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A study by researchers at Harvard University offers an intriguing look behind the veil of Chinas extensive Internet censorship effort, and suggests that censorship behavior around specific topics could serve as a predictor of government action. The group found, for example, that censors began removing a higher-than-normal percentage of comments referring to outspoken artist and political activist Ai Weiwei several days before his surprise arrest in 2011.

The research, which the authors call the first large-scale, multiple-source analysis of social media censorship in China, is certainly comprehensive. And its publication comes at a time when the Chinese governments efforts to control online discourse have garnered worldwide attention.

The researchers conclude that contrary to much research and commentary, the purpose of the censorship program is not to suppress criticism of the state or party. In other words, the censors are surprisingly tolerant of people bad-mouthing the government or its representatives. The Internet police in China are much more focused on silencing comments that could spur or reinforce collective action in the real worldlike protests over an activists arrest.

Using an automated process, executed from many locations around the world, including China itself, the researchers collected millions of posts from 1,382 different Chinese social media sites over a six-month period last year. They then ranked the posts according to their political sensitivity and kept track of which ones were removed. Nearly 60 percent of the posts collected were published on Sina Weibo, the countrys most popular micro-blogging platform.

Bill Bishop, an independent analyst in Beijing who monitors Chinese Internet media, says the fact that censors are more concerned with collective action than about individuals using social media to criticize the government is probably obvious to most users of Weibo. What is interesting about Weibo is not what is censored but what is not, Bishop said in an email to Technology Review. It is full of people criticizing the government.

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A Peek Behind China's 'Great Firewall'

New Delhi: After a spate of attacks on a number of Indian websites and a ground protest event on June 9, that evoked lukewarm response, hactivist group Anonymous Operation India has chosen the Right to Information Act (RTI) as the latest tool in their battle against Internet censorship.

Anonymous India is urging Indian citizens to file RTI applications to seek information regarding the correspondence of public servants with Google, Facebook or other websites on content censorship. Anonymous India says they will collate the information and use it "in even more powerful ways." But did not venture upon further details.

This phase called 'Operation RTI Engaged' is a part of many initiatives planned by the hacker collective in their effort to force the Government of India rethink its Internet censorship strategy.

This phase called 'Operation RTI Engaged' is part of many initiatives planned by the hacker collective.

Full text of Anonymous Operation India's letter to the citizens of India

ANONYMOUS OPERATION INDIA

PHASE II - OPERATION RTI ENGAGED - #OpRTI

June 12, 2012

Dear Citizens of India,

We are Anonymous. We are engaged in a fight with your government to fight their evil schemes of gaining control of our internet. We will not allow this. We will not allow those who do not understand the internet to mangle our rights in their futile attempts at the impossible. Content on the internet cannot be wiped out for those who want to see it and content on the internet must not be made to fit the idea of agreeable for a few powerful people.

See original here:
Anonymous India to use RTI to fight censorship

Summary: Everyone knows a 404 Web status messages means you can reach the Web server, but it cant find the page youre looking for. In these days of Internet censorship, a new HTTP Web status message, 451, has been proposed for pages and sites blocked by censorship.

TIm Bray thinks you should know when censorship is blocking you from a Web site.

Back in the early days of the Web, we set up Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status messages to let people know what was going on with a Web server. Today, we still use 401 error messages for pages youre not authorized to see, 403 pages for pages you cant see even with authentication, and the ever popular 404 for Web pages that cant be found. Now, with the rise of Internet censorship, Tim Bray is proposing a new HTTP code: 451, for Web servers and pages that are being censored,

Bray, a leading Google Android developer and co-creator of one of the first Web search engines, Open Text and XML, has proposed to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that code 451 be used for, when resource access is denied for legal reasons. This allows server operators to operate with greater transparency in circumstances where issues of law or public policy affect their operation. This transparency may be beneficial both to these operators and to end users.

Formally, this would be:

451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons

This status code indicates that the server is subject to legal restrictions which prevent it servicing the request.

Since such restrictions typically apply to all operators in a legal jurisdiction, the server in question may or may not be an origin server. The restrictions typically most directly affect the operations of ISPs and search engines.

Responses using this status code SHOULD include an explanation, in the response body, of the details of the legal restriction; which legal authority is imposing it, and what class of resources it applies to.

