Archive for the ‘Censorship’ Category

On Eve of Tiananmen Anniversary, a Major Censorship Shift

By Paul Mozur

Beginning early Friday morning, users of Sina Corp. s massively popular Weibo microblog were able to search for information about one of the most sensitive incidents in recent Chinese history: the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

In a serious shift of censorship tactics just days ahead of the anniversary of the governments bloody June 4, 1989 crackdown on protestors in Tiananmen, Sina appears to have begun to allow searches for terms associated with the highly sensitive event. But instead of turning up content related to the incident, searches yield results that have nothing to do with the protests or the governments heavy-handed response.

The move represents a significant jump in the sophistication of censorship capabilities of the company, according to Greatfire.org, an organization that monitors Chinese censorship and first reported on the change in tactics on Friday.

Companies like Sina and Tencent Holdings Ltd. that run microblogs are left to censor content on their own by the Chinese government, according to analysts. The government only acts when it decides too much sensitive information is getting through the companies censors, as happened last year when Beijing suspended the commenting function on the two companies microblogs after rumors of a coup in Beijing spread across the Internet.

In the past, searches for most sensitive results returned an error message or a notice informing users that results could not be displayed due to government regulations. For those sensitive terms that could be searched, a filtered list of results from roughly a week in the past would be displayed.

Now Sina seems to have the capability to return a cleaned up list of search results of posts put up within an hour, a significant technological jump according to Greatfire.org. The effect is that users searching for sensitive terms are more likely to believe posters are actively discussing the subject, but not saying anything controversial.

On Friday, a China Real Time search for Tiananmen Incident did not return the customary message from Sina informing the user that search results could not be displayed due to relevant laws, regulations and policies. Instead the search returned results about a separate Tiananmen incident that occurred on Tomb Sweeping Day in 1976, when Beijing residents flooded the area to protest after they were prevented from mourning the recently deceased Premiere Zhou Enlai.

That incident led to the purge of Deng Xiaoping, who deemed the protests an act of patriotism when he returned to power in 1978.

Searches for other Tiananmen-related terms like the date 6/4 turn up only posts that incidentally make use of the date without referring in any way to the 1989 protests and killings.

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On Eve of Tiananmen Anniversary, a Major Censorship Shift

Woolwich Muslim Terrorist attack – UK censorship – Video


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Woolwich Muslim Terrorist attack - UK censorship - Video

Best of Unnecessary Censorship – Video


Best of Unnecessary Censorship

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Best of Unnecessary Censorship - Video

Singapore Broadens Censorship of Online News

Anthony Chen's "Ilo Ilo" is the first Singaporean feature to win a major award at Cannes.

The Singaporean government on Tuesday introduced new measures designed to control Internet news sites that report regularly on the city-states politics and current affairs. The move has led to a wave of criticism from local media outlets and opposition political groups, which have labeled the measures regressive and harmful to the territorys already curtailed press freedoms. The regulations will initially affect 10 news sites that cover Singapore, including a site owned and operated by Yahoo and several outlets run by two local media groups with ties to the Singaporean government.

The new rules, introduced by Singapores Media Development Authority, require that the sites apply for individual licenses, which will be renewed annually. The sites will then need to pay a performance bond of about $40,000 (50,000 Singaporean dollars) and are required to remove any content deemed objectionable within 24 hours. The censorship framework is an extension of existing regulations for all Internet sites in the country, which ban any content perceived as offensive to morality, state security, public interest and social harmony.

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Many observers expect that the regulatory regime will soon be broadened to apply to additional local news sites, as the rules are loosely defined as applying to all sites that report on Singapore at least once a week and receive a minimum 50,000 unique visitors a month from within the city-state.

A government minister told local press that the MDA plans to pass laws next year to include overseas sites that report on Singapore under the new licensing requirements.

"We are not in a position to respond until we receive the actual license conditions for review," Alan Soon, Yahoo's Singapore country manager, said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.

Alex Au, a prominent local political blogger, told the Journal that new laws will have a chilling effect on the online media," since regulators will be able to issue censorship requests without transparency or public scrutiny.

In public statements made Wednesday, opposition parties Singapore Democratic Party and National Solidarity Party called the new regulations a regressive move that will hamper the development of the local media industry.

Singapore has been run by a single party -- the Peoples Action Party -- since 1959. In the 2011 Singapore general election, the PAP won 81 of the 87 contested seats in the Singaporean parliament. Despite its repressive grip on local media, the PAP has been credited with steering the country into a period of widespread wealth and prosperity. According to a report by Boston Consulting Group last year, one in six Singaporean households have disposable private wealth of over $1 million, excluding property, businesses holdings and luxury goods.

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Singapore Broadens Censorship of Online News

topless beach youtube censorship, loud obnoxious kids sun 31 mar 2013 George Godley Tenerife – Video


topless beach youtube censorship, loud obnoxious kids sun 31 mar 2013 George Godley Tenerife
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topless beach youtube censorship, loud obnoxious kids sun 31 mar 2013 George Godley Tenerife - Video