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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 15 Dec 2009
Stephen Conroy, the communications minister, was accused of plotting a "great firewall of Australia" when he said on Tuesday that the legislation, to be introduced early next year, would require all internet service providers to block objectionable material hosted on overseas servers.
He said such material would include "child sex abuse content, bestiality, sexual violence and the detailed instruction of crime and drug use".
Senator Conroy said: "Most Australians acknowledge there is some internet content which is not acceptable in any civilised society.
"It is important that all Australians, but especially children, are protected from this material."
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 15 Dec 2009
Australia is forging ahead with plans to filter Internet content in a bid to stop its citizens accessing obscene and crime-linked Web sites.
Under the Chinese-style system, Internet service providers (ISPs) in the country would be legally obliged to filter out banned material.
The move would mean more than 1,300 sites that show child pornography, bestiality, sexual violence or give instructions about committing crime would be blocked. The government says such a system would help protect people, especially children, from harmful material found online.
At the moment officials can order people to take down material if it is hosted online in Australia, but cannot directly regulate content hosted abroad.
However critics say filtering would not prevent determined users from sharing illegal content and could also see over-enthusiastic officials carrying out unnecessary censorship. They also complain that it would slow down Internet speeds.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 15 Dec 2009
Analysing tweets is a difficult, and potentially futile process, as hundreds of tweets on a trending topic can appear every minute. That said, it's not difficult to gauge the online opinion to the government's announcement of "all systems go for the blacklist. " Currently, #nocleanfeed is a trending topic, in other words it's a popular topic not just in Australia but in the worldwide Tweetverse.
Popular Australian comedian Chas Licciardello (@ChasLicc) from The Chaser tweeted "After the Govt censors the Internet how will we be able to describe all the acts that should be done to Conroy?". Others were less comedic and more direct, using either a variety of expletives to describe the move, or simply, in the case of @brittinboots, "ugh".
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 04 Dec 2009
The High Court has ordered the publishers of the Wikipedia user-generated encyclopaedia to reveal information which could identify a contributor in a blackmail case involving an unnamed famous businesswoman.
The Wikimedia Foundation said that it would not help to identify the user unless a court order was made, but that if the Court ordered it to release the information it would.
The businesswoman, known as G, claims to be the subject of a blackmail plot and the victim of the publishing in a Wikipedia entry of private and confidential information about her and her young child.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 04 Dec 2009
A recent Middle East Broadband market survey shows that internet penetration remains low across the region, reports Live PR. The survey also concluded that in comparison to other regions, access speeds are often relatively slow and tariffs are relatively high.
However, the Middle East is making a strong push towards higher broadband penetration. The survey suggests that Arab youth will drive expansion as it grows up with internet accessibility and its use will become the norm. In addition, liberalization and increased competition are bound to produce a greater variety of services and mediums.
While broadband growth has taken off in the small, oil-rich and developed Gulf countries, wide income gaps across the Middle East are echoed by disparities in Internet and broadband penetration rates.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 03 Dec 2009
US President Barack Obama asked China to abandon the so-called practice of “internet censorship” during his China trip last month, calling for the freedom of expression and non-censored internet.
However, internet censorship is far from an issue of black and white. Even in Obama’s own country, whether to censor the internet or not is under intense debate.
Two federal laws intended to censor offensive online content were passed at the turn of this millennium, while four states -- New York, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia have passed Internet censorship legislation restricting/banning online distribution of material deemed "harmful to minors" since 1996.
Although these laws were later struck down by the Supreme Court on constitutional groups, but they are telling stories that the Americans are widely divided on this issue.
Actually, some other countries are also trying to filter harmful internet content, or using other ways to manage the internet, including South Korea, and Germany
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 03 Dec 2009
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU telecoms chief Viviane Reding has warned that the European Commission would take action against Spain if the government moves to cut the internet access of content pirates.
"Repression alone will certainly not solve the problem of internet piracy; it may in many ways even run counter to the rights and freedoms which are part of Europe's values since the French Revolution," information society commissioner Reding told a conference of the Spanish Telecommunications Market Commission (CMT) in Barcelona telecoms on Monday.
"If Spain cuts off internet access without a procedure in front of a judge, it would certainly run into conflict with the European Commission," she said.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 03 Dec 2009
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Cory Doctorow
POSTED AT 1:32 AM December 2, 2009
Action • copyfight • human rights • internet • spain • three strike
Spanish activists issue manifesto on the rights of Internet users
Javier "Barrapunto" Candeira writes, "Last Monday the Spanish Government sent the parliament the latest draft for the Ley de Economia Sostenible (Sustainable Economy Act), which contained riders modifying the current laws on copyright and interactive services. These amendments give the Spanish Ministy of Culture the administrative power to take down websites (or order ISPs to block those hosted overseas), all without a court order and in the name of 'safeguarding Intellectual Property Laws against Internet Piracy'. For this reason some of us have written a manifesto that is being published today all over Spanish weblogs and media."
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 03 Dec 2009
The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the CIA, the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Justice, and three other government agencies on Tuesday for allegedly refusing to release information about how they are using social networks in surveillance and investigations.
The nonprofit Internet rights watchdog group formally asked more than a dozen agencies or departments in early October to provide records about federal guidelines on the use of sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr for investigative or data gathering purposes, according to the lawsuit.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 01 Dec 2009
Around 15,000 suspected pirates may soon get legal letters accusing them of illegally sharing movies and games.
ACS:Law plans to send notes to the accused in the new year offering a chance to settle out of court for "several hundreds of pounds".
A lawyer who has defended people who have received similar letters described it as a "scattergun approach" that would catch "innocent people".
ACS:Law said it was "unaware" of anyone who had been wrongly sent a letter.
