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Sri Lanka has imposed censorship on security-related mobile phone messages despite the withdrawal last year of tough emergency laws following the end of its separatist war with Tamil rebels. The defence ministrys Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) in a directive to media organisations said they must get prior approval to publish SMS news alerts related to national security and security forces. The censorship, which was announced in a directive dated Friday but seen by AFP yesterday, appeared to be limited to SMS news alerts issued via mobile phones. The directive came after reports of the killing on Friday of three soldiers in the islands north raised fears that the Tamil Tiger rebels, crushed in May 2009, were re-gathering to resume attacks. However, tensions eased after the army announced that the killings were carried out by a soldier who later turned the gun on himself and no rebel activity was suspected. Any news related to national security and security forces (and) the police should get prior approval from the MCNS before dissemination, MCNS Director General Lakshman Hulugalle said in his directive. The government imposed censorship during the height of fighting between troops and Tamil Tiger rebels using emergency laws that were relaxed last August following intense international pressure. It was not immediately clear what legal provisions were being used to censor SMS alerts. The censorship directive came into immediate effect and applied to over a dozen news services. Sri Lankas five-player mobile industry has over 18mn subscribers. Almost all major media outlets have their own SMS alerts to complement their mainstream radio, television and newspapers. The directive came at a time when Sri Lanka is facing censure at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva over its handling of the war against Tamil Tigers as well as its treatment of the independent media. Some 17 journalists and media employees have been killed in Sri Lanka in the past decade, pro-opposition websites have been blocked and media organisations opposing government views have been attacked, according to rights groups. AFP

Navy denies attack The Sri Lanka Navy has denied attacking Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters, saying it was worried over such malicious allegations. The navy said in a statement that a thorough inquiry found that no such attack took place March 9. Reports alleging an attack in the Indian media were based on inaccurate, hearsay reports without any evidence or credible proof, it said. There is a deep concern that such malicious allegations against the Sri Lanka Navy are disguised attempts to harm the friendship, co-operation and the excellent understanding between India and Sri Lanka. There is excellent co-operation between the navies of Sri Lanka and India, it added. It said the Sri Lanka Navy had come to the rescue of Indian fishermen in distress on humanitarian grounds on many occasions.

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Lanka slaps censorship on mobile phones

Sri Lanka has imposed censorship on security-related mobile phone messages despite the withdrawal last year of tough emergency laws following the end of its separatist war with Tamil rebels.

The defence ministry's Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) in a directive to media organisations said they must get prior approval to publish SMS news alerts "related to national security and security forces".

The censorship, which was announced in a directive dated Friday but seen by AFP on Monday, appeared to be limited to SMS news alerts issued via mobile phones.

The directive came after reports of the killing Friday of three soldiers in the island's north raised fears that the Tamil Tiger rebels, crushed in May 2009, were regathering to resume attacks.

However, tensions eased after the army announced that the killings were carried out by a soldier who later turned the gun on himself and no rebel activity was suspected.

"Any news related to national security and security forces [and] the police should get prior approval from the MCNS before dissemination," MCNS director general Lakshman Hulugalle said in his directive.

Censorship The government imposed censorship during the height of fighting between troops and Tamil Tiger rebels using emergency laws that were relaxed last August following intense international pressure.

It was not immediately clear what legal provisions were being used to censor SMS alerts.

The censorship directive came into immediate effect and applied to over a dozen news services. Sri Lanka's five-player mobile industry has over 18-million subscribers.

Almost all major media outlets have their own SMS alerts to complement their mainstream radio, television and newspapers.

Read the original here:
Sri Lanka slaps censorship on cell phones

Sri Lanka has imposed censorship on security-related mobile phone messages despite the withdrawal last year of tough emergency laws following the end of its separatist war with Tamil rebels.

The defence ministry's Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) in a directive to media organisations said they must get prior approval to publish SMS news alerts "related to national security and security forces."

The censorship, which was announced in a directive dated Friday but seen by AFP on Monday, appeared to be limited to SMS news alerts issued via mobile phones.

The directive came after reports of the killing Friday of three soldiers in the island's north raised fears that the Tamil Tiger rebels, crushed in May 2009, were regathering to resume attacks.

