The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 42,000 people worldwide according to Johns Hopkins University, but the figure may be far from reality as countries like Turkmenistan take drastic steps to suppress information about the spread of pandemic.

A recent report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reveals that the central Asian country has banned the word Coronavirus as the country continues to deny any information on the spread of virus.

According to Turkmenistan Chronicle, one of the few sources of independent news, the state-controlled media are no longer allowed to use the word and it has even been removed from health information brochures distributed in schools, hospitals and workplaces.

There is no data available on the number of coronavirus patients in the country. A correspondent of Chronicles of Turkmenistan reports from the infectious diseases hospital in Ashgabat that a lot of patients with respiratory infections have been admitted to the hospital but all of them are officially diagnosed with acute respiratory viral infection.

According to journalists based in the capital, Ashgabat, who report for Radio Azatlyk, the Turkmen language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, people wearing face masks or talking about the coronavirus on the street, at bus stops or in lines outside shops are liable to be arrested by plainclothes police.

The Turkmen authorities have lived up to their reputation by adopting this extreme method for eradicating all information about the coronavirus, said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSFs Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

However, a report by Turkmenistan Chronicle says, despite the official statements about no confirmed cases, large-scale prevention measures are underway in the country. In public places and bank officers people are provided with sanitizers to wipe their hands and are requested to use a mouth spray; at the train stations and at entry checkpoints in Ashgabat residents get their temperature taken; the municipal buses are disinfected with a chlorine solution. Even bus stops are washed with an unidentified sanitizer.

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Turkmenistan bans the word Coronavirus, wearing of masks, in a major censorship move - The Statesman

As more and more U.S. schools and businesses shutter their doors, the rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic is helping to expose societys dependencegood and badon the digital world.

Entire swaths of society, including classes we teach at American University, have moved online until the coast is clear. As vast segments of society are temporarily forced into isolation to achieve social distancing, the internet is their window into the world. Online social events like virtual happy hours foster a sense of connectedness amid social distancing. While the online world is often portrayed as a societal ill, this pandemic is a reminder of how much the digital world has to offer.

The pandemic also lays bare the many vulnerabilities created by societys dependence on the internet. These include the dangerous consequences of censorship, the constantly morphing spread of disinformation, supply chain vulnerabilities and the risks of weak cybersecurity.

1. Chinas censorship affects us all.

The global pandemic reminds us that even local censorship can have global ramifications. Chinas early suppression of coronavirus information likely contributed to what is now a worldwide pandemic. Had the doctor in Wuhan who spotted the outbreak been able to speak freely, public health authorities might have been able to do more to contain it early.

China is not alone. Much of the world lives in countries that impose controls on what can and cannot be said about their governments online. Such censorship is not just a free speech issue, but a public health issue as well. Technologies that circumvent censorship are increasingly a matter of life and death.

2. Disinformation online isnt just speechits also a matter of health and safety.

During a public health emergency, sharing accurate information rapidly is critical. Social media can be an effective tool for doing just that. But its also a source of disinformation and manipulation in ways that can threaten global health and personal safety something tech companies are desperately, yet imperfectly, trying to combat.

Facebook, for example, has banned ads selling face masks or promising false preventions or cures, while giving the World Health Organization unlimited ad space. Twitter is placing links to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other reliable information sources atop search returns. Meanwhile, Russia and others reportedly are spreading rumors about the coronaviruss origins. Others are using the coronavirus to spread racist vitriol, in ways that put individuals at risk.

Not only does COVID-19 warn us of the costs and geopolitics of disinformation, it highlights the roles and responsibilities of the private sector in confronting these risks. Figuring out how to do so effectively, without suppressing legitimate critics, is one of the greatest challenges for the next decade.

3. Cyber resiliency and security matter more than ever.

Our university has moved our work online. We are holding meetings by video chat and conducting virtual courses. While many dont have this luxury, including those on the front lines of health and public safety or newly unemployed, thousands of other universities, businesses and other institutions also moved online a testament to the benefits of technological innovation.

At the same time, these moves remind us of the importance of strong encryption, reliable networks and effective cyber defenses. Today network outages are not just about losing access to Netflix but about losing livelihoods. Cyber insecurity is also a threat to public health, such as when ransomware attacks disrupt entire medical facilities.

4. Smart technologies as a lifeline.

The virus also exposes the promise and risks of the internet of things, the globe-spanning web of always-on, always-connected cameras, thermostats, alarm systems and other physical objects. Smart thermometers, blood pressure monitors and other medical devices are increasingly connected to the web. This makes it easier for people with pre-existing conditions to manage their health at home, rather than having to seek treatment in a medical facility where they are at much greater risk of exposure to the disease.

Yet this reliance on the internet of things carries risks. Insecure smart devices can be co-opted to disrupt democracy and society, such as when the Mirai botnet hijacked home appliances to disrupt critical news and information sites in the fall of 2016. When digitally interconnected devices are attacked, their benefits suddenly disappear adding to the sense of crisis and sending those dependent on connected home diagnostic tools into already overcrowded hospitals.

5. Tech supply chain is a point of vulnerability.

The shutdown of Chinese factories in the wake of the pandemic interrupted the supply of critical parts to many industries, including the U.S. tech sector. Even Apple had to temporarily halt production of the iPhone. Had China not begun to recover, the toll on the global economy could have been even greater than it is now.

This interdependence of our supply chain is neither new nor tech-specific. Manufacturing medical and otherwise has long depended on parts from all over the world. The crisis serves as a reminder of the global, complex interactions of the many companies that produce gadgets, phones, computers and many other products on which the economy and society as a whole depend. Even if the virus had never traveled outside of China, the effects would have reverberated highlighting ways in which even local crises have global ramifications.

Cyber Policy in Everything

As the next phase of the pandemic response unfolds, society will be grappling with more and more difficult questions. Among the many challenges are complex choices about how to curb the spread of the disease while preserving core freedoms. How much tracking and surveillance are people willing to accept as a means of protecting public health?

As Laura explains in The Internet in Everything, cyber policy is now entangled with everything, including health, the environment and consumer safety. Choices that we make now, about cybersecurity, speech online, encryption policies and product design will have dramatic ramifications for health, security and basic human flourishing.

Laura DeNardis is a professor of communication studies at American University School of Communication and Jennifer Daskal is a professor of law and faculty director of the Technology, Law & Security Program at American University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Society's Dependence on the Internet: 5 Cyber Issues the Coronavirus Lays Bare - Nextgov

On Tuesday, it emerged that the Indian government had asked the Supreme Court to legalise censorship. Claiming that there is a high chance of panicked reactions based on any deliberate or unintended fake or inaccurate reporting, it urged the court to issue orders that would not allow any news to be published or broadcast without media organisations first ascertaining the true factual position meaning whatever the government says.

The Supreme Court ultimately chose not to institute a system of censorship, but accepted the governments dubious claim that the mass exodus of migrant workers over the last week was due to fake news. We do not intend to interfere with the free discussion about the pandemic, but direct the media refer to and publish the official version about the developments, the court said in its verdict.

The problem with these contentions is that they miss the actual reason for panic in the country over the last two weeks.

First there was a wave of panic buying in Indias markets even before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a self-imposed janata curfew, simply because of his reputation for political unpredictability.

There was even more panic buying after Modis second speech, because he did not clearly explain to people how they could get food and medicines during the three-week shutdown, prompting the prime minister to tweet in all caps, THERE IS NO NEED TO PANIC.

Finally, the migrant labour exodus began as soon as it became clear that lockdowns were being considered and that work and wages would dry up. In Delhi, as the Bharatiya Janata Party sought to wriggle out of responsibility for the masses of workers heading out of the city, it floated the theory that the flight had been caused by the actions of the Aam Aadmi Party government. It did not identify the media as the villain.

It is clear thaat the panic and rumours have come about not because of the media but because of the lack of information from the government. The courts directions to the media that it must take the official version are a problem because, in many cases, the government has simply not been forthcoming.

The government has made it difficult to access most information whether it is data on the number of people who have been confirmed with Covid-19, how much testing India is doing, whether the government has sufficient stockpiles of safety equipment, what the spread of the disease looks like, why there were major delays in sourcing of gear for healthcare workers, the technical specifications for testing kits approved for use in India, and much more.

In many cases, it was only after repeated questioning that the government issued the information at all. In fact, there has been so much stone-walling that a collective of health reporters across various news organisations decided to publish this list of 10 questions that the government needs to answer.

This lack of transparency is short-sighted. By refusing to give information, or not creating the systems for easy dissemination, the government may believe it can better control the narrative. But diseases cannot be beaten by winning the narrative.

