HANOI — Two pioneering Web sites that stretched the limits of free expression in Vietnam say they have been hacked and shut down, just months after the communist government blocked the social networking site Facebook. Both sites had been critical of Vietnam's policies toward China, a subject of great sensitivity to the government, whose efforts to maintain good relations with its massive northern neighbor sometimes run afoul of nationalist sentiment.

A group of Iran's green movement activists had a grand and detailed vision for what was supposed to happen on Feb. 11. They called it a "Trojan Horse" strategy: Backers of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, camouflaged in unassuming attire, would attend the official regime-backed rally commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Then, at a pre-arranged time, they would assemble in front of the cameras of the foreign news media, reveal themselves as enthusiasts of the green movement, and denounce the brutality of the government for all the world to see. As we all know, however, there was no great reveal at the official rally: The plan didn't work, and Feb. 11 will be remembered by Iran's activists not as a triumph, but as a disappointment. And the scale of the setback, which has placed a significant damper on the movement's spirits, is closely tied to the specificity and grandiosity of the visions that were being cultivated in the preceding weeks via blogs, forwarded emails, and social networking sites.

THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT has buckled under pressure and approved the Sarkozy government's authoritarian plans to censor the Internet. The government opposed all objections to its plans to filter Internet sites, which have been controversial throughout French society. Today La Quadrature du Net, a French openness group, said that the action would give the government total control over its citizens' access to the Internet. It added that Nicholas Sarkozy was using excuses to clear a path for his rules, whch ultimately would come at the expense of liberty. In a statement it said that the announcement had come out during a debate over the planned French security bill (LOPPSI), adding that during discussons the government "opposed all the amendments seeking to minimize the risks attached to filtering Internet sites."

Paris, February 11th, 2010 - During the debate over the French security bill (LOPPSI), the government opposed all the amendments seeking to minimize the risks attached to filtering Internet sites. The refusal to make this measure experimental and temporary shows that the executive could not care less about its effectivity to tackle online child pornography or about its disastrous consequences. This measure will allow the French government to take control of the Internet, as the door is now open to the extension of Net filtering. The refusal to enact Net filtering as an experimental measure is a proof of the ill-intended objective of the government. Making Net filtering a temporary measure would have shown that it is uneffective to fight child pornography.