What is the internet and satellite television doing to the increasingly authoritarian Russian state?
Showing all posts tagged censorship
Blogging, in my own words
My new book,… The Blogging Revolution, is released this week. Here I am talking about its themes and challenges:
Just a reliable Western ally
As I discuss in my book The Blogging Revolution, Egypt, one of the highest recipients of US aid annually, represses bloggers like few other nations on Earth. Now this: Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, an imprisoned blogger better known by the pen-name of Kareem Amer, is forbidden to leave his cell, his books have been confiscated…
The Independent Weekly examines Blogging book
The following book review of The Blogging Revolution, in Adelaide’s Independent Weekly, was published by Kate Lockett on August 29: Did you know that Iran has around one million bloggers, that Farsi is in the top five languages used on the internet or that 20 per cent of Saudi Arabians are now online? Australian journalist…
Time to honestly debate Israel/Palestine
My following post was written for Khaldoun, the blog recently started by Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies, where I’m a board member: Robustly debating Zionism has existed for as long as its existence. Jews, historically a persecuted people, were unafraid to discuss the merits or otherwise of the plan to…
How web rights are coming
My new book, The Blogging Revolution, is officially released on September 1. Over the coming weeks and months there will be extensive coverage and discussion both here in Australia and internationally (all of it covered on this site and the book’s website). As a great start, here’s a post from Harvard University’s Berkman Centre for…
Together we stand
This is the only kind of solidarity against web censorship that can pressure governments to re-consider their authoritarian ways: Turkish bloggers are closing their websites to protest against courts banning dozens of mainstream sites for carrying content deemed “immoral” or insulting to Turkey’s founding father. A grassroots “censuring the censors” movement has formed over the…
The Blogging Revolution lands
My following essay appears in today’s Weekend Australian newspaper: The young online tribe is more interested in discussing sex, drugs and rock’n’roll than political revolution, writes Antony Loewenstein Early last month, some Iranian members of parliament voted to debate a draft bill that aimed to “toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society” by adding…
How would you like your repression?
Welcome to our new Chinese overlords: Police State 2.0 is being perfected in China and we can thank Western multinationals.
Let the patriot games begin
My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed: Before the Beijing Games launched spectacularly last weekend, the vast bulk of Australian media expressed general disdain for China, finding little positive to report. It was just the kind of coverage that played directly into the Communist regime’s hands; such is the widespread belief there that the…