INDEX EVENTS 10 June: Caught in the web: how free are we online?
The internet: free open space, wild wild west, or totalitarian state? However you view the web, in today’s world it is bringing both opportunities and threats for free expression.
23 June: Turkey vs the UK: what’s the score on free expression?
The Turkish Writers Football Club is coming to London to play the England Writers Team and the pressure is on. But it’s not just about sport. Index on Censorship is grabbing the chance to bring both sides together to debate the state of free expression in both countries.
GLOBAL UN report calls for freedom of expression in post-2015 development
Calling for a transformation in the approach to global development that includes a larger role for freedom of expression, the United Nations’ High Level Panel of Eminent Persons released its report Post-2015 Development Agenda report, Milana Knezevic writes. (Index on Censorship)
Cryptography as a means to counter Internet censorship
Traffic analysis is the first prerequisite for mass surveillance of the Web. George Orwell’s depiction of dystopia in his classic 1984, a society devoid of privacy, may have seemed like an exaggeration in 1949. But, with technology intruding deep into our lives today, we may actually be heading into a less obvious version of a similar state. (The Hindu)
Internet censorship around the world
Singapore’s government is set to tighten regulations for news websites – a move that has drawn accusations that the authorities are trying to control blogs that post anti-government comments. (BBC)
Facebook embroiled in multiple free speech battles
Facebook landed in the crosshairs of a fiery hate-speech protest last week that garnered so much media attention that the Menlo Park company had to issue a public mea culpa. Turns out it was just one of many First Amendment conflicts to put Facebook in the awkward and unenviable position of deciding what type of speech must be policed. (San Francisco Examiner)
AUSTRALIA Racism, bigotry and debate, Australian-style
There is a very Australian way to have a racism controversy. Whenever bigotry, prejudice or discrimination is revealed on the national stage, all of us can agree: Yes, it’s horrible and we would never dream of endorsing it. We can all say, hand on heart, that racism is abhorrent and warrants our condemnation. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Our duty to look -Why censoring press photos is wrong
When Destination NSW censored an outdoor photography exhibition meant to appear as part of the Vivid Sydney festival, they offended more than just the photographers who risk life and limb to take these “distressing” pictures.
(World News Australia)
FIJI Fiji media still self-censoring says academic
Professor Robert Hooper, a professor at UC San Diego who has taught journalism in Fiji, has just published an academic paper called “When the barking stopped: Censorship, self-censorship and spin in Fiji”.(Radio Australia)
Sina debuts sophisticated new censorship tactics for June 4 anniversary
Since Friday morning, Weibo users have been able to search for sensitive terms such as ‘June 4 incident’ and ‘Tiananmen Square Incident’ without receiving a censorship notice. Instead, such searches show partial, unhelpful results, according to Greatfire.org. (Shanghaist)
China experimenting with Web censorship methods
GreatFire.org, which monitors blocked sites, says keyword search results for 1989 Tiananmen Square protests have been amended or thoroughly filtered, instead of showing the usual message stating sites cannot be displayed. (ZDNet)
JORDAN Jordan attempts mass internet censorship
Jordan has become the latest country attempting to censor internet-published dissent by blocking access to a large number of websites from within the country. (ITNews)
QATAR Cybercrime draft law draws flak
A draft cybercrime law approved by the State Cabinet late last week has kicked up a row, with Qatar’s media freedom watchdog severely criticising it for dealing with issues that concern freedom of expression on the Internet. (The Peninsula)
RUSSIA No Place for Guriev in Putin’s Russia
Sergei Guriev’s decision to resign as dean of the New Economic School and to stay abroad was widely discussed in Russia and in the West. Not only is Guriev an internationally respected economist, but his school was a top-notch, world-renowned educational institution. (The Moscow Times)
SINGAPORE In Singapore, A Rare Call for Protest Against Blogging Censorship
Singapore’s blogging community is rebelling against a stringent new law that requires online news sites to put up a performance bond of US $40,000 and to submit to government censorship, calling for the general public and bloggers to rally next Saturday against the measure. (Irrawaddy)
THAILAND Thai filmmakers challenge censorship
There was public outcry in Thailand when a politically sensitive documentary was banned by the government. The movie, “Boundary”, tackles the deep political division within the country and the territorial dispute with neighbouring Cambodia. (Al Jazeera)
TURKEY Turkish Leader Says Protests Will Not Stop Plans for Park
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey dismissed the tens of thousands of protesters who battled for two days with police officers in the streets of Istanbul as “looters” and “bums” on Sunday. He vowed to push ahead with plans to demolish a public park — a trigger for the spasm of public anger that left Istanbul’s main commercial district strewn with graffiti and broken glass.(The New York Times)
The voices of Turkish protesters have been heard
It started out small, but has taken on a life of its own. Last Monday, a handful of peaceful protesters occupied Gezi park on Taksim Square, one of the few green spaces in Istanbul, in protest against plans for its redevelopment into a mall (The Guardian)
UNITED KINGDOM When is a tweet hate speech?
