U.S. cloud services caught in activism against China's censors

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BEIJING, March 17 (UPI) -- Activists outside China are battling China's Internet censorship by transmitting encrypted information through cloud servers operated by companies like Amazon and Microsoft, but the move also is drawing U.S. firms into conflict with China's regulators.

The Wall Street Journal reported the censored Internet traffic couldn't be blocked unless Chinese authorities agree to ban all servers run by U.S. companies. The move also would shutter China's window to outside information that does not violate official censors and present drawbacks to major U.S. companies offering cloud services.

But China's government has made moves against the encrypted Internet traffic that violates their censors. In November Beijing blocked EdgeCast, a cloud service run by Verizon Communications. In the past, bloggers have faced jail time for making comments deemed as threats to the government.

Cloud servers have accelerated the dissemination of information globally because the technology allows multiple copies of data to be saved at different locations around the world. Mirror versions of banned websites are accessible through encrypted channels for Chinese users behind the firewall.

U.S. corporations were complying with Beijing, with one firm cutting off a U.S.-based service delivering encrypted information. China's cloud-computing market is expected to grow by 45 percent this year and has already reach $1.1 billion in 2014.

Internet censorship has also hit Chinese social media, reported Forbes.

Two Chinese Internet giants, Sina and Baidu, recently complied with new regulations and deleted more than 60,000 accounts, because Beijing believed the accounts were using "harmful or misleading names."

The move is reducing online spaces of honest discussions related to China's politics and society and could reduce user engagement, reported Forbes.

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Pope Francis Says There Are Limits to Free Speech after Paris Shooting Hoax Redsilverj 720p – Video

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Pope Francis Says There Are Limits to Free Speech after Paris Shooting Hoax Redsilverj 720p
I am just a middleman trying to spread the word FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for entertainment purposes only. This constitutes...

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Pope Francis Says There Are Limits to Free Speech after Paris Shooting Hoax Redsilverj 720p - Video

Wonkblog: Americans growing support for free speech doesnt include racist speech

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Americans tend to pick and choose who should be afforded civil liberties to some degree, acenturies-old issue that has flared up once again after a video ofracist chants byUniversity of Oklahoma fraternity brothers went viral. The university's president David Boren last weekexpelled two studentsfilmed making the racist chants.

The popularity of Boren's actions may be hard to nail down (more on that later), butone fascinating trend in public opinion has been quite clear.Americans have becomemore supportiveof free speech for a variety of controversial groups in recent decades, but thisgrowing acceptancehas not extended toracists.This finding comes from thelong-running General Social Survey of U.S. adults.Last year the surveyfound 60 percent saying a "person who believes blacks are genetically inferior" should be allowed to make a speech in their community, similarto the share who said so in 1976 (62 percent).

That absolute number might be surprising - a clear majority are okaywith a racist speaking out - but they also contrastwithlarger and growing shares of the public who supportallowing speech from othercontroversialgroups. Some 70 percent support allowing a speech from aperson who wants the military to run the country (70 percent), a communist (68 percent), and an anti-religionist (79 percent).The only group where people expressed less support for free speech than racists was "a Muslim clergyman who preaches hatred of the United States" -only 42 percent said this should be allowed. These trends were documented by Tom Smith and Jaesok Son of NORC at the University of Chicago in 2013.

Changing politics as well asattitudes toward sexuality and religion help explain how free speech forsome groups has become more tolerable while support for racists have stayed lower.The Cold war is over,fewer people identify with a religious faith than in the 1970s andacceptance ofhomosexuality has grown rapidly.The stagnation of tolerance for racist speech while support for speech among other groups has grown -- could indicate that the public is not purely becoming more tolerant of the rights of groups they dislike. Instead, the shifts could reflect greater public agreement with the ideas of gay and lesbian people and those who are less religious.

Reactions to the Oklahoma case could be toughto gauge if past surveys are any guide, perhaps due to the difficulty in balancingbetween support forfree speech in general and a desire to quashracism generally.Two national surveysin 1989 and 1991 found aboutsix in 10 saying college students who use racial slurs or published racist magazines should not be expelled. But a similarly large majority in a 1992 survey by Family Circle favored probation for aBrown University student who yelled racial slurs while drunk. More recently, a 2008survey by the First Amendment Center found 54percent disagreeing with the idea thatpeople should be allowed to say things in public that might be offensive to racial groups.