Here are three reasons why the government should be much more transparent.

In this age of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, a limited amount of information from the government will only lead to more speculation about the situation. The best way to combat this is by providing precise, detailed information and to disseminate it widely.

There is undoubtedly fake news going around but the best way to defeat it would be for the government to answer all the questions that journalists pose and ensure that any citizen can easily access information. Hiding data, delaying numbers and refusing to answer questions does not inspire any confidence. It will only inspire more rumours.

For India to effectively battle the pandemic, officials from the local level up to the Central as well as many in the private sector must be focused on taking on Covid-19 right now. Yet the government has not even been transparent about which testing kits for the coronavirus have been approved for use by private companies and state governments.

This may just have been an oversight. But it is only when the media is free to ask questions that the governments attention will be drawn to such crucial gaps in information that could have a direct bearing on how successful India is in its fight against Covid-19.

This is not just about looking bad under media questioning. This is about having all the information to address the Coronavirus crisis.

No one criticises the government for not already having a vaccine to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. Why? Because people understand that this is a new phenomenon that has precipitated a global crisis and will take all the best efforts of governments and individuals all over the world to combat.

Indeed, we need to look far beyond the capabilities of just the Indian state. The Principal Scientific Adviser to the government of India has called on the countryslarge pool of scientists and companies working in the field of science to help take on this challenge. The NITI Aayog has called for doctors to volunteer to tackle the outbreak. Many in Indias Information Technology sector organsed a hackathon to develop apps that can assist in the battle.

Indeed, much of the worlds responses to Covid-19 have been aided by involvement of private individuals, whether researchers or coders or medical professionals.

But for government to enlist the public in this battle whether it is a medical scholar in a small town that needs to know which testing kits are approved or an I-T professional who needs more data about testing to design better analytics or a high-net-worth individual who wants to source and distribute protective equipment but doesnt know whether India is lacking them and which part of the country has insufficient stockpiles it will only be possible if authorities are forthcoming with information.

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Indias government wants to censor the media to fight Covid-19 but transparency is a better weapon - Scroll.in

Apart from the devastating crash that Bitcoin is currently facing, another potential threat to the pioneer cryptocurrency and the entire crypto industry at large is censorship from giant tech companies like YouTube.

In a recent bout of censorship, two separate crypto YouTube channels had videos deleted temporarily.

The two YouTubers who had their videos deleted include Ivan on Tech (a crypto programmer) and The Moon (a crypto reporter and technical analyst).

Both responded to the matter via twitter saying that they had received several strikes from YouTube about Bitcoin being harmful content.

YouTube has a long history of censoring crypto content.

At the tail end of 2019, many crypto YouTubers including seasoned content creators like Nicholas Merten received content strikes from YouTube despite not uploading videos for days.

In a tweet, Merten said,

In response, The MoonCarl also replied in a tweet that acknowledged a similar move by YouTube on his channel.

Other channels like Nugget News received up to two content strikes in a single day with 50 videos being removed from the channel.

Saunders, the owner of Nugget News, expressed fears of the channel getting deleted from YouTube in a tweet that read,

Also affected was a Canadian Bitcoin educator with a channel called BTCSessions and Chriss Dunn a crypto and finance reporter.

Following the crypto purge of 2019 on YouTube, an outrage emerged on twitter to which YouTube replied saying that the decision to ban Bitcoin and cryptocurrency videos from its site was an error and the removed videos would be reinstated.

It might be argued that the move was meant to protect consumers from scams.

However, for most onlookers as well as the entire crypto community, the move does not make any sense especially since Google and Facebook already lifted the crypto advertising ban in 2018.

Invezz asked Mati Greenspan, the founder of Quantum Economics, about his opinion on whether the current bout of crypto censorship is as a result of the companys hidden agenda or the result of an internal error.

In his reply, Greenspan said that it is difficult to know for sure but many in the community feel that the censorship is international.

He adds,

We could only speculate on why they might want to censor crypto content, perhaps it threatens their current future business model in some way.

While speaking to Decrypt, a YouTube spokesman said,

With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call.When its brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.

However, with recent reports indicating a continuation of the crypto ban on YouTube, the reasons for deletion crypto-related videos remains to be anyones guess.

While YouTube hasnt responded to the recent bout of censorship and why its still affecting crypto-related channels, some on twitter have suggested moving crypto content to decentralized platforms that are censorship-resistant.

In reaction to last years crypto purge on YouTube, Greenspan together with several crypto YouTubers moved to boycott YouTube.

This time around, when asked whether there are any other viable decentralized alternatives for crypto YouTubers, Greenspan replied,

Im not sure there are any viable decentralized options at this point. For myself though, Ive preferred not to stream on YouTube for the time being and instead am hosting live streams on Periscope and Twitter.

Weighing in on the matter, Chris Burniske, a renowned crypto influencer, tweeted that such violations by companies like YouTube, will push suppliers and consumers away from platforms and towards protocols.

Burniske also added that since platforms like YouTube are owned by shareholders and give no governance rights to suppliers and consumers and further centralize economic resources over time, the violations crypto YouTubers are facing currently are bound to repeatedly occur.

Censorship on platforms like YouTube has existed for a long time. While there are many theories on twitter explaining the reasons for the latest censorship bout, it is clear to most like Burniske that this will not be the end of it. Platforms like YouTube face pressure from different governments, advertisers, and organizations to remove a wide range of content. Perhaps its time for the crypto community to create their decentralized alternatives much like how Everipedia is disrupting the Wikipedia formula without the use of advertisement.

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YouTube continues to ban crypto content; None knows the reason - iNVEZZ

Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty ImagesPro-democracy activists holding pictures of missing citizen journalist Fang Bin and anti-corruption activistXu Zhiyong, who had been interrogating President Xi Jinpings handling of the Covid-19 crisis, at a protest outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, February 19, 2020

For authoritarian-minded leaders, the coronavirus crisis is offering a convenient pretext to silence critics and consolidate power. Censorship in China and elsewhere has fed the pandemic, helping to turn a potentially containable threat into a global calamity. The health crisis will inevitably subside, but autocratic governments dangerous expansion of power may be one of the pandemics most enduring legacies.

In times of crisis, peoples health depends at minimum on free access to timely, accurate information. The Chinese government illustrated the disastrous consequence of ignoring that reality. When doctors in Wuhan tried to sound the alarm in December about the new coronavirus, authorities silenced and reprimanded them. The failure to heed their warnings gave Covid-19 a devastating three-week head start. As millions of travelers left or passed through Wuhan, the virus spread across China and around the world.

Even now, the Chinese government is placing its political goals above public health. It claims that the coronavirus has been tamed but wont allow independent verification. It is expelling journalists from several leading US publications, including those that have produced incisive reporting, and has detained independent Chinese reporters who venture to Wuhan. Meanwhile, Beijing is pushing wild conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus, hoping to deflect attention from the tragic results of its early cover-up.

Others are following Chinas example. In Thailand, Cambodia, Venezuela, Bangladesh, and Turkey, governments are detaining journalists, opposition activists, healthcare workers, and anyone else who dares to criticize the official response to the coronavirus. Needless to say, ignorance-is-bliss is not an effective public health strategy.

When independent media is silenced, governments are able to promote self-serving propaganda rather than facts. Egypts President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, for example, downplayed the coronavirus threat for weeks, apparently wanting to avoid harming Egypts tourist industry. His government expelled a Guardian correspondent and warned a New York Times journalist after their articles questioned government figures on the number of coronavirus cases.

The government of Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan implausibly denies that there are any Covid-19 cases in its prisons, and a prosecutor is investigating a member of parliamenthimself a doctorwho says that a seventy-year-old inmate and a member of the prison staff have tested positive. Thailands Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-ocha warned journalists to report on government press conferences only and not to interview medical personnel in the field.

Of course, a free media is not a certain antidote. Responsible government is also needed. US President Donald Trump initially called the coronavirus a hoax. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called the virus a fantasy and preventive measures hysterical. Before belatedly telling people to stay home, Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador ostentatiously held rallies, and hugged, kissed, and shook hands with supporters. But at least a free media can highlight such irresponsibility; a silenced media allows it to proceed unchallenged.

Recognizing that the public is more willing to accept government power grabs in times of crisis, some leaders see the coronavirus as an opportunity not only to censor criticism but also to undermine checks and balances on their power. Much as the war on terrorism was used to justify certain long-lasting restrictions on civil liberties, so the fight against the coronavirus threatens longer-term damage to democratic rule.

