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Copyright: Knight Foundation on Flickr. Some rights reserved The executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for a "global coalition" between media, governments, business sectors and "civil society organisations" against censorship.

In the press freedom organisation's annual Attacks on the Press report, which documents the "media conditions" across more than 100 countries, Simon refers to "the next information revolution", where those keen to restrict the press have learnt "that maintaining a viable censorship regime is even more urgent in the information age."

He adds: "The reality is that there are few effective legal mechanisms to fight censorship on an international level."
 
In response he called for "the many constituencies that have a stake in ensuring the free flow of information" to work together to form a "global coalition against censorship".

This coalition would include the business sector, for example, which has "operations and supply chains spread throughout the world".

"Navigating political unrest, environmental disaster, and other disruptions is crucial – and it cannot be done effectively when key information is censored."

Others to join the coalition should include governments and groups "with a global agenda", in particular "human rights and environmental organisations", according to Simon.

"The key is to mobilise the many constituencies that have a stake in ensuring the free flow of information – civil society and advocacy groups, businesses, governments, and intergovernmental organisations – and build a global coalition against censorship.

After all, an attack on an Egyptian, Pakistani, or Mexican journalist inhibits the ability of people around the world to receive the information that journalist would have providedJoel Simon, executive director, CPJ"While the ability to seek and receive information is an individual human right, there is a collective interest in ensuring that information flows freely. After all, an attack on an Egyptian, Pakistani, or Mexican journalist inhibits the ability of people around the world to receive the information that journalist would have provided."

The coalition should work to call on "international organisations, including intergovernmental groups such as the Organization of American States and the Council of Europe, as well as the United Nations, to create a legal framework to ensure that press freedom and freedom of information are respected in practice", he added.

"Human rights and press freedom organisations should look for opportunities to adjudicate press freedom cases at the international level in order to build a body of global precedent."

In reference to the impact of the internet, he added that while the online world provides a platform for bloggers and citizen journalists to share information in countries where other communications are restricted, the fact is that many of them "work with few resources and little or no institutional support".

"Just as global citizens have a stake in ensuring that information flows freely, powerful forces – criminal organisations, militant groups, repressive governments – have enormous interest in controlling the news. Censorship within national borders disrupts the flow of information around the world.

"A global coalition against censorship needs to unite behind a simple idea: Censorship anywhere affects people everywhere. It can and should be abolished."

In the preface to the 462 page report, chairman of the CPJ Sandra Mims Rowe also refers to the need for greater protection, adding that "about half of the journalists imprisoned worldwide work primarily online".

"In much of the world, the enemies of free speech are monitoring journalists and bloggers, filtering online content, and attacking news websites."

She adds: "Supplementing the old fashioned beatings used to secure the names of colleagues and sources from journalists, the digital 'army' has employed the phishing of Facebook pages to dupe people into providing passwords and identities."

Now the press freedom group is working to "act as a bridge between Silicon Valley and the journalists who depend on their products".

Last year the CPJ's first internet advocacy coordinator Danny O'Brien brought together technologists and journalists to meet and discuss these issues, she reports.

"While the internet has provided the equivalent of a printing press to millions of people across the world, it has also broadened the power to shutter those presses. Technology is allowing journalists to slip the chains of censorship, but that new found freedom will be fleeting if not defended."

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CPJ calls for 'global coalition' against censorship

One week into his re-election campaign, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has already courted plenty of controversy.

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy

His "La France Forte" or "A strong France" campaign posters have been the subject of parody, with variations on the original of Sarkozy pictured with a tranquil sea behind him modified to include a capsized cruise ship — a reference to the sunken Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy — among the more notable.

Earlier this week his team appeared to have asked Twitter to close down four accounts linked to the spoof posters.

A member of Sarkozy’s team told French newspaper Le Monde that he had asked Twitter to remove the accounts, arguing that they could confusion as they used both Sarkozy’s first and last name.

The "#sarkocensure" hashtag has become one of the most popular in France, with many ridiculing Sarkozy who has in the past called for more regulation of the “Wild West” Internet.

For his visit to a Halal abattoir on Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras, some tweeters suggested he might dress up as Francois Hollande, his socialist challenger, to please the crowds.

An Ifop poll published on Sunday showed the French President trailing behind his socialist challenger, although the gap has narrowed. Twenty nine percent of those polled said they would vote for Hollande, while 27 would support Sarkozy. Right-wing Front National candidate Marine Le Pen was in third place with 17.5 percent of the vote.

But Sarkozy, undeterred, will have taken heart from economic data last week which showed the French economy managed to grow in the final quarter of 2011 — if only by 0.2 percent — contrary to that of many of its euro zone peers.

The euro zone as a whole saw a contraction of 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Focus on the Economy

Economists fear France will not be able to stay in the lead and that the figures should not offer too much hope that the economy might be more resilient to the periphery’s troubles than feared.

“Prospects for French exports are marred by fairly weak competitiveness and a reliance on trade within the euro-zone, while the previous consumer recovery has already stalled. And with the banking sector still highly exposed to Italy and the peripheral economies, we see France losing its lead before long,” analysts at Capital Economics said in a note.

They point out that with half of its exports going to other euro zone countries, and 40 percent of those to the southern and peripheral economies, the prospect of further sharp falls in demand there bodes very ill for French exporters.

“As the peripheral debt crisis worsens, French GDP is likely to fall sharply, particularly if Italy is dragged back in,” they said.

In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Jean Francois Copé, Secretary General of Sarkozy's center-right UMP party said France had to focus its attention on reducing the budget deficit and public spending.

“We have to change the growth model which was totally relying on public spending," Copé said.

He added that his party would scrap France's 35-hour working week.

