censorship
Yahoo & MSN side with Chinese government, against their users
Oops, they did it again: Yahoo and MSN signed a blogging ’self-discipline’ pact in China:
US Internet giants Yahoo and MSN confirmed Friday they had signed a code of conduct for their blogging operations in China that committed them to protecting the interests of the Chinese state.
So what exactly does that mean?
Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and other […]
Beijing Wide Open: Bloggers detained in Beijing for live blogging for a free Tibet
Tibetan-Canadian Free Tibet activist and director of Students For A Free Tibet Lhadon Tethong has been liveblogging from Beijing. The activists have gathered in Beijing exactly one year before the Olympic Games are about to start - tonight, there will be the official countdown ceremony.
Their live blog Beijing Wide Open has declared their goal to […]
The Great Firewall of China: Blocks some websites, doesn’t others.
China’s approach to filter & censor huge chunks of internet traffic within China - the so-called Great Firewall of China - has been troublesome to Chinese dissidents and human rights advocates alike for quite a while. To at least make the issues somewhat more transparent for those outside China, a non-profit group of webbies and […]
Fundraising model: Weblogs for a good cause
Just stumbled upon something at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) which I hadn’t noticed before: RSF offers weblog hosting. For a monthly fee (5,90 or 14,90 Euros depending on the plan) you get an ad-free blog and RSF’s promise that they won’t work with the police in restrictive countries by giving out your details. (Like Yahoo […]
100$ Laptop + Twitter = The End of Information Control
The chances that Nicholas Negroponte’s awesome One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC, aka the 100$ Laptop project) offer for education are pretty obvious: Where there’s access to knowledge, there’s a better chance to get educated. It sort of levels the playing field, to some degree or another.
But with the capacity of those laptops to instantly […]
Chinese pro-democracy dissident’s wive sues Yahoo for his arrest
Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling’s Beijing duplex. She’s cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He’s been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. […]
Washington Post buys into anti-wireless rhetorics, fails.
In an article unambiguously titles “WiFi Turns Internet Into Hideout for Criminals” the good ol’ Washington Post gives a pretty nasty blow to all open wi-fi initiatives. I don’t know what got into Washington Post writer Jamie Stockwell. (But it sure wasn’t decent journalism, or research for that matter.) Using the old - and mostly […]
internet phones, censorship and net neutrality
Recently, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) stated that Skype has signed a contract with the Chinese government stating that Skype would block out certain keywords. (Probably all the daaaangerous stuff, such as freedom, democracy or Mao comics. Kidding. Anyway.) For links and info, see my old post here. Now, this is pretty bad, obviously. Blocking keywords […]
Dictatorships get to grips with Web 2.0
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) just released their Annual Press Freedom Survey.
Executive summary of the internet-related part: New technologies, encryption and Web 2.0 have made it easier for dissidents, journalists and other ordinary folks to have secure conversations and get the word out. However, dictatorships are catching up: Partly by adapting said new technologies, partly by […]
Class-action lawsuit against data retention in Germany
Germany might be introducing a law to record connection data from nearly all kinds of digital communication. The governing coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD is planning to pass a law proposed (PDF in German) by the Federal Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries. The law would allow the government to record, among others, who talked to […]
Web tool to bypass government censorship
Toronto University’s Citizen Lab has been cooking up a mean tool to bypass government censorship. Going by the name of psiphon, the software supposedly allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unrestricted access to the Net to their friends in less fortunate countries.
“The program, called psiphon (pronounced “SY-fon”), will be released on Dec. 1 in […]
Microsoft pulling out of China due to human rights violations?
The net is buzzing with news that Microsoft is considering to pull of of non-democratic countries like China. Fred Tipson, senior policy counsel at Microsoft, said that…
…concerns over the repressive regime might force it to reconsider its business in China. “Things are getting bad… and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there,” […]
My name is Peter Bihr. I live in Berlin, Germany. As a freelancer, I consult on web strategies, communities, blogging and social media. In this weblog, I jot down random thoughts, ideas and news. Hopefully, you'll find some are interesting for you, too. 