Global Voices Advocacy: Great Firewall of China Upgrade?
Oiwan Lam reports widespread disruption for users of Freegate, the popular circumvention software in China: According to the RFA report, users from several provinces across the country have encountered similar problem and they believe that it is due to the upgrade of Great Fire Wall. Apart from the Freegate, when running UltraSurf and FreeU the…
The Economist: The Invisible Regional Censorship of Russia
Russian federal law doesn’t include Internet censorship provisions, but there’s been a recent rash of cases of court-ordered blocking in individual Russian regions. Even though these are usually narrow blocks of particular sites and are quickly unblocked after media exposure, they can still cover a great deal of ground. The Republic of Ingushetia blocked the…
NYT: In Argentina, Google and Yahoo Not Liable
The New York Times reports on a new decision in the liability of internet intermediaries, this time in Argentia. It’s often hard to pick apart exactly what’s been going on in jurisdictions where this issue still evolving. Generally, you get a flurry of conflicting court decision in favour of absolute liability for Net middle-men, usually…
Beat censorship by hiding secret messages in Flickr photos
Georgia Tech researchers have developed a tool called Collage that will allow Internet dissidents to insert hidden messages into Twitter posts and Flickr images in order to circumvent the censorship measures imposed by oppressive governments. The details of this technique (which you can find in Georgia Tech’s netops website) contain some detailed thinking about how…
Analysing Tunisia’s Net censorship
Obviously all of these assumptions are mere speculations. This is an effort on our part to try to better understand one of the most secretive system of repression in Tunisia and to help demystify its processes. And obviously, we invite anyone with further information to make them public, and a fortiori, it may be that…
YouTube wants your input on barriers to Internet freedom
In an age of widespread online journalism, Internet users worldwide are exposed to stories, footage, and leaks that probably would have gone unpublished in the print age. In response, YouTube has opened up the floor to commentary on the current condition of online freedom of expression. They’re calling on all Internet users, bloggers, and activists to submit…
French officer proves ‘allergic’ to photos in Togo
It has been a week since Togolese photojournalist Komi Agbedivlo, better known as “Didier Ledoux,” was verbally abused by a military officer from France as he covered a political demonstration in the capital, Lome. The incident might have gone unnoticed, if not for social media and a year charged with historical symbolism for Togo, which is celebrating 50 years of independence from France. So the…
CPJ asks Jordanian king to toss out cyber law
Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, is deeply concerned about a provisional law on cyber crimes that was approved by the cabinet of ministers on August 3. We believe that the law contains several repressive aspects that can be used to harass online media. The law, if you endorse it through a royal decree, would undermine Jordan’s image as a free and open society.
Bahrain detains blogger on ‘national security concerns’
New York, August 17, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention of a blogger and human rights activist since Friday. The official Bahrain News Agency quoted a security source claiming that Abduljalil Alsingace was arrested based on national security concerns that could “damage the country’s stability.” The unnamed security official went on to say that Alsingace had “abused the freedom…
China Media Project – Microblogs are crucial in China
Hu Yong’s writes on the rise of microblogs (like Twitter, which is blocked) on the Chinese Internet. Recently, when a newspaper reporter exposed related-party transactions by a listed company, local police authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. Tens of thousands of microblog posts were sent out about this incident. Users expressed their views and…