However, tensions eased after the army announced that the killings were carried out by a soldier who later turned the gun on himself and no rebel activity was suspected.

"Any news related to national security and security forces (and) the police should get prior approval from the MCNS before dissemination," MCNS Director General Lakshman Hulugalle said in his directive.

The government imposed censorship during the height of fighting between troops and Tamil Tiger rebels using emergency laws that were relaxed last August following intense international pressure.

It was not immediately clear what legal provisions were being used to censor SMS alerts.

The censorship directive came into immediate effect and applied to over a dozen news services. Sri Lanka's five-player mobile industry has over 18 million subscribers.

Almost all major media outlets have their own SMS alerts to complement their mainstream radio, television and newspapers.

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Sri Lanka slaps censorship on text messages

Zafar Anjum | March 12, 2012

When the new media moguls start their business, they make big talk. But once they reach the tipping point, they show their true colours.

When the Malaysian authorities handed over a journalist to the Saudi government a couple of weeks ago (12 February), a hue and cry was made about the Malaysian government's scant regard for human rights.

Hamza Kashgari, 23, had fled Saudi Arabia amid a furore over his tweets on the Prophet Mohammad. Once returned, he is likely to face a charge of apostasy, which normally carries the death penalty.

On 8 February, we reported that after pulling the plug on more than a million online porn sites, Indonesia's Communications Minister, Tifatul Sembiring, has now set his sights on Twitter. Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology says it will target and block anonymous and offensive accounts on the popular social networking site.

Just a little before that (27 January), Twitter itself had admitted that it would censor tweets if a government would ask it to. Accordingly, Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis. However, the good guys that they are, Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed.

Ironically, just a year ago, Twitter had published on its blog a commitment to let Twitter flow (Tweets still must flow): "The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact ... almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of expression is a human right. Many countries also agree that freedom of expression carries with it responsibilities and has limits."

This is the same Twitter that had reportedly played a critical role in enabling the Arab Spring in the Middle East last year. Now, it wants to kowtow to powers that be. Why? Clearly, to protect its business interests.

Google, which exited the China market a few years ago, citing its adherence to values of freedom of speech, recently agreed to remove offensive content from its site at the behest of the Indian government. Worse still, the company that had started with the slogan of 'Do No Evil' is fast becoming the Big Brother with a finger in every pie. Facebook and other Internet companies have followed suit in India.

Are you surprised by these changes in the policies of some of the same Internet giants that made a lot of noise about freedom of speech when they started their business?

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BLOG: A season of censorship

A new study has revealed details of how China's internet censorship apparatus blocks and deletes content from the Weibo microblogging service. "The work showed that the social media censor was similar to the system overseeing Chinese web access," the BBC reported.

According toThe New Scientist, scientists from Carnegie Mellon University looked at 57 million short messages posted on Weibo, and then re-examined them three months later to see which ones had been deleted. Its results found that controversial messages "tended" to be deleted, with wide regional disparities: in wealthy eastern cities like Beijing and Shanghai, roughly one in ten messages were axed; in Tibet, half were deleted.

The study found that the service was adaptive, the BBC reported, "It also found that the censorship system could be quite nimble and react quickly when words or phrases start to assume a more political meaning. For instance, the word 'lianghui' became sensitive when it started to be used as a code word for a 'planned protest'." The same was true for a word that means "asking someone to resign" after a high speed train crashed last year.

Criticism of government - especially of Fang Binxing, the brains behind the "Great Firewall" - were mostly deleted, as were other innocent-sounding terms that took on submeanings to describe pro-democracy protests. But not all controversial terms were deleted, suggesting a high level of human involvement, according to a researcher.

At least one instance of censorship was apparently to help users. After the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan, a rumor circulated that said eating large quantities of iodized salt, instead of potassium iodide, would protect from radiation poisoning. Those messages were deleted.

Pdraig Reidy of the London-based pressure group Index On Censorship told New Scientist, "This suggests incredibly close, real-time, manned monitoring of discussions and searches. We know that the Chinese government has thousands of people working on web censorship. This study proves how serious a project that is for the regime."

The full results of the study will be published in the next issue of First Monday.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/120312/study-reveals-chinese-censorship-weibo

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Study reveals Chinese censorship of Weibo