Sage of Quay Radio – Max Igan – Censorship, Rabbit Holes and Zionism (April 2015) – Video

Posted on by


Sage of Quay Radio - Max Igan - Censorship, Rabbit Holes and Zionism (April 2015)
Returning to the show tonight is our very special guest Max Igan. Max is an activist, radio host and political commentator and one of the most empowering voices in alternative news and research...

By: The Sage of Quay Radio Hour

Read more from the original source:

Sage of Quay Radio - Max Igan - Censorship, Rabbit Holes and Zionism (April 2015) - Video

Great Cannon Internet traffic diverter widens Chinese censorship powers: researchers

Posted on by

WASHINGTON China has expanded its Internet censorship efforts beyond its borders with a new strategy that attacks websites across the globe, researchers said Friday.

The new strategy, dubbed Great Cannon, seeks to shut down websites and services aimed at helping the Chinese circumvent the Great Firewall, according to a report by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.

While the attack infrastructure is co-located with the Great Firewall, the attack was carried out by a separate offensive system, with different capabilities and design, that we term the Great Cannon, the report said.

The Great Cannon is not simply an extension of the Great Firewall, but a distinct attack tool that hijacks traffic to (or presumably from) individual IP addresses.

The report supports claims by the activist organization GreatFire, which last month claimed China was seeking to shut down its websites that offer mirrored content from blocked websites like those of the New York Times and others.

The technique involves hijacking Internet traffic to the big Chinese search engine Baidu and using that in denial of service attacks, which flood a website in an effort to knock it offline.

The report authors said the new tool represents a significant escalation in state-level information control by using an attack tool to enforce censorship by weaponizing users.

The Great Cannon manipulates the traffic of bystander systems including any foreign computer that communicates with any China-based website not fully utilizing (encryption).

The Citizen Lab researchers said they found compelling evidence that the Chinese government operates the GC (Great Cannon), despite Beijings denials of involvement in cyberattacks.

Because the Great Cannon shares code and infrastructure with the Great Firewall, this strongly suggests a governmental actor, said the report, which included collaboration from researchers at the University of California and Princeton University.

Excerpt from:

Great Cannon Internet traffic diverter widens Chinese censorship powers: researchers

Reconsidering Charlie Hebdo – Free Speech, Offense, and Violence in Context – Video

Posted on by


Reconsidering Charlie Hebdo - Free Speech, Offense, and Violence in Context
This is the second of a new series of community-focused lectures, discussions, and dialogues, the "Reconsidering. . . ." series. This particular discussion focused on the events, conflicts,...

By: Gregory B. Sadler

Continue reading here:

Reconsidering Charlie Hebdo - Free Speech, Offense, and Violence in Context - Video

Free speech or hate speech? Lisitsa and the TSO – The …

Posted on by

On April 8 and 9, the pianist Valentina Lisitsa was to perform the Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. This week, the orchestra paid out her contract, citing deeply offensive comments she was alleged to have made on her Twitter feed about the ongoing conflict in her native Ukraine.

Lisitsa, 41, who came to prominence through her YouTube videos and who has a huge social-media following, fired back promptly and at some length in a Facebook post (despite, she averred, pressure from the symphony not to go public about the incident). She makes no bones about having taken sides in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine; she is on the side of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who represent the majority in the Crimea, and vehemently opposed to the current Ukrainian leadership. Her posts on Twitter repeatedly call Ukrainians Nazis and depicts them as a population of idiots and the insane; one purports to illustrate the leaderships faces with a photograph of pigs testicles. The feed also has some racism and overtones of anti-Semitism thrown in for good measure. But, Lisitsa says, she was exercising her right to free speech. The orchestras position is that she went too far.

This is not about political persuasion, says Jeff Melanson, the Toronto Symphonys president and CEO, in a telephone interview on Wednesday morning. He adds, Thats no issue for us. [But] artists using their Twitter or public profile to regularly speak in an intolerant or offensive way about other human beings that, you have to think about. The orchestra invoked a clause in her contract that enabled them to dismiss her.

Theres food here for legitimate debate. But legitimate debate is not necessarily whats fostered in the kangaroo court of Twitter and Facebook. The Toronto Symphony has been besieged by an outcry about free speech, and ultimately had to cancel the concerto altogether (Stewart Goodyear, who was to have replaced Lisitsa, says her supporters bullied him out). Some of the orchestras critics include people who have their own political axes to grind; some appear to believe that Lisitsa is supporting the Ukrainian rather than the Russian side in the conflict; and some include members of prominent newspapers editorial boards: the Toronto Star, for one, has weighed in with a strong indictment.

