The pure futility of it all: A Turkish court has again blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube because of clips allegedly insulting the country’s founding father, according to reports Sunday. It was the second time Turkey banned the site because of clips deemed disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It is illegal in…
Showing all posts tagged China
This is how we censor
China remains the world’s greatest internet censor. We very rarely gain insight into how this system works. One document has fallen into the hands of some Chinese bloggers and it makes for fascinating reading, revealing the detailed censorship orders from a government propaganda authority: 3. Web sites should only republish information from the Xinhua News…
China’s darker side
China is preparing for this year’s Olympic Games but human rights appear not to be a priority. The regime can’t suddenly disappear beggars from central Beijing and local bloggers are revealing the extent of the problem: To the east of Zhengyangmen, there is an old railway station which used to be one part of Beijing-Shenyang…
Fast fingers and good manners
China’s mobile phone users sent 429 billion text messages in 2006, the equivalent of 967 messages per user. In other China news…
It’s Mao, but not as he knew it
The Chinese government, announcing restrictions on the posting of videos online, explaining the “rules”: Those who provide internet video services should insist on serving the people, serve socialism … and abide by the moral code of socialism.
Not a revolution, an avalanche
The internet revolution has well and truly arrived in China (but political reform may take much longer): On Dec. 26th, 2007, CNNIC published “the Survey Report on Blogs in China 2007”. According to the report, by the end of Nov. 2007, the number of blog spaces has reached 72.82 million in China, and with 47…
Stealing dollars through censorship
The debate over Chinese internet censorship is only beginning. The role of Western multinationals operating in a country that forces filtering is both a human rights issue and, according to this group, something more economic: A California free speech group whose board of directors includes Google and Yahoo said on Monday it had asked U.S.…
Welcome to your internet future
Nart Villeneuve, Index on Censorship, Volume 36, Issue 4, November: In some countries, there is no technical [internet] filtering in place; it is the legal system itself which acts as the primary mechanism of Internet censorship. Threatening ISPs, or content providers such as search engines, with ”˜takedown’ requests is one of the most undocumented methods…
One hand takes and the other hand represses
Never. Trust. A. Multinational. The sordid stories of Western companies, including Yahoo, Nokia and Ericsson, assisting the Chinese government in censoring material (and it’s far worse than you imagined.)
Not lying down
The bravery of Chinese bloggers against the paranoia of the Communist state continues to inspire. Read on.