Category Archives: Censorship

The blanket ban on reporting details of the detention and apparent suicide of an Australian prisoner jailed in Israel has raised pressing questions about the relevance of censorship in a digital age.

The mysterious case of "Prisoner X" briefly emerged in 2010 in an online news report which was immediately taken down due to a gag order, only to resurface on Tuesday when Australia's ABC news said he was an Australian working for Mossad.

Although the news spread like wildfire across social networks, Israel's media outlets were uncharacteristically silent, gagged by a set of tight restrictions which barred them from even mentioning the ABC report.

The silence was only broken when three Israeli MPs used their parliamentary immunity to raise the issue in at the Knesset, forcing the censor to ease its grip and permit coverage of the ABC report.

Aluf Benn, editor of the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said the case highlighted the old-world thinking among Israel's top intelligence brass.

"I imagined yesterday that I met Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and that I tried to persuade him to remove himself for a day or two from the cloak-and-dagger world he lives in ... But then I remembered that Pardo is still living in the previous century, when information is kept in regimes' safes," he wrote.

Shortly after the ABC report emerged, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called in the country's top editors to ask them to cooperate by withholding publication of information about an incident that was "very embarrassing to a certain government agency," Haaretz said, in a clear allusion to Mossad.

For Israel's security establishment, the press was simply an extension of the state which could be controlled at will, Benn wrote.

"They all find it hard to come to terms with the concept of a free media operating in a democratic state, and they try to recruit the press to work with them, offering journalists a combination of confidential information and the threat of arrest."

Under Israeli law, violation of a gag order is a serious offence, punishable by imprisonment.

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Israel prison death shows censorship flaws in digital age

THE blanket ban on reporting details of the detention and apparent suicide of an Australian prisoner jailed in Israel has raised pressing questions about the relevance of censorship in a digital age.

The mysterious case of Prisoner X briefly emerged in 2010 in an online news report which was immediately taken down due to a gag order, only to resurface on Tuesday when Australia's ABC news said he was an Australian working for Mossad.

Although the news spread like wildfire across social networks, Israel's media outlets were uncharacteristically silent, gagged by a set of tight restrictions which barred them from even mentioning the ABC report.

The silence was only broken when three Israeli MPs used their parliamentary immunity to raise the issue in at the Knesset, forcing the censor to ease its grip and permit coverage of the ABC report.

Aluf Benn, editor of the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said the case highlighted the old-world thinking among Israel's top intelligence brass.

"I imagined yesterday that I met Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and that I tried to persuade him to remove himself for a day or two from the cloak-and-dagger world he lives in ... But then I remembered that Pardo is still living in the previous century, when information is kept in regimes' safes," he wrote.

Shortly after the ABC report emerged, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called in the country's top editors to ask them to cooperate by withholding publication of information about an incident that was "very embarrassing to a certain government agency," Haaretz said, in a clear allusion to Mossad.

For Israel's security establishment, the press was simply an extension of the state which could be controlled at will, Benn wrote.

"They all find it hard to come to terms with the concept of a free media operating in a democratic state, and they try to recruit the press to work with them, offering journalists a combination of confidential information and the threat of arrest."

Under Israeli law, violation of a gag order is a serious offence, punishable by imprisonment.

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Israel prison death shows censorship flaws

The global reach of the Internet was supposed to democratize information and improve the lives of millions. But as the sophistication of the World Wide Web has spread, so too have the tools of despotic regimes and other political groups to suppress freedom.

From blocking websites and social networks to monitoring text messages and arresting bloggers and journalists who post online, censorship of the Internet is on the rise, according to several monitoring agencies. And the ways and means of blocking political discussion, religious freedom, and reports of institutional corruption are getting more invidious, from China to the Middle East.

"Overall, it's getting worse," Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told FoxNews.com.

In fact, according to Freedom on the Net 2012 -- a survey by independent watchdog group Freedom House -- of the 47 countries covered "20 have experienced a negative trajectory since January 2011, with Bahrain, Pakistan, and Ethiopia registering the greatest declines" in Internet freedom.

- Sarah Cook, a senior research analyst at Freedom House

Far from leading to the spread of democracy and freedom online, the events of the 2011 Arab Spring led many authoritarian countries to clamp down more tightly, fearful of rebellious citizens inciting and organizing online. In other cases, such as that of Pakistan, religious restrictions were the reason for censoring so-called blasphemous speech online. Still in other countries, such as Mexico, threats and the killing of online reporters and bloggers by drug cartels has stifled reports of criminal activity.

Indeed, the real world effects of such censorship are alarming and getting worse. Last year, 144 journalists, media, and bloggers were killed for their activities, according to Reporters Without Borders. It was the deadliest year since the organization began tracking such murders in 1995, and nearly double the number of such killings -- 73 -- committed in the previous year. The most egregious offenders were Syria and Somalia, followed by Pakistan.

