Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’
February 2nd, 2012
South Korean prosecutors
indicted a social media and free speech activist on Tuesday for reposting tweets from a North Korean government website. Photographer Park Jung-geun was detained last month on charges of violating South Korea’s National Security Law, which broadly bans “acts that benefit the enemy”. Park was interrogated by detectives following a police raid on his photo studio last autumn. Park has said the tweets — which included reposting North Korean propaganda messages such as “long live Kim Jong-il!” and links to North Korean propaganda songs — were intended to mock the North Korean regime.
January 27th, 2012
Micro-blogging site Twitter last night [26 Jan]
announced it would begin withholding tweets in certain countries, sparking claims of censorship. Prior to this move, Twitter had to remove a Tweet from its global network if it received a government takedown request from a government, but it will now be able to restrict content in a specific country while keeping it available in others. In the interests of transparency, Twitter has also expanded its partnership with the
Chilling Effects website, making it easier to find Twitter takedown notices.
January 17th, 2012
A
Venezuelan journalist has received
threatening messages via Twitter. Luis Carlos Díaz, Communication Networks Coordinator of the Gumilla Center, a Jesuit-run research institution, received a number of intimidating direct messages on Twitter. The attackers insisted Díaz was “going to be taught a lesson” for his remarks on previous cyber attacks which took place
late last year, his activity on social networks, and “working with priests”. The so-called hacker group N33 are believed to be responsible for these latest threats.
November 30th, 2011
A government official in
Ecuador has issued a
public warning against a Twitter user following posts on the micro-blogging site. Betty Escobar, an Ecuadorian citizen who lives in the United States was warned by Fernando Cordero, the President of the National Assembly, to ”change her language or she would soon regret her licentiousness.” The warning followed a critical tweet from Escobar to the official which said ”you are incompetent, you fail to comply with the law and you support the dictatorship! you and correa should go to prison for corruption! double standards. “
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 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 26th, 2011
Sunni activist Mubarak al-Bathali has been
sentenced to three months in jail by a
Kuwaiti court for comments about Shiite Muslims made on his Twitter account. A few weeks ago, he was arrested by secret police, and charged with “undermining national unity” as well as “disparaging Shiites”.
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.
