Stories about Feature from April, 2010
China: Over the GFW
Jason Ng from Kenengba finished a survey on the background of Chinese Internet users who use circumvention tools for crossing over the Great Fire Wall. He managed to collect 5300...
Tunisia: Flickr, Video-sharing Websites, Blog Aggregators and Critical Blogs Are Not Welcome
Tunisia is carrying out one of the most massive wave of online censorship targeting major social websites, video-sharing websites, blogs aggregators, blogs, facebook pages and profiles. The most recent victim...
China: State Security Law Amendment
The latest amendment on State Security Law was submittend to the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee for review yesterday. The drafted law requires telecom operators and Internet service providers...
Guide: Mirroring a Censored WordPress Blog
Global Voices Advocacy is pleased to release another Advocacy 2.0 guide: Mirroring a Censored WordPress Blog. The guide, which has been written by Sami Ben Gharbia (Global Voices Advocacy Director), with Rebekah Heacock (a research assistant for the OpenNet Initiative) and Jeremy Clarke (Global Voices web developer and Wordpress designer), is for bloggers with self-hosted* WordPress blogs who believe their sites may be blocked by government filters. Its goal is to help bloggers use a mirror site to make censored content available to readers despite these filters. It contains step-by-step instructions for setting up a mirror for an original (”source”) WordPress blog.
Egypt: Using Online Media & Digital Devices to Release Detainees
Earlier this month, the April 6 Youth Movement staged a protest in front of the Egyptian Peoples Assembly calling for more political freedoms and an end to Egypt's restrictive “emergency law”, which might be renewed this year, and might be enforced as well by a new “Counter-Terrorism law” which is expected to be extremely repressive. The Egyptian security forces responded to the protesting citizens with a brutal violence, making a score of arrests and convictions.
Guide: SEO Tips for Advocacy Bloggers
Global Voices Advocacy is pleased to release its third Advocacy 2.0 Guides: SEO Tips for Advocacy Bloggers: How to Apply Search Engine Optimization to Grow Your Readership and Influence More People. The guide has been written by my friend and colleague, The Sudanese Thinker, a Global Voices author, an internet marketing and online business consultant, with an initial focus on SEO, and on managed 7-figure online properties.
President Chávez and his “Communicational Guerrilla”
On last sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez launched the program named “Communicational Thunder”, and seventy-five young students between ages 13 and 17, were sworn in his "Communicational Guerrilla", wearing khaki jackets and red bandanas tied around their necks. They had been trained to "fight against imperialist messages", either on social networks online, on walls and pamphlets or "through direct intervention".
Morocco: Formerly Jailed Blogger Bashir Hazzam Tells His Story
Blogging can lead to jail in Morocco. Bashir Hazzam learned it the hard way when in last December the authorities arrested him for reporting on the violent events that shook his usually peaceful village. In the following interview the blogger tells his story.
Bahrain Bans BlackBerry Chat Groups
Bahrain recently banned the use of BlackBerry chat groups citing concerns over the “chaos and confusion” that would result from sharing and distributing local news through these groups, according to...
Thailand pulls plug on TV station, decrees martial law, arrests Webmasters, blocks 10,000 more websites
Thailand’s draconian Internal Security Act was passed in 2007 in its 11th hour by a national legislature appointed by a military coup. Its targets appeared to be the ongoing insurgency in Thailand’s five Muslim provinces in the Deep South, collectively called Patani.
Facebook Deactivations
This post originally appeared on Jillian C. York's blog. Over the course of the past week, I've gotten reports from a number of people whose personal Facebook pages have been...
Taiwan: Police ask for Plurkers’ IPs
Plurk is the most popular micro-blogging platform in Taiwan. Recently, in March 29 2010, one of its founder Alvin Woon posted a plurk, saying that he had been receiving letter...
Some notes on the case of Noticiero Digital and digital crimes
On past march, Venezuelan President denounced the website noticierodigital.com for "having published fake information, announcing the decease of Minister Diosdado Cabello", and he ordered the Public Ministry to prosecute the case.
Chronology of Major events surrounding censorship, hacking, DDOS and online Free Speech
Given the increasing importance of events surrounding Internet repression, especially after the Iran protest and the Google Vs China debacle, I was trying to collect this data over a period of time then display it on a timeline with useful links and videos (where available).
HADOPI, ACTA, Digital Economy Bill: From Human Rights to Economic Rights
There is increasing debate and discussion about regulatory moves in the internet sphere that have direct implications for the kind of society we want to live in and the rights...
Tunisia: WAT.TV, the 3rd video-sharing website to be blocked!
Few days ago, the Tunisian regime has blocked access to WAT.TV, a social networking and media-sharing website, which is believed to be the 3rd video broadcaster on the Internet in...
Lebanon: First Threatened Voice
Lebanon has been known and envied in the MENA region for its free cyberspace. Well not any more since March has marked Lebanon's first cyber censhorship incident. Layal Al Khatib has more details in this post.
Censorship Without Borders: A Moroccan Blogger's Experience
Naoufel Chaara is a talented Moroccan blogger. His website [Ar] has been recently nominated for the Deutsche Welle's 2010 BOBs international award in the Best Arabic Blog category. Naoufel's usually...
