-
By: Jillian C. York
Date: 12 Jul 2010
ADELAIDE, Australia — Australia's widely criticized proposal to mandate a filter blocking child pornography and other objectionable Internet content has been delayed at least a year so the government can review what content should be restricted.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said Friday a 12-month review would begin this year into the filter, which would force all Australian ISPs to block a regularly updated list of websites.
If a mandatory filter is passed into law, it would make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among the world's democracies. Some critics have said the proposed filter would put the nation in the same censorship league as China.
While child pornography was the main target, the filter also seeks to ban sites that included bestiality, rape and other extreme violence, as well as detailed instructions in crime, drug use or terrorist acts.
-
By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 08 Jul 2010
A decision [EN] by the Supreme Court of Russia on June 15 to “exempt” online news media outlets of responsibility for user comments has in fact turned out to be the introduction of a full-scale censorship procedure. Roskomnadzor, a federal service that supervises Internet and mass media communication for the Russian Ministry of Telecommunications, has introduced a new “one day rule” that says online media must delete or edit “inappropriate” comments on their websites within one day of being notified or risk losing their mass media registrations.
-
By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 06 Jul 2010
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is blocking certain websites from the federal agency's computers, including halting access by staffers to any Internet pages that contain a "controversial opinion," according to an internal email obtained by CBS News.
The email was sent to all TSA employees from the Office of Information Technology on Friday afternoon.
It states that as of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed "inappropriate for government access."
-
By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 06 Jul 2010
Blogger Nguyen Hue Chi is locked in an electronic game of cat and mouse with a mystery cyberattacker - widely believed to be the government.
Chi and his colleagues have set up a series of websites and blogs questioning government policy in the past year, only to see them attacked and blocked.
Observers blame the communist state, which they say has adopted a more aggressive stance towards politically sensitive Internet sites.
-
By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 06 Jul 2010
India's Department of Telecommunications (DOT) has been asked by the government to serve a notice to Skype and Research In Motion (RIM) to ensure that their email and other data services comply with formats that can be read by security and intelligence agencies, according to reports in two Indian newspapers.
Skype and the BlackBerry service could face a ban in India if they do not comply within 15 days, according to reports in The Economic Times, and The Hindu Business Line. A similar notice is also being sent to Google asking it to provide access to content on Gmail in a readable format.
-
By: Jillian C. York
Date: 01 Jul 2010
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the pardon that King Bhumibol Adulyadej issued on 28 June to Suvicha Thakhor, who was serving a 10-year jail sentence on a lèse majesté charge for allegedly using software to modify photos of the royal family before posting them online.
“Prison was very tough,” Suvicha told Reporters Without Borders after his release. “At first I was completely shattered. I hit rock bottom. I had to fight to survive. Fortunately my family visited me often. I kept going by following the teachings of Buddhism and practising meditation. I now feel fine but I have lost my job. I will probably become a monk for a while.”
-
By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 01 Jul 2010
US feds and customs officials shut down seven websites yesterday, for allegedly hosting pirated copies of popular Hollywood films and TV shows.
The net seizures came just one week after the White House announced its enforcement plan for confronting theft of intellectual property.
-
By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 01 Jul 2010
The internet filtering "live trials" conducted by the Federal Government in conjunction with internet service providers (ISPs) were done illegally, according to claims by network engineer Mark Newton.
Newton, who has been a vocal opponent of the Federal Government's mandatory internet filter proposal, has been involved in a year-long dialogue with the government over this claim.
His claim centres on whether the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE), in conducting its filter trials with ISPs, intercepted customers' internet traffic.
-
By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 01 Jul 2010
Twenty-four-year-old Li Jun sits where he sits most nights of the week, in front of a computer in his local Internet cafe in the east of the Chinese capital, playing ‘World of Warcraft’.
It is past midnight on a typical Monday night, yet almost every computer in the Internet cafe he sits in is in use. That is no small feat given that hundreds of computers are crammed into the small, second-floor space, and that industrial fans are needed to keep the patrons cool – as well as to clear the smoke that comes from the many, many lit cigarettes around.
Every night, this scene is played out in thousands of Internet bars in hundreds of cities across China – a country that had 384 million Internet users by the end of 2009, and where this number increases by 31.95 million users annually, according to a White Paper on the Internet released by the Chinese government in June.
-
By: Sarah Hamdi
Date: 29 Jun 2010
Reporters Without Borders today launched the world’s first “Anti-Censorship Shelter” in Paris for use by foreign journalists, bloggers and dissidents who are refugees or just passing through as a place where they can learn how to circumvent Internet censorship, protect their electronic communications and maintain their anonymity online.