Although Hungary has reported Covid-19 infections only in the hundreds to date, Prime Minister Viktor Orbn used his partys parliamentary majority to secure an indefinite state of emergency that enables him to rule by decree and imprison for up to five years any journalist who disseminates news that is deemed false. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has also awarded himself emergency powers to silence fake news.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces corruption charges, his justice minister cited the coronavirus to suspend courts for most cases, as did a close parliamentary ally as he attempted to prevent the oppositions new majority from ousting him as Knesset speakera move that the Israeli Supreme Court said undermin[ed] the foundations of the democratic process. The Trump administration has cited the coronavirus to discourage requests under the Freedom of Information Act, suddenly insisting they be made by only traditional mail, in spite of the greater public health safety of electronic communication.

Some governments are breathing a sigh of relief that the coronavirus has provided a convenient reason to limit political demonstrations. The Algerian government has halted regular protests seeking genuine democratic reform that have been under way for more than a year. The Russian government has stopped even single-person protests against Vladimir Putins plans to rip up term limits on his presidency. The Indian governments recently announced three-week lockdown conveniently ends the running protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modis anti-Muslim citizenship policies. It remains to be seen whether such restrictions outlive the coronavirus threat.

Other governments are using the coronavirus to intensify digital surveillance. China has deepened and extended the surveillance state that is most developed in Xinjiang, where it was used to identify some of the one million Uighur and other Turkic Muslims for detention and forced indoctrination. South Korea has broadcast detailed and highly revealing information about peoples movements to anyone who might have had contact with them. Israels government has cited the coronavirus to authorize its Shin Bet internal security agency to use vast amounts of location-tracking data from the cellphones of ordinary Israelis. In Moscow, Russia is installing one of the worlds largest surveillance camera systems equipped with facial recognition technology. As occurred after September 11, 2001, it may be difficult to put the surveillance genie back in the bottle after the crisis fades.

There is no question these are extraordinary times. International human rights law permits restrictions on liberty in times of national emergency that are necessary and proportionate. But we should be very wary of leaders who exploit this crisis to serve their political ends. They are jeopardizing both democracy and our health.

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How Authoritarians Are Exploiting the Covid-19 Crisis to Grab Power - The New York Review of Books

Months after the Coronavirus outbreak began in the city of Wuhan, residents have only just been given the chance to collect the ashes of loved ones. In these recently released photos that have been censored, residents can be seen queuing for hours on end to collect the remains of lost family members.

Residents of Wuhan were seen queuing this week to collect the ashes of their close family members that have died to the Coronavirus. This is the first time residents have been able to collect ashes due to a past ban on operating cremation facilities. The city of Wuhan has been on lockdown for months ever since it was reported that it was the epicenter for the worlds first cases of Coronavirus.

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A similar practice has occurred at Wuhans Wuchang Funeral Home. The video below shows staff members calling out the names of those that have passed as ashes are given out. Audio in the video also claims that Cremation is free and that the government is giving out free urns to all those that visit. The validity of these statements is unknown.

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These photos were originally posted on social media site, Weibo. However, according to new claims, these photos have been censored from the site. In the past, it has been reported that Weibo works closely with the Chinese government to censor content. According to a whistleblower that worked at the site for 2 years, there are over 160 censorship employees working for Weibo.

Heres what the whistleblower told the CPJ about Weibos censorship program:

The Communist Party was terrified by Weibo, staring at it with fear and the determination to tame it The core of Weibo censorship is the lack of clear rules that users can follow. You dont know whether you will be the next target of censorship. Such tactics instill fear in you, then you start to behave yourself. Gradually, it becomes natural not to speak your mind. Over time, you lose the ability to express yourself as a normal person would do in a free society. That is the effect of censorship in the longrun.

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Corona Cover-Up? Videos The Chinese Government Would Rather You Don't See Surface on The Internet - Talent Recap

Police checks on the observance of quarantine measuresAzrbaycan Respublikas Daxili Nazirliyi Ilr / Twitter Turkish Police checks on the observance of quarantine measuresTrk Polis Tekilat / / Twitter

human rights activists around the world pay attention to the fact that some governments are trying to use combat coronavirus as a pretext to increase pressure on the opposition and uncontrolled media. Officials also tend to give extremely broad powers.

Examples of this policy, particularly in the post-Soviet space, leads to BBC Russian service. So, on March 19 the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated that the fifth column and national traitors can use the pandemic coronavirus to commit provocations. He accused the opposition of trying to sow confusion and panic. After that, the country has carried out arrests of opposition leaders.

In Armenia government ordered the media to publish information only from official sources. In the end, the Public television of Armenia was forced to remove an article which quoted the CNN report that Irans average every 10 minutes someone dies from itarenavirus.

the actions of the authorities of Armenia criticized the OSCE and the international organization reporters without borders. Shortly after this the Yerevan partially backed down. Authorities allowed to publish information on the topic of coronavirus, obtained from official international sources.

However, all restrictions applied only to publications related to the coronavirus. Materials on other topics are not censored.

In Belarus 152 cases of coronavirus, 1 died. Restrictions are not imposed and the authorities clearly underestimate the threat. But the proliferation of information on the coronavirus is in full swing.

a Week ago the countrys President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the KGB to deal with the sources of information that sow panic about the outbreak of coronavirus. Already enough to look at it. Should be a good go to these sites, channels. You need to understand the villains who throw these fakes. Why are people bullied? Lukashenka said.

the President also said that he sees no reason for postponing the elections of the heads of Belarus, scheduled for August 2020. The opposition has canceled a meeting with voters in the regions due to the threat of the spread of coronavirus.

In Turkey coronavirus has infected more than 10 thousand people, 168 died, in 18 provinces has been quarantined. More than 300 people were arrested for publishing in social networks related to the coronavirus.

was recently arrested driver of the truck that issued your account a video criticizing the actions of the authorities to contain the epidemic.

In Hungarian coronavirus were detected in 492 people, of whom 15 died. The country has a regime of emergency. The Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, referring to special circumstances in connection with pandasAMIA, on Monday held a law through Parliament, giving his government extraordinary powers for an indefinite period, during which the government will actually govern without Parliament, only informing the speaker and faction leaders about the measures taken.

the law, among other things, provides for the punishment for the spread of what the government considers misinformation about the pandemic from one year to five years in prison. The opposition believes this is another attempt by Orban to freedom of the press.

In China more than 81 thousand people fell ill COVID-19. 3 305 sick died, the quarantine regime was introduced in several provinces.The study of human rights organization Citizen Lab showed that Chinas censor even messages in social networks. The authorities tried to prevent the dissemination of information about the coronavirus even in the medical community since its introduction. Thus, they only exacerbated the situation.

One of those who first raised the alarm, was the doctor If Vanillan, which informed the colleagues about the new virus. Soon after that, Lee called the police and demanded an end to panic and make a public apology. A little later the doctor himself contracted the coronavirus died 7 Feb.

According to the research organization Citizen Lab, working on issues of Internet censorship under pressure from the government censored information and the most popular instant messenger of China WeChat. The researchers found that is now banned over 500 phrases associated with the theme of the coronavirus.

Among them Wuhan Communist party of China, crisis Beijing, Western medicine is a coronavirus, as well as the critics of the government to contain the epidemic. Some accounts were completely blocked, and their authors were put under surveillance.

the authorities of the Chinese province HangOU require citizens to use a special app Ant on smartphones for access to public places. It assigns each user to Hangzhou QR code green, yellow or red. It must be shown at the entrance to office buildings, residential buildings, shopping centres and public transport.

Code green means that the user can move freely in the province. The owners of the yellow code needs to spend a week at home in isolation. But those who have flashed code red, send to a mandatory two-week quarantine.

By the end of February codes were almost 90% of the provinces population (50 million people). More than one million of them received a yellow or red code. On what principle are assigned to the codes is unclear.

According to the Ant, the program automatically sinhroniziruete and analyzes large amounts of data, including on the movement of users, and then draws conclusions about the state of their health.

the Developer Ant is a system Alipay, which is Chinas 900 million users. According to the New York Times, with each scan code app records the location and reports it to the police.

According to journalists, in the future, a new application can become a tool of surveillance of the state over citizens. In Chinas state media write that the system will help the work of checkpoints at train stations and highways.

Digital concentration camp, in the words of the oppositionist Leonid Volkov, and prepares the city for Muscovites. Officials in a hurry to implement a massive system of spying on residents who are required to comply with the quarantine. On every exit from the house, including taking out the garbage, citizens will have to obtain special permission, in the form of a QR code, as in China. Special privilege bespreadtively to move will receive only security forces and other officials.