After the recent slaying of a British soldier in a suspected Islamist-extremist attack, angry social media users took to Twitter and Facebook, with some dispatching racially and religiously charged comments that got them quickly noticed on the busy boulevards of the Internet. (Winnepeg Free Press)
UNITED STATES Contempt for free press
During his May 23 speech on national security, President Barack Obama promised to chat with Attorney General Eric Holder about reviewing his policies for investigating the news media. (Arizona Repubic)
US company accused of aiding Syria in censorship efforts
Despite trade sanctions against this type of technology, it would seem the US continues to supply the Syrian regime with material and software used to monitor the Internet and trace opponents. These findings are from a study of the Syrian web infrastructure carried out by cyber activists from Telecomix last week. The data suggests that 34 servers in Syria have been updated with software from the firm Blue Coat. (France 24)
Administration dams free flow of information
Freedom to report the news requires the freedom to gather it. In the months ahead, that basic concept — so central to the First Amendment’s protection of a free press — will also be at the heart of the ongoing debate over how far government officials may go in pursuit of those responsible for “leaking” classified information to journalists. (The Daily Progress)
Journalist Lemmings Dive Off Cliff While AG Holder Spies, Blusters & Prevaricates
Of all of the accidentally hilarious aspects of the implosion of Obama’s War Against the Bill of Rights, none is more informative than his broadside against journalism and Freedom of the Press. What does it say about those who take their very sustenance from the 1st Amendment Free Speech clause that many want to extinguish other people’s constitutional liberties at every possible opportunity? (Canada Free Press)
Why Cheerleaders Can Post Bible Verses
So a school district, that has already lost in a lower court, attempting to ban both religious belief and free expression thereof, now wants to spend tax-payer money to attempt to thwart those same rights of religious belief, and free expression.
(TownHall.com)
The real IRS scandal is over free speech
Should you need a license from the government to exercise free speech? The real scandal at the Internal Revenue Service should be seen not as a left-versus-right issue but instead as infringement on the First Amendment. The people targeted were political entrepreneurs with unorthodox political voices. More to the point, IRS discrimination was consistent with 40 years of institutionalized hostility by the federal government to such views. (Denver Post)
Colorado Legislature Must Have Been Smoking Something
Colorado voters have legalized recreational pot smoking, but this week the governor signed an unconstitutional bill that prohibits marijuana-centric magazines from being sold except from under the counter, three magazines claim in court. (Courthouse News)
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Index on Censorship Events Caught in the web: how free are we online? June 10, 2013
The internet: free open space, wild wild west, or totalitarian state? However you view the web, in today’s world it is bringing both opportunities and threats for free expression. More >>>
GLOBAL Blogs still aid global freedom of expression
While blogging has existed for more than a decade, WordPress, the software that runs millions of blogs and websites, celebrated its 10th anniversary. The free service has made it simple for anyone to share their views. (DW)
AUSTRALIA Freedom of speech our basic right
SINCE October last year, I have been regularly warned that “dissent” against the views and interests of the State Government would jeopardise the riverfront funding, create dangerous “unintended consequences” in vaguely-defined ways, and even cause the government to appoint an administrator to strip council of legal and administrative powers. (Sunraysia Daily)
BRAZIL Brazilian court gags protester in latest social media ruling
A judge from the Brazilian state of São Paulo has barred a protester from an allegedly illegal construction site or even posting about it on Facebook. It’s the latest in a string of rulings targeting social media in the country. (Index on Censorship)
NORWAY Norwegian Newspaper Dagbladet Sparks Outrage with ‘Blood Libel’ Cartoon
Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet, has sparked outrage after publishing a cartoon “blood libel” Tuesday. Norway’s third largest newspaper, published the cartoon, in which a modestly dressed woman can be seen holding a blood soaked book and telling law enforcement officers: “Mistreating? No this is tradition, an important part of our belief”! (The Algemeiner)
UNITED KINGDOM Index responds to Theresa May comments
Theresa May’s comments on the Andrew Marr Show have lead to a round of speculation around the actions that the Home Secretary will take in the wake of Woolwich, especially in regard to the shelved Communications Data Bill. (Index on Censorship)
Conservative Media Predicted Obama’s First-Amendment Scandals
The Obama administration’s free-speech scandals of today were repeatedly and accurately predicted by conservative pundits during the 2008 election. Obama’s first presidential campaign launched a series of novel and troubling assaults on its critics, leading many conservatives to warn that both the press and political speech would come under attack should Obama be elected president. Some of the predictions about Obama made by conservative writers in 2008 seem uncannily on-the-mark today. (National Review Online)
How Did Facebook Let Rape Speech Go Unpoliced for So Long?
As of today, Facebook officially no longer allows the pages “Violently Raping Your Friend Just for Laughs” and “Kicking your Girlfriend in the Fanny because she won’t make you a Sandwich” to exist on its social network, and — what do you know? — it only took a well publicized media campaign and angry advertisers to do it. In a message to its users, Facebook has outlined a new policy for dealing with violent and hateful speech to better deal with — though, not outright ban — this kind of “distasteful humor,” which, of course, begs the question: How come Facebook wasn’t doing anything about this in the first place? (The Atlantic)
The Kochs’ expansive power: PBS donations, censorship, bidding for the Tribune Company
When only six corporations own all of the media in America, who controls the narrative? Are we even a part of the conversation? Now the only bastion of “public programming,” Public Broadcasting Service, looks like it is not so independent of corporate control after all. Big money is also trying to get their corrupt paws on the Tribune Company but those who want to protect a free press are fighting to stop it. (All Voices)
LePage says Medicaid expansion pressure, Democrats’ ‘censorship’ starts in Washington
Gov. Paul LePage on Wednesday railed against an expansion of Medicaid eligibility in Maine, calling it a disturbing national trend of damaging federal mandates. LePage also linked what he called censorship he has experienced in the past two weeks to a pattern of the same at the national level, suggesting that citizens go home and arm themselves if it continues. (Bangor Daily News)
Comcast and Verizon’s Phony Free-Speech Claim
Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit wrote this week that the First Amendment shields Comcast Corp. from Congress’s authority to ensure the free flow of information across the basic network connections it provides. (Bloomberg)
AUSTRALIA
Photographers withdraw from Vivid over censorship claims
Two international photographers have withdrawn their works from an exhibition in Sydney in protest over what one has described as censorship. (ABC News)
AZERBAIJAN
In Azerbaijan, authorities use ‘Harlem Shake’ to silence activist
The recent arrest of Ilkin Rustamzadeh highlights how Azerbaijan’s authorities use trumped up charges to silence messages they are not comfortable with, blogger Ali Novruzov writes from Baku. (Index on Censorship)
CHINA
´Ai Weiwei´s work embodies freedom of speech´
The popularity of Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei in the Netherlands is largely fueled by the Dutch love of art that hovers on the edge of acceptability. This commitment to pushing the boundaries of freedom of expression is evident in the exhibition FUCK OFF 2 which he’s curated and which opens at the Groninger Museum on Sunday. (Radio Netherlands Worldwide)
ISRAEL
Al-Jazeera draws fire over self-censorship
The Qatar-based al-Jazeera network has been criticized over its decision to remove a controversial article posted on its website amid claims the story was “anti-Jewish” in a seemingly self-censoring act. (YNet.com)
RUSSIA
Interpol Rebuffs Russia in Its Hunt for a Kremlin Critic
Interpol has rejected a Russian request for a worldwide police hunt for William F. Browder, a British investment banker and a Kremlin nemesis who has made no secret of his whereabouts or of his battle against the government of President Vladimir V. Putin over accusations of human rights abuses. (New York Times)
