The United Arab Emirates blocked distribution of the Sunday Times newspaper over the weekend due to its “insulting” coverage of the Dubai debt crisis. The National Media Council blocked the distribution of newspaper due to upset caused by an image which depicted ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum sinking under a sea of debt. An official from the council told AFP: “We cannot accept a personal insult.” Read more here
Ben Bland is the latest journalist to be barred from working in Singapore. Here, he explains the city state’s stranglehold on free expression
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Mysterious. Just as the news leads with Google not taking down a picture of Michelle Obama, doctored to give her monkey features, it seems the image no longer comes up in a Google image search — at least from this central London desktop.
Google had earlier taken to buying its own Google ads, leading to this message:
Sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google.
Search engines are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the Internet. A site’s ranking in Google’s search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query.
The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results. Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it. We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the page.
We apologize if you’ve had an upsetting experience using Google. We hope you understand our position regarding offensive results.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
One has to say, Google has probably done the best it can under the circumstances. It would be wrong to attempt to remove or relegate the content, as Google does not own it, but as a private company, they have a right to distance themselves from it.
Twenty-one politicians and journalists who were abducted in the southern Philippines have been found dead. A convoy of about 40 people was hijacked by 100 gunmen at a police checkpoint in Maguindanao province, on the island of Mindanao. The group was seized by armed men as they tried to file nomination papers for a candidate in local elections next year. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said at least 12 reporters were feared dead. Read more here