• By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 21 Jan 2009
    Scores of websites have been blocked in Bahrain, following a new crackdown by the Ministry of Information. The latest sweep makes sites ranging from Google Translate to those of social, religious, human rights and political groups inaccessible to people in Bahrain.
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 21 Jan 2009
    A federal law intended to restrict children's access to Internet pornography died quietly Wednesday at the Supreme Court, more than 10 years after Congress overwhelmingly approved it.
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 21 Jan 2009
    While England is very soon to begin the interesting experiment of sending people to jail for possession of dangerous pictures, the Scottish Government is only just getting its act together on the subject. Not to be outdone, their proposed new Law goes significantly further than the English one, creating the very real possibility that travellers could depart London with nothing but legal pictures on their laptop – and pull into Edinburgh Waverley facing arrest for their hard-drive smut.
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 21 Jan 2009
    Websites, featuring what the Chinese government has called vulgar content, have been closed down. Over 90 websites containing pornographic and political material has been removed since China announced its Internet morality campaign. China's ruling Communist Party has a history of engaging in web purges, in attempts to remove pornography, political criticism and web scams. Officials have now threatened tougher penalties for those companies disseminating the material. In the past the crackdown on Internet content has included the big search engines, Google, Microsoft's MSN and Baidu.
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 21 Jan 2009
    The official Chinese translation of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech omitted his references to communism and dissent, and a live broadcast on state television Wednesday quickly cut away to the anchor when sensitive topics were mentioned.
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 20 Jan 2009
    In an unusual legal case arising from the increasingly popular practice known as “sexting,” six Pennsylvania high school students are facing child pornography charges after three teenage girls allegedly took nude or semi-nude photos of themselves and shared them with male classmates via their cell phones.
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 20 Jan 2009
    Reporters Without Borders welcomed the release on 17 January 2009, of blogger Shahnaz Gholami, editor of the blog Azar Zan (http://azarwomen.blogfa.com), after 69 days in custody. She was freed on bail of 200 million toman (about 200 000 euros).
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 20 Jan 2009
    Hong Kong government is completing its first round of consultation on the Control of Obscene and Indecent Article Ordinance (COIAO) at the end of January, 2009. The most debatable section is on the control over online new media as the existing practice of indecent and obscene censorship is very arbitrary and the extension of the ordinance to the internet may violate freedom of speech and expression. Moreover, the anti-smut campaign in China has become a pretext for political censorship, internet users in Hong Kong also worries that ISP level filtering will give an infrastructure for political censorship in the future.
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 19 Jan 2009
    The German government has proposed regulations that will oblige local ISPs to apply a government-mandated block list. The proposal, from the Ministry for Families, is designed to prevent access to child pornography. Federal Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen told a conference in Berlin that a "binding agreement" with major ISPs will be available as soon as early March, Der Spiegel reports.
  • By: Jillian C. York
    Date: 19 Jan 2009
    Australian writer Harry Nicolaides has been sentenced to three years in a Thai jail for insulting the monarchy. Nicolaides wrote a novel four years ago, which contained a brief passage referring to an unnamed crown prince. It sold just seven copies. He admitted the charge of insulting the royal family, but said he was unaware he was committing an offence. Thailand's monarchy is sheltered from public debate by some of the world's most stringent "lese-majeste" laws.

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