The name of this code, Bray notes in passing comes from the late Ray Bradburys classic science-fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. In it, Firemen no longer fight fires, but start them to burn books. The title comes from the ignition point for paper.

Originally posted here:
451: Web censorship status code

Artists Biennial Germany The German artist Gregor Schneider says organisers of the exhibition have blocked a work he planned to install in Karlskirche church, Kassel

By Julia Michalska. From Art Basel daily edition Published online: 12 June 2012

The German artist Gregor Schneider says that the organisers of Documenta have censored a work he planned to install in the Karlskirche church in Kassel, home of the quinquennial exhibition (until 16 September). Schneider says that Its all Rheydt Kolkata, Kassel 2012, consisting of material dredged from the river Ganges in northern India, was withdrawn after Bernd Leifeld, the managing director of Documenta, intervened.

Schneider was given 70,000 by the Protestant Academy of Hofgeismar to make the piece. The Art Newspaper understands that Leifeld expressed concerns that visitors could mistake the

installation for a Documenta project, and that any mix-up could have damaged the reputation of the prestigious German exhibition. Representatives of the academy declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for Documenta says that Leifeld heard some time ago that the church was planning an exhibition during Documenta, though no one was aware which artist the church had in mind. After consulting the church, [its officials] decided to concentrate on seminars and lectures [instead].

Meanwhile, the German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol has installed an outsized human figure with outstretched arms in the bell tower of a Catholic church in Kassel despite opposition from Documentas management. He reportedly accuses Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev of curtailing cultural events in Kassel, but the exhibitions artistic director says that she would never [censor art]. The German artist Siglinde Kallnbach has launched a campaign in support of Balkenhol and Schneider.

For an opening report on Documenta and more news from the exhibition, download our free daily fair edition

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Documenta sparks “censorship” row

Protesting regulations that they say are tantamount to online censorship, members of the hacking collective known as Anonymous gathered in more than a dozen cities throughout India Saturday though according to some reports, the results of those assemblies were mixed.

According to Rajini Vaidyanathan of BBC News, members of the group organized their gatherings across 16 cities nationwide, including Mumbai, where an estimated 100 protesters donned their trademark Guy Fawkes masks in order to voice their disapproval of federal Internet laws.

Im here for internet freedom. Theres restrictions on speaking online. Thats why Im here, a 19-year-old student named Amisha, who attended the Mumbai event, told Vaidyanathan.

India is following China and Iran. They dont want the right information to reach people, added a 20-year-old student Nishant, whose identity was obscured by sunglasses and a scarf. There are some sites theyve blocked for information which is relevant to us. Information which is useful to us as citizens of this country.

Thousands had agreed to participate in the rallies, but far less actually turned out on Saturday, with members being for the most part invisible during the first hour, Abhimanyu Chandra of the weekly news magazine Tehelka reported. Furthermore, Chandra added that journalists, policemen, and tourists joined the actual protestors during the gathering, and that not everyone in attendance agreed with the groups methods.

I am unsure about their means of seeking their ends. Systematic taking down of websites Im not sure how I feel about that, a Mumbai-based college student, who wished to remain anonymous, told Tehelka. Likewise, another referred to the group as hypocritical and adding, You cannot fight authoritarianism by yourself being authoritarian. Hacking is a sort of violence, while others expressed doubt that the protests would change anything.

The Saturday evening protest included the distribution and presentation of Anonymous paraphernalia. Leaflets were distributed and Guy Fawkes masks were also available, Chandra said. A banner read: The Corrupt Fear Us. The Honest Support Us. The Heroic Join Us. Posters proclaimed: You can censor the internet, but not my mind; and If the government shuts down the internet, keep calm and shut down the government.;

While it teemed with activity and conversation, the event was marked with some disorganization and a low turnout, the Tehelka writer added. Initially scheduled to take place at the Gateway of India, it was eventually held at Azad Maidan [and] the Delhi protest too saw a low turnout at Jantar Mantar.

In related news on Saturday, officials from Indias top agency for dealing with cybersecurity contingencies told the Times of India that their website had not been attacked or taken offline, despite claims made by hackers affiliated with Anonymous earlier in the day.

The cyberattackers had claimed to have brought down the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) homepage with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, but officials with the organization told the newspaper that those claims were without any basis and at complete variance with the facts. The fact is that the website has been running continuously & uninterruptedly including the whole of today.

Link:
Anonymous India Censorship Protests Draw Hundreds