Tag: FREEDOMOFSPEECH

Authorities in Bahrain have released a dissident blogger, just one day after arresting him at his home. Mahmoud al-Youssef was taken into custody early Wednesday morning, as part of a nationwide campaign against opposition activists and protesters. The 50-year-old al-Youssef, who blogs in English, has long criticized the Bahrain regime for restricting freedom of expression, and has been an ...

When the Middle East erupted in revolution earlier this year, many regimes responded to the upheaval by ramping up their online censorship efforts. And, according to the Wall Street Journal, a lot of them had help from American software companies. Throughout the region, governments have been using technologies and tools developed by U.S. firms to clamp down on the Web. McAfee reportedly ...

Three years ago, some of the world's leading tech companies agreed to participate in the Global Network Initiative (GNI) -- a code of conduct designed to protect online speech and privacy around the world. The initiative was originally launched in response to brewing tensions in China, where some Internet companies were accused of complying with government censorship policies in order to pursue ...

"Would a world without secrets be fairer, or more compassionate? More efficient? Does it matter if some secrets are revealed before others?" Cyberpunk pundit, digital culture cognoscente and frequently professional contrarian Jaron Lanier wonders aloud about the value of WikiLeaks over at The Atlantic. Better and more authoritative analyses of the impact made by the leaked cables have been ...

Yesterday, YouTube suddenly purged its site of hundreds of videos featuring Anwar al-Awlaki, a high-profile Islamic cleric who used the video-sharing platform to issue calls for jihadist violence against the U.S. The American-born al-Awlaki is currently based in Yemen, and has been tied to Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, Christmas Day bomber Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab and Faisal Shazad (the man ...

In December 2009, Syrian security forces detained 19-year-old high school student and blogger Tal al-Mallohi without ever justifying their decision. For the next nine months, Syrian authorities prohibited the girl from communicating with her family, and never even offered an explanation for why they targeted her in the first place. On September 1st, al-Mallohi's mother finally issued a plea to ...

The American Civil Liberties Union has recently launched 'Spy Files', a new website focused on illegal domestic surveillance. The site aims to make the extent of the government's spying on its own citizens public information. The information will include, "Freedom of Information Act requests, ACLU lawsuits and reports, and news accounts." The ACLU debuted the website along with a report showcasing ...

Following Pakistan's lead, authorities in Bangladesh recently decided to block access to Facebook, on the grounds that the social networking site contains "objectionable" content about both the Prophet Mohammad and the country's own political officials. According to CNET, chief telecommunications regulator Zia Ahmed has requested that all Internet providers block the site, until a page publicizing ...

Good politicians respond to criticism by engaging in a healthy dialogue with their disgruntled constituency. Pennsylvania Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett, on the other hand, responds by slapping a muzzle on Twitter accounts. According to Techdirt, Corbett has gone so far as to subpoena Twitter in response to two anonymous users who used the microblogging ...

Public libraries, in theory, are supposed to be bastions of information. But with the rise of the Internet, many libraries have begun putting up online filters, to make sure users are using public broadband connections to search for actual information and not, well, porn. To many, it's a practical measure. But is it constitutional? According to the Washington state Supreme Court, it is. As the ...

Libel suits are notoriously tough to argue, and even more so when the target of the suit is a critic. The dictionary defines 'libel' as: A written or oral statement about another which is malicious and false and will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others. Professional reviewers don't normally get targeted ...