Peyton M. Craighill contributed to this report.

Surveydetails

The General Social Survey was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago usingin-person interviews with a random national sample of 2,538 adults from March31 to Oct.13, 2014. Results on attitudes toward racists are based on 1,711 interviews and have a margin of sampling error of three percentage points.Data analysis was conducted by The Washington Post.

Question wording

There are always some people whose ideas are considered bad or dangerous by other people. If [INSERT]wanted to make a speech in your community [INSERT],should he be allowed to speak, or not? Answers: Yes, allowed/Not allowed/Don't know/Refused

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Wonkblog: Americans growing support for free speech doesnt include racist speech

International groups condemn arrest of Nurul

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Release her immediately, says International Commission of Jurists; government excessive in stifling free speech, says Human Rights Watch

BANGKOK: International human rights groups have condemned the arrest and detention of Nurul Izzah Anwar, the daughter of imprisoned Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, for sedition.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) which issued a statement condemning Nurul Izzahs arrest had in addition called on the Government of Malaysia to immediately release Nurul Izzah and reiterated its call for the repeal of the Sedition Act.

Human Rights Watch, in a statement, said the arrest shows that the Malaysian government seems to know no bounds in its efforts to stifle free speech.

Nurul Izzah, the Member of Parliament for Lembah Pantai, was arrested at 3.30pm at Dang Wangi police station in Kuala Lumpur. She was summoned by police to provide a statement for her involvement in a demonstration on February 14 over the jailing of her father for sodomy.

Police have detained her for investigations into a speech she made in parliament on March 10 that was deemed seditious under section 4(1) of the colonial-era 1948 Sedition Act.

Nurul Izzah had read out her fathers statement in Parliament that reportedly criticised the judges in her fathers Sodomy II case. Anwar who has been jailed five years for sodomy is still the MP for Permatang Pauh but he was not released to attend the recent sitting of Parliament.

The Malaysian authorities must stop the continued use of the offence of sedition to arbitrarily detain and stifle freedom of expression, said Sam Zarifi, ICJs regional director for Asia and the Pacific.

The arrest of MP Nurul Izzah Anwar shows that the Malaysia government seems to know no bounds in its efforts to stifle free speech and (the government is) criminalising dialogue that would be a normal part of political discourse in much of the rest of the world, said Phil Robertson, the Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch.

Prime Minister Najib and his government are shamefully using the Sedition Act like an axe to hack down opposition politicians, community activists, and any others who dare speak their minds.

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International groups condemn arrest of Nurul

US firms caught in Chinese censorship crossfire

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Summary:US company operations are increasingly being disrupted due to the battle between the Chinese government's censorship plans and free speech activists.

Companies from the United States are finding life difficult as their services are being used by citizens and activists seeking to work around China's firewall.

US tech firms, in particular those that provide cloud solutions, are being forced to walk a fine line as cloud computing becomes drawn into China's censorship fight. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, activists outside of China are turning to companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Akamai to disguise Internet traffic by tunnelling it through cloud servers run by the firms.

China's censorship barricade, known as the "Great Firewall of China," is constantly being strengthened to make open access to the Web and communicating over social media networks from the country more difficult. A number of top Alexa domains are blocked in the country, including Google.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger and Change.org.

In December last year, Google's email service, Gmail, became another high-profile service blocked in the country. Unless citizens turn to home-brewed email services -- which can be monitored by the Chinese government -- then the use of VPNs, circumventors and tunnels are the only way to access their accounts.

While cloud services provided by US companies can cloak banned website access -- such as Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and news publications -- it holds risk for the firms themselves. These companies are being forced to walk a fine line as the censorship row escalates, and the unauthorized use of tunnels, VPNs and signing up for free accounts in order to link to blocked websites could land them in hot water as activists are breaking local laws.

Generally, the circumvention takes place without the consent of cloud providers.

However, to stop this practice, Chinese authorities would need to block full servers -- which would disrupt countless businesses, including thousands of Chinese SMBs, activists say.

Naturally, US firms are less than keen to be associated with the censorship row. In November last year, Verizon's EdgeCast cloud service was blocked in the region, while a number of cloud companies have cut off free speech-based services -- such as Lantern -- in an attempt to avoid being blocked themselves in a lucrative market.

