United States/Canada

Report: Policing Content in the Quasi-Public Sphere
September 2010 Authored by Jillian C. York, with contributions from Robert Faris and Ron Deibert, and editorial assistance from Rebekah Heacock To view this bulletin as a PDF, click here. Introduction Online conversations today exist primarily in the realm of social media and blogging platforms,...
ONI Blog: Would Censoring the Internet Prevent Cyber-Bullying?
Playing out in the Internet tabloids this week is the story of Jessi Slaughter, an eleven-year-old girl whose YouTube rants have resulted in death threats and unsavory rumors in a classic case of cyber-bullying. In Australia, where a proposal to filter the...
ONI Blog: New Legislation With Hidden Consequences
In U.S. Bill HR 4899 (Full Text Here), there are supplemental appropriations of around $80 Billion towards the troops in Afghanistan, Haiti relief, the Gulf oil spill, employment issues with the recession, and snuck in at the very end, a...
ONI Blog: Is Blocking RapeLay the Solution?
Controversy is brewing over a Japanese video game called RapeLay which, according to Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, allows users to "earn points for acts of sexual violence, including following girls on commuter trains, raping virgins and their mothers, and then forcing...
ONI Blog: United States: Is Filtering in Schools the Answer?
Is filtering in schools the answer? That's the question being asked across the United States. Although it is required by federal law to filter pornographic and other obscene content, many K-12 schools are choosing to also filter social networks, video...
ONI Blog: U.S. software company says China stole Green Dam code
A California-based software company has accused a Chinese company of lifting parts of the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering software directly from its own CyberSitter program. Solid Oak Software Inc. claims that parts of the Green Dam code, including...
ONI Blog: Facebook: What is Private?
Users of Facebook beware: In a precedent-setting decision by a Toronto judge, a man injured in a car accident has been ordered to turn over information from his Facebook page which is off-limits to the public. The lawyers of the lawsuit's defendant, Janice...
ONI Blog: Geofiltering: How to Alienate Business Customers Without Really Trying
Many a DVD collector over the years has been disappointed upon learning that their rare DVD from Taiwan or France can't be played on their American DVD player. Just as DVD region codes limit viewing to a geographic area, the geofiltering...
ONI Blog: Launch of M-Lab as Net Neutrality Tool
The recent launch of Measurement Lab (M-Lab) provides consumers, regulators, and content providers with the details about their network’s performance, according to CNET. Backed by Google, the New America Foundation (affiliated with the Democratic Party), and the PlanetLab consortium, M-Lab...

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