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Under the pretext of combating coronavirus States trying to crush the opposition and to tighten censorship - The KXAN 36 News

In ananalysispublished on March 13th, researchers from the University of Southampton suggest that the number of cases of coronavirus in China could have been reduced by 86% if the first measures, which were taken on January 20th, had been implemented two weeks earlier. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) demonstrates, based on the events in the early days of the crisis, that without the control and censorship imposed by the authorities, the Chinese media would have informed the public much earlier of the seriousness of the epidemic, saving thousands of lives and possibly avoiding the current pandemic.

Photojournalists at the National Peoples Congress. Photo: Lukas Messmer/HKFP.

October 18: Chinese press could have reported the chilling results of a pandemic simulation

The John Hopkins Center for Health Security, in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, carries out asimulatedcoronavirus pandemic onOctober 18th, 2019, andalertsthe international community to the chilling results: 65million deaths in 18months.

If the Chinese internet were not isolated by an elaborate system of electronic censorship and the media were not forced to follow the instructions of the Communist Party, the public and the authorities would have undoubtedly been interested in this informationcoming from the United States, which echoed the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic of 2003. SARS infected 8,000 people and caused more than 800 deaths, mostly in China.

December 20: the Wuhan city authorities could have informed journalists

One month after thefirst documented case, the city of Wuhan already has 60patients with an unknown SARS-like pneumonia, several of whom havefrequentedthe Huanan fish market. Despite the situation, the authorities do not see fit to communicate this information to the media.

If the authorities had not hidden from the media the existence of an epidemic outbreak linkedto a very popular market, the public would have stopped visiting this place long before its official closure on January 1st.

December 25: Doctor Lu Xiaohong could have expressed fears to the press

Doctor Lu Xiaohong, the head of gastroenterology at Wuhan City Hospital No. 5, beginshearingcases ofinfectionaffecting medical staff on December 25 and suspects from the first week of January that the infection is transmissible between humans.

If journalists sources in China did not face severe penalties ranging from professional reprimand to heavy prison terms, Doctor Lu Xiaohong would have taken responsibility for alerting the media, forcing the authorities to take action, which only happened three weeks later.

Dr. Li Wenliang.

December 30: whistleblowers early warning would have been picked up by the media

The director of the emergency department at Wuhan Central Hospital, Ai Fen, and a group of doctors launch an alert regarding a SARS-like coronavirus. Eight of them, including DoctorLi Wenliang, who later died from the illness, will bearrestedby Wuhan police on January 3rd for circulatingfalse rumors.

If the press and social media had been able to freely relay the information transmitted by whistleblowers on December 30th, the public would have realised the danger and put pressure on the authorities to take measures limiting expansion of the virus.

December 31: social media would have relayed the official alert in China

Chinaofficially alertsthe World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 31st but at the same time forces the WeChat discussion platform tocensora large number of keywords referring to the epidemic.

Without censorship, the social network WeChat, which has a billion active users in China, could have enabled journalists to broadcast reports and precautionary advice contributing to better compliance with the rules recommended by the health authorities.

World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo: U.S. Mission Geneva/Eric Bridiers.

January 5: the scientific media would have disseminated the coronavirus genome earlier

Professor Zhang Yongzhens team at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre manages to sequence the virus onJanuary 5th, but the authorities seem reluctant to make the genome public. On January 11th, the day China confirms its firstdeathfrom the virus, the researchers leak information on open source platforms, which will result in the punitive closure of their laboratory.

If the Chinese authorities were transparent, they would have immediately communicated the coronavirus genome sequence to the scientific media, saving the international community precious time in their research for the development of a vaccine.

January 13: the international community would have anticipated the risk of a pandemic

The first case of coronavirus infection outside of China, a tourist from Wuhan, is reported in Thailand.

If the international media had had full access to information held by the Chinese authorities on the scale of the epidemic before January 13th, it is likely that the international community would have taken stock of the crisis and better anticipated it, reducing the risk of the epidemic spreading outside China and possibly avoiding its transformation into a pandemic.

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Reporters Without Borders: If the Chinese press were free, the coronavirus might not be a pandemic - Hong Kong Free Press

Thousands of lives could have been saved if China allowed its media freedom to operate independently, the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) organization has claimed.

RSF published a statement Tuesday detailing how Chinese authorities suppressed whistle blowers and early warnings of the COVID-19 virus outbreak, which has since spread across the globe and killed more than 19,000 people.

"Without the control and censorship imposed by the authorities, the Chinese media would have informed the public much earlier of the severity of the coronavirus epidemic, sparing thousands of lives and perhaps avoiding the current pandemic," the RSF statement argued.

The pandemic originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December, likely at a so-called "wet market" where live and dead animals are sold.

The Chinese Communist Party was accusedby President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and othersof silencing whistleblowers and hiding the severity of the outbreak, which soon spread beyond its borders.

Tight restrictions appear to have stemmed the spread of COVID-19 in China, and officials have said that the peak of the outbreak has passed. There have now been more cases and deaths outside China than inside.

But RSF cited a University of Southampton analysis published earlier this month that argued the number of coronavirus cases in Chinawhich is rated 177th out of 180 in the 2019 RSF World Press Freedom Indexcould have been reduced by 86 percent if the restrictive measures implemented on January 20 had been put in place two weeks earlier.

RSF argued that the first red flag was missed in October, when the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security ran a simulated coronavirus pandemic alongside the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The simulation produced 65 million deaths in 18 months, a result RSF argued would have sparked interest and concern in China if media organizations were able to cover it or citizens were able to see it online.

Local Wuhan officials failed to inform the media of the outbreak, even when there were dozens of patients suffering the same mysterious illness and symptomsseveral of whom had visited the Huanan fish market where the virus is believed to have originated. The market was closed on January 1.

Dr. Lu Xiaohong was among the first medical workers to suspect that something seismic was occurring, having been told of multiple infections among staff at Wuhan City Hospital as early as December 25.

RSF argued that if journalists' sources did not face such strict punishments for speaking out, Lu may have raised the alarm and forced officials to acknowledge the problem.

A group of whistleblowers tried to do exactly that, but were arrested for circulating "false rumors" on January 3. Eight of these whistleblowers have since died of coronavirus.

Though China officially alerted the World Health Organization to the situation on December 31, officials moved to censor a number of related keywords on the country's tightly-controlled billion-user WeChat platform.

By January 5, a team at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre had sequenced the virus, but the vital information was not released publicly. Only on January 11the day the first coronavirus death was confirmeddid researchers leak the genome to open source platforms, handing the international community a priceless element in their nascent hunt for a vaccine.

The first case outside China was confirmed on January 13. RSF argued that the international community "would have taken stock of the crisis and better anticipated it" if Chinese media had been able to cover the issue since December. This may have slowed its spread and avoided "its transformation into a pandemic," the organization argued.

Newsweek has contacted the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. for a response to RSF's assertions.

Continued here:

China's Media Censorship Could Cost Thousands of Lives: Journalism Watchdog - Newsweek

from the don't-be-Big-Brother's-little-brother dept

China keeps being China, despite all the problems it has at home. The coronavirus traces back to Wuhan, China, and it has become clear the Chinese government is doing what it can to suppress reporting on the outbreak.

The country has a fine-tuned censorship machine that works in concert with its overbearing surveillance apparatus to ensure the government maintains control of the narrative. "Ensures" is perhaps too strong a term because, despite its best efforts, information always leaks out around the edges.

Citizens of China have found numerous ways to dodge censorship and surveillance over the years. But they're not being helped much by American companies, which have more often than not complied with government demands for apologies, takedowns, and other efforts that ensure access to the Chinese market at the expense of their Chinese users.

The latest news is more of the same. A clever keyboard app that encrypted messages has been nuked from the Chinese app store by Apple following a takedown demand from the Chinese government.

Apple yesterday removed Boom the Encryption Keyboard, an app that allowed Chinese internet users to bypass censorship, from the China app store, according to its developer.

[...]

According to an email sent by Apple to [app developer] Wang Huiyu, the app was removed because it contained content that is illegal in China. The app is still available in other regions, including Hong Kong, he said.

Boom encrypted messages by changing the originating English or Chinese to a blend of emoji, Japanese, and Korean characters. To decrypt the messages, users simply copied the characters sent to them, which were reverted to their original state on the keyboard below. Not enough to thwart targeted surveillance, but more than enough to dodge blanket censorship efforts like keyword blacklists.

The app's developer suspects Boom was targeted by the Chinese government because it was being used to spread an article about the virus that was censored by the government shortly after its publication.

