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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 29 Sep 2009
Last week, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, broke with precedent by proposing federal rules that enforce Net neutrality — the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) shouldn't play favorites with the traffic traveling over their networks.
Proponents argue that Net neutrality promotes innovation. If software developers find more efficient ways to use the Internet, the argument goes, they shouldn't fear reprisal from ISPs that sell competing products. Broadband providers that also offer landline phone service shouldn't degrade the quality of Internet telephone calls in order to preserve their market share; the same goes for cable companies and Internet video.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 29 Sep 2009
Last week the China Digital Times reported that the photo above (click here to view full size original) has been making the rounds in Chinese blogs and chatrooms. It is an image of a "computer science float" for Thursday's National Day parade, onto which somebody has photoshopped a screenshot of the Internet Explorer error message familiar to anybody who has ever tried to access a blocked website in China: "This page cannot be displayed."
As the 60th birthday of the People's Republic of China approaches, Internet users in China are complaining that the Internet has become even more difficult to use than ever before. Not only has the number of blocked websites increased, but the most popular censorship circumvention techniques and technologies have come under attack.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 29 Sep 2009
KUALA LUMPUR--International media watchdogs and human rights groups are up in arms over attempts by the country's ICT regulator to "harass" a local political news site into censorship.
The Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had launched an investigation early this month after Malaysiakini carried two video clips which local authorities deemed offensive.
The Web site refused to comply with a Sep. 3 order issued by the MCMC to remove a video showing angry protesters in Selangor state, marching with a severed cow's head to oppose the building of a Hindu temple, and another in which the home minister described the protesters' actions as legal.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 28 Sep 2009
The international organization of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the ban of the MySpace internet site inTurkey, arguing: "Freedom of speech cannot be obstructed by protecting copyright".
"A disproportional penalty like blocking access to an entire website also opens ways to obstruct freedom of speech. It is sufficient to ban only those contents that violate copyright. But the censorship reflex we are condemning right now is common in Turkey".
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 28 Sep 2009
Bianet talked to Bülent Forta, chairman of the Association of Interconnected Ownership Right Phonogram Producers (MÜYAP) about blocking access to MySpace and Last FM, two of the world's largest websites for socializing and music sharing. Forta explained: "The complaint was made by us. Intellectual property rights are stolen. We are fighting for our right".
"The ownership rights of the contents published in these websites belong to us. People are using them for free day by day. We applied for such a way in order to protect the rights of the people who gave their authorization to MÜYAP for this. Our aim was not to ban access to these sites. This is a problem of the Turkish law since there is no other kind of application".
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 28 Sep 2009
The Chinese regime’s heavy internet crackdown has not only blocked hundreds of millions of Chinese netizens from accessing information on the web freely, it has also undermined the confidence of foreign investors in China’s internet market.
Google’s revenue in China has been down, as has the number of its users. Yahoo has recently sold all of its shares in Alibaba.com (a Chinese version of eBay), leading to widespread speculation that Yahoo is backing out of China’s market.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 28 Sep 2009
Security forces with black masks and machine guns on the streets of China's capital are just the more visible side of a security clampdown in the country this month: there is also its secretive battle to control the Internet.
The heightened security comes ahead of a massive military parade Beijing will hold in the heart of the city next week to celebrate China's 60th anniversary of communist rule, an event the government hopes will showcase the country's development and go untarnished by security threats or shows of dissent. China's newest nuclear missiles will be included in the arsenal of weapons and equipment shown off in the parade, according to state-run media.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 25 Sep 2009
KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait has blocked a number of Internet blogs and websites with links to "terror" cells and groups, a top official said in comments published on Friday.
"The ministry has blocked blogs ... used by some to communicate with terror cells and extremist groups," communications ministry undersecretary Abdulmohsen al-Mazeedi told Kuwait's An-Nahar newspaper.
He said the ministry had also blocked sites deemed offensive to God and the emir and which undermined what he called national unity, in addition to sites promoting pornography.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 24 Sep 2009
With the Philippine House of Representatives getting ready to deliberate on House Bill 6794 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of�2009, Filipino Netizens are being urged to read and critique the bill.
As I previously blogged, one of the worries of Filipino Internet users was that the controversy generated by online scandals in the Philippines, such as the Katrina Halili-Hayden Kho sex video, might be used to justify passing new cyberlaws or imposing Internet censorship in the Philippines.
HB 6794 seeks to define cybercrimes such as cybersex and child pornography, and propose measures for preventing and punishing such acts.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 24 Sep 2009
New York, September 24, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Tunisian government-backed smear campaign against the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite television station. The campaign has had a negative impact on freedom of expression in Tunisia.
State-controlled media outlets have been attacking Al-Jazeera since July, when the station covered a conference in Geneva on the right of exiled Tunisian dissidents to return home and aired interviews with leading critics of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, journalists told CPJ.