Russia: Gay Rights Activists Arrested At Rally
Dozens of activists at a gay pride march in Moscow have been arrested by Russian police. (Sky News)
TUNISIA
Tunisia’s ‘topless feminist’ faces jail for having pepper spray
The lawyer of a Tunisian woman who gained notoriety for posting online topless pictures of herself as a protest says she faces six months in prison for carrying a dangerous object. (AP via CBS47)
TURKEY
Turkey Kissing Protest Held In Subway As Couples Defy Ban On Public Displays Of Affection
Dozens of couples have locked lips at a subway stop in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, to protest subway authorities’ admonishment of a couple that kissed in public. (AP via Huffington Post)
Turkey takes important steps to end human rights violations
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said on Thursday that Turkey has made significant improvements in human rights, especially in freedom of expression. (Turkish Weekly)
UNITED KINGDOM
Speaker’s wife faces £150,000 bill for online libel
SPEAKER’S wife Sally Bercow faces a legal bill of £150,000 after losing a libel battle with Lord McAlpine yesterday over a tweet which falsely linked him to allegations of sex abuse. (The Daily Express)
Could “snooper’s charter” stop terror attacks?
Some UK politicians have said the murder of a soldier in Woolwich, London this week demonstrates the need for greater surveillance of communications data. But would a “snooper’s charter” really have made a difference? Index asked Emma Carr of Big Brother Watch and Jamie Bartlett of Demos for their views. (Index on Censorship)
UNITED STATES
Microsoft Disables Comments For Xbox One Videos Following Harsh Criticisms
Want to let Microsoft know how you feel about the Xbox One? You won’t be able to do it on the official YouTube videos. If you head to Microsoft’s official channel for the Xbox One, the comments for the videos have been aptly disabled. (Gaming Blend)
Attacks on the press should come as no surprise
Freedom of the press. It’s a bedrock of our Constitution, right there in the very first amendment. That means it’s one of the most important freedoms and rights guaranteed to this country, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, all interlocked and interdependent. (Marietta Times)
As UN’s Censorship Alliance Lashes Out from Anonymity, UN Does Nothing
UN scribes from Reuters, Bloomberg News, Voice of America, Agence France Presse and others on the board of the UN Correspondents Association tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN in 2012. In 2013 they have started anonymous social media accounts to falsely accuse Inner City Press of being funded by terrorists.
(Inner City Press)
The recent arrest of Ilkin Rustamzadeh highlights how Azerbaijan’s authorities use trumped up charges to silence messages they are not comfortable with, blogger Ali Novruzov writes from Baku.
On 17 May, Rustamzadeh, a university student and member of the “Free Youth” organisation, was arrested for a “Harlem Shake” video posted on YouTube. It did not matter that Rustamzadeh had no part in posting it or any of the other huge number of videos contributing to the viral dance meme.
Charged with hooliganism as well as disturbing public order for allegedly being involved with the video’s organisation, Rustamzadeh was immediately handed him two-month pre-trial detention. According to Rustamzadeh’s lawyer, investigators in the case have linked him to a “Harlem Shake” video filmed on Baku Boulevard.
While Rustamzadeh has not created viral videos, he has been active in a grassroots campaign calling for investigation into frequent Azerbaijani soldier deaths. In 2012, 97 people were killed, and between the start of this year and 23 April, there have been 29 deaths. The campaign has also been calling for the government to put more preventative measures in place.
The campaign’s activists have been targeted by the government with waves of arrests and a counter-campaign against members of the group. There have even been allegations made that this grassroots campaign is actually the work of external forces, like the National Democratic Institute.
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Index on Censorship Events Caught in the web: how free are we online? June 10, 2013
The internet: free open space, wild wild west, or totalitarian state? However you view the web, in today’s world it is bringing both opportunities and threats for free expression. More >>>