The article in question is an interview with Ai Fen, a Wuhan doctor who said she was reprimanded for alerting other people about the novel coronavirus. The article, published on March 10 by Chinas Ren Wu magazine, was deleted within hours of its publication. Various versions of the article, including those reproduced in emoji, English, and even Hebrew, emerged after the deletion as people scrambled to save Ais story

This is the sort of information American companies should be helping to spread, not shutting down at the behest of the parties who want to see this information buried. If this were a one-off, it would be worrying. But it's just another data point in a long string of incidents where American tech companies have endangered users in foreign countries, seemingly for the single purpose of maintaining market share.

Filed Under: app store, boom, censorship, china, codes, content moderation, emoji, encryption, keyboardCompanies: apple

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Apple Helps China Censor Citizens By Pulling The Plug On A Keyboard App That Encrypted Text Messages - Techdirt

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

David Cuillier, University of Arizona

(THE CONVERSATION) In times of mortal strife, humans crave information more than ever, and its journalists responsibility to deliver it.

But what if that information is inaccurate, or could even kill people?

Thats the quandary journalists have found themselves in as they decide whether to cover President Donald J. Trumps press briefings live.

Some television networks have started cutting away from the briefings, saying the events are no more than campaign rallies, and that the president is spreading falsehoods that endanger the public.

If Trump is going to keep lying like he has been every day on stuff this important, we should, all of us, stop broadcasting it, MSNBCs Rachel Maddow tweeted. Honestly, its going to cost lives.

News decisions and ethical dilemmas arent simple, but withholding information from the public is inconsistent with journalistic norms, and while well-meaning, could actually cause more harm than good in the long run. Keeping the presidents statements from the public prevents the public from being able to evaluate his performance, for example.

Truth and falsehood can fight it out

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics, updated in 2014 during my term as president, states that the press must seek truth and report it, while also minimizing harm.

When the president of the United States speaks, it matters it is newsworthy, its history in the making. Relaying that event to the public as it plays out is critical for citizens, who can see and hear for themselves what their leader is saying, and evaluate the facts for themselves so that they may adequately self-govern.

Thats true even if leaders lie. Actually, its even more important when leaders lie.

Think of libertarian philosopher John Miltons plea for the free flow of information and end of censorship in 1600s England. Put it all out there and let people sort the lies from the truth, Milton urged: Let her and Falsehood grapple.

If a president spreads lies and disinformation, or minimizes health risks, then the electorate needs to know that to make informed decisions at the polls, perhaps to vote the person out to prevent future missteps.

Likewise, theres a chance the president could be correct in his representation of at least some of the facts.

Its not up to journalists to decide, but simply report what is said while providing additional context and facts that may or may not support what the president said.

Maddow is correct that journalists should not simply parrot information spoon fed by those in power to readers and viewers who might struggle to make sense of it in a vacuum. That is why its imperative journalists continuously challenge false and misleading statements, and trust the public to figure it out.

Craving information

Those who would urge the medias censorship of the presidents speeches may feel they are protecting citizens from being duped, because they believe the average person cant distinguish fact from fiction. Communication scholars call this third-person effect, where we feel ourselves savvy enough to identify lies, but think other more vulnerable, gullible and impressionable minds cannot.

It is understandable why journalists would try to protect the public from lies. Thats the minimizing harm part in the SPJ code of ethics, which is critical in these times, when inaccurate information can put a persons health at risk or cause them to make a fatal decision.

So how do journalists report the days events while minimizing harm and tamping down the spread of disinformation? Perhaps this can be accomplished through techniques already in use during this unorthodox presidential period:

-

Report the press briefings live for all to see, while providing live commentary and fact-checking, as PolitiFact and others have done for live presidential debates.

-

Fact-check the president after his talks, through contextual stories that provide the public accurate information, in the media and through websites such as FactCheck.org.

-

Call intentional mistruths what they are: Lies. With this administration, journalists have become more willing to call intentional falsehoods lies, and that needs to continue, if not even more bluntly.

-

Develop a deep list of independent experts that can be on hand to counter misinformation as it is communicated.

-

Report transparently and openly, clearly identifying sources, providing supplemental documents online, and acknowledging limitations of information.

The coronavirus pandemic is a critical time for the nations health and its democracy. Now, more than ever, we need information. As humans, we crave knowing what is going on around us, a basic awareness instinct, as termed by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their foundational book, The Elements of Journalism.

People arent dummies

Sometimes people dont even realize they need information until after they have lost it.

In his autobiography, the late Sen. John McCain wrote that upon his release after five years as a Vietnamese prisoner of war, the first thing he did when he got to a Philippines military base was order a steak dinner and stack of newspapers.

I wanted to know what was going on in the world, and I grasped anything I could find that might offer a little enlightenment, McCain wrote. The thing I missed most was information free, uncensored, undistorted, abundant information.

People arent dummies. They can decipher good information from bad, as long as they have all the facts at their disposal.

And journalists are the ones best positioned to deliver it.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read our newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/its-a-bad-idea-for-journalists-to-censor-trump-instead-they-can-help-the-public-identify-whats-true-or-false-134962.

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It's a bad idea for journalists to censor Trump instead, they can help the public identify what's true or false - goskagit.com

Enliven lessons by discussing Supreme Court cases and challenged books.

How common is it for someone to challenge all library materials on a topic? This hasnt happened in the public library where I work, but local churches are urging members to challenge materials in schools on the occult and witchcraft.Individuals and groups have been trying to challenge all materials on specific content areas since ALAs Office for Intellectual Freedom began tracking challenges to books and materials. Childrens books about witchcraft and the occult have always been problematic to some people, but the first Harry Potter book in 1997 brought the topic front and center. Now, LGBTQ+ content is the latest area targeted by churches, community organizations, and individuals wishing to control what children read. Their rationale: Children will be warped by the topic.

Since school and public libraries make their catalogs available online, its easy for censors to list materials they deem inappropriate for children. This can be controlled with a good materials reconsideration policy. It should make clear that individual materials may be challenged and reconsidered, but not entire topics. This may halt broad efforts to ban materials dealing with a specific issue.

An eighth grade teacher wants to develop a different approach to teaching the First Amendment to her students. She says they are bored with the textbook analysis.Students need to understand the First Amendment in its historical context, and they also need to know how to apply it to their own lives. Suggest that the teacher assign them to read about Supreme Court cases where students have fought for First Amendment rights:

1. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District(1969)

2. Board of Education v. Pico(1982)

3. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier(1988)

Debating both sides of an issue helps students understand how complicated free speech is today. Have them discuss how Morse v. Frederick (2007)is different from Tinker v. Des Moines. It appears to be a similar issue about students right to free speech in school, but the Supreme Court ruled against the former while ruling in favor of Tinker.

Book censorship is still a major problem in schools. Give students a list of challenged titles and ask them to check ones theyve read. Discuss why each has been challenged. Divide the class into three groups and have each read a challenged book. I suggest The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas,American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, and The House of Scorpion by Nancy Farmer.

Each group should then conduct a mock Reconsideration Committee meeting, an opportunity for students to listen to all sides of an issue.

I encourage the teacher to include a discussion about rights and responsibilities. This should include appropriate behavior on social media sites. Most students dont realize how inflammatory speech or bullying on social media can get them in trouble at school.

The internet is like the historical public square where anyone can speak about any topic and slant it to their own bias. Its increasingly important that teachers help students recognize such biases and encourage them to read about topics from many viewpoints before they form an opinion. All Americans have the right to express themselves, but their thoughts will be better heard if they back their ideas with relevant information.

I work in a large public library system. All materials are selected by the collection development staff. I asked why so few graphic novels were bought for the childrens collection and was told that most graphic novels arent appropriate.This is simply not true. Reviews show just how many graphic novels are available for children. Someone in that department is interjecting their own bias. Arrange a meeting with the collection development staff. If that doesnt work, speak to the director.

Pat Scales is the former chair of ALAs Intellectual Freedom Committee. Send questions to pscales@bellsouth.net.

Libraries are always evolving. Stay ahead. Log In.

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Bored with the First Amendment | Scales on Censorship - School Library Journal

The producer of John Wick has been ordered to pay $2.4 million to Huayi Bros. in connection with a failed attempt to release the violent action film in China.

Huayi Bros. agreed in 2013 to pay the producer a $1.5 million minimum guarantee to distribute the film in China, provided the movie made it past the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the Chinese censorship body.