Few, if any, have mentioned an obvious recent parallel, when Opera Australia dismissed the Georgian soprano Tamar Iveri in 2014 after a lengthy Facebook post was found in which she supported attacks on a gay-pride parade in her native Georgia and referred to gay people as fecal masses. Free speech? Sure, but Iveri found precious few defenders and certainly there were no editorials defending her right to speak out.

The case against Lisitsa is arguably not quite as clear-cut. The Toronto Symphony has amassed a seven-page collection of some of her ripest Tweets, including one that mocks Ukranians in traditional folk costume by comparing them to Africans in tribal dress. There are evocations of Nazi concentration camps and the Ku Klux Klan. Theres no question that its pretty distasteful stuff; digging around in it left this reader, at least, feeling soiled.

But where do you draw the line? You could argue that Lisitsa is writing, clumsily, in the tradition of offensive satire propagated by the magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose right to free speech many in the West passionately defended in the wake of the brutal attack on their offices earlier this year, which left 12 people dead. One of Lisitsas tweets that some found objectionable This is what happens when media gets their news out of a..uh..sphincter, she wrote about a New York Times piece on Russian leaders abandoning Ukrainian separatists included a Charlie Hebdo cartoon, depicting news outlets drinking out of each others rear ends. (In a Twitter exchange, Lisitsa confirmed that she had swapped out the names of the media outlets to make the cartoon relevant to the Ukrainian situation.)

Conversely, you could argue that a musician who uses her podium for this kind of material is not someone you want associating with your orchestra. You could also argue that Lisitsa is propagating hate speech, and that hate speech is illegal in Canada and many other countries.

Theres no doubt its a gray zone, said Melanson in a telephone interview on Wednesday morning.

Whether or not you agree with the symphonys position, they have gotten the worst of it in the social-media war in part through not being more explicit right from the start about the nature of the Tweets they were protesting. In 2014, Opera Australia made it perfectly clear why they were letting Iveri go; by contrast, Melansons initial statement about ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets made it sound as if the symphony were responding to someone elses claims which has fueled a lot of speculation about who it was that pressured them to act. Melanson, however, avers that no political pressure, no pressure from donors, no messages from foreign or local governments was responsible for the orchestras decision.

View post:

Free speech or hate speech? Lisitsa and the TSO - The ...

HRW slams draft election laws

Posted on by

Proposed election laws drafted in Cambodias National Assembly limit freedom of speech, assembly and a host of other rights, a statement released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday says.

The release criticises the Cambodian Peoples Party and Cambodia National Rescue Party for drafting legislation that includes such elements as a ban on insults to political parties by NGOs, and a shortening of campaign and rally periods.

Its hardly surprising that the CPP proposed these provisions, but the CNRP shares the blame for agreeing to criminalize and censor speech and limit the publics right to hold campaign rallies, HRW Asia director Brad Adams is quoted as saying.

HRW also took issue with the fact that the proposed laws were drafted between the CPP and CNRP without any consultation or the participation of civil society. But CPP officials have repeatedly rebuffed criticisms from other civil society groups making similar complaints, saying that NGOs hold no place in the government.

CNRP MP Eng Chhay Eang, who helped draft the prospective laws, yesterday called them imperfect, but defended them as an improvement.

In this proposed law, at least we have new [National Election Committee] members; before, NEC members were from only one party, Chhay Eang said yesterday. We have a new voter registration system, for which all voters need IDs.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHHAY CHANNYDA

Here is the original post:

HRW slams draft election laws

Malaysia resurrects indefinite detention, passes anti-terror act

Posted on by

Prime Minister Najib Razak had promised a new era of greater civil liberties. Photo: Bloomberg

Bangkok: Malaysia's government has revived a law that allows indefinite detention without charge that critics say could usher in a new wave of repression in the south-east Asian nation.

Parliament's passing of a highly contentious Prevention of Terrorism Act comes amid a crackdown on freedom of speech and civil rights where dozens of people have been arrested under a draconian Sedition Act and face up to five years jail.

The government argues the power to detain terrorism suspects without trial, court challenges or legal representation is necessary to combat the rising threat of extremists drawn to groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Advertisement

Police claim that 17 militants arrested this week across Malaysia were plotting to attack army camps and police stations. None of them have been named.

Authorities have repeatedly warned that dozens of people from Muslim-majority Malaysia have volunteered for IS jihad.

"This is a real threat and prevention measures are needed," said Home Minister Zahid Hamidi.

But opposition MPs, human rights and civil society groups have attacked the new anti-terror law, which they say is a revival of a colonial-era Internal Security Act that was used to silence the government's opponents before it was repealed in 2012, as Malaysia Prime Minister NajibRazakpledged a new era of greater civil liberties.

Analysts say the Prime Minister's hard line is in response to criticisms of him by conservative figures in his ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), including former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has called on him to resign.

Link:

Malaysia resurrects indefinite detention, passes anti-terror act