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.
Apple responded yesterday to accusations that it had in some way censored content on the iPhone 4S software Siri, which until recently largely omitted any information on contraception. The ACLU has started a petition urging Apple to fix the problem by giving the endowing “personal assistant” with knowledge about reproductive services, such as birth control and abortion. Apple adamantly denied any claim of censorship. Natalie Karris, a spokesperson for Apple said in a phone interview: “Our customers want to use Siri to find out all types of information, and while it can find a lot, it doesn’t always find what you want. These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks.”
The absence of information on contraception would not have been so glaring if it were not for the host of other random facts and quippy responses that Siri is capable of pontificating, including information on Viagra. (When asked to “beam me up,” Siri responds “stand still.” It also responds helpfully to the questions “Where should I dump a body?” and “How much wood could a wood chuck chuck?”)
The glitch was first reported on a blog called “the Abortioneers.” Several upset users have accused Apple of being pro-life, pointing to Siri’s knowledge of adoption centers, baby stores and pregnancy resource centers. Apple denies any bias on the issue, saying that the program is in no way intentionally leaving out information, but simply a work in progress. Normal Winarsky, one of the founders of Siri before Apple bought it in 2010, says Siri was designed to obtain response data from third-party services, and that this could be responsible for the disconnect.
A satirical television commercial for the South African-owned Nando’s restaurant group has been axed.
The ad depicted Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s difficulty in coming up with enough dictators to fill a Christmas Party this festive season.
Nando’s International Headquarters decided to pull the advert on Wednesday, after threats to Nando’s staff, customers and suppliers in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. Musekiwa Kumbula, corporate affairs director for Nando’s biggest shareholder, called the ad “insensitive and in poor taste.” It is still a crime to insult Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
The commerical, called the Last Dictator Standing, shows Mugabe and Muammar Qaddafi having a watergun fight; Mao Zedong and Mugabe singing karaoke; Saddam Hussein and Mugabe making snow angels in the sand, in their boxer shorts; Mugabe and Idi Amin mimicking that front-of-the Titanic “flying” scene aboard a tank; and most improbably of all, Mugabe pushing apartheid defender, ex President P.W. Botha on a swing.
Alas, whether by NATO bombs or natural causes, all of Mugabe’s invitees are now dead. It’s going to be a lonely Christmas. Despite the commercial’s popularity — it went viral on YouTube — Nando’s has withdrawn the commercial, citing physical threats to staff and customers at the Nando’s fanchises inside Zimbabwe.
Youth members of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party had reportedly begun to protest outside Nando’s chain stores in Harare and elsewhere in the country. On Tuesday, a militant youth group loyal to Mugabe called for a boycott against the chain unless the 60-second commercial was dropped and an apology made to Mugabe, 87, who led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980.
Nando’s responded: “We feel strongly that this is the prudent step to take in a volatile climate and believe that no TV commercial is worth risking the safety of Nando’s staff and customers”.
In an horrific story that brings to mind the Soviets’ reworking of history, Yenesew Gebre, an Ethiopian citizen, a 29 year-old Ethiopian school teacher and human rights activist set himself ablaze outside a public meeting hall in the town of Tarcha located in Dawro Zone in Southern Ethiopia. He died three days later from his injuries. Later his sister and his father both claimed he had mental health issues (although no record exists of medication or treatment), and no-one was allowed to visit him in hospital. The death certificate, which was not signed by the official hospital coroner (who refused to sign it) stated blood poisoning as the cause of death. There are allegations that this was a faked death certificate.
Yenesew walked out of a public meeting on 11 November , saying the words “I want to show to all that death is preferable than a life without justice and liberty and I call upon my fellow compatriots to fear nothing and rise up to wrest their freedom and rights from the hands of the local and national tyrants.” He then set fire to himself. Yenesew was one of about 50 young men from the area who were protesting the reworking of civil boundaries, and were taking their case to federal courts, in the capital Addis Ababa.
President Meles Zenawi’s immediate response was to send in a reinforcement of some 300 police officers, and to impose a complete news blackout and seal off the town. Telephone services to the town were cut prevent all news of Yenesew’s sacrifice from spreading throughout Ethiopia. Yenesew was buried by police without his family being allowed to attend. Presumably the intention of preventing a public funeral and burying Yenesew in an unmarked grave was to divert attention from the young man’s actions.
This action takes place within the context of Ethiopia’s extremely poor human rights and freedom of expression record. After Eritrea, it is the area where most journalist alerts originate, according to International Federation of Journalists.
In addition to the six journalists held in custody without bail since June 2011, on 14 November, 24 people, including senior opposition politicians and an outspoken Internet journalist, were charged with with plotting terrorist acts to create public chaos. They are accused of violations of Ethiopia’s harsh anti-terrorism law, which has been criticised by human rights and press freedom groups.