After the film was produced, in late 2014, state-run distributor China Film Group reported that the film was simply too violent to get a China release. Huayi Bros. asked the producer, a subsidiary of Basil Iwanyks Thunder Road Pictures, for the return of the $1.5 million.

That was the beginning of a conflict which is still ongoing five years later over whether the Chinese censorship agency had rejected the film, or if Huayi Bros. was merely refusing to exercise its considerable clout in China to push for a release because it feared the film would bomb.

Thunder Road refused the request to return the $1.5 million to Huayi Bros. In response, Huayi Bros. took the film back to China Film Group, which agreed to submit the film without edits to SARFT. In August 2015, SARFT screened the film and rejected it. Huayi Bros. then went back to Thunder Road to again insist on the return of the $1.5 million.

Thunder Road continued to refuse, which prompted Huayi Bros. to file an arbitration claim with the Independent Film and Television Alliance. After an unusually protracted arbitration hearing, which was held on 22 dates over the course of 18 months, arbitrator Michael R. Diliberto ruled in favor of Huayi Bros.

Considering the totality of the evidence, especially the fact that after Huayis efforts to obtain censorship approval for the theatrical release of the Picture in China, the Picture was ultimately rejected by SARFT for censorship purposes, the arbitrator finds that (Thunder Road) breached the (agreement) by failing to pay Huayi, Diliberto ruled.

Diliberto ordered Thunder Road to pay $1.5 million to Huayi Bros., plus more than $800,000 in attorneys fees.

On Friday, Thunder Roads attorneys filed a petition to vacate the award in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Thunder Roads attorney, Sonia Lee, contends that Huayi Bros. gave up on John Wick after the poor performance of two other Keanu Reeves films, Ronin 47 and Man of Tai Chi. They allege that Huayi Bros. tried to use the censorship provision as a pretext to wriggle out of the distribution deal.

The evidence in this case makes clear that Huayi has sufficient clout and influence to have the bigger boss at CFG issue a quota slot and to have SARFT do what Huayi wishes, Lee wrote in a filing last year. The same evidence makes clear that Huayi easily could have had CFG issue a quota slot in 2014 and have SARFT approve John Wick for release in China, albeit with some edits Had Huayi done what was supposed to have done in the first instance, Huayi along with (Thunder Road) would have made a tremendous amount of money, as did the distributors in all the other territories that released the movie and its sequel.

Neither John Wick nor its two sequels have been released in China.

Original post:

John Wick Producer Ordered to Pay Huayi Bros. Over Axed China Release - Variety

A team of cybersecurity researchers has discovered that a large number of cell phone applications contain hardcoded secrets allowing others to access private data or block content provided by users.

The studys findings: that the apps on mobile phones might have hidden or harmful behaviors about which end users know little to nothing, said Zhiqiang Lin, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at The Ohio State University and senior author of the study.

The study has been accepted for publication by the 2020 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in May. The conference has moved online because of the global coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

Typically, mobile apps engage with users by processing and responding to user input, Lin said. For instance, users often need to type certain words or sentences, or click buttons and slide screens. Those inputs prompt an app to perform different actions.

For this study, the research team evaluated 150,000 apps. They selected the top 100,000 based on the number of downloads from the Google Play store, the top 20,000 from an alternative market, and 30,000 from pre-installed apps on Android smartphones.

They found that 12,706 of those apps, about 8.5 percent, contained something the research team labeled backdoor secrets hidden behaviors within the app that accept certain types of content to trigger behaviors unknown to regular users. They also found that some apps have built-in master passwords, which allow anyone with that password to access the app and any private data contained within it. And some apps, they found, had secret access keys that could trigger hidden options, including bypassing payment.

Both users and developers are all at risk if a bad guy has obtained these backdoor secrets, Lin said. In fact, he said, motivated attackers could reverse engineer the mobile apps to discover them.

Qingchuan Zhao, a graduate research assistant at Ohio State and lead author of this study, said that developers often wrongly assume reverse engineering of their apps is not a legitimate threat.

A key reason why mobile apps contain these backdoor secrets is because developers misplaced the trust, Zhao said. To truly secure their apps, he said, developers need to perform security-relevant user-input validations and push their secrets on the backend servers.

The team also found another 4,028 apps about 2.7 percent that blocked content containing specific keywords subject to censorship, cyber bullying or discrimination. That apps might limit certain types of content was not surprising but the way that they did it was: validated locally instead of remotely, Lin said.

On many platforms, user-generated content may be moderated or filtered before it is published, he said, noting that several social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr, already limit the content users are permitted to publish on those platforms.

Unfortunately, there might exist problems for example, users know that certain words are forbidden from a platforms policy, but they are unaware of examples of words that are considered as banned words and could result in content being blocked without users knowledge, he said. Therefore, end users may wish to clarify vague platform content policies by seeing examples of banned words.

In addition, he said, researchers studying censorship may wish to understand what terms are considered sensitive.

The team developed an open source tool, named InputScope, to help developers understand weaknesses in their apps and to demonstrate that the reverse engineering process can be fully automated.

Other authors on this work include Chaoshun Zuo at Ohio State, Brendan Dolan-Gavitt at New York University, and Giancarlo Pellegrino at CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security.

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Some mobile phone apps may contain hidden behaviors that users never see - The Ohio State University News

With a population of 1.435 Billion (as of November 2019), China is looked upon as apotential new superpower; a rapid economic growth, strong military, and increased international influence are among the main reasons for such future predictions. Although, there is something which might cause a hindrance to the progressing global footprints.

Strict Censorship Over Online Activity The Great Firewall of China

China as a country has deep-rooted ancient cultural beliefs and ways of living. Undoubtedly, China is one of the worlds most technologically advanced nations, but it still resists modern, so-called western influences. And censoring the internet content and its access is one way to do it.

The Peoples Republic of China enforced a combination of legislative actions and technologies called The Great Firewall of China (GFW), to regulate the Internet throughout the country. Fang Binxing, known as the Father of Chinas Great Firewall has made a substantial contribution by providing a base infrastructure for Internet censorship in China.

In this respect, National Peoples Congress (NPC) passed CL97, a law that criminalizes cybercrimes and is enforced under following broad categories

The Great Firewall is justified under the category crimes carried out over computer networks. Under the pretext, the Chinese government can block any ISP, gateway connections, any access to applications on the internet, distribution of information which is considered harmful to national security, public order, social stability, and Chinese morality.

The major aim is to block the access to selected foreign websites which, according to the Chinese government, may prove detrimental to the countrys sovereignty. More than 50,000 people are designated by the government for the purpose to enforce censorship, block websites that the state disapproves of, and compel search engines to filter content that deems harmful.

There is a plausibleexplanation behind the Internet censorship in China:

Simply put, GFW of China is limiting access to most of the websites and internet services, which are revolutionizing the world. To name a few, Gmail, Dropbox, Google Apps (Drive, Docs, Calendar, Maps, etc.), Microsoft OneDrive, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify and more popular names that can cross your mind.

Certain internet censoring events in the past have led tons of questions in the wandering minds. The character Winnie-the Pooh was blocked on Chinese social media sites after a meme showing photographs of Xi modified as Poohbear was put up. The government modified the search results to suppress the criticism when in February 2018 Xi, to allow himself to become the ruler for life, appeared to set in motion a process to scrap term limits. The censors banned internet users from using phrases such as Disagree, Shameless, Lifelong.

It is admissible that the content over the Internet can sometimes be overwhelming, bias and ambiguous. But at the same time, it helps in broadening the perspective over millions of important topics around the world. Since China has opened its gates for international collaborations and the global market, the people who are turning in the country would need to have access to the uncensored internet. This is when methods tobypass China Firewallhold more importance than ever.

The Great Firewall blocks destination IP addresses and domain names. It also inspects the data being sent or received. For such type of censorship, the use of proxy nodes and data encryption is the circumvention strategy that is followed.

The Chinese government posts more than millions of pro-state content every year, with the help of social media influencers. The media companies are made responsible for all content they broadcast, including user-generated content. The world respects their ideology and intent to preserve their cultural values.

However, the world seems a better place when one comes out of his shell. With no offense to the rules, the VPNs and other methods of bypassing the China firewall help in understanding what the outside world is up to. Furthermore, the future generation of China could use tools likeGoogle Scholar, which would provide a gateway to share work between professors and students from all over the world. This encourages innovation and idea exchange, in and out of China.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to ourTwitterorFacebook.

Just another guy who likes to write about tech and gadgets.

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Bypassing the China firewall needs & ways to do it - KnowTechie

As more and more U.S. schools and businesses shutter their doors, the rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic is helping to expose societys dependence good and bad on the digital world.

