Category Archives: Censorship

Facebook Censorship pt 2
just another day where they try to censor my posts... if this is happening to you please post a video of it or comment... peace

By: Devastation0725

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Facebook Censorship pt 2 - Video

Tomorrow in the House of Lords, ministers will try to excise from the Defamation Bill wrecking amendments inserted by peers who are determined to impose on newspapers a draconian version of Lord Justice Levesons proposals for press regulation. If they fail to expunge the amendments, the revised Bill will create in the UK a version of prior restraint censorship before publication that has not existed in this country for 300 years and that is explicitly outlawed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Not satisfied with prior-restraint alone, the wreckers also wish to punish newspapers that do not submit to state-sanctioned regulation by obliging them to pay exemplary damages if defeated in actions for libel or invasion of privacy. Like Sir Brian Leveson, they attach too little weight to the possibility that this might breach Article 10 of the ECHR.

Such restrictions of liberty might please victims of tabloid misbehaviour, such as Max Mosley and Hugh Grant, but it would give the Government no choice but to kill the Bill. This would be regrettable, because it is valuable. Its originator, Lord Lester, an eminent human-rights lawyer, describes it as a charter not for the press but for the public. In fact it is valuable to both groups, which is why it has the support of newspapers and campaigners who wish to open the libel courts to less affluent litigants.

Supporters of the contested clauses claim noble purpose. But, by attempting to hijack Lord Lesters work as a vehicle for state-sanctioned regulation, they have shown that, for them, ends justify means. Their actions reveal something more significant, too. Throughout the phone-hacking scandal, the Leveson Inquiry and the controversy spawned by the Leveson Report, supporters of state-sanctioned newspaper regulation have promoted the idea that they are virtuous servants of the public interest. Their abuse of the Defamation Bill has revealed a less wholesome reality.

The Hacked Off campaign and its supporters should take note: the antics in the Lords have revealed the presence in Parliament of opinions it suits them to pretend do not exist.

Vulnerable to the accusation that a press law, once enacted, might be strengthened rapidly, they say limited statutory backing for a new system of regulation would not be extended to impose tougher controls. They accuse Levesons opponents of imagining the slippery slope down which we believe Britains press laws would slide if his proposals were implemented. The use made of the Defamation Bill by Leveson-supporting peers, such as Lord Puttnam and Baroness Boothroyd, has exposed such views as misguided.

I hope this useful and progressive Bill can be rescued and enacted with the support of both Houses. But whether it lives or dies, it has already performed service to the causes of liberal democracy and press freedom. Britain needs self-regulating newspapers untrammelled by a statutory backstop because there are already in Parliament men and women who believe they are entitled to impose upon others their values and their ideology.

To believe that such well-intentioned meddlers will become less bold in future is wishful thinking. They exist and have made it plain that they could exploit a minimalist piece of legislation to neuter newspapers entirely. We have been warned. Any press regulator supervised or empowered by legislation would give politicians a tool to extend control over the press. Some of them have now shown us how willing they would be to use it.

They would not call it censorship. They would believe they were acting in the public interest. If they shared any of the hubris shown by the peers who amended the Defamation Bill, they might sincerely believe it. Those who consider press freedom and liberty inseparable should not trust them. They need only win once. If we are to preserve liberties that have endured for centuries and made this country a beacon of democracy, we must win every time.

The writer is professor of journalism at the University of Kent and author of the pamphlet Responsibility without Power: Lord Justice Levesons constitutional dilemma

Continued here:
Read between the lines: this is press censorship

Freedom to Read Week begins on Feb. 24, bringing with it the perfect opportunity to kick the tires of democracy and make sure the old jalopys still running as she should.

Whats that you say? The bumper fell off when you touched it? The engine wont turn over? Thats not so good. Better look under the hood.

We like to think of censorship as something that happens over there, in the faraway places where men break into houses at night to smash computers, or arrive in classrooms to remove books they dont like. Not in lovely, calm, respectful Canada. Here we dont necessarily notice freedoms being eroded slowly, grain by grain, like sands through the hourglass, if youll allow me to quote from Days of Our Lives.

Just ask Canadas government scientists. Oh wait, you cant ask them, because theyve got duct tape over their mouths (metaphorical duct tape, but hey its still painful). This week the University of Victorias Environmental Law Clinic and Democracy Watch asked federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault to investigate claims that scientists are being prohibited from speaking freely with journalists and through them, the public.