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US firms caught in Chinese censorship crossfire

Paul Henderson speaks on the recent SAE fraternity video scandal – Video

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Paul Henderson speaks on the recent SAE fraternity video scandal
As most people know there is a video depicting members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity singing racist songs. Paul tackles the difficult issues of freedom of speech and racism on college...

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Paul Henderson speaks on the recent SAE fraternity video scandal - Video

Swedish Artist Vilks Gets Freedom of Speech Prize a Month After Deadly Shooting in Copenhagen – Video

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Swedish Artist Vilks Gets Freedom of Speech Prize a Month After Deadly Shooting in Copenhagen
Swedish artist Lars Vilks, the main speaker at a seminar in Copenhagen targeted by a gunman a month ago, has received a freedom of speech prize. Denmark #39;s Free Press Society said Vilks received...

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Swedish Artist Vilks Gets Freedom of Speech Prize a Month After Deadly Shooting in Copenhagen - Video

Free speech dialogue 2/3 – Michael Nugent and Abdullah al Andalusi at UCD – Video

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Free speech dialogue 2/3 - Michael Nugent and Abdullah al Andalusi at UCD
This is part 2 of 3 of Michael Nugent and Abdullah al Andalusi discussing freedom of speech or right to insult at the Islamic Society in University College Dublin on 5 March 2015. You can view...

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Free speech dialogue 2/3 - Michael Nugent and Abdullah al Andalusi at UCD - Video

UT, OU Take Different Approaches to Racist Speech

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Students rally against racism, outside the Fiji house in February.

photo by Jana Birchum

On Feb. 7, University of Texas frat Phi Gamma Delta, more commonly known as Fiji house, hosted a theme party where guests wore ponchos, sombreros, construction outfits, and border patrol costumes despite the official theme of the party being, according to Texas Fiji president Andrew Campbell, "a Western or Old West theme."

Many students and faculty were upset about the party and, though skeptical, hoped that the administration would take bold action against Fiji. At the time, Marilyn Russell, coordinator of sorority and fraternity life in the Office of the Dean of Students, told the Chronicle, "To be skeptical is premature because nothing has come of this exact case right now." (See "Frat Party Fallout," Feb. 20.)

However, a week later, the official UT-Austin Twitter account tweeted, "While the behavior doesn't mirror UT core values, it's within students' right to freedom of speech at a private off-campus event." UT Senior Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Soncia Reagins-Lilly told The Daily Texan that because the party didn't violate any university rules (primarily because it was an off-campus event), the frat faces no penalty, though UT is working with Fiji to increase the frat's "cultural sensitivity."

Christian Umbria Smith of UT's chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (Longhorn LULAC) said that the response was "somewhat expected. And it's not so much that we don't have any faith in their ability to tackle student issues. I mean, President Powers has stood with us when it came to affirmative action policy, among other things." Still, he says, the response has, yet again, been just "words, but no actual actions." Yes, Smith says, it's good that the administration has made supportive statements, but they need to take concrete actions as well.

UT-Austin is no stranger to dealing with issues of racial insensitivity on campus, and the university is far from alone when it comes to these issues. The problem of racism in fraternities has recently gone viral, after a 10-second video of University of Oklahoma Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) members chanting racist slurs and making reference to lynching was leaked to the OU student paper.

For UT-Austin student Cat Tran, both the Fiji incident and the OU SAE video draw "attention to the legacy of racism that penetrates institutions, especially in the South, and how exclusion of minorities has historically been the norm, not the exception."

In contrast to UT's reaction (or lack thereof) to Fiji, OU's response to SAE was swift and powerful. The video leaked on Sunday, March 8, and by the next day, OU President David Boren had ordered the fraternity to be removed from OU and expelled two of the students seen leading the chant in the video. The video's publication also caused promising high school offensive tackle Jean Delance to reconsider his previous commitment to OU, and led to a protest by the school's current football team.

Smith said that he and many others considered OU's reaction to be encouraging and "very respectable." "It was good, but it was also disheartening to see that we didn't have that same level of vigor when it came to how the administration of the campus responded. Granted, there are differences," Smith said.

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UT, OU Take Different Approaches to Racist Speech