We are entering an age where the complicity of internet companies in censorship is becoming clear to many. We have allowed them to become too powerful and now they can act like this. By the way, so much for the Obama administration being any different to the Bushies over human rights, secrets and intimidation: WikiLeaks…
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Thomas Friedman lives in a castle and barely knows the outside world
This is really delicious. One of America’s self-appointed leading foreign affairs columnists, the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, shows himself to be a rather insecure and technologically clueless man. And this is the guy who praises globalisation? Truly insulated: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman ’75 questioned the ethics of WikiLeaks and technology in journalism…
Perhaps Facebook should change its focus
Facebook head and Time person of the year Mark Zuckerberg on Julian Assange and Wikileaks: We definitely don’t wake up in the morning and think about toppling institutions.
Are we addicted or too pleased to notice?
Some startling facts: – There are now more than 500 million active Facebook users, with 50% logging on to the site on any given day. Worldwide, users collectively spend 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook. – Google’s email service Gmail ended July with 186 million worldwide users, a 22% increase from the same time…
How much independence should Facebook be given?
The following article by Curt Hopkins appears on popular American technology blog ReadWriteWeb: The Australian Federal Police insist that Facebook hire a compliance officer and install a “rat button” on its site that will allow Australians to report anyone to the police with click. The social media company and the AFP have been going back…
Why internet censorship is a fool’s paradise
My following article is published today by the Sydney Morning Herald/Age online: We live under the illusion that governments can protect us from the evils of the world. Paedophilia, extreme violence, lessons in self-harm and suicide, race hatred and terrorism. We have every right to expect governments to monitor hate and terror sites and arrest…
Iranian autocrats will have a harder time blocking material
Whenever any repressive regime tries to censor online content, rest assured somebody somewhere will find a way around it (Western governments also take note): While the Iranian government has intensified its aggressive efforts to expand Internet filters, Austin Heap, a young programmer in the U.S., says he has developed software that would enable Iranians to…
Give me the internet, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
A nation of addicts proudly (and desperately?) need their daily fix: American college students are hooked on cellphones, social media and the Internet and showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full…
How men can dress up as women in Iran and show solidarity
Resistance in Iran continues to take many forms. Global Voices shows us one way: Hundreds of Iranian men have dressed as women in Hijab to support Majid Tavakoli, a student activist who was arrested on December 7. Iranian authorities claim Mr. Tavakoli was dressed as a woman to escape after delivering a speech in Tehran…
Iranians won’t stop shouting against oppression
While Iran erupts again with protesters against dictatorial rule, Reporters Without Borders finds massive attempts by authorities to shut down modern communications (a futile act, and only temporarily successful, that shows its desperation): The Iranian censors targeted the new-generation media with renewed energy. The authorities have responded, blow by blow, to demonstrations in recent months…