In a report called Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy, the UVic researchers present some chilling findings: Scientists are either told not to speak to journalists or to spout a chewed-over party line, rubber-stamped by their PR masters; the restrictions are particularly tight when a journalist is seeking information about research relating to climate change or the tar sands; Environment Canada scientists require approval from the Privy Council Office before speaking publicly on sensitive topics such as climate change or protection of polar bear and caribou.

You wouldnt want the average citizen to learn too much about caribou, now. Who knows how crazy he could get with that kind of information? It could lead to panel discussions about Arctic hares, town halls on ptarmigans. The report states that government scientists are frustrated, which is hardly surprising. Its like hiring Sandy Koufax and never letting him pitch.

The other thing that the report makes clear is how deliberate this strategy is: The federal government has recently made concerted efforts to prevent the media and through them, the general public from speaking to government scientists, and this, in turn, impoverishes the public debate on issues of significant national concern.

This is not an issue thats going away. The Harper governments heavy-handed control of scientists research has raised concerns across the world for a few years, including condemnation from such bastions of Marxism as Nature magazine.

A couple thousand scientists from across the country marched on Parliament Hill last July to protest cuts in research (many in the highly sensitive area of environment and climate change) and restrictions on their ability to speak freely about their work. They created what might be the best chant in the history of political protest: What do we want? Science! When do we want it? After peer review!

Last week, Margaret Munro of Postmedia News reported that a University of Delaware scientist was up in arms over a new confidentiality agreement brought in by Canadas Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Im not signing it, Andreas Muenchow told the reporter. What does this mean for bilateral co-operation on research? Nothing good, thats for sure.

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Censorship is alive and well in Canada – just ask government scientists

China's censorship of the micro-blog account of Frank Hsieh, a prominent Taiwanese politician, leads to mainland soul searching.

Within twenty-four hours of registration, Sina Weibo (China's equivalent of Twitter) deleted the micro-blog account of Frank Hsieh, former premier of Taiwan's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Ironically, Hsieh's last tweet before he lost the ability to post on Weibo was this: "Whether or not there is freedom of speech does not depend on how freely you speak when you criticize high officials or people in power, but whether you lose your freedom after you speak."

Hsieh's post prompted an interesting response from mainlandChinese netizens: they criticized the Chinese government for infringing on freedom of speech, expressing concerns that such a display of intolerance would antagonize Taiwanese people and diminish prospects for cross-straits reunification.

Yet some Taiwanese officials, in turn, have used this incident to highlight the incompatibility between Taiwan and the mainland, and toemphasizethe need for Taiwanese independence. In a television interview broadcast by Taiwan's United Daily News Group, Su Tseng-chang, current chairman of the DPP (and who lost the 2012 DPP presidential nomination to Frank Hsieh) stated: "From this incident, you can see how precious and praiseworthy a free, democratic, and open Taiwan is, and what differences exist between Taiwan and China. Taiwanese people must treasure their own land and country. We must not have false hopes toward China."

In the same interview, Hsieh stated that he created the Weibo account in an effort to better understand the Chinese public and to share his own thoughts and experiences with them. When asked why his account was deleted, he replied, "I don't know." He then added jokingly, "Maybe there were some 'hackers.'"

Some Taiwanese netizens echoed Su's view, openly displaying their contempt for China. In response to a China Times article reporting on this topic, Web user @ commented, "The two places' basic values have so many differences--how can we ever talk about reunification?" Another user @ wrote, "If Taiwan falls into the hands of the Communist party, Taiwanese people will be like Li Houzhu (renounced poet and the final Southern Tang ruler)--we will wash our faces with tears every day, then drink ourselves to death."

Still others rebuked Frank Hsieh, accusing him of trying to curry favor with the Chinese people. In response to an article written by Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA), Web user @ commented, "The party that shouts 'Taiwan Independence' every day goes and sets up a Weibo account -- gaining popularity by selling Taiwan and seeking shelter from the Mainland?" Another user called @hungyk5 wrote, "Hsieh tried so hard to gather 'fans' by washing his Weibo account with sensational comments, but he went too far...as a result his account got blocked. It serves him right!"

A few Taiwanese traditionalists seized this opportunity to call for the unification of Mainland and Taiwan -- under the Republic of China's rule. User @9527 commented on the same CNA article, "Fellow Mainland brothers -- rise and revolt for your freedom of speech, throw yourself into to the arms of the legitimate, free, democratic Republic of China."

