Mediaboss Marketing

Mar. 14, 2014

Russian authorities block three websites and blog, including platforms used by opposition leaders Aleksei A Navalny and Garry K Kasparov, saying sites encourage illegal activities; move follows appointment of pro-Kremlin journalist to lead independent Russian news site Lenta.ru after site published interview with Ukranian nationalist organization.MORE

Op-Ed article by Google executives Eric E Schmidt and Jared Cohen outlines challenges of confronting Internet censorship across the globe; contends that technology to defeat censorship exists, but making it available to everyone requires more money and attention from private companies and governments.MORE

Turkish Pres Abdullah Gul says he will not go along with Prime Min Recep Tayyip Erdogan's pledge to shut down Facebook and YouTube following local elections; thousands in Ankara and Istanbul have taken to streets to protest Internet restrictions and corruption in the government.MORE

Op-Ed article by Prof Wendy Doniger submits India's banning of her book The Hindus: An Alternative History on blasphemy charges has had unintended effect of highlighting problems posed by country's blasphemy laws; says ban points to outsized influence of Hindu fundamentalists in Indian political discourse; holds book defends forgotten aspects of Hinduism, while fundamentalists are in essence attacking their own religion.MORE

Editorial contends decision by Penguin India to withdraw from publication and pulp copies of Wendy Doniger book The Hindus: An Alternative History is only the latest assault on free speech in India; warns publisher's decision is likely to encourage more demands for censorship.MORE

Author Wendy Doniger, professor of history of religions at University of Chicago, is not surprised that Penguin Books in India has chosen to recall and destroy all copies of her book The Hindus: An Alternative History in order to comply with county's law which bans acts 'intended to outrage religious feelings.'MORE

Venezuelan Pres Nicolas Maduro says that Colombia-based cable news channel NTN24 was ordered to be removed from cable lineups in Venzuela because of its coverage of an antigovernment protest.MORE

Op-Ed article by writer Yu Hua submits that in order to better understand state of self-expression in China, one may look to microblogging site Weibo and comments critical of Communist Party posted there; says absence, presence or censorship of such comments reflects pendulum swing of government's permissiveness toward public criticism; holds that while government has power to dampen such voices, it cannot silence them completely.MORE

Hong Kong resident Yiu Mantin has been held in China for three months after being arrested there on charges of smuggling; friends and family of Yiu, retired engineer with second career in book publishing, say he was arrested because of his plans to distribute Yu Jie book Godfather of China Xi Jinping, a withering denunciation of Pres Xi Jinping.MORE

Read the original here:
Censorship - News - Times Topics - The New York Times