12 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
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.
5 Sep 2011 | Americas, Mexico
Free expression and press freedom in Mexico have again taken several hits in recent days. Last week, two Twitter users were sent to jail in Veracruz, the southern state which has seen a rise in drug-related violence thanks to the Zetas Cartel and its confrontations with anti-drug units of the Mexican Navy.
Gilberto Martínez Vera and María de Jesús Bravo Pagola were sentenced to jail for having tweeted warnings about impending drug gang violence around several public schools. Tweeps using the hashtag #verfollow continue to complain about the jail terms and attacks against freedom of expression.
On the same day, the congress of the southeastern state of Tabasco approved a law punishing those who disseminate false alarms via phone calls or social networks. The crime carries a possible sentence of up to six years in prison.
The nerves of Mexican journalists have also been frazzled by the murder last week of two female journalists, Ana María Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocío González Trápaga, who were found strangled in a park in Mexico City. Until now, violence against the press in Mexico has spared the capital, Yarce Viveros worked for Contralinea, an online investigative journalism site, and Gonzalez Trapaga, who worked for Televisa a one point, was at the time an owner of a currency exchange centre at Mexico City’s international airport. Investigators have suggested the motive for their murders was not journalism related.
25 Aug 2011 | Statements, Uncategorized
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
24 Aug 2011 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
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.”
