July, 2012

Stories from July, 2012

Zambia: Pupils Expelled For Facebook Activities

  30 July 2012

Twenty one pupils at a secondary school in rural western Zambia have been expelled over vile messages against their teachers on Facebook. Meanwhile, ruling party boss wants Zambian citizen news website shut.

Peru: Concerns Over Computer Crime Bill

  27 July 2012

Discussions have been held over the past year in the National Congress to draw up a computer crime bill. The bill has raised many questions, among them the fact that it constitutes a probable threat to privacy and freedom of expression on the internet.

Global Voices seeks Advocacy Director

  25 July 2012

  Global Voices seeks an Advocacy Director to run its online freedom of expression initiatives. Global Voices Advocacy seeks to build a global anti-censorship network of citizen media and online activists throughout the developing world that is dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online. The goal...

Mexico: Congress Resolves to Reject ACTA

  22 July 2012

On July 18, 2012, both the Senate and House of Representatives in Mexico passed resolutions calling for the country's new President, Enrique Peña Nieto, to nullify Mexico's signature on the ACTA treaty. Mexico's Ambassador to Japan, Claude Heller, signed the treaty a week prior, despite strong rejections of its terms by Mexico's Senate and the country's telecommunications commission.

Costa Rica: Cybercrime Law Threatens Internet Freedom

  20 July 2012

Costa Rica just passed Law 9048, which includes reforms to the country’s Criminal Code to create new cybercrime offenses, including rules against illegal access and interception of communications. Journalists and internet freedom activists are trying to modify the most controversial part of the law which criminalizes the publication of State secrets, the use of any form of e-impersonification and the spread of false news.

Transplanting mainland Chinese filter list to Hong Kong?

  19 July 2012

A local newspaper, AM730 [zh] found out that the Hong Kong government free wifi service is filtering away a number of politically sensitive websites. Even though most of the websites have been re-opened upon receiving netizens’ complaint, netizens and human right groups are concerned about the lack of monitor over...

YouTube's New Face Blur Tool and What It Means for Activists Globally

  19 July 2012

This post was written by Sam Gregory, Program Director at WITNESS and originally appeared on the WITNESS  Video For Change blog, July 18, 2012. Yesterday, YouTube announced a new tool within their upload editor that enables people to blur the faces within the video, and then publish a version with...

Netizen Report: Neutrality Edition

  19 July 2012

We begin this week’s Netizen Report with a battle between South Korea’s net neutrality advocates and telecommunications companies, who are at odds after the Korean Communications Commission allowed three domestic mobile carriers to block access or add surcharges for mobile voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) services. Opponents to this latest move include several civil society groups and Google. From there we move on to net neutrality debates in the United States and Brazil, before embarking on our global tour of the ongoing struggle over freedom and control of the Internet.

Mexico: The Government Signed ACTA While Mexicans Were Asleep

  18 July 2012

The Mexican government signed its adhesion to ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) on Wednesday, July 11th. 2012 in Japan while it was the middle of the night in Mexico. Netizens showed their outrage complaining that the federal government acted against the will of the people and of the Senate.

A Campaign for Syrian Bloggers

  16 July 2012

The number of citizen journalists and bloggers arrested in Syria rises daily. A new campaign--for blogger Hussein Ghrer--seeks to raise awareness of the blogger's plight.

A Declaration of Internet Freedom

  15 July 2012

Recently, a number of groups came together to create a Declaration of Internet Freedom. To date, the Declaration has been signed by more than 1300 organizations and companies and continues to grow.

Hong Kong: Activist's home raided for DOS attack allegation

  15 July 2012

On July 13 2012, a group of police officers raided a Hong Kong activist, Yang Yang's (screen name) home and took away his computer, server and cell phone. According to the police, he was under the allegation of Denial of Service (DOS) attack against two government websites earlier last month....

How-To: Build an Anti-ACTA-Campaign

  11 July 2012

During the past five months, our small german NGO Digitale Gesellschaft e.V. has been actively campaigning against ACTA. Our main goal has been to create a broad coalition of organisations and people protesting against ACTA for different arguments, to communicate the criticism against ACTA in a comprehensive way as well...

Netizen Report: Blackout Edition

  11 July 2012

This week we focus in on Russia, where the government has proposed a draft bill that would censor the Internet in ways similar to China's Great Firewall. Russia's Wikipedia went dark on Tuesday in protest, coinciding with a debate on the bill in the Russian Parliament. From there, we look at net activism issues in Syria, Malaysia, Iran and beyond.

Syria Files: More Western technology for the Syrian regime

  7 July 2012

Western technology has played a key role in providing the Syrian regime with tools to track and repress citizens for years. The latest Wikileaks files on Syria, which include more than two million emails from political figures and companies, reveal that the involvement of Western companies in the crackdown against Syrian citizens has continued despite sanctions and international pressure.