In Taiwan, opinions toward the cross-strait relationship split not only between DDP and the pro-reunification Kuomintang (KMT), its competitor, but also within the DDP itself. Last October, when Frank Hsieh privately visited top government officials in Beijing , some DDP members praised Hsieh's efforts to improve the party's ties with Beijing, while others maintained that Hsieh's political views and actions do not necessarily represent those of the entire party. As DDP's chairman Su Tseng-chang acknowledged, "The DPP's position [on its China policy] remains unchanged despite there being different opinions in the party."

The belligerent and divergent reactions toward the news of Hsieh's day-long Weibo career show that more than 60 years after the 1949 Civil War, the question of cross-strait relationship -- and reunification -- remain controversial as before.

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In Face of Mainland Censorship, Taiwanese Revisit Reunification Question

China's top media regulator will expand pre-broadcast censorship to cover television documentaries, in an apparent boost to an already formidable control apparatus, a newspaper said on Friday.

China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) told TV stations and producers that all documentaries would have to be approved in advance of being shown, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

The notice would bring censorship of TV documentaries into line with requirements on non-fiction films, it said.

A notice posted on SARFT's website on Monday said that TV production companies including joint Chinese-foreign co-productions should report documentary topics in advance.

The notice did not detail topics which would be censored, but said the move would "promote the healthy development of television documentaries".

Previous censorship guidelines released by SARFT have outlawed films which "distort" China's history, or contain "murder, violence, horror, evil spirits and devils and excessively terrifying scenes".

A range of political topics are also blocked by censors, from allegations of high-level corruption to calls for multiparty democracy and works challenging state-approved narratives of historical events.

China is home to a vibrant community of independent documentary makers who bypass officialdom and screen their work at independent film festivals, in bars and at universities, post them online or distribute them on copied DVDs.

People watch the London Olympics at a fast food restaurant in Beijing last August. China's top media regulator will expand pre-broadcast censorship to cover television documentaries, in an apparent boost to an already formidable control apparatus, a newspaper said on Friday.

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China 'tightens documentary censorship'

Egypt's communications ministry is asking citizens to report web pages showing blasphemous content.

The Egyptian government is now crowdsourcing censorship efforts. A new web page created by the country's National Telecommunications Registry Agency, allows citizens to report blasphemous websites (Arabic-language links). According to Alix Dunn of tech activism blog The Engine Room, the site is designed to help find pages showing a controversial anti-Islam film. The film, a low-budget American effort called The Innocence of Muslims, portrays Mohammed in extremely negative ways and sparked violent riots worldwide.

Visitors to the National Telecommunications Registry page are instructed to leave the offending URL on a page with a CAPTCHA link; government bureaucrats then review the page and block it if it leads to blasphemous content. This service follows on the heels of a failed attempt to ban YouTube in Egypt because of numerous uploaded copies of The Innocence of Muslims.

The film itself was directed by an Egyptian-American Christian with previous fraud and methamphetamine arrests; actors in the movie were apparently unaware of what they were being filmed for and anti-Islamic dialogue was overdubbed in post-production. YouTube banned the video in Egypt and Libya earlier this year in response to widespread public outcry in those two countries.

[Image: Flickr user gr33ndata]

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Egypt Crowdsources Censorship

Chinas secret Internet cleanup team, responsible for taking down negative stories for their high-profile clients, made millions of yuan before being shut down by government officials.

According to an investigation by Chinas Caixin magazine, these Internet scrubbers are paid huge sums to erase any unwanted online mentions of their clients through various under-the-table means -- in other words, censorship that has been privatized.

Gu Dengda, a 30-year-old Beijing-based entrepreneur and public relations consultant, founded his Internet cleanup crew, Yage Times, in 2007. By 2011, his company made 50 million yuan (more than $8 million) in gross profits that year alone. Officially, the business falls under the information technology sector, but insiders told Caixin its main money-maker is getting rid of negative coverage for a hefty price.

Citing one job, the magazine wrote, Saving the Shenzhen-based firms image was not cheap, and it took more than two months to douse the flames of Internet news reports and rumors claiming executives had used a Ponzi scheme to bilk investors.

In China, bad press at any scale can take down even the biggest politicians or tarnish the names of major companies, so naturally, business for Gu was booming. Yage Times dealt with a wide variety of clients, from multinational companies to wealthy individuals. Most clients, however, were officials in second-tier or third-tier provincial cities.

Gu and his employees would often use bribery as a means of getting rid of negative news surrounding clients, but when that failed, they resorted to creating and sending out forged government documents that demanded specific content be removed from news sites.

