As Wang is freed, Chinese journalist Shi Tao still held
Chinese dissident Wang Xiaoning was released today after serving a 10-year prison term on charges of “incitement to subvert state power,” a case built in good part on client information supplied by Yahoo. Wang had used his Yahoo email account and the discussion forum Yahoo Groups to spread ideas the government deemed dangerous. His case…
Internet giants submit to external free expression scrutiny
Journalists and bloggers in authoritarian countries have their work cut out thwarting governments that try to restrict their writing and reporting. The last thing they need to worry about is the provider of their publication platform helping authorities with censorship or surveillance. Cue the Global Network Initiative (GNI), a voluntary grouping of Internet companies, freedom…
Google+ for journalists at risk
When they’re creating new features, software designers talk in terms of “use cases.” A use case describes steps that future customers might perform with a website. “Starting a group with friends,” would be a use case for Facebook. “Buying a book” would be case for Amazon’s designers.
China postpones installation of filtering software…for now
China’s Internet censors have blinked. In the face of opposition ranging from PC makers abroad to bloggers at home, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has backed away, at least for now, from a hastily conceived directive that all new PCs sold from July 1 should carry filtering software.
Good discussions in Bonn; murder in Mogadishu
Journalism conferences discussing global trends often inflate the real but intermittent risks faced by foreign correspondents from wealthier nations who travel to and report from less stable regions of the world. They do so at the expense of downplaying if not plain ignoring the much greater risks faced by local journalists who live in such…
Coalition challenges YouTube blocking in China
The blocking of YouTube in China is “inconsistent with the rule of law and the right to freedom of expression,” the Global Network Initiative said in a statement today. CPJ is a member of the Initiative, a coalition of information and communications companies, human rights organizations, academics, and investors that resists government censorship worldwide.
The business of human rights
One of the reasons the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has spawned so many events this month may have something to do with the venue. The declaration was signed in Paris–who wouldn’t want to commemorate the cornerstone of international freedoms in the City of Lights?
CPJ joins launch of Global Network Initiative
New York, October 28, 2008–After two years of intense negotiations, a diverse coalition of Internet companies, academics, socially responsible investors, and human rights groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, is launching the Global Network Initiative, an important first step in establishing guidelines for the communications and information industries to protect freedom of expression and…