Billy Mandy Australian Censorship - Episode 11a - Billy #39;s Growth Spurt
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Billy & Mandy Australian Censorship - Episode 11a - Billy's Growth Spurt - Video
On the afternoon of 17 June 2013, a group of friends gathered in a fourth-floor apartment in downtown Cairo. They sat on the floor because there were no chairs; there were also no desks, no shelves, and no ashtrays. A sign on the door, written in black marker, read Office of the Artists Formerly Known as Egypt Independent. What they had was a name Mada, which means span or range in Arabic, had been chosen after much debate and many emails between 24 people and a plan to set up an independent news outlet. Most of them had not seen each other since their former employer, a newspaper called Egypt Independent, closed two months before.
Lina Attalah, the ventures founder and editor-in-chief, called the meeting to order. Designers were rushing to finish the website; a team was drafting a business plan; half a dozen grant applications were pending. The update is: theres no money, she said, to laughter, but we have a lot of promises. Im working on the faith that the money will be there. She signed off on 17 articles to be delivered over the next week. Lina is dark-eyed and fine-boned, with long black hair; she speaks in lengthy and well-wrought sentences that suggest a professor teaching a graduate seminar. Nothing in her demeanour betrayed the pressures she felt. The company had no cash to pay its writers. She was covering the rent and furnishing the office out of her own pocket. This would be, by her count, her seventh news venture; many of the previous ones had folded owing to the hostility of successive governments towards independent-minded journalists (I have a history of setting up places that close). Although she was only 30 and didnt have a husband or children, Lina was accustomed to taking care of other people.
The website had to launch by 30 June, the day that a mass demonstration calling for the resignation of Mohamed Morsi, Egypts president, was planned. Lina was determined about that I want everyone to be a journalist on that day but otherwise her timing could not have been worse. In the previous two and a half years, investment in Egypt had dried up; many foreign companies had evacuated their staff during the 2011 revolution and not returned. Morsis year in office had seen decreasing stability and a stagnant economy. Whatever came next people were calling for the army to step in could be more repressive.
I think it could just be slow-motion state failure, Lina said.
Not state failure, objected Dina Hussein, a close friend from college and the new websites opinion editor. Of course, the infrastructure is shit, theres no electricity
Thats what Im talking about, Lina interrupted. Not complete collapse.
Lebanon, not Somalia, Dina said.
It could be state failure for the next 10 years, Lina said.
Everything about the project belied this pessimism. Mada Masr would be an independent online newspaper, owned by employees whose average age was 25, in a country where news production was controlled by the government or large conglomerates. It would produce stories, in English and Arabic, and make money from online advertising and side businesses in research, editing and translation. The company would be run as a democracy in a country that had never seen such a system, by employees who, by and large, had not experienced it in practice. Egypt was ostensibly on a parallel course of building a democratic and sustainable state; both ventures were perilous, fraught with uncertainty, and short of money. In the year and a half to come, Madas goals would prove more daunting than its founders imagined. A military coup, set into motion three days after the website launched, would lead to the ruthless suppression of dissenting voices. Mada would emerge as one of the very few independent news sources in the country.
The Mada site went live in the early-morning hours of 30 June, right on schedule a miracle in a country where neither a presidential debate nor a talkshow named 10 OClock at Night begins on time. Around five the next afternoon, I came out of an interview with a reporter at the Mada office. The army had just announced that it would intervene in 48 hours if the president did not respond to the peoples demands. Lina sat at the head of the conference table, with editors and reporters along both sides. Everyone had their head down. The only sound was the gentle clicking of fingers on keyboards they were translating the military declaration into English. I felt as if I had opened a wrong door and walked in on a strangers funeral.
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The news website thats keeping press freedom alive in Egypt | Leslie T Chang
China is boosting internet censorship to keep people from accessing sites like Google.
