cat Video Awards.
Beware, The Great Russian Firewall Of Internet Censorship SBS
This summer there was an unpleasant surprise for many Russian Internet users - the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia was shut down.
11 November 2012
Egyptian Prosecutor Orders a Ban on Internet Porn Electronic Frontier Foundation
Censorship circumvention software is about to become very popular in Egypt. On Wednesday, the country's Prosecutor General, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, ordered government ministries to enforce a ban on pornographic websites, based on a three-year old ruling by Egypt's administrative court, which declared that "freedom of expression and public rights should be restricted by maintaining the fundamentals of religion, morality and patriotism" and denounced pornographic content as "venomous and vile."
10 November 2012
Google Is Blocked in China as Party Congress Begins New York Times
All Google services, including its search engine, Gmail and Maps, were inaccessible in China on Friday night and into Saturday, the company confirmed. The block comes as the 18th Communist Party Congress, the once-in-a-decade meeting to appoint new government leadership, gets under way.
09 November 2012
Britain's crackdown on Web comments sparks free-speech debate Los Angeles Times
Facebook and Twitter have landed several Britons in court and even jail recently. Critics decry the trend as a worrisome overreaction.
Restrictions to limit Internet access on the rise, warns UNESCO United Nations
The United Nations agency which deals with freedom of expression on the Internet today warned that restrictions directly limiting Internet access appear to be on the rise, and called on governments to implement policies that facilitate broadband connectivity instead of putting up barriers particularly during political developments.
06 November 2012
The internet is not free in Azerbaijan: A letter to president Ilham Aliyev The Independent
Today Baku will host the Internet Governance Forum. Today the president ignores the truth about the lack of freedom in Azerbaijan.
02 November 2012
Russia enacts restrictive new cyber-law Al Jazeera
New internet laws have come into force in Russia, making it easier for the state to block access to certain online content it considers offensive.
01 November 2012
Russia internet blacklist law takes effect BBC News
A law that aims to protect children from harmful internet content by allowing the government to take sites offline has taken effect in Russia.
26 October 2012
China Blocks Web Access to New York Times After Article New York Times
The Chinese government swiftly blocked access Friday morning to the English-language and Chinese-language Web sites of The New York Times from computers in mainland China in response to the news organization's decision to post an article in both languages describing wealth accumulated by the family of the country's prime minister.
22 October 2012
US internet anti-censorship tools are being overwhelmed by demand Washington Post
U.S.-funded programs to beat back online censorship are increasingly finding a ready audience in repressive countries, with more than 1 million people a day using online tools to get past extensive blocking programs and government surveillance.
20 October 2012
Twitter removes French anti-Semitic tweets BBC News
Twitter has agreed to remove a flood of anti-Semitic tweets circulating on its service in France.
19 October 2012
Twitter blocks neo-Nazi account to users in Germany BBC News
Twitter has blocked access to a neo-Nazi account at the request of the German government.
14 October 2012
Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free Washington Post
Free speech is dying in the Western world. While most people still enjoy considerable freedom of expression, this right, once a near-absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for those espousing controversial social, political or religious views. The decline of free speech has come not from any single blow but rather from thousands of paper cuts of well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony.
11 October 2012
Opinion: Azhar Ahmed, a tasteless Facebook update, and more evidence of Britain's terrifying new censorship The Independent
Another day, another example of how our police and judiciary are criminalising nastiness. Today a young Muslim man who is angry at the UK's involvement in the ongoing Afghanistan conflict was sentenced for posting angry comments on Facebook stating that British soldiers "should die and go to hell". Not exactly the nicest of sentiments, but is it really something we should be criminally prosecuting through the courts?
Did a Ban on Facebook and YouTube Save Lives in Kashmir? New York Times
On Sept. 20, Facebook and YouTube were blocked in the Kashmir Valley by government order after Kashmiris took to the streets to protest the anti-Islamic video "Innocence of Muslims," a trailer of which had been circulating online. The ban was officially revoked on Oct.1, but as of last weekend, access to the Web sites had not been fully restored.
09 October 2012
Controlling Iran's cyberspace: With presidential elections coming up in 2013, the Iranian government is determined to win the information battle Al Jazeera
The Iranian government's decision to block Google last week provoked concerns among the country's online community that the Persian firewall had just become harder to penetrate. Then, just as quickly as it had been disconnected, Google came back online. But despite the u-turn, for many, the Google incident reflected the government's wider strategy to control who is saying what to whom in Iran.
04 October 2012
In Brazil, Google is in the middle of a battle over free speech Washington Post
Here's a quiz: Google received more than 1,900 requests from governments worldwide to remove content from its various services last year. Which country led the planet in this dubious category, with 418 such demands?
03 October 2012
YouTube opens Turkish site, giving government more control Reuters
Turkey said on Tuesday it had won a long-running battle to persuade the video-sharing website YouTube to operate under a Turkish web domain, giving Ankara a tighter rein over the site's content and requiring the firm to pay Turkish taxes.
Youtube and Facebook 'blocked' in Kashmir Al Jazeera
Popular websites Youtube and Facebook have been blocked in Indian-administered Kashmir, local media reported.
02 October 2012
Iran unblocks Google email again after officials complain Reuters
Iranian authorities have reopened access to Google Inc's email service a week after blocking it, a government official and Iranians said on Monday.
01 October 2012
On China's Internet You Can Insult the Government All You Want (Just Don't Talk About the Censors) Vice
China's apparatus for control of speech on the Internet is perhaps the largest and most robust in the world. However secretive and mysterious it may be, its fingerprints aren't hard to read, if you're willing to sift through lots and lots of data. And the results offer some interesting clarity about the methodology of Beijing's bustling online whac-a-mole.
30 September 2012
Iran Moves to Isolate Its Citizens Online Electronic Frontier Foundation
The news that Iran might be seeking to create a 'halal Internet' isn't new. But while speculation about Iran's withdrawal from the online world abounds, the country's recent move to block Gmail and -- though inconsistently -- Google Search, is one of the first concrete measures to indicate just how serious the plans may be.
Iranian government blocks Google and Gmail, while promoting National Internet Reporters Without Borders
The Iranian government announced yesterday that it has blocked access to Google and Gmail after receiving complaints about the anti-Islamic video "Innocence of Muslims. Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, the head of the committee that decides which websites should be blocked, said he had acted at the Iranian people's request.