Entire swaths of society, including classes we teach at American University, have moved online until the coast is clear. As vast segments of society are temporarily forced into isolation to achieve social distancing, the internet is their window into the world. Online social events like virtual happy hours foster a sense of connectedness amid social distancing. While the online world is often portrayed as a societal ill, this pandemic is a reminder of how much the digital world has to offer.

The pandemic also lays bare the many vulnerabilities created by societys dependence on the internet. These include the dangerous consequences of censorship, the constantly morphing spread of disinformation, supply chain vulnerabilities and the risks of weak cybersecurity.

The global pandemic reminds us that even local censorship can have global ramifications. Chinas early suppression of coronavirus information likely contributed to what is now a worldwide pandemic. Had the doctor in Wuhan who spotted the outbreak been able to speak freely, public health authorities might have been able to do more to contain it early.

China is not alone. Much of the world lives in countries that impose controls on what can and cannot be said about their governments online. Such censorship is not just a free speech issue, but a public health issue as well. Technologies that circumvent censorship are increasingly a matter of life and death.

During a public health emergency, sharing accurate information rapidly is critical. Social media can be an effective tool for doing just that. But its also a source of disinformation and manipulation in ways that can threaten global health and personal safety something tech companies are desperately, yet imperfectly, trying to combat.

Facebook, for example, has banned ads selling face masks or promising false preventions or cures, while giving the World Health Organization unlimited ad space. Twitter is placing links to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other reliable information sources atop search returns. Meanwhile, Russia and others reportedly are spreading rumors about the coronaviruss origins. Others are using the coronavirus to spread racist vitriol, in ways that put individuals at risk.

Not only does COVID-19 warn us of the costs and geopolitics of disinformation, it highlights the roles and responsibilities of the private sector in confronting these risks. Figuring out how to do so effectively, without suppressing legitimate critics, is one of the greatest challenges for the next decade.

Our university has moved our work online. We are holding meetings by video chat and conducting virtual courses. While many dont have this luxury, including those on the front lines of health and public safety or newly unemployed, thousands of other universities, businesses and other institutions also moved online a testament to the benefits of technological innovation.

At the same time, these moves remind us of the importance of strong encryption, reliable networks and effective cyber defenses. Today network outages are not just about losing access to Netflix but about losing livelihoods. Cyber insecurity is also a threat to public health, such as when ransomware attacks disrupt entire medical facilities.

The virus also exposes the promise and risks of the internet of things, the globe-spanning web of always-on, always-connected cameras, thermostats, alarm systems and other physical objects. Smart thermometers, blood pressure monitors and other medical devices are increasingly connected to the web. This makes it easier for people with pre-existing conditions to manage their health at home, rather than having to seek treatment in a medical facility where they are at much greater risk of exposure to the disease.

Yet this reliance on the internet of things carries risks. Insecure smart devices can be co-opted to disrupt democracy and society, such as when the Mirai botnet hijacked home appliances to disrupt critical news and information sites in the fall of 2016. When digitally interconnected devices are attacked, their benefits suddenly disappear adding to the sense of crisis and sending those dependent on connected home diagnostic tools into already overcrowded hospitals.

The shutdown of Chinese factories in the wake of the pandemic interrupted the supply of critical parts to many industries, including the U.S. tech sector. Even Apple had to temporarily halt production of the iPhone. Had China not begun to recover, the toll on the global economy could have been even greater than it is now.

This interdependence of our supply chain is neither new nor tech-specific. Manufacturing medical and otherwise has long depended on parts from all over the world. The crisis serves as a reminder of the global, complex interactions of the many companies that produce gadgets, phones, computers and many other products on which the economy and society as a whole depend. Even if the virus had never traveled outside of China, the effects would have reverberated highlighting ways in which even local crises have global ramifications.

As the next phase of the pandemic response unfolds, society will be grappling with more and more difficult questions. Among the many challenges are complex choices about how to curb the spread of the disease while preserving core freedoms. How much tracking and surveillance are people willing to accept as a means of protecting public health?

As Laura explains in The Internet in Everything, cyber policy is now entangled with everything, including health, the environment and consumer safety. Choices that we make now, about cybersecurity, speech online, encryption policies and product design will have dramatic ramifications for health, security and basic human flourishing.

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Society's dependence on the internet: 5 cyber issues the coronavirus lays bare - The Conversation US

International press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) launched a tracker tool to monitor and evaluate the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on journalism together with recommendations on how to defend the right to information.

The tool, aptly named Tracker-19, aims to evaluate the pandemics impacts on journalism, document state censorship and deliberate disinformation, and their impact on the right to reliable news and information, as well as recommendations on how to safeguard journalism, the organisation said in a statement.

The name makes reference to Covid-19 and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Censorship cannot be regarded as a countrys internal matter. Information control in a given country can have consequences all over the planet and we are suffering the effects of this today. The same goes for disinformation and rumours. They make people make bad decisions, they limit free will and they sap intelligence, RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

Deloire went on to list China and Iran as countries where the media have been unable to fulfil their role of informing the public during the Covid-19 outbreak. He said there was an urgent need to provide an exhaustive and honest account of obstacles to press freedom, as well as to enable journalists to both provide reliable information and combat rumours.

Tracker-19 offers an interactive world map on the press freedom situation, constant coverage of developments and analyses of key issues. RSF said the tracker was dedicated to the historians of the present, who are covering the crisis, taking risks and exposing themselves to the virus in order to report what is happening.

In examples of the types of threats to journalism which are happening globally, The Shift looked at howpro-Kremlin disinformation outlets are working tirelessly to churn out false stories about the virus, while China announced it plans to expel 13 journalists from three major US publications in an unprecedented retaliation against foreign media in the country.

This is the second press freedom project launched by the organisation this month. Earlier in March, RSF created The Uncensored Library, a virtual free library of journalists work which would usually be censored within their country.

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Reporters Without Borders to track coronavirus disinformation - The Shift News

a group of designers from have made a library within the video game minecraft that works as an internet loophole to combat censorship. called, the uncensored library, it contains articles and information censored in many countries, but is accessible through the game.

images courtesy of reporters without borders

several countries around the world have imposed strict censorship laws restricting citizens from accessing certain websites, or obtaining certain information. organized for the world day against censorship by reporters without borders (RSF), a press freedom NGO that tracks censorship, legal action against journalists, and disinformation, the uncensored library aims to combat this.

in many countries, free information is hard to access, the group explains. blogs, newspapers and websites are censored. journalists get arrested and have to fear for their lives. such censorship lets many young people grow up in systems with almost no access to independent press. their opinions become heavily manipulated by governmental disinformation campaigns.

for example, yulia berezovskaia, editor-in-chief of the russian news site grani.ru, which is blocked in russia, said shes working with RSF to republish articles from her website on minecraft, which is available. christian mihr, executive director of reporters without borders germany, told the BBC that it chose minecraft because of its huge worldwide reach, even in restrictive countries, and because its not on the radar of censors.

the massive digital library contains more than 12.5 million minecraft blocks, and took 24 builders from 16 different countries over 250 hours to design and build. it houses real articles written by five journalists from censored countries including russia, mexico, egypt, vietnam, and saudi arabia, providing unblocked news to readers who wouldnt otherwise be able to access it.

one of our most ambitious projects to date, the uncensored library is a virtual library, built inside of minecraft to overcome censorship, the group said. in countries without press freedom, where websites are blocked, minecraft is still accessible. we used this loophole to build the uncensored library. the library is filled with books, containing articles that were censored in their country of origin. through this project, censored articles become uncensored books in minecraft.

kieron marchese I designboom

mar 16, 2020

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virtual minecraft library combats government censorship by housing banned journalism - Designboom

A woman shows payment to a vendor, sent via WeChat on her smartphone, at a street stall in Beijing on June 23, 2017.

Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images

While quarantined in her Wuhan apartment for days on end, the woman who calls herself Sister Ma suddenly found herself blocked from her account on WeChat, a platform used by more than 1 billion people in China. Without WeChat, she was cut off from communication with friends and family, the ability to order critical supplies, and contact with her childrens school. My life is falling apart, she wrote on a now-deleted but archived message on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. Others who found themselves in the same situation described losing all of their digital documents, professional contacts, and access to their digital cash and paid media subscriptions.

As has been well-documented, Tencent, the company that owns WeChat, has been using keywordslike using coronavirus in conjunction with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or epidemic spread plus Xi Jinpingto silence unwanted discussions of the coronavirus on WeChat, with potentially negative effects on health and safety.

