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Government surveillance on the rise says new Google report
Google has issued new findings on government requests for information, and once again, the results are not cheerful. The search giant says that requests to remove content have “spiked” and that “one...
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Privacy to porno: What censorship means around the world [map]
Google released data today that shows requests for censorship and surveillance are on the rise worldwide. Google keeps track of government requests to remove its content (requests it sometimes abides)...
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Hey, Tim Ferriss: Book banning isn’t a marketing gimmick
Huckleberry Finn, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, To Kill a Mockingbird: Those are among the titles that schools and libraries have most commonly banned over the years. An Illinois school district...
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Twitter’s challenge for 2013: Resisting state demands for censorship
The conventional wisdom in many circles is that Twitter’s biggest challenge lies in figuring out how to monetize its growing user base. And perhaps for the company’s venture-capitalist backers or other...
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CBS takes aim at a rival, shoots CNET in the foot
For the most part, being owned by a giant media entity probably isn’t such a bad thing: you have a lot of resources behind you when things get tough, the Christmas parties are usually pretty good, and...
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Github is blocked in China
It looks like Github has gotten caught up in the great firewall of China — a development flagged first by Hacker News at about 1:40 a.m. PT Monday morning. The Hacker News itempointed readers to DNS...
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Amazon gets into hot water in UK over lewd Christmas card listing
Welcome yet again to the collision between the virtual and real worlds. Amazon has been slapped down by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a listing on Amazon.co.uk for a rude...
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Google: government censorship requests jumped 20% in last six months
Google has published its latest Transparency Report and the results are not encouraging for free speech advocates: governments around the world are asking it to remove more content than ever before. In...
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Banned in China: Bloomberg and New York Times say they had no choice
Media outlets operating in China face an unpleasant dilemma: self-censor or else lose access to millions of readers and a valuable news market. Both the New York Times and Bloomberg News chose the...
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North Korea asked for Android — Google chairman on good tech and bad governments
When Google chairman Eric Schmidt visited North Korea, party officials asked him to describe future updates to the company’s Android phone system. Schmidt refused but said this incident and others —...
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Are you a dissident choosing between Facebook and Twitter? Here’s why you...
Facebook has gotten a lot of credit for the role it played during the Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that if you are a dissident group trying to...
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Without the option of privacy, we are lost
Privacy is a wonderful and complex thing. To my mind, it should operate on a sliding scale under the individual’s control: total privacy for those who want to research information for themselves or...
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PayPal apologizes for blocking sales of photo book with “Iranian” in the title
PayPal has apologized for blocking sales of a photojournalism book because it had the word “Iranian” in the title, saying its sanctions compliance mechanisms aren’t supposed to pick up on written...
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The UK’s opt-in system for porn is a terrible idea, and here’s why
Thanks to the curious British institution of prereleasing sections of major speeches, we know now that, later on Monday, the prime minister will announce what will effectively be an on-by-default...
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Architect of UK porn filter scheme sued after hack spat
Claire Perry, the member of parliament who led the campaign for an on-by-default porn filter in the UK, is being sued by a blogger after accusing him of “sponsoring” a hack on her website. The whole...
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The Pirate Bay’s censor-free browser hits 100,000 downloads in three days
Within three days of its launch, infamous torrent website the Pirate Bay’s new censor-free browser has already been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and the official torrent is currently being...
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Fight over sex video shows why “right to be forgotten” laws are a bad idea
In 2008, tabloids in Europe published pictures and grainy video of Max Mosley, the former head of Formula One racing, cavorting in a sadomasochistic romp with five German-speaking prostitutes. The...
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Public shaming and free speech: Why the rush to attack Pax Dickinson makes me...
Every week seems to produce a new poster boy for the sub-species of internet troll known as a “bro-grammer” — the kind of unrepentantly macho and in many cases misogynistic idiot who makes everyone...
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Is Iran easing up on Facebook and Twitter? Not according to Iran
On Monday evening, Iranians found that national web filters blocking access to Facebook and Twitter had gone down. The blocks have been in place for four years, in an attempt to hamper the...
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Pakistan’s YouTube ban, one year later
Pakistan started banning access to YouTube a year ago as a response to violent protests against clips of the anti-Islamic film The Innocence of Muslims, and the company has kept up the ban ever since....
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