The goal of such violence is often to staunch the flow of information.

In Iran last November, blogger and cyber-journalist Sattar Beheshti was reportedly tortured to death by prison authorities for allegedly threatening Iran's national security on social networks. (Iran's state prosecutor later confirmed that Beheshti died in police custody and had wounds on his body.)

Far from leading to the spread of democracy and freedom online, the events of the 2011 Arab spring led many authoritarian countries to clamp down more tightly, fearful of rebellious citizens inciting and organizing online.

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Special report: censorship in cyberspace

Grammy Wardrobe Censorship You Be the Judge

NOTE: Poll results are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those users who chose to participate. Poll results are not reflected in real time.

Back to Poll Results

NOTE: Poll results are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those users who chose to participate. Poll results are not reflected in real time.

Back to Poll Results

NOTE: Poll results are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those users who chose to participate. Poll results are not reflected in real time.

Back to Poll Results

NOTE: Poll results are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those users who chose to participate. Poll results are not reflected in real time.

Back to Poll Results

NOTE: Poll results are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those users who chose to participate. Poll results are not reflected in real time.

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Grammy Wardrobe Censorship -- You Be the Judge

The study by a Canadian university has found that some major Indian ISPs have deployed web-censorship and filtering technology.

Your internet service provider (ISP) could be blocking some content. A study conducted by a Canadian university has found that some major Indian ISPs have deployed web-censorship and filtering technology widely used in China and some West Asian countries.

The findings, published on January 15, were the result of a search for censorship software and hardware on public networks like those operated by ISPs.

A research team at Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, found a software-hardware combo package called PacketShaper being used in many parts of the world, including India.

The study identified the presence of four PacketShaper installations on the networks of three major ISPs in India during the period of study in late 2012. These ISPs had been earlier implicated in filtering to some degree, the report said.

The deployment of such traffic management technologies by ISPs could threaten privacy, freedom of expression and competition, said Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of the Bangalore-based NGO, Centre for Internet and Society.

He said tools like PacketShaper could be used by ISPs for two types of censorship to block entire websites or choke traffic on certain services or destinations in a highly granular fashion.

The U.S.-based producers of the technology, Blue Coat Systems, are quite open about the product features on the companys website. They say it could be used to control and weed out undesirable content. It could also be used to slow down or speed up the operation of programmes and content flow to achieve the goals set by the operators of the networks.

Transparency is the key

Technology experts said such products could be used to exercise legitimate control over the internet traffic and prioritise the use of bandwidth and resources, if used ethically.

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Indian net service providers too play censorship tricks

Christopher Hitchens - Religious censorship why religion is bad
Christopher Hitchens talks about religious censorship why religion is bad

By: bigrich3849

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Christopher Hitchens - Religious censorship

PATERSON An anti-censorship group and a video game trade association are battling to try to stop the Paterson public library from banning violent video games, according to a report on PatersonPress.com.

The National Coalition Against Censorship fired off a letter to the city library last week saying a ban would violate free speech protected by the First Ammendment.

The letter says that library administrators are public officials and are barred from removing materials merely because they dislike them or find them offensive.

It also says, "The role of libraries is not to police the use of a perfectly legal form of casual entertainment, whether the user is a teen or any other patron," according to PatersonPress.com.

The Washington-D.C. based Entertainment Software Association, meanwhile, asked library trade groups to intervene on its behalf.

Although it was reported last month that the library voted to ban direct-shoot games, library officials told PatersonPress.com that hasn't happened. A vote will take place on Feb. 27.

'Call of Duty,' other violent video games banned from Paterson library

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Anti-censorship group blasts Paterson public library for possible ban on violent video games

A sea of Seuss hats at an event at the Library of Congress in 2010.

A sea of Seuss hats at an event at the Library of Congress in 2010.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

Myanmar pro-Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi presided over the country's first international literary festival over the weekend. The Irrawaddy Literary Festival in Rangoon featured such international authors as Vikram Seth and William Dalrymple, along with around 80 Myanmarese writers, most of whom have not been translated into English. The festival comes as Myanmar (also known as Burma) begins to relax its censorship laws.

"All over Dr. Seuss's beloved children's books, his characters sport distinctive, colorful headwear unless they are the kinds of creatures that have it sprouting naturally from their heads in tufted, multitiered and majestically flowing formations." The New York Times, in honor of an exhibit of Seussian headgear opening today at the New York Public Library.

NFL players re-imagined as Dickens characters, from McSweeney's: Otis Grigsby "maintains a cheerful outlook on life despite being much afflicted by gout, baldness, and an old harpoon injury."

In a profile of the French spy novelist Gerard de Villiers, New York Times writer and Middle East expert Robert F. Worth makes the surprising assertion that the Lockerbie bombing was carried out by Iran and not by Libya, and quotes a CIA official who says "the best intelligence" points to the Iranians. This has been something of an unconfirmed conspiracy theory for years.

