Category Archives: Censorship

1. First, try a circumvention site like https://www.MouseMatrix.com/. Be sure to type https at the beginning of the URL, not 'http'. Even though this site has been widely known for months, many networks have their blocking software set up incorrectly so that sites beginning with https:// are not blocked, and https://www.MouseMatrix.com/ will still be accessible.

2. If that doesn't work, you can join our e-mail list where we mail out new Circumventor sites every 3 or 4 days. Of course, employees of blocking software companies have gotten on this list as well, so they add our sites to their blocked-site database as soon as we mail them out, but in most places it takes 3-4 days for the blocked-site list to be updated. So the latest one that we mail out, should usually still work.

3. If you have a computer with an uncensored Internet connection, you can follow these easy steps to set up your own Circumventor site. For example, if you want to get around blocking software at work, and you have a home computer with an uncensored Internet connection, you can install the Circumventor on your home computer. Then it will give you a new URL, and you can take that URL in with you to work and type it into your browser to get around the network blocking software.

4. If you're trying to get around blocking software that's installed on the local computer, and not on the network, use these instructions to boot from the Ubuntu Live CD. (These instructions include tips on how to tell the difference between blocking software that's installed "on the local computer" and software that's installed "on the network".)

Past news items that generated the most interest:

Report on double standards for anti-gay "hate speech" Peacefire created four pages, on free servers such as GeoCities, which consisted of anti-gay quotes copied from four different conservative Web sites: Dr. Laura, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family. Using anonymous HotMail accounts, we then sent the URLs of the newly created pages to six blocking software companies, recommending that they block the newly created pages as "hate speech". After the companies had agreed to block the sites we created, we told them that all the quotes on those pages had been taken from the four conservative Web sites, and asked why they didn't block those pages as well. The blocking companies did not block those Web sites and did not respond to our inquiries.

WebSENSE publishing daily porn links For five months, the makers of WebSENSE blocking software published a daily list of pornographic Web sites that were not blocked by their competitors, allegedly to show that their own product was superior. Students using the Internet in schools that were using those competitors' products, could access the WebSENSE site and get a list of unblocked porn sites, by clicking a link agreeing that they were over 18 years of age.

Human rights pages blocked In December 2000, Peacefire released Amnesty Intercepted, a report on human rights pages including Amnesty International that were blocked by blocking software.

Candidates' sites blocked during 2000 elections In November 2000, Peacefire released a list of political candidates whose sites had been blocked as "pornography" by major blocking programs. One candidate had carried the statement on his Web site, "We should demand that all public schools and libraries install and configure Internet Filters." He changed his position after finding out that his own site was blocked, and later became a plaintiff in the ACLU's lawsuit to overturn a law requiring blocking software in schools and libraries.

Pro-blocking site blocked In July 1997, librarian David Burt launched the now-defunct FilteringFacts.org site, advocating the use of blocking software in libraries. The site was later blocked as a "Drugs/Alcohol" site by SurfWatch (which has since been bought out by Cyber Patrol).

Read the rest here:
Peacefire - Official Site

Mark Camilleri "loves the Republic" and has not shied away from endorsing the Republic Day honour awarded to him on Friday in recognition of his campaign against Malta's censorship laws which, as irony would have it, are yet to be changed and brought well into the 21st century.

It was not the only irony of the day.

Republic Day under the new Labour government was a celebration of a wide array of people who had served the country, from the Armed Forces' maritime unit to the winners of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. But while it toasted transgender Joanne Cassar, who fought government in the European Court of Human Rights for refusing to recognise her right to marry a man, it handed an honorary honour to former USSR ambassador Valentina Matvienko, the Russian Federation Council speaker who approves the Saint Petersburg assembly law project, that penalizes gay propaganda.

Yet it was Alex Vella Gera's refusal of his own medal for service to the republic, that stole the show. Like Camilleri he was nominated for his role in the censorship debacle provoked by his short story 'Li Tkisser Sewwi', that embroiled the two men in an criminal obscenity case that illustrated much that was wrong with Maltese law-making.

"I cannot accept an honour from the Maltese political class which, apart from some exception, has been causing so much damage to my country," Vella Gera, who lives in Brussels, announced on Facebook. "I feel I've made the right choice not to involve myself in this farce, where someone who is given a national honour becomes a pawn in the insidiousness of the Maltese political game."

The 25-year-old Mark Camilleri rose to prominence when a student pamphlet he edited, entitled Ir-Realt, was reported to the police by the University of Malta rector Juanito Camilleri, specifically for the short story 'Li Tkisser Sewwi' penned by published author Alex Vella Gera. To the public's general outrage, the two men faced obscenity charges and faced jail, but they were acquitted by both the criminal court and the court of appeal. The subject of censorship became a TV mainstay in 2011 and 2012, and Camilleri fronted the Front Against Censorship.

Camilleri, a history graduate who is pursuing his academic studies, was not forgotten by the Labour government, accepting the role of chairman of the National Book Council earlier this year.