Sarkozy will argue that his close cooperation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in fighting the euro zone debt crisis makes him the right man to navigate France through troubled waters.

At his first big rally in Marseille on Monday he sought to project the image of a strong and experienced leader who had helped France to escape what has befallen those in Greece.

The first round of the elections takes place on April 22. Until then, he has many a skeptical French voter to convince.

© 2012 CNBC.com

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Censorship and Parody in French Election Campaign

08-02-2012 12:43 StarCraft 2: Unnecessary Censorship ign.com twitter.com facebook.com twitch.tv youtube.com

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StarCraft 2: Unnecessary Censorship - IPL Shorts - Video

Summary: A UK court has effectively ruled file-sharing site The Pirate Bay as illegal, paving the way for ISP-level blocks to be enacted when a final judgement is made in June.

Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay could be blocked from the UK population after the High Court in London ruled that the site breaches copyright on a massive scale.

The move brings a block on the site to British residents one step closer.

In a judgement today, Mr. Justice Arnold who presided over the case, said that The Pirate Bay — and its users — infringe copyrighted content.

Music and film lobbying groups are now pushing for UK broadband providers to block the site. A ruling is expected in June as to whether ISPs should prevent its users from accessing the site.

In the judgement, Mr. Justice Arnold said: “the operators of [The Pirate Bay] do authorise its users’ infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting.” He concluded that both the users and the operators or the site: “infringe the copyrights of the Claimants (and those they represent) in the UK”.

Considering that some 3.7 million Britons use The Pirate Bay, according to comScore, it would be a massive hit to the freedom of the Web on British soil. Alexa ranks the file-sharing site, at the time of writing, as one of the top 100 websites in the world.

While BT and Sky, along with others, continue to oppose such measures as website blocking on its networks — claiming that the cost of doing so would be passed onto the customers, and the foundation principles of the free and open Web are at risk — industry groups are having greater success in legal action.

Music and film industry representatives have recently been successful in having file-sharing site Newzbin2 blocked by major Internet service providers in the country, including Sky and BT, which has over eight million users.

The courts forced broadband provider TalkTalk, which has over four million UK customers, was forced by the courts to block access to Newzbin2 after it lost a legal battle last month. Sky and Virgin Media, who have previously implied they would only comply with court orders, received written requests from the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in November 2011.

All it takes is one legal precedence in the UK and the floodgates are open to any given site. Because The Pirate Bay has been ruled as effectively ‘illegal’, it would be unlikely that anything less than a full ISP-level block would be set.

Loz Kaye, leader of the Pirate Party UK, said: “This hearing clearly demonstrates the limitations of merely requiring judicial involvement in censorship orders.” He added: “The UK is sleepwalking into comprehensive site blocking.”

And because most of the UK online population is unaware that their online freedoms are being threatened, to say that we are “sleepwalking into censorship” is quite the case.

Image source: Flickr.

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Zack Whittaker, a criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, Canterbury, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

Disclosure Zack Whittaker

I worked briefly with Microsoft UK in 2006 but no longer have any connection with the company. Regardless, I remain impartial and unbiased in my views.

I don't hold any stock or shares, investments or industrial secrets in any company, but have signed confidentiality agreements with a number of UK and U.S. organisations, whose names I am not at liberty to disclose.

I was involved with Kent Union, the University of Kent's student union, undertaking voluntary, non-salaried, elected positions between early 2009 and mid-2010.

No other company, body, government department, non-governmental organisation or third sector organisation employs me or pays me a salary in any capacity whatsoever.

As a freelance journalist, whenever expenses are given and taken by a company that is not CBS Interactive, these will be disclosed in each relevant post to ensure transparency.

I currently work with a UK law enforcement unit. Details of which are restricted, but this is an entirely separate position which bears no connection to other work.

(Updated: 23rd October 2011)

Biography Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, UK, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

After studying criminology at university, though still in his early-20's, he has already had a series unconventional work and voluntary positions. He has worked with researchers studying neurological illnesses like Tourette's syndrome (which he suffers from), has given lectures on the nature of disabilities in the public community, and occasionally ends up speaking on television and radio discussing the events of the day.

He first had academic work published at the age of 22, then still an undergraduate, and has been cited by a wide range of publications: from the Huffington Post, Business Insider, AllThingsDigital, The Atlantic Wire and CBS News.

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Sleepwalking into censorship: Pirate Bay faces UK web block

WHO assistant director-general of health security and environment, Dr. Keiji Fukuda

Despite recommendations by the US on data censorship, the UN health body has asked scientists to publish the details of their study on a deadly flu virus strain.

After an urgent meeting between 22 elite global health experts in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged scientists to publish their full discoveries about the lab developed H5N1 avian Flu strain.

The recommendation was issued after the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) asked scientists to censor data on their lab-made version of bird Flu.

The articles included a study by Yoshihiro Kawaoka and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US who submitted their paper to Nature and a Dutch team led by Dr. Ron Fouchier from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, who wrote for Science.

NSABB said bioterrorist groups could potentially misuse the published research “for harmful purposes,” since the strain is possibly capable of spreading rapidly among humans.

Most of the UN panel members, however, believe that any theoretical risk of the virus being used by terrorists was far outweighed by the “real and present danger” of similar flu viruses in the wild.

“There is a preference from a public health perspective for full disclosure of the information in these two studies. However there are significant public concerns surrounding this research that should first be addressed,” said WHO assistant director-general of health security and environment Dr. Keiji Fukuda.

The WHO-convened panel emphasized that sharing the results among world scientists could help them identify the exact changes that might show whether a virus is developing the ability to cause a pandemic.

The group also announced that two controversial articles temporarily shelved would not be redacted and published in the near future, as originally planned. The research may be fully published at a later date instead.

SJM/TE

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WHO opposes flu study censorship