According to Japanese daily Yomiuri, police have asked six cell phone social networking sites to delete messages from underage users looking for dates.
Herdict Web, the proud child of ONI, has just launched its new Arabic user interface. In the past 24 hours since the launch, the Herdict team has been thrilled to note a high number of reports coming from the Middle East and North Africa, with Saudi Arabia as the front runner.
Freedom House has released key findings in regard to emerging threats to Internet freedom. The study, covering 15 nations, ranks countries from "free" to "not free," based on a number of variables.
In an unprecedented move, the Telecommunications and Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE is giving users the opportunity to submit feedback over its filtering policy. Internet Service Provider (ISP) du, followed larger ISP Etisalat last year in blocking certain "offensive" sites, including Skype, a number of blogs, and information on the Dutch anti-Islam film Fitna.
Google officially confirmed today that YouTube has been blocked in China, from a steep drop in traffic on the evening of March 23 to “near zero” by March 24.
Since March 22, 2009, Internet speeds in Burma have been slowed significantly. Myanmar Teleport (MMT) had announced that the submarine cable SE-ME-WE 3 (South East Asia Middle West Europe 3) will be undergoing maintenance from March 21 to March 25, 2009, but that email service would be maintained. Burma’s other state-controlled ISP, Myanmar Post & Telecommunications (MPT) has not announced any slowdown in Internet access speeds. However, according to Internet users in Burma, both MMT and MPT shut down their service for several hours on the afternoon of March 22.
According to news reports, the government of Bangladesh blocked access to YouTube on March 9 after the site hosted a recording of a meeting between the prime minister and military officials following a border guard mutiny in late February of this year. On March 21, users in Bangladesh confirmed YouTube was unblocked after pressure from activists.
Users of Facebook beware: In a precedent-setting decision by a Toronto judge, a man injured in a car accident has been ordered to turn over information from his Facebook page which is off-limits to the public.
The lawyers of the lawsuit's defendant, Janice Roman, believe information posted on John Leduc's private Facebook page may be relevant to a claim he made that an accident in 2004 interfered with his quality of life. Leduc is now required to submit to cross-examination regarding the content of his Facebook page.
According to reports in The Hindu, India’s Maharashtra government is revisiting legal options to censor Google Earth in the wake of the program’s alleged use in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
Dubai police chief launches a campaign to block youtube, less than two weeks after the UAE blocked access to content deemed offensive to Muslims.
