Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’
January 13th, 2012
The Delhi High Court has threatened Facebook and Google with
web blackouts, unless they agree to censor objectionable content. Following
last month’s meetings between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook and the Indian government to discuss content management on their sites, Justice Suresh Kait warned that if the internet giants refuse to filter content, their websites will be blocked “
like China“. Mukul Rohatgi who testified on behalf of Google India said that the search giant cannot filter “obscene, objectionable and defamatory” content.
December 6th, 2011
The
Indian Government have asked internet companies and social media organisations to
censor internet content before it goes online. India’s acting telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal met with top officials from the Indian units of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook on Monday to discuss implementing the removal of disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content before being published online.
Three un-named executives of Internet companies were told in a previous meeting that Sibal expected them to set up a proactive pre-screening system using people, not technology.
December 6th, 2011
The Supreme Court of
Azerbaijan upheld the sentence of a young activist and blogger on 6 December. Bakhtiyar Hajiyev was
sentenced to two years‘ imprisonment after using Facebook to generate support for the 11 March “
Great People’s Day” anti-government protests. The 29-year-old Harvard graduate was charged with evading military service in May, but lost his appeal against the conviction.
Natasha Schmidt, Assistant Editor of Index on Censorship magazine condemned the decision:
“The Azerbaijani authorities have demonstrated once again that they are entirely hostile to freedom of expression and the right to protest. Like activist Jabber Savalan, Bakhtiyar Hajiyev remains in jail on a charge unrelated to his activism, a tactic increasingly employed to silence dissenting voices.”
A report by the
International Partnership Group for Azerbaijan, of which Index on Censorship is a member, outlines the dire state of press freedom in Azerbaijan.
November 25th, 2011
A
Thai Government minister
has warned that Facebook users who ‘like’ or ‘share’ pages which denigrate the monarchy could face prosecution.
The warning from information technology minister, Anudith Nakornthap,
follows the sentencing of a 61 year old man to 20 years in prison for sending text messages deemed insulting to the country’s queen. Ampon Tangnoppakul was accused of sending four text messages deemed insulting to the monarchy in May 2010. The laws against
lèse-majesté (insulting a monarch) in Thailand are the most severe in the world – even repeating the details of an alleged offence is illegal.
October 26th, 2011
Rachel Greenspan reports from the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, where industry and activists met to discuss free expression online
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October 19th, 2011
Twitter CEO
Dick Costolo has
stressed the need to keep freedom of speech as a priority, even in times of civil unrest. Speaking at the
Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Monday, Costolo stood by the decision not to suspend the service or reveal user identities to authorities in the wake of the UK riots this summer.
Talks between representatives from Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerry Messenger and Home Secretary Theresa May during the riots caused speculation that the government would try to temporarily suspend the digital networks.
October 14th, 2011
Students at Bahrain Polytechnic are being silenced and expelled for social media posts. Sara Yasin reports
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September 12th, 2011
Facebook has agreed to work with the
German government on a code of conduct aimed at privacy protection. The code, agreed at a meeting on Wednesday between German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and Facebook’s director of policy in Europe, Richard Allen, will cover issues such as media literacy and data transmission in accordance with German law. The agreement follows discussions around Facebook’s adherence to German data protection laws. Last month, Thilo Weichert, a data protection commissioner in Northern Germany, claimed
Facebook’s “Like” button violated German data protection laws.
