Posts Tagged ‘social media’
November 2nd, 2011
Governments must not crack down on internet and mobile phone networks during times of unrest, the
British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday. Speaking at a two-day international
cybersecurity conference in London, Cameron said that cybersecurity should not be an “excuse for censorship or to deny their people the opportunities that the internet represents”.Speaking at the
same conference, Index on Censorship CEO
John Kampfner said: “as soon as our own Western-style stability of the state is called into question then freedom of expression is expendable. There should be one rule for all, including Western governments.”
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
(more…)
October 10th, 2011
Pro-Chavez Hackers in
Venezuela have targeted the emails and social media accounts of journalists. Milagros Socorro, director of the site
Código Venezuela, announced that hackers attacked her blog, Twitter and emails after criticising President Chavez’s communications ministry. Her Twitter profile image was changed to a bar of soap with the headline “wash your mouth out.” Socorro criticised Minister Andrés Izarra for accusing a foreign correspondent of being
unethical and disrespectful to authorities at a press conference in Caracas. It is believed that the group N33, which
have launched cyber attacks on critics of the Chavez administration, are responsible for the attack.
September 22nd, 2011
Two people jailed for making “alarmist” posts on Twitter were
freed yesterday after four weeks in prison in
Mexico. Maria de Jesus Bravo, a local journalist, and maths teacher Gilberto Martinez Vera, had the charges of terrorism and sabotage against them dropped, and they walked free from jail to cheering supporters. The pair sent out Twitter messages regarding an
unconfirmed drug attack on a primary school last month, and were accused of terrifying frantic parents. The charges, which can carry prison sentences of up to 30 years imprisonment, were dropped following outrage from human rights activists and free speech advocates.
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.
August 25th, 2011
As Twitter, Facebook and Research in Motion prepare to meet the Home Secretary, Index on Censorship and other human and digital rights campaigners ask to be included in discussions on social media blackouts
Joint Letter to Home Secretary
August 24th, 2011
Bucking a trend of
official anxiety over the explosive growth of microblogs in the country, Beijing’s Communist Party Chief
urged China’s internet companies to put an end to the spread of fake and harmful information when he visited major internet firm Sina this week. Liu Qi praised the company for its achievements with Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging platform with 200 million registered users, but said internet companies should “step up the application and management of new technology, and absolutely put an end to fake and misleading information.”
