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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 10 Sep 2009
New laws reportedly planned for the Queen's Speech to force all internet providers to block access to child pornography websites have been questioned by Britain's top abuse investigator.
Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), said the blacklist currently used to filter the vast majority of UK internet connections had been a "fabulous success".
However, he added he is unconvinced of the need for legislation to impose it on the remaining small and boutique ISPs who argue it is unaffordable and easily circumvented by determined paedophiles.
"The jury is out for me," Gamble told The Register in an interview at CEOP's Westminster HQ.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 08 Sep 2009
MANILA, Philippines – Internet
use in the Philippines remains free, with most, if not all form of content, becoming available to all 24 million or so Internet users, about half of them below the age of 19.
But that kind of freedom of access has also brought the attention of legislators some, of whom have also been spurred by recent sex video scandals, proposed bills mainly against online pornography.
These include the “Cyberboso” bill of BUHAY partylist Representative Irwin Tieng, and the Anti-Child Pornography Bill by Tarlac 1st district Representative Monica Prieto-Teodoro.
A Senate version of the Anti-Child Porn Bill, Senate Bill 2317, was penned by Senators Jamby Madrigal and Francis Escudero and is only awaiting a conference committee reading before going into plenary. However, one particular provision of the bill has raised eyebrows as it hints on government control over the Internet.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 08 Sep 2009
On June 3, 2009, one day before the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, the Chinese government censored its own people by blocking their access to the Internet. In addition to blocking the ability of Chinese people to access the Internet, international sites like Blogger, Flickr, and Twitter were placed behind the Great Firewall of China, as were Wordpress and Hotmail. The Australian Parliament was the first official government body to condemn the actions of the Chinese. Green Party Senator Scott Ludlam of the Austrian Parliament criticized China, noting that the "...newly blocked sites now join the existing ban on YouTube and Wikipedia, among a growing list that is thought to include over 6,000 online university websites." The timing of this move is no coincidence.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 08 Sep 2009
Unlike some neighbouring countries, the internet in Oman is rarely censored by the government to block websites that criticize the authorities.
There are blogs and forums that explicitly publish leaked government documents and shame high government officials, yet the government in most cases uses legal methods to prosecute such authors if they are residents in the country by relying on the criminal law legislation and the controversial Omani telecommunication law. Though rarely ever tested, Oman does guarantee the right for freedom of expression after all. Websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter were never blocked in Oman.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 08 Sep 2009
Despite significant international outcry from leading human rights and freedom of expression advocates, detained video bloggers Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli today went on trial in Baku. Now facing an additional charge of assault, the two youth activists face up to 5 years in prison if convicted.
Hajizade and Milli were attacked in downtown Baku at the beginning of July, but when the two activists reported the incident to the police they were instead arrested and charged with attacking their assailants.
The arrests came soon after Hajizade's OL! youth movement and Milli's AN Network posted a video mocking the authorities for importing donkeys and introducing legislation intended to restrict the activities of civil society in the oil-rich country.
But, if the Azerbaijani government hoped that the action against the two activists would silence their voices, it instead appears to have achieved the opposite.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 08 Sep 2009
The Australian Senate Opposition leader Nick Minchin has joined the growing chorus of voices against Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's plans for mandatory ISP-level filtering.
The project may not yet be deceased, but it is without doubt on the critical list.
Senator Minchin said the government had not only failed to release the results of recent trials of internet filtering software, but it had also refused to come clean on what measures would determine whether the trial could be considered successful or not.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 08 Sep 2009
THE federal opposition is alarmed at being able to access an abortion web page from parliamentary computers despite the site being listed on the government's top-secret blacklist.
Earlier this year, the addition of the web page to the blacklist managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority made headlines when a Melbourne internet user complained to the regulator that he found the content offensive.
The authority added the site to its list of illegal, prohibited and potentially prohibited web pages.
Opposition staff were able to access the supposedly banned page through Parliament House computers.
A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the Department of Parliamentary Services was responsible for decisions on the choice and application of internet filters on Parliament House computers.
Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said the "response was curious" considering the minister's hardline policy on introducing a mandatory national filtering system.
Senator Minchin said having access from Parliament to web pages on ACMA's blacklist was not a good sign for the federal government's plan to censor the internet.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 08 Sep 2009
Beijing, China -- Google is once again regaining its position in China after a row in which authorities accused the US Internet giant of illegally disseminating pornographic content, as the Chinese authorities now approved of Google's efforts to filter porn from search results on its China portal following state-led criticism of the links, the former head of Google China KaiFu Lee said on Monday.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 06 Sep 2009
BEIJING — News Web sites in China, complying with secret government orders, are requiring that new users log on under their true identities to post comments, a shift in policy that the country’s Internet users and media have fiercely opposed in the past.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 06 Sep 2009
Most people know that the internet, which is populated not only by websites that offer information, inspiration and wonder, but also thousands that serve up hefty doses of bawdy content, can be a minefield.
This can be especially tricky for Muslims, for whom such sites are haram, or forbidden. With this in mind, an Iranian-Kuwaiti student living in the Netherlands has launched a search engine aimed specifically at ensuring that Muslims do not stumble across such sites.
Unlike Google or other search engines, ImHalal.com will fetch only web pages considered halal, or permitted under Islamic law.