But although his absent-mindedness saw him failing to even attend Friday's award ceremony, Camilleri has defended his decision to accept the award Vella Gera renounced.

"I love the Republic and I say this with utmost moral and political conviction: this is a Republic founded on left-wing principles and on the struggle for freedom, against colonialism and poverty," Camilleri wrote on his blog yesterday. "I believe that we should celebrate the Republic in many ways possible, including by giving awards to distinguished individuals who have contributed in a way or another to the development of our Republic."

He said he accepted the award with profound humility, saying he did not consider himself either "distinguished" or able to reach the heights of the men and women who led the struggle that resulted in the Republic: Manwel Dimech, Guze Ellul Mercer, Dom Mintoff, Agatha Barbara and the Dockyard workers

Go here to see the original:
‘I love the Republic’, says anti-censorship campaigner

More Yahoo Answers CENSORSHIP

By: Lets Talk Politix

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More Yahoo Answers CENSORSHIP - Video

GoogleTube CENSORSHIP Conspiracy (is REAL)
It has begun..... UPDATE!! No kidding....AS SOON AS I POSTED THIS VIDEO....My comments and thumbs showed back up on my videos.....Weird timing to say the least.

By: TheScariestMovieEver

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GoogleTube CENSORSHIP Conspiracy (is REAL) - Video

Blackbar is a simple, elegant and witty word game for the iPhone. It's also a dystopian sci-fi adventure storyabout the cruelty of censorship. Yeah, now you're interested! Read on for our Blackbar review.

The best puzzle games for iPad & iPhone

A politically literate tirade against censorship; an Orwellian adventure story told through one half of an increasingly mangled email exchange; a puzzle game based entirely around decoding blocks of text. None of these things might sound like your idea of a merry time, but Blackbar is odd like that.

Playing the part of a downtrodden citizen of a dimly sketched dystopia, you receive a series of messages with parts blacked out by censors, and have to work out what the missing words are. It's easy at first, as these things generally are; but the game takes the idea and runs with it, tangling and weaving its internal logic until your head hurts.

You start off with this...

...and start filling in the blanks like this

It can be a frustrating game, in truth: we found ourselves head-scratching over a single word needed to unlock the next screen for days at a time. And the actual substance of the puzzles, when you remove this non-playing thinking time, is relatively thin. But Blackbar makes up for this by having a rather wonderful story - a story that's barely there, whispered to you in code and reassembled piece by piece.

Blackbar is often funny, particularly when the censors grow suspicious and start sending out entertainingly euphemistic threats; it's also a little bit politically charged. Every now and then it will catch you off guard and be rather moving. The writers, likethe US author Mark Z. Danielewski, are aware that piecing together the story yourself makes it that much more affecting.

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Blackbar review: An iPhone game about censorship that... No wait, come back! It's really good!

After a lengthy battle in a French court over unwanted S&M pictures showing in Google search results, former president of Formula One racing Max Mosley beat Google in a ruling that said the search engine was to "remove and cease, for a period of five years beginning two months after this decision, the appearance of nine images,Reuters reported.

The images in question depict Mosley engaged in an S&M party with multiple prostitutes back in 2008. Rumors surfaced it was Nazi themed, but Mosley fiercely denied that aspect of the event; the costumes worn were prison garb.

Google said the ruling would require a new algorithm built specifically for this case in order to keep up with anyone who is reposting the images.

"Even though we already provide a fast and effective way of removing unlawful material from our search index, the French court has instructed us to build what we believe amounts to a censorship machine," Google counsel Daphne Keller said in a statement.

Prior to the ruling, Google said it had already removed hundreds of pages for Mosley and would be willing to remove more. But this ruling, said Google, has serious consequences for free expression.

TechDirt.com reported Mosley's take on censorship and Google's role:

"The fundamental point is that Google could stop this material appearing, but they don't, or they won't as a matter of principle. My position is that if the search engines -- if somebody were to stop the search engines producing the material, the actual sites don't really matter because without a search engine, nobody will find it, it would be just a few friends of the person who posts it. The really dangerous thing are the search engines."

Google was ordered to pay 1 euro in damages as well as 5,000 euros of Mosley's court costs. Google said it would appeal the ruling.

Bringing Together Paid, Owned and Earned Media Feb. 10-13, 2014: This year's SES London agenda focuses on aligning paid, owned and earned media to help you drive quality traffic and increase conversions. Register early and save! *Saver Rate ends Dec 13.

Here is the original post:
Google Whipped by Censorship Ruling in Max Mosley S&M Case

Though the Twitter website has been blocked on mainland China since 2009, news of Twitters successful IPO was still widely covered by Chinese national media, and Internet users in China took to their Weibo accounts (Chinas version of the microblogging platform and the countrys most popular social media site) to crack jokes about the multibillion-dollar invisible website.

A website that cant even open is now worth $24 billion? Its a crazy world were living in! one blogger posted, according to the South China Morning Post. Twitter is like a ghost, because youve only heard about it, but no one has ever seen it, another joked.