But the censorship extends much further than this message-by-message suppression. As Sister Mas story demonstrates, Tencent also has been shutting down and suspending the WeChat accounts of those who critique the governments handling of the virus, and not just in China. Account shutdowns and suspensions in the United States, Europe, and Canada highlight both the growing reachand powerof Chinas chilling suppression apparatus. Once kicked off WeChat, users are often cut off from communiciation with friends and relatives still in China.

These concerns may seem distant to Westerners. But Facebook is seeking to consolidate WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook into a single superapp, to be eventually connected with Libra, the Facebook-developed crypto coin, assuming it can get off the ground. And Mark Zuckerberg has pointed to the China-based behemoth Tencent as his model. While antitrust, anti-competition concerns have been widely aired (and may ultimately lead to the plans downfall), there are also independent-speech and censorship-related reasons to be wary, as Tencents behavior demonstrates.

Once you are banished, there is not much you cando.

Ostensibly a chat app, WeChat is actually a superapp, because it seamlessly integrates many services and products. It is the way the vast majority of Chinese citizens communicate with friends and family. For some, it is a medical scheduling app, used to make and manage doctors appointments. And it is a wallet, the means by which users buy groceries, access their bank accounts, pay their mortgages, and engage in just about any financial transaction.

Shutting down a WeChat account is, in effect, a digital form of banishment for the many users who have opted into its ecosystem. Not only is the user cut off from communicating with friends and family, but in what is increasingly becoming a cashless society, it effectively denies users who have concentrated their money in WeChat Wallet the ability to independently function.

Once you are banished, there is not much you can do. It is technically possible to get a new phone number and then open a new account on WeChat. But WeChat will be able to tell that it is the same user. The only remedy is appeal to Tencent, the company that did the blocking in the first place, presumably at the behest of the Chinese state. As far as we know, no such appeal has ever been successful. And there are no equivalent competitors you can turn to instead.

In February, there was a brief moment in which free speech seemed to flourish, as multitudes expressed their despair over the death of Li Wenliang, the doctor who was silenced as he tried to warn of the governments cover-up of the coronavirus. But that momentary relaxing of the censorship apparatus was followed by a crackdown. Those who raised concerns, including many of those stuck in home quarantine like Sister Ma, found their WeChat accounts suspended and possibly permanently blocked. The exact numbers are unclear.

Tencent has been exercising its market muscles to control speech in a range of other ways as well. In a bold move, it is now seeking to dictate what news outlets can and cannot say about its own business practices. Take the situation facing 36Kr Media, the most read source of tech news in China. 36Kr Media has been reporting on Tencents efforts to ban links to competitors appsincluding those of rival ByteDance (the parent of TikTok)from being shared on WeChat.

In early March, 36Kr reported that Tencent was blocking links leading to Feishu, ByteDances workplace collaboration tool, at a point in time in which there was an increased demand for these kinds of online office tools, thanks again to the coronavirus. (Tencent has a similar, albeit much less popular, product.) In response, Tencent threatened to delete 36Krs WeChat public accountswhich have access to more than 1 million active readersif 36Kr did not take down and stop such reporting. Rather than lose its most important publishing platform, 36Kr complied. Tencent nonetheless felt the need to punish the company for its publication of unflattering news and suspended 36Kr from publishing on WeChat for a day.

This would be akin to Facebook getting the Wall Street Journal to delete all reports about its bad behaviors by threatening to ban the Wall Street Journal from publishing on Facebook.

In this case, it came to light only because the senior management of ByteDance, one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, called Tencent out. Yang Jibin, a senior communications director for ByteDance, described what had happened on his personal WeChat account, calling Tencents practices barbaric. Most smaller companies and individuals affected by similar moves lack the political power or wherewithal to protest. As Yang aptly wrote: 36Kr is a public company listed in the United States. It made me wonder how media outlets far smaller than 36kr are supposed to survive in our era.

To be clear: Facebook is not Tencent., and the U.S. government is not China. Facebook, as Zuckerberg reminded us last October, stands for voice and free expression. And thanks to the First Amendment, the U.S. government cannot, and presumably would not, seek to suppress the kinds of public health discussions and dissent that are censored in China. Nor could it enlist private companies to do so on its behalf.

But Facebook does not operate exclusively in the United States. It, like all multinational tech companies, is obliged to comply with the rules set in the jurisdictions in which it operates. In Thailand, that means no critiques of the Thai monarchy. In Turkey, it means no critiques of depictions of Mustafa Kemal Atatrk. In Germany, that means no hate speecha concept that is imprecisely defined, but undoubtedly encompasses categories of protected speech in the United States. And in Poland, it briefly meant no mention of the countrys role in the Holocaust.

U.S.-based tech companies often deal with these and other wide-ranging country and regional-specific speech restrictions via something known as geo-blocking, which enables them to restrict in one region content that is otherwise permitted by the terms of service and thus accessible elsewhere. Implicit in this approach is a recognition of the obligation to comply with local law, even if it means complying with takedown and keep-off demands that run contrary to free speech commitments elsewhere.

But imagine an increasingly cashless, online world, in which Facebook, or any other tech company, succeeds in its bid to integrate all of its communications services, banking and payment processing services, ride-hailing services, and workplace collaboration tools into one giant seamless appand captures the lions share of the market in the process. And imaginehardly far-fetchedother countries learning from the Chinese censorship model. Now, in addition to demanding that the key tech companies block objectionable communications, which can be done in a geographically segmented way, governments increasingly demand that companies block an unwanted speakers account. In such situations, there is no geographic splitting of the difference. The dissident speaker is simply kicked offdenied access to digitally stored savings, workplace accounts, and news feedsall in one fell swoop. And they are also denied the ability to engage in just about any financial transaction. Just like with WeChat in China.

Even in the United States, where the First Amendment provides core protections for free speech, the trend is toward more and more control and limits on concerning speech and bad actors online. This is a reasonable, and in some key cases critically needed, response to the many harms perpetuated online. But as both the U.S. government and U.S. tech companies themselves take more and more steps to restrict unwanted actors and actions online, only some such decisions are clear-cuthence Facebooks decision to outsource some of the hardest ones to an oversight board. Its already a big enough deal to stifle someones ability to communicate. Its even a bigger deal if, like with Tencent, platforms can also make it near impossible to buy groceries, access ones mortgage, and pay bills.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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Lessons From China on the Coronavirus and the Dangers of App Consolidation - Slate

People around the world are turning to an online dating app for coronavirus information from inside Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the mysterious respiratory illness that has ripped through hospitals and supply chains around the world.

The Chinese government's lack of transparency and top-down limiting of communication to the outside world has led to accusations of state-backed censorship of the virus's impact. In the past two months, several citizen journalists and medical professionals have been punished as a result of their attempts to warn the Chinese people and the global citizenry.

Now, people from Manhattan to Bangkok are utilizing a passport feature from the online dating app Tinder to gain access into the daily lives of Chinese citizens on the front lines of the outbreak.

[Click here for complete coronavirus coverage]

Tinder, one of the world's most widely-used dating apps, features an upgraded "Gold" membership, which allows users to move their phone's location to any spot in the world, including cities and areas in China that are known for their lack of ability to communicate with the outside world. Users from outside China are using the feature to ping into Chinese borders and get a better sense of what is really happening in cities that have been quarantined.

A United States-based Twitter account @drethelin announced he was setting his location to Wuhan in late January so he could "get the real scoop on what's going on." Another Twitter user, @philosophyhater, on Feb. 10, tweeted,"I just bought tinder gold and set my location to wuhan."

One person said their friend matched with a doctor, who told her that a couple hundred patients had recovered. The doctor, who used the name Laughing and whose profile picture featured him wearing a face mask, said he worked at Wuhan Union Hospital. He confirmed that young people who get the virus would likely only experience flu-like symptoms.

"Yes Tinder #LoveInTimeOfCorona," tweeted user @bon_plus. "So a friend shared this with me today, she made good use of her Tinder Gold and tried reaching out to people from Wuhan. Luckily, she was able to talk to a doctor based in Wuhan. PICS of their convo!"

Though the World Health Organization has said the coronavirus is not a sexually transmitted disease, the Centers for Disease Controls has warned that transmission of fluids is a leading cause for infection. To ward off the spread, Tinder has instituted a new warning that pops up on the app, instructing users to wash their hands, avoid touching their faces, and maintain social distance in public gatherings.

The coronavirus has killed more than 4,000 people worldwide and infected over 100,000.

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'Love in time of' coronavirus: Tinder being used to circumnavigate possible Chinese censorship of outbreak - Washington Examiner