Jared Diamond, the popular anthropologist with an endearingly apparent comb-over and a tendency toward overgeneralization, is in trouble with the indigenous rights group Survival International because of his new book The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? Director Stephen Corry wrote, "Describing tribal peoples as more violent than industrialized societies sounds much like the arguments put forward by missionaries, explorers and colonial governments from the 16th century onward."

Ernest Hemingway's garden gate is up for auction.

The Most Important Books Coming Out This Week:

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Book News: Myanmar Celebrates As Censorship Recedes; And Oh Those Seussian Hats

By Jonathan Earle

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: February 6, 2013 (Issue # 1745)

MOSCOW Thegovernments plans toprotect children fromharmful online content are causing increasing alarm among anti-censorship activists, who see one regions plans tointroduce asmut-free version ofthe Internet as thelatest move tobanish distasteful speech.

Details ofthe Kostroma regions plan, which appeared inthe media last week, sparked talk ofa white list toaccompany thefederal governments existing blacklist ofwebsites that are deemed tocontain extremist information or child pornography, or to promote bad behavior.

Theplan would give net denizens inKostroma, amostly rural region about 190 kilometers northeast ofMoscow, theoption between using theexisting Internet, with all its dangerous andunsavory corners, anda clean version, consisting ofhundreds ofthousands ofinoffensive websites.

Anon-governmental organization called theSafe Internet League, which has close links toboth theKremlin andthe Russian Orthodox Church, has already picked 400,000 websites safe forchildren, andthe number is growing, theKostroma regional administration said Wednesday ina statement.

News reports quoting theleagues acting director, Denis Davydov, as saying that astrict parental control option would be thedefault, meaning that users would have toopt out rather than in, quickly sent bloggers andfree-speech activists intoa frenzy.

Connectivity advocate Matvei Alexeyev said theinitiative was probably illegal Article 29 ofthe Constitution guarantees theright tofreely seek, receive, transmit, produce anddistribute information byany legal way not tomention technically unfeasible.

There are more than 633 million websites inthe world, according toa recent estimate, Alexeyev wrote Friday ina blog post onEkho Moskvys website. When will thesite-by-site check be finished? In200 years?

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Child-Safe Internet Plan Sparks Censorship Fears

NY-NJ-Metro Thursday 02/21/2013 and 02/22/2013 Conference on Ukraine and Media - Columbia University

International Conference Braking News: Censorship, Media, and Ukraine

February 21 and 22nd, 2013

Columbia University

The Ukrainian Studies Program, Harriman Institute at Columbia University is organizing a conference entitled Braking News: Censorship, Media, and Ukraine to be held in New York City February 21 and 22, 2013. The conference will gather the worlds top analysts on Ukrainian media at Columbia for two days to examine the contemporary state and functioning of Ukrainian media. These experts will discuss how media operate in Ukraine what they contain and how they are sustained.

Braking News: Censorship, Media, and Ukraine will consist of a keynote address, two panels, one roundtable discussion and a film presentation. The conference, which will be open to the public, will commence on Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 7PM with a keynote address by Andriy Kulykov entitled Ukrainian Media: Old Pressures, New Challenges which will be followed by a reception. Friday, February 22nd will feature two panels and a roundtable made up of an international gathering of scholars, as well as practitioners, of Ukrainian media. The first panel, entitled The Media, the Market, and Democracy: Ukraine in a Global Context, will explore the relationship between market forces and how Ukraines media operate in a global environment. It will look at issues such as ownership structures, global media convergence, trends towards infotainment, how this affects media content, journalistic standards, and the process of democracy more broadly.

The second panel, Media Discourse, Ideology, and Discrimination will examine the ideological dimension of Ukrainian media discourse, paying particular attention to the representations of language, historical memory, ethnicity, race and sexual orientation. It will analyze both the unchallenged reproduction and fierce contestation of identity, legitimacy and normality and these processes' contribution to social inequality and discrimination. The roundtable will be a discussion between representatives of the worlds leading news sources on Ukraine about reporting on Ukraine in the West and Ukraines presence in Western media. The conference will conclude with a presentation by Yuri Shevchuk of a 2011 Serhii Bukovsky film entitled Ukraine: When the Countdown Began.

Among those who will be participating in the conference are: Mark Andryczyk, Niklas Bernsand, Brian Bonner, Maksym Butkevych, Tanya Domi, Marta Dyczok, Anastasiia Grynko, Myroslava Gongadze, Matthew Kaminski, Volodymyr Kulyk, Andriy Kulykov, Alexander Motyl, Natalya Ryabinska, Yuri Shevchuk, Olena Tregub and Andrew Yurkovsky.

The conference is free and open to the public. For more information contact Dr. Mark Andryczyk at 212-854-4679 or ma2634@columbia.edu.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

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International Conference ‘Braking’ News: Censorship, Media, and Ukraine