Following Yahoo!’s shameful behaviour in China towards web users, Facebook is reportedly keen to enter the soon-to-be biggest internet market in the world: Facebook appears to have decided on acquisition as its preferred method of entering the booming Chinese market, after months of speculation about how the social networking website would tap the country’s rapid…
Showing all posts tagged blogging
Blocking the friendship group
Syria bans Facebook. (Procrastinators in the West would never survive.)
Problems staying off-line
South Koreans love the internet (though it can sometimes lead to suicide and unwelcome gossip.) Now, groups are doing something about it: The compound — part boot camp, part rehab center — resembles programs around the world for troubled youths. Drill instructors drive young men through military-style obstacle courses, counselors lead group sessions, and there…
From one torturer to another
One of America’s favourite torturing client states is at it again: The Arabic Network for Human Rights information and Hisham Mubarak Centre for Law sent a communiqué to the Egyptian Prosecutor-General , demanding to investigate into the issue of torturing Karim Amer in his prison. Karim who is an Egyptian blogger sentenced to prison for…
Mapping oppression
The explosion of social networking sites and Web 2.0 has changed the face of the internet. But in many countries around the world, repressive governments are restricting the ability of citizens to access a multitude of websites: But despite the potential of web 2.0, in regions ridden with censorship and where the state holds the…
Dealing with “hate”
Do internet search engines have a responsibility to remove “hate”? Google’s Israel head thinks not: Google is not the address for stopping online hate, the Israel director of the engine whose brand name is so well known that it means searching the Internet, told a conference on Monday. Organizers of the conference from the Anti-Defamation…
Talking to friends and enemies
The internet has undoubtedly democratised the public space, allowing a range of voices previously silenced or ignored. But what has been the net result of this process? Freedom of choice is not always good for democracy. This observation is at the heart of University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein’s book “Republic.com 2.0” (an update…
Rove, etiquette master
The Pot Meet Kettle Black Award for 2007. (From the mouth of a bigot to us all.)
Defaming the bigoted
The Citizen Media Law Project have launched an important new project, a Legal Threats Database. The “goal is to create an accurate and complete collection of legal threats directed at online speech.” Take the case Khalaji v. Derakhshan: In October 2007, Mohammed Mehdi Khalaji, a fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, filed…
Change can only come from within
Arash Abadpour, The Manitoban, October 24: For a country with a double-digit inflation rate, regime change is only a matter of time. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s humiliation at Columbia University and the criticism that followed it in the Iranian government ranks was only one other sign that the group which rules the Islamic Republic is…