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SINA said in a regulatory filing Friday night, "Government regulation and censorship of information disseminated over the Internet in China may adversely affect our ability to operate Weibo...Although we attempt to monitor the content posted on Weibo, we may not always be able to effectively control or restrict the content generated or placed on Weibo by our users and the PRC government may increase the level of Internet censorship. On March 31, 2012, we had to disable the comment feature of Weibo for three days to clean up comments related to certain rumors that were posted on our website. If in the future the PRC government authorities decide to restrict the dissemination of information via microblogging services or online postings in general, Weibo could be impaired or even ordered to shut down, which may adversely impact our website traffic, ability to monetize this aspect of our business and our brand equity. Furthermore, we may be subject to claims based on the user-generated content posted on Weibo."

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SINA says censorship may affect ability to operate Weibo

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Calcutta News.Net Wednesday 2nd May, 2012 (IANS)

Violence and censorship against mediapersons are a "threat" to democracy and also constrains their ability to operate freely, an international body of journalists said Wednesday.

The Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA) also condemned state repression against media in countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

"Without a free press and freedom of expression, governments can impose bad policy and abuse power with impunity," said Rita Payne, president of CJA, underlining the consensus at a meet on 'Threats to Democracy'.

Violence and censorship remains an everyday threat for many journalists and such constraints their ability to operate, the CJA said in a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day May 3.

"The CJA unanimously condemns instances of state repression against media reported out of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and some African member states of the Commonwealth," Payne said.

"With some Commonwealth countries, including India and Pakistan resisting a draft UN Action Plan on safety of journalists, the CJA warned that democracy itself is under threat due to constraints on the ability of journalists to operate," she added.

Putting action to words, the CJA has endorsed the Table Mountain Declaration, aimed at abolishing criminal defamation and promoting a free press in Africa.

In 2011, 179 journalists were imprisoned worldwide, up from 145 the previous year while another 67 were killed last year; 17 more so far this year. They were murdered, killed on dangerous assignments or died in crossfire, Payne said.

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'Censorship on journalists a threat to democracy'

The convergence Review has suggested that ownership laws be replaced. Photo: Steve Christo

MEDIA cross-ownership laws in Australia would be scrapped and replaced with ''minimum number of owners'' and ''national public interest'' tests, under proposals put to the federal government yesterday.

The long-awaited Convergence Review, chaired by former local IBM boss Glen Boreham, recommended the abolition of laws that carved up the media landscape into the categories of television, radio stations and print.

The old structure should no longer apply as traditional media players move online and content is delivered in new ways, the review argues. Instead, it says: ''Ownership of local media should continue to be regulated through a 'a minimum number of owners' rule.''

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The review said a new government-funded cross-media regulator should decide the minimum number of owners and use as a starting point the current ''4/5 rule'', which calls for the existence of at least five separate media groups in a metropolitan radio licence area, and four in regional areas. The new watchdog should apply a general diversity test to prevent ''a concentration of services in the hands of a small number of operators''. But the changes would not require any forced sales by existing players, applying only to future changes, it says.

In addition to diversity tests, a ''public interest test'' should also apply to any changes in control. Such a test should consider whether the merger, sale or takeover of a media company would reduce either the number of owners in Australia or the range of content.

And the public interest should consider ''whether the person taking control would represent a significant risk that the content service enterprise would not comply with its obligations''.

But the review failed to provide enough detail on how the test would apply, critics warned, and would open the way for government interference. ''News Limited opposes the recommended so-called 'public interest' test in relation to media ownership,'' said chief executive Kim Williams said. ''This test is unnecessary, given the extensive pro-competition powers of the ACCC. It is exceedingly vague and imprecise, will increase business uncertainty and will be subject to political interference.''

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull agreed, saying the test ''would in effect mean the politicisation of decisions involving changes of control''.

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Overhaul old media laws: review

LONDON Over 60 years, Rupert Murdoch built a media empire using his properties and their profits not just to break down the doors to the British establishment, but also to control it.

So Tuesday's scathing declaration by a British parliamentary committee that Murdoch is "not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company" may mark the moment when the once-tamed establishment lost its fear of the country's most powerful media titan.

The report was Parliament's response to the illegal phone-hacking scandal that began at the Murdoch-owned tabloid News of the World and led to the arrests of several senior lieutenants across the global sprawl of his News Corp.

The committee said Murdoch "turned a blind eye and exhibited willful blindness" to the phone hacking that was rampant at his newspapers, shredding the defense mounted by the company that its senior executives were unaware of the possibly criminal shenanigans of reporters.

It alleged that Murdoch's son James showed poor leadership in failing to get to the bottom of the hacking. And it accused three senior executives at News Corp. and the now-defunct News of the World, including Les Hinton, one of Murdoch's closest associates, of misleading Parliament about the pervasiveness of snooping into cellphones.

The damning assessment of corporate character was a blow to Murdoch, who is seeing his closest lieutenants discredited and his family control of News Corp assailed.

"Just think of it as part of a tide, an ever-increasing, unstoppable, inevitable tidal wave," said Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff. "It just accrues. Every piece of news is worse than the last piece of news. It's something that they can't get out from under. They can't stop it. And it has their name on it."

In addition to tarnishing Murdoch's reputation, the committee's findings may have implications for his business interests.

Questioning his fitness to lead a company could have bearing on his almost 40% controlling stake in British Sky Broadcasting. British regulatory authorities are charged with determining whether major stakeholders such as Murdoch are "fit and proper" owners of mass media in Britain, and the agency overseeing BSkyB said it would take the parliamentary committee's findings into consideration in its review of Murdoch's ownership.

And the report swiftly added to pressure on Murdoch's U.S. properties. A Washington-based ethics group called on the Federal Communications Commission to revoke 27 Murdoch-owned television licenses, citing the British parliamentary report as evidence the Murdochs fall short of the necessary good character standards to be entrusted with a broadcast license.

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Report questions Rupert Murdoch's fitness to lead News Corp.

30-04-2012 16:43 Improving Access to Your Social Accounts - There are many ways in which you can link social media accounts and access them through a single system, but as yet none of these systems quite pull everything together in the way that we would wish. Accessing accounts remains a system wherein multiple web pages load up automatically when we log into the computer. From these web pages there then necessarily needs to be a short search to find any recent activity. All of this is very time consuming, so surely there is a better way? The answer is soon to arrive through the innovations of the Windows 8 ISO. This system is set to combine all of your social media with apps and other online integrated tiles. The free Windows 8 download will give you a good idea about how this will work when the system is finally released in October, but there is a huge potential for this system. The new Microsoft offering will utilize the Metro user interface, a system it introduced in 2011 as the system to run the Windows phone. The Windows phone was a huge success technologically but it was somewhat overshadowed by the sheer market dominance of Apple. Metro, however, will offer users a greatly increased level of access to and management of social media networks. The system works with a series of tiles that will be made up of apps and web links. These tiles will be constantly updating from the web in a live manner that will allow you to view things as they happen. For your ...

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Social Media Networking | Improving Access to Your Social Accounts - Video