Chinese Tourists Unwitting Witnesses to Tibetans' Plight
BY Jessica McKenzie | Tuesday, March 25 2014
"The most common sight on the streets of Tibet are Special Police and People’s Armed Police ~~~ Why is this?" (Sina Weibo / ICT)
The International Campaign for Tibet has been collecting social media posts from Chinese tourists about Tibet that reveal far more than Tibetans themselves are allowed to share, and more than foreigners are allowed to see.
Read MoreAfter Spectacular Twitter Ban Fail, Turkey Becomes First Country To Block Google DNS
BY Jessica McKenzie | Monday, March 24 2014
After the Twitter block in Turkey failed so spectacularly last week—sending the numbers of in-country tweets sky high—the authorities responded by blocking Google DNS, one of the most popular ways of circumventing the Twitter ban. The action has earned Turkey the dubious distinction of being the first country to block Google DNS.
Read MoreAfter Twitter Ban, Turkish Users Post Record Number of Tweets
BY Jessica McKenzie | Friday, March 21 2014
After Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blocked Twitter Thursday night, Turkish tweets spiked an impressive 138 percent. As of Friday morning, nearly 2.5 million tweets had been sent from Turkey. That's roughly 17,000 tweets per minute, a new record for Turkey.
Read MoreChina Gives Streaming TV the Red Carpet Censorship Treatment
BY Jessica McKenzie | Thursday, March 20 2014
China keeps foreign media in the country on a tight, short leash, capping the number of foreign films at 34 a year. They also have an ever-expanding system of censoring the web known as the Great Firewall. So it surprised many when it turned out that House of Cards is wildly popular in China, and that it had “survived” the country's notorious censors. Well, that time might be coming to an end. The state media watchdog will now be following the “censor first, broadcast later” policy for streaming content that feature films have endured for decades.
Read MoreWho Wants an Uncensored Net in Emerging and Developing Countries?
BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, March 19 2014
Turns out, lots of people in emerging and developing countries support a free, uncensored Internet—the majority in 22 of 24 countries in this Pew Research survey, in fact—but support is especially strong among young, well-educated, high-income people who use the Internet.
Read MoreRussia Blocks Major Opposition Sites; Anonymous Russia Retaliates, Shuts Down Kremlin Site
BY Rebecca Chao | Friday, March 14 2014
Russia has blocked a handful of independent news sites, including those of renown chess player and opposition leader Gary Kasparov and popular dissident blogger Alexei Nalvany. The block began Thursday with an announcement by Russia's general prosecutor's office that Kasparov's website and others would be shut down because they "contain calls for illegal activity and participation in mass events conducted in violation of the established order." Read More
How Does Lebanese Censorship Stack Up Against Chinese, Iranian and Russian?
BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, March 12 2014
Since 2011 the NGO March Lebanon has been curating examples of censorship in Lebanon in a Virtual Museum of Censorship.
Read MoreAnalyzing Social Network Metadata to Uncover Censorship
BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, March 12 2014
If you've entered your email into the MIT Media Lab Immersion platform, you might have some idea of the information that can be gleaned from metadata. The same is true of social networks like Twitter and Facebook. One researcher has found that analysis of social network metadata can reveal wide scale censorship with 85 percent accuracy, without needing to track sensitive keywords.
Read MoreNewest Twist in Pakistan YouTube Ban Case Comes From…California
BY Jessica McKenzie | Thursday, February 27 2014
On February 26, a U.S. federal appeals court ordered Google Inc to remove the film “Innocence of Muslims” from YouTube for copyright violations. The film sparked protests throughout the Middle East after it was released in September 2012, and demonstrations in parts of Pakistan turned violent. Pakistan's Prime Minister ordered YouTube to be blocked, ostensibly to prevent any further violence as a result of “Innocence of Muslims.” The Pakistani Internet rights organization Bytes For All has challenged the YouTube ban in court, and now that Google has been ordered to remove the film from YouTube, point out that there is now no reason to keep the site blocked.
Read MoreWhat To Do With Those Fake Photos From Venezuela
BY Jessica McKenzie | Monday, February 24 2014
A photo from a 2011 Al Jazeera story about student protests in Chile was repurposed in Venezuela earlier this month.
As protests in Venezuela approach the two-week marker, news stories are just as much about what we don't know as what we do: “Venezuela Is Divided Even on Its Death Toll”; “These Photos Being Shared From Venezuela Are Fake”; “The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night – and the International Media Is Asleep At the Switch.”
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