Mediaboss Marketing

October 11, 2012, 5:30 AM PDT

Takeaway: Attempts to shut us up in walled gardens and curb our online freedoms are impossible to implement and police. The nature of the internet sees to it that they are doomed to fail.

The quandary for governments is that because the web is ubiquitous and transparent it is hard to police and harder to censor. Photo: Shutterstock

John Gilmore, an internet activist who was also one of the co-founders of both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the first free software company, Cygnus Solutions, once wrote that the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

The internet was designed to enable military communications to find their way around points of failure in the event of a nuclear war. If one node fails or drops certain messages because it doesnt like their subject the messages find their way past that node anyway by some other route, according to Gilmore.

Censorship is practised for all kinds of political, social and commercial reasons, and all societies have limits on acceptable behaviour, but the point of the web is that there are no walled gardens and no limits to what we can access. If information wants to get out there, it will.

The idea that the internet is a universal resource that should be accessible to all is enshrined in the Declaration of Principles of the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) of December 2003, which says, Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Such declarations were relatively meaningless before the emergence of the world wide web, which has transformed the possibilities for information exchange and the dissemination of ideas, and how we respond to them.

Beyond the possibilities of static media, the internet can be seen as a democratising force. It has allowed us to interact with our peers across the cultural, racial, political and religious boundaries of the physical world, precisely because there are few barriers to what we say and how we say it, other than the approval or approbation of our peers.

What makes the internet different is that, unlike newspapers or television, it is interactive. We can determine what we read and how we read it. We are the editors and the filters. We can speak and share our vision with our fellow citizens on the opposite side of the globe without the interference of spokesmen or intermediaries.

More:
Internet censorship: Let it rot in walled gardens

Local artists, theatre-goers and theatrical producers are displeased by the fact that the Censorship Repealing Bill is set to be relegated once again to make room for discussions about the IVF Bill, the Cohabitation Bill, and the Car Park Privatisation Bill.

Unifaun Theatre Company Director Adrian Buckle told di-ve.com that while he understands the importance of the other bills, he is very disappointed that the impending issue is not being given more precedence.

I have a feeling at this point that we will have to wait for a new legislature for this bill to be approved, he said, before claiming that Minister for Tourism, Culture and the Environment Mario De Marco seems to be the only voice in our favour in this affair.

When asked whether he thinks that should the Labour Party (PL) be elected in government, things would change, Mr Buckle revealed that he was personally promised by Dr Owen Bonnici that PL, if in Government, would pass the bill.

I will be holding PL to this promise. If the party is elected to power in the upcoming elections, I will be producing Stitching and then we will see if PL is as good as its promises to fight censorship, he maintained.

The play "Stitching" was banned from being staged last year by the Film and Stage Classification Board. Penned by Scottish writer Anthony Nielson, "Stitching" addresses themes such as abortion and death.

An appeal to the Courts decision was made by the producers of the play in an effort to send out the message that the very banning of the play represented a denial of freedom of expression.

Mr Buckle told di-ve.com that board member Teresa Friggieri admitted to influencing the other members in reaching a decision to her liking by giving them notes on what to look for in the text. He also said that Joe Camilleri, another member on the board, admitted that he had no idea how the play ended, even though he had reread it a week earlier. Dione Mifsud, yet another member, said in court that his theatre experience was limited to his daughters school concerts and a couple of pantomimes.

Despite the Arts Councils determination to formulate an anti-censorship bill and make the public aware of it, this bill has been shrugged off by Parliament, which is choosing to focus on other issues.

View post:
Censorship Bill pushed aside by Parliament

Iran on Tuesday stepped up censorship of websites that usually give foreign currency rates for its pummelled money, the rial, as the exchange market remained virtually paralysed and under tight scrutiny.

Sites such as Mesghal.com and Mazanex.com had rates blanked out for the rial's value against many other nations' currencies, extending a censorship that previously applied to dollar and euro rates.

The market rate for gold coins was also missing.

In Tehran's money changing district, licensed bureaux were doing no business at the rate of 28,500 rials to the dollar imposed since Saturday by the central bank in an effort to reverse a collapse of the money last week.

Instead, a few black market dealers were offering the dollar at 35,000 rials -- close to the all-time low of more than 36,000 reached last week when the rial plunged 40 percent in value.

Iran's currency market has effectively been frozen since October 3, when protests erupted in central Tehran over the sliding rial.

Although shopkeepers and exchange bureaux have since reopened, they are doing little trade.

Merchants in the city's historic Grand Bazaar, which packs political weight in Iran, have greatly increased prices, to the dismay of shoppers. Several were refusing to sell goods until the currency situation stabilises.

Read the rest here:
Iran censors currency rates as rial suffers

Philippine President Benigno Aquino defended a new cybercrime law Friday amid a storm of protests from critics who say it will severely curb Internet freedoms and intimidate web users into self-censorship.

Aquino specifically backed one of the most controversial elements of the law, which mandates that people who post defamatory comments online be given much longer jail sentences than those who commit libel in traditional media.

"I do not agree that it (the provision on libel) should be removed. If you say something libellous through the Internet, then it is still libellous... no matter what the format," Aquino told reporters.

Another controversial element of the law, which went into effect on Wednesday, allows the government to monitor online activities, such as e-mail, video chats and instant messaging, without a warrant.

The government can also now close down websites it deems to be involved in criminal activities without a warrant.

Human rights groups, media organisations and web users have voiced their outrage at the law, with some saying it echoes the curbs on freedoms imposed by Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s.

Philippine social media has been alight with protests this week, while hackers have attacked government websites and 10 petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court calling for it to overturn the law.

Aquino, whose mother led the "people power" revolution that toppled Marcos from power in 1986, said he remained committed to freedom of speech.

But he said those freedoms were not unlimited.

Aquino gave a broad defence of the law, which also seeks to stamp out non-controversial cybercrimes such as fraud, identity theft, spamming and child pornography.

See the article here:
Philippine president defends cybercrime law

Twenty-six years since democracy was supposedly restored and media censorship ended, it is alarming to hear that Philippine President Aquino has signed into law Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

The Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA) joins the Filipino people in urging the Philippine Supreme Court to declare the cybercrime law unconstitutional.

Instead of signing a law that threatens anew not only the freedom of the press but also the freedom of millions of ordinary citizens who use the Internet, President Aquino should have instead worked for the immediate passage of the long-overdue Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.

We hope that when President Aquino comes to New Zealand on Oct. 22, 2012, he would have good news that the cybercrime law has been junked and the FOI bill has finally been passed.

The FOI bill must be passed if the Aquino administration is serious about taking the righteous path. Allowing citizens to access information about their elected public officials is crucial in ensuring accountability and promoting good governance.

In New Zealand, the Official Information Act has been in place for 30 years now.

With the cybercrime law that includes online libel, we are concerned that the Filipino peoples right to express their views and criticize erring public officials is seriously threatened. Journalists, anticorruption crusaders and ordinary citizens who express strong views against corrupt politicians would be sanctioned for merely expressing their views as cybercriminals.

With the cybercrime law, the Aquino administration has declared its own version of Marcos martial lawthe e-martial law, and now those in power may unjustly claim any information posted on the Internet to be libelous. Media censorship is back wholesale, and ordinary citizens are now more vulnerable to being charged with libel.

MURRAY HORTON,

secretary, Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa,

Continued here:
‘Media censorship is back…’