Government Control
Free Speech: Mass Anti-Government Rallies Spike Across Syria
Large crowds of anti-government protesters poured into the streets of many Syrian towns and cities Friday, heeding calls by opposition leaders to make a show of strength, as Arab League observers pursue their mission. Government forces fired on protesters causing a number of casualties. Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the northern Syrian [...]
Internet Censorship: State of the Arms Race Between Repressive Governments and Anti-Censorship Tor Technology
| Sourced from boingboing (Creative Commons) | By Cory Doctorow | Wednesday night’s Chaos Computer Congress (28C3) presentation from Jacob Applebaum and Roger Dingledine on the state of the arms race between the Tor anti-censorship/surveillance technology and the world’s repressive governments was by turns depressing and inspiring. Dingledine and Applebaum have unique insights into the workings [...]
Internet Censorship: Meet Telecomix, The Hackers Bent On Exposing Those Who Censor And Surveil The Internet
| By Andy Greenberg, Forbes Staff | Read the full article on Forbes | One morning in mid-August, seven months into the Arab Spring protests and government crackdowns in which thousands have been killed, something strange happened on Syria’s Internet. As users aimed their Web browsers at Google and Facebook, they instead saw a page [...]
Internet Censorship: Turkey Blocks Web Pages Touting Darwin’s Evolution Theory
The blocking by Turkish state authorities of Web pages advocating the theory of evolution has put the focus on wider concerns by teachers and academics that the ideas of Darwin increasingly are being undermined by the Islamic-rooted government. Numerous web pages advocating the theory of evolution recently were deemed unsafe for children by Turkey’s regulatory [...]
Internet Censorship: Senator Wyden Demands Answers About Feds’ Seizure Of Dajaz1
| By Mike Masnick | Sourced from TechDirt | If the feds thought that they could seize the Dajaz1.com blog, hold it for a year in secret, then return it and pretend nothing really happened… it appears they may be in for a bit of a surprise. Senator Ron Wyden has begun his investigation into the matter, [...]
Congress Tries to Pull a Fast One: SOPA Vote Likely This Week
Some annoying news: As was widely reported last Friday, all indications were that the House Judiciary Committee would delay its vote on SOPA for a few weeks. Now it looks like they might vote this week, if Congress stays in session: PCMAG: “SOPA vote might happen this week after all” ACTIVIST POST: “Congress tries to [...]
China Ramps Up Online Censorship Efforts As US Congress Gives Them Perfect Cover
By Mike Masnick As the US seeks to set up its own “Great Firewall” by copying Chinese censorship techniques in the twin bills SOPA and PROTECT IP (PIPA), it appears that China is doing exactly as you would expect when you give a government the tools to censor the internet: it keeps ramping up the [...]
Freedom of Expression: Sharia Police Arrest ‘Punks’ in Indonesia’s Aceh
Indonesian police in the Sharia-ruled province, Aceh, have detained 25 teenagers, but it is not clear why. The youths call themselves “punks” and human rights activists call their detention an attempt to curb freedom of expression in the traditionally conservative province. After a charity music event for a local orphanage at Banda Aceh’s Budaya Park [...]
Stand Up and Fight: A Week of Action Against Censorship
By Rainey Reitman When the government claims the right to shut down websites by breaking the Domain Name System and forcing search engines to dump user requests to reach a site, there’s only one word for it: censorship. And when big media groups like the RIAA can essentially cut off the financial services to a [...]
Congressional Investigations Into Dajaz1.com Censorship Begins
Sourced from TechDirt By Mike Masnick If the Justice Department hoped that it could seize the domain of a hip hop blog for over a year with no due process and then return it quietly and pretend nothing had happened, it may be in for a bit of a surprise. About an hour and a [...]
Internet Censorship: Google Chairman Assails Anti-Piracy Bills in U.S. Congress
By Eric Engleman Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt assailed Hollywood-backed legislation aimed at curbing online piracy, saying that measures under consideration by the U.S. House and Senate would spur censorship of the Internet. Requiring Internet-service providers and search engines to remove links to websites accused of trafficking in counterfeit movies and music would amount to [...]
Music Censorship: North Korea Crackdown on ‘Thumb Drives’
North Koreans find new ways to access illicit South Korean pop culture. North Korean authorities are stepping up a crackdown on portable media devices in an attempt to block the spread of “Korean Wave” culture from the South, North Korean sources say. With cell phones and video players becoming more popular in the North, South [...]