Targets of bribery and the faked official documents ranged from low-level employees at public relations firms to major news portals such as Netease and Sohu, and even Internet search giant Baidu.

And while desperate clients were willing to pay lots of money for the illegal services provided by Yage Times, it seems that Gu is now paying the price.

Gu is now being held under police custody because of his shady, if lucrative, business practices. He is awaiting trial and has been charged with various crimes, including bribery. According to the report, Gu is one of at least 10 Internet- scrubbing specialists currently being detained by authorities. Additionally, Chinese authorities uncovered several other firms that operate under similar IT or public relations facades that also provide the illegal services.

According to Caixins report, Chinas authorities were determined to stop such underground business practices for good. Authorities were so determined to leave no stone unturned that every uniformed officer in the district was dispatched for the raids, even a forensic examiner, the report said. More than 100 police stormed Yages Beijing offices, arresting more than 100 employees from janitors to Gu himself -- and shutting down their operations.

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Privatized Censorship: China Cracks Down On Image-Rescuing Bribery Business

New Delhi, Feb. 20 -- In an Arindam Chaudhuri Facebook post on February 9, 2013, there's a picture of the man, shining smile et al, with the caption: "The highest followed management guru and teacher on earth (sic) has two million fans," followed by two exclamation marks. It has, till this report was filed, 124,057 likes. On February 15, the government had ordered, following a Gwalior court directive, blocking of sites critical to the IIPM that Chaudhuri runs.

Among the content blocked included a University Grants Commission (UGC) notice against the private B-school. It reads, "IIPM is not a university within the meaning of Section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956. It does not have the right of conferring or granting degrees as specified by the UGC under Section 22(3) of the UGC Act. It is clarified for information that IIPM is neither entitled to award MBA/BBA/BCA degree nor it is recognised by UGC."

Public ire against the censorship forced the government to lift the censorship. Along with the content that went off the internet included articles which gave details of IIPM's questionable tie-ups with institutes abroad, even when it did not have AICTE/UGC approval.

An education magazine had a few years ago revealed that IIPM had been advertising an agreement offering with IMI Belgium - an institute not recognised by the regulatory authority in Belgium, similar to UGC.

There was also a tie-up claim with the University of Buckingham, which was subsequently denied by the UK university, the magazine reported.

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.

Original post:
Online protests rage against govt censorship

Harlem Shake (Parents edition Without Censorship)
You laugh a lot It #39;s funny

By: MrShaol

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Harlem Shake (Parents edition Without Censorship) - Video

Micro-blogging websites offer uncensored information, glimpse behind bureaucracy's secrecy By meghan cioci | Feb 17

A panel of international journalists met Friday in Clark Hall to discuss the role technology plays in combatting news censorship policies in China. The panelists highlighted the reporting challenges faced by international correspondents and Chinese journalists.

The discussion, entitled Covering China in the Age of Information, was moderated by Charles Laughlin, director of the East Asia Center, and included panelists Melissa Chan, the John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford, Isaac Stone Fish, the associate editor of Foreign Policy magazine and Susan Jakes, the editor of the Asia Societys ChinaFile blog.

In the years leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, because of pressures from the international community, journalists faced fewer constraints, Chan said. But progress has since halted, she added.

Non-Chinese foreign correspondents enjoy relative security, Fish said, but their sources and Chinese counterparts often do not. Youre there, youre protected, but its very easy for you to burn your sources for you to endanger the people you talk to, he said.

Because of the risk news sources face, it is difficult for foreign journalists to hear peoples genuine opinions, Jakes said. Instead reporters must find these opinions in certain corners of the web.

One of the interesting things about these micro-blogging sites is that they can give us access to peoples unvarnished thoughts about all kinds of different topics, Jakes said. [It] provides a kind of window to life in China.

These micro-blogging sites, such as the popular Weibo, are censored, which results in a cat and mouse game between users and censors. Sometimes you can read things for a few minutes and then they just disappear, Jakes said. But these posts if seen during the brief time before censoring provide invaluable leads on news stories, panelists agreed.

The advent of image attachments, which are harder to censor than text, has furthered the ability for news stories to reach readers in China. One site, WeiboScope, selects 40-50 of the most popular stories and posts them in the form of image attachments, rather than the original text versions..

There is some stuff that is really pushing the envelope in terms of sensitivity [on WeiboScope] and [reading the site] is a good way to keep your thumb on the pulse of public discourse in China today, Laughlin said.

Excerpt from:
Panel discusses Chinese journalism, government censorship