The state of human rights in Iran in 2009 has been grim and worsening. Reporters Without Borders highlights the web apartheid (possibly backed by Western multinationals): The authorities have also targeted the Internet in an attempt to extend their control to the new media. News websites that were likely to criticise Ahmadinejad’s victory, including around…
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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…
Google appears in the middle of a war zone
Is there anywhere on the planet that Google doesn’t exist? It spread across the web like a wildfire: Google chief Eric Schmidt visited Baghdad today. Yes, just like a statesman. He attended a ceremony with the US Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, at Iraq’s national museum, where he announced that the search giant would post…
Twitter is so not Beijing’s bag
China, we are listening, can you hear us? When Barack Obama told students in Shanghai last week that he had never used Twitter, there were two responses. In the west, surprise from some of his 2.6 million followers. And in China, reportedly, a surge in queries on Google China: “What’s Twitter?” On the mainland, it…
The ghost of Bill Gates in the shadow of helping the Communist Party
My book The Blogging Revolution thoroughly examines the complicity of Western multinationals such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in assisting online censorship in oppressive regimes. Nicholas Kristof in his blog on the New York Times discovers how shocking this situation has become. Lesson for the day; never trust the word of corporate executives (especially when…
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Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village
Banning Gmail won’t solve Iran’s problems
The Iranian regime, already isolated internationally (well, the West doesn’t like her) continues to arrest dissenters. But this news places the country in the dubious role of copying China’s most draconian web censorship: On Wednesday, authorities temporarily blocked all access to e-mail programs such as Gmail and Yahoo during the demonstrations to prevent people from…
A search engine with a mind on settlements
Google fans, hold your applause, as it looks like one of its founders backs the colonial project in Palestine: Jewish Billionaire, Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, donated $1 million to the so-called Hebrew national Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) which heavily encourages Jews around the world to immigrate to Israel and the United…
”˜Anti-Zionist’ Jew: author of ”˜My Israel Question’ heads for Bali
The following article by Katrin Figge is published today in one of Indonesia’s largest English newspapers, The Jakarta Globe: For a person who gets hate mail and death threats on a regular basis, Antony Loewenstein remains surprisingly cheerful. The Jewish-Australian journalist, activist, blogger and author, who is based in Sydney, has stirred up plenty of…
Palestinian freedom through Google?
The recent Fatah conference in Bethlehem was a sign that the US-backed Palestinian party was utterly removed from reality. But not to worry, why do Palestinians need a state when they have this? Ten years after Google Inc first rolled out its internet search engine, Palestine finally has its own Google domain, enabling the territories…