Part 1: Taking the censorship fight to the north
Ezra Levant takes his march against censorship to the depths of northern Canada. It #39;s a two-part special that begins tonight on The Source at 5PM ET. Don #39;t m...
By: HOTNEWS
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Part 1: Taking the censorship fight to the north - Video
Let #39;s Play Tony Hawk #39;s Pro Skater 4 Dual Commentary - Part 11 - CENSORSHIP
Tony Hawk #39;s Pro Skater 4 Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwocHcxFglvvMtrdvViJFFFu-L0BBT3PT Ahh. The shipyard. In this long-awaited series, Robby and Bill create another ridiculou...
By: Let #39;s Plays All Day
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Let's Play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 Dual Commentary - Part 11 - CENSORSHIP - Video
3 hours ago May. 21, 2014 - 10:28 AM PDT
Twitters ability to block certain tweets or users from being seen in specific countries, a somewhat Orwellian feature it calls the country-withheld content tool, seems to be getting more popular, according to the Chilling Effects clearinghouse, which tracks such things: tweets and/or users are now being blocked in Pakistan as well as Turkey, and a pro-Ukrainian account is apparently unavailable to users who try to view it from inside Russia, at the request of the government.
In much the same way that Google now shows different maps to users depending on whether they live in Russia or Ukraine, Twitter is shaping the view that its users have of the world around them. Is this a clever way of getting around censorship, or does it ultimately just disguise the problem?
Twitter first introduced the selective censorship tool in 2012, after repeated requests from a number of countries to remove tweets that were judged to be illegal, such as pro-Nazi comments in Germany. When it was launched, the company said that Twitter would do its best to avoid using it as much as possible and to remain the free-speech wing of the free-speech party, to use a phrase popularized by Twitters former general counsel Alex Macgillivray.
Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and an expert in the effects of social-media use during events like the Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, wrote at the time it was introduced that the policy was the best available way for Twitter to protect free speech while also trying to expand its network into new parts of the world. As she described it in a blog post:
In my opinion, with this policy, Twitter is fighting to protect free speech on Twitter as best it possibly can previously, when Twitter would take down content when forced to do so by a court order, it would disappear globally. Now, it will only be gone in the specific country in which the court order is applicable. This is a great improvement.
As Tufekci pointed out, Twitters approach is a lot better than that taken by Facebook, which routinely deletes content from its platform with little or no warning, and virtually no attempt at transparency. To take just one example, pages posted by dissidents in Syria that are devoted to the chemical weapon attacks of last year are being deleted, which blogger Brown Moses has pointed out is thereby depriving the world of a crucial record of those events.
Its also true that Twitter has a much better track record of fighting for the free-speech rights of its users than just about any other platform: it alerted users that the Justice Department was asking for their personal information in relation to a WikiLeaks investigation, even though it was asked not to do so, and it fought hard in a French court for the right not to turn over user data related to tweets that broke that countrys laws on homophobia and anti-Semitic content.
All that said, however, not everyone is convinced that selective censorship is the best possible approach for Twitter to take. Jillian York, the Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, seemed frustrated by the companys increasing use of the country-withheld content tool, judging by some of her comments on Twitter and some critics of Tufekcis stance on the issue have argued that the feature actually makes the problem worse by making it less obvious that censorship has occurred.
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Twitters selective censorship of tweets may be the best option, but its still censorship
Thai Military Declares Martial Law Seeks Peace and Order
Thailand News.Net - Tuesday 20th May, 2014
BANGKOK ?? Thailand's military has declared martial law, saying it did so to keep "peace and order" after months of sometimes violent anti-government protests, the army chief said. In a ...
Thailand News.Net - Monday 19th May, 2014
Thailand was declared being under martial law Tuesday in the face of a looming street chaos in the Thai capital. Army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha declared martial rule at 03. 00 a.m. Tuesday with ...
West Australian - Wednesday 21st May, 2014
Bangkok (AFP) - Thailand's army chief could be lining up the pieces for an end-game to a deadly political crisis, but risks raising the stakes even higher given the threat of a violent backlash ...
The National - Wednesday 21st May, 2014
The countrys highest-profile political figures including the acting prime minister and anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, but talks ended without ...
The Globe and Mail - Wednesday 21st May, 2014
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Voice TV appeals against censorship order
World Press Freedom Day was observed on 3 May as usual this year. It marks one of the handful of moral absolutes in our civilisation: the desire for journalists to hold the powerful to account and document current events. But it also presents an opportunity for media professionals to reflect on their practice.
Two events in the wake of this year's observance suggest that there is room for science journalists to think more about how censorship affects their work.
First, I chaired a session at the 13th International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference (PCST2014), held in Brazil earlier this month (5-8 May), which examined how power can be wielded to silence science journalism. Then the recent calls for the closure - or at least a reboot - of the UK Science Media Centre because of its perceived ties to lobbyists have sparked something of a debate.
These two events raised various issues. Perhaps most strikingly, they highlighted the paucity of rigorous studies on the impact of censorship on science journalism. At the PCST meeting, a number of delegates said they rarely thought of science journalism as a field affected by censorship. This is worrying. SciDev.Net works with more than 400 correspondents around the world and many complain that the biggest threat to their livelihoods is getting access to scientists.
Our experience indicates that this is at least in part because of censorship: when our organisation has tried to survey science journalists about how they obtain information, we found various government ministries - particularly, but not uniquely, in north Africa - wanted to vet our questions.
Developed world concerns
This is not only an issue for the developing world. Journalist and academic Kathryn O'Hara of Carleton University, Canada, has observed that the strictures the Canadian government has placed on the research community mean there are now four times as many people employed to restrict access to information as there are to facilitate it. In the United States, an editor at Scientific American claimed last month he was censored during a program on Fox News. [1]
Wendy Yared, director of the Association of European Cancer Leagues, addressing the World Conference of Science Journalists in Finland last year, said that the control lobbyists have on policy and the media in Europe was a major strategic concern to her.
Read more:
Africa: Is Science Journalism Ignoring Censorship?