Category Archives: Censorship

Summary:US company operations are increasingly being disrupted due to the battle between the Chinese government's censorship plans and free speech activists.

Companies from the United States are finding life difficult as their services are being used by citizens and activists seeking to work around China's firewall.

US tech firms, in particular those that provide cloud solutions, are being forced to walk a fine line as cloud computing becomes drawn into China's censorship fight. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, activists outside of China are turning to companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Akamai to disguise Internet traffic by tunnelling it through cloud servers run by the firms.

China's censorship barricade, known as the "Great Firewall of China," is constantly being strengthened to make open access to the Web and communicating over social media networks from the country more difficult. A number of top Alexa domains are blocked in the country, including Google.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger and Change.org.

In December last year, Google's email service, Gmail, became another high-profile service blocked in the country. Unless citizens turn to home-brewed email services -- which can be monitored by the Chinese government -- then the use of VPNs, circumventors and tunnels are the only way to access their accounts.

While cloud services provided by US companies can cloak banned website access -- such as Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and news publications -- it holds risk for the firms themselves. These companies are being forced to walk a fine line as the censorship row escalates, and the unauthorized use of tunnels, VPNs and signing up for free accounts in order to link to blocked websites could land them in hot water as activists are breaking local laws.

Generally, the circumvention takes place without the consent of cloud providers.

However, to stop this practice, Chinese authorities would need to block full servers -- which would disrupt countless businesses, including thousands of Chinese SMBs, activists say.

Naturally, US firms are less than keen to be associated with the censorship row. In November last year, Verizon's EdgeCast cloud service was blocked in the region, while a number of cloud companies have cut off free speech-based services -- such as Lantern -- in an attempt to avoid being blocked themselves in a lucrative market.

Originally posted here:
US firms caught in Chinese censorship crossfire

BEIJING, March 17 (UPI) -- Activists outside China are battling China's Internet censorship by transmitting encrypted information through cloud servers operated by companies like Amazon and Microsoft, but the move also is drawing U.S. firms into conflict with China's regulators.

The Wall Street Journal reported the censored Internet traffic couldn't be blocked unless Chinese authorities agree to ban all servers run by U.S. companies. The move also would shutter China's window to outside information that does not violate official censors and present drawbacks to major U.S. companies offering cloud services.

But China's government has made moves against the encrypted Internet traffic that violates their censors. In November Beijing blocked EdgeCast, a cloud service run by Verizon Communications. In the past, bloggers have faced jail time for making comments deemed as threats to the government.

Cloud servers have accelerated the dissemination of information globally because the technology allows multiple copies of data to be saved at different locations around the world. Mirror versions of banned websites are accessible through encrypted channels for Chinese users behind the firewall.

U.S. corporations were complying with Beijing, with one firm cutting off a U.S.-based service delivering encrypted information. China's cloud-computing market is expected to grow by 45 percent this year and has already reach $1.1 billion in 2014.

Internet censorship has also hit Chinese social media, reported Forbes.

Two Chinese Internet giants, Sina and Baidu, recently complied with new regulations and deleted more than 60,000 accounts, because Beijing believed the accounts were using "harmful or misleading names."

The move is reducing online spaces of honest discussions related to China's politics and society and could reduce user engagement, reported Forbes.

Related UPI Stories

2015 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

See the original post:
U.S. cloud services caught in activism against China's censors

Regimes with weak foundations promote censorship (English)
The recent controversy on the BBC film, India #39;s Daughter, on which a ban has been imposed by the Indian Government should trigger a wider debate on censorshi...

By: Kanwar Sandhu

See the article here:
Regimes with weak foundations promote censorship (English) - Video

Unnecessary Censorship - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Part 2 (Censored Parody)
Unnecessary Censorship - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Part 2 (Censored Parody) Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is made and owned by 2K Australia and Gearbox Softw...

By: Unnecessary Censorship Central

See the original post:
Unnecessary Censorship - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Part 2 (Censored Parody) - Video

Author Kiran Nagarkar on censorship vs creative freedom
Our very special newsmaker on Left, Right and Centre tonight, author and playright Kiran Nagarkar as he releases his latest book, Bedtime Story, a play that ...

By: NDTV

Read the rest here:
Author Kiran Nagarkar on censorship vs creative freedom - Video

Aamir Khan #39;s Opinion On The Recent Censorship Issues
Actor Aamir Khan voices his opinion on the recent clashes amongst Bollywood and the Central Board of Film Certification. Watch the video to find out. For more Bollywood, log on to http://www.busin...

By: businessofcinema

Read more:
Aamir Khan's Opinion On The Recent Censorship Issues - Video

Younow #39;s censorship ideaology is wrong

By: Andrew Marlowe

Go here to see the original:
Younow's censorship ideaology is wrong - Video

Aamir Khan Says He Does Not Like Censorship
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has always stood up for what is right and he has done it this time too. When the actor was present at the trailer launch of th...

By: BiscootTV

Excerpt from:
Aamir Khan Says He Does Not Like Censorship - Video

2015-03-11 17:11 - Thinus Ferreira

(Lohanna Hoffmann)

Cape Town - Civil society watchdog, The Right2Know Campaign, is demanding that the Film and Publications Board (FPB) put aside a controversial draft on internet regulation.

Internet censorship looms for all South African websites, internet publications and blogs in a draft Online Regulation Policy gazetted by the FPB.

The draft policy, which has been gazetted for public comment, requires that online distributors must have digital content classified in terms of the boards guidelines.

This means that content producers would have to apply and pay for classification before their content is made available online.

The FPB said it is does not want children to be exposed to unclassified content via the internet while the board has also raised concerns over user-generated content of an offensive nature such as racism.

However, Right2Know wants the FPB to stop what it calls an attempt to exercise pre-publication censorship of the internet in South Africa.

According to the Right2Know Campaign, the censorship regulations could infringe on the South African publics right to freely get information as well as to impart information a right enshrined in the South African Constitution.

The target of this regulation is not just major distributors, but also individuals, says the Right2Know Campaign.

Go here to read the rest:
Fin24.com | Scrap online censorship plan - Right2Know

Saif Ali Khan Shares his Views on Censorship Controversy | Exclusive
Saif Ali Khan #39;s Happy Ending, co-produced by Dinesh Vijan, was given a UA certificate only after three cuts. Certain expletives like `as*h*l* #39; and `f****rs #39; ...

By: ZoomDekho

View original post here:
Saif Ali Khan Shares his Views on Censorship Controversy | Exclusive - Video