HONG KONG (CNNMoney)
The action, confirmed by state media, has affected VPN providers including Astrill, Strong VPN and Golden Frog, which have all reported trouble with connectivity in China, particularly on mobile devices.
China has long blocked access to what it deems as sensitive Internet content -- political commentary, foreign news outlets and sites like Google. Access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are also blocked in China.
Taken together, the restrictions constitute the world's largest -- and most effective -- state-sponsored censorship program. The effort, officially called "Golden Shield," is more than a decade old.
Using a VPN allows Chinese and foreigners alike to circumvent the Great Firewall. For around $10 a month, users are able to access blocked websites, Gmail and even Netflix.
Chinese state media described the crackdown as a "healthy development" for the Internet, and one needed to shore up cybersecurity. It follows a move to tighten access to Google's email service that began late last year.
Should the VPN blackout persist -- or expand -- it would be a real headache for companies that rely on the workaround to conduct business.
Related: The Great Firewall of China is nearly complete
Winger Chen, who owns a food and beverage consulting company in China, has always "felt some frustration with [spotty connectivity]," but considers it to be "just part of doing business in China."
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China adds another brick to Great Firewall
China is boosting internet censorship to keep people from accessing sites like Google.
HONG KONG (CNNMoney)
The action, confirmed by state media, has affected VPN providers including Astrill, Strong VPN and Golden Frog, which have all reported trouble with connectivity in China, particularly on mobile devices.
China has long blocked access to what it deems as sensitive Internet content -- political commentary, foreign news outlets and sites like Google. Access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are also blocked in China.
Taken together, the restrictions constitute the world's largest -- and most effective -- state-sponsored censorship program. The effort, officially called "Golden Shield," is more than a decade old.
Using a VPN allows Chinese and foreigners alike to circumvent the Great Firewall. For around $10 a month, users are able to access blocked websites, Gmail and even Netflix.
Chinese state media described the crackdown as a "healthy development" for the Internet, and one needed to shore up cybersecurity. It follows a move to tighten access to Google's email service that began late last year.
Should the VPN blackout persist -- or expand -- it would be a real headache for companies that rely on the workaround to conduct business.
Related: The Great Firewall of China is nearly complete
Winger Chen, who owns a food and beverage consulting company in China, has always "felt some frustration with [spotty connectivity]," but considers it to be "just part of doing business in China."
Read the rest here:
China crackdown makes it harder to get around the Great Firewall
China has defended its growing attempts to control the Internet, after disrupting several services that allowed users to view the Web free of censorship.
As the Internet develops, and new circumstances arise, we will take new regulatory measures to keep up, said Wen Ku, a director with Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, at a news conference on Tuesday.
The statement doesnt bode well for providers of virtual private networks (VPNs). These services can allow users to circumvent Chinas censorship and access the Internet unfiltered.
Last week, VPN providers including Astrill, StrongVPN, and Golden Frog reported access problems with their services.
In the case of Astrill, China has been disrupting the VPN protocols it once used to provide unfiltered Internet access to iOS devices, the company said in a posting for customers. We know how access to unrestricted Internet is important for you, so our fight with Chinese censors is not over, the VPN provider added in a later posting.
In China, the Internets development must follow Chinas rules and regulations, Wen said, when reporters asked about the growing censorship and the logic behind the new measures. Certain harmful content will be regulated according to Chinese law.
But the ministry wasnt concerned that the censorship might disrupt the local Internet industry. Wen pointed to the success of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, and the companys massive initial public offering on the U.S. stock market, as an example.
Everyone can see that this is all because of the Chinese governments policy safeguarding the environment for the developing Internet industry, he said.
In recent months, Chinas Internet has become more censored than ever. The government has already blocked Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Last year it began cutting access to all Google services, in addition to several foreign mobile apps.
VPN services are gaining popularity among some sections of the Chinese public, and have become a convenient way to access popular foreign sites not allowed in the country.
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China signals censors will continue to crack down on VPN services