While there were jokes aplenty, the conversation unsurprisingly turned into a debate on censorship. Another blogger pointed out that the jokes about Twitter say a lot about Chinas immense censorship power. This is the moment you realize that China is so apart from the rest of the world, one New York-based Weibo blogger wrote. The post, which drew some 3,000 comments, became a point of argument. Considering the average American knows very little about the world outside their country, who is really apart? one blogger wrote in response. We have our own, better version [of the platform], so how are we set apart?

How can you say it's better when you're denied having Twitter as a choice, said the first blogger. Those who say they dont even like using Twitter are missing the point. How can you be glad when you are deprived of the right in the first place?

Even though they can't tweet, many Chinese netizens addressed the censorship in a humorous way. Here are more jokes about Twitters IPO found on Chinese social media:

I am calling the police they are letting a fake website go public.

I am worried about the bubbles in the U.S. stock market -- how come a nonexistent website walked away with that kind of money?

Wow, do you think I can also make money selling shares in my blank error page?

On Thursday, the San Francisco-based social media platform saw its stock price soar from the IPO opening of $26 to $44.90, a 73 percent increase, by the end of its first day on the New York Stock Exchange.

Read more:
China Discusses Twitter IPO Online: Netizens Crack Jokes About Censorship And Social Media

Yoani Sánchez: How Pixels are Bringing Down the Wall of Censorship
On October 28, the Program on Liberation Technology at CDDRL, in partnership with the Association for Liberation Technology, the Center for Latin American St...

By: Stanford Center on Democracy, Development, and The Rule of Law

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Yoani Sánchez: How Pixels are Bringing Down the Wall of Censorship - Video

REUTERS/Will Burgess

Amnesty International volunteers tie cloth gags across their mouths during a protest in central Sydney in July, 2008. They demonstrated against what they claim is the Chinese government's censorship and surveillance of internet users in China.

A new study by the Center for International Media Assistance has found that, over the last five years, China's media restrictionshave begun to seriously affect the reportage and operations of international organizations.

As China's international political and economic power has grown, so has international coverage. The number of foreign correspondents in the country has nearly doubled since 2002. As a result, the Chinese government has moved to use its increased clout to control international opinion and reportage.

The Communist Party thinks its now powerful enough to intimidate [non-Chinese], from business people to diplomats to academics and journalists, and its willing to throw its weight around, veteran China reporter Paul Mooney said. It has learned that this often works and is willing to do anything to protect its image and stop negative news from being reported.

The Communist Party of China engages in four main strategies for influencing international media, according to the study:

The study found that, during the last six years, foriegn journalists have been assaulted while reporting on land protests in Zhejiang and an activists trial in Sichaun, among other incidents.

In addition, journalists have expereinced delays in visa processing or had their applications rejected directly based on the content of their reporting. In 2013, ten percent of respondents reported difficulty obtaining press accreditation because of their reporting.In 2012, al-Jazeera Englishs Melissa Chan and the New York Times Chris Buckley were denied visa renewal and forced to leave the country, in what the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China called the most extreme example of using journalist visas to censor and intimidate foreign correspondents in China.

The other major facet of the Chinese censorship enterprise is the use of economic benefits or repercussions for businesses and publications, based on their coverage.

A few examples from the study:

See original here:
Chinese Censorship Is Spreading All Over The World

Social media giant Facebook has waded into one of Europe longest-running conflicts after it banned pages belonging to Turkey's largest pro-Kurdish political party.

The main page of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) came down on Tuesday, October 29, following several warnings about posting content related to a Kurdish militia fighting in northern Syria and an interview with one of its deputies in which she spoke out for political autonomy of Kurdistan.

Facebook policy on censorship and the recognition of the Kurdish identity proved to be worse than that of Turkey, the party said in a statement.

Long running conflict

Turkey has been in conflict with the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which began a war of insurrection in the 1980s seeking independence for swathes of Turkey's southeast, home to the majority of Turkey's estimated 14 million ethnic Kurds. That demand has since been downgraded to political autonomy for minorities. Still, the PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union, United States and Turkey.

The PKK declared a ceasefire in May as the Turkish government promised democratic reforms to recognize minority rights. Negotiations between the Turkish state and the PKK's jailed leader, Abdullah calan, are ongoing.

Facebook denies that the page came down over the use of Kurdistan -- a term that denotes a Kurdish homeland that encompasses territory in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Its statement from Facebook's European office to Deutsche Welle reads in full:

The BDP page was not removed for mentioning the word 'Kurdistan'. It is true that several BDP pages have been taken down from Facebook. This is because these pages have repeatedly breached Facebook's rules. These rules allow users of Facebook to post political content, including controversial views, but prohibit the posting of content that shows support for internationally-recognised illegal terrorist organisations [including the PKK].

BDP spokesman Cem Bico says the main page came down following the group posting of an interview with BDP's MP Sebahat Tuncel calling for political autonomy for Kurdistan. There is no mention of armed groups.

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Facebook censorship of pro-Kurdish political party