Stories about Taiwan (ROC)
Taiwan: Internet Policy Reforms Spark Fears of Censorship
Since this spring, the Taiwanese government has proposed multiple policy reforms that have sparked concerns of Internet censorship among Taiwanese netizens. Some are comparing these amendments to Chinese-style speech control, while others have observed the influence of the United States behind the legislation.
Copyright Amendment Could Bring Web Filter System to Taiwan
Many Taiwanese believe that a recent proposed copyright amendment put forward by the government is a setback for democracy. The amendment would provide legal ground for ISP-level blocking of websites that violate copyright restrictions.
Taiwan: Facebook's Deactivation of User Accounts Triggered Free Speech Concerns
Several Taiwanese activists and politicians had their Facebook accounts suspended on June 1st, which triggered Taiwanese users' concern over the limitation on free speech.
For Chinese Netizens, SOPA is Another Great Firewall
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which expected to brought to a vote in U.S. House of Representatives before the end of the year, has spawned sarcastic commentary around the Chinese-language Internet. The Chinese government has long been criticized by Americans for obstructing the free flow of information through a filtering system popularly known as the Great Firewall. Now it is Chinese neitzens' turn to sneer at proposals for a Made-in-America Great Firewall.
Taiwan: Blogger subjected to US7,000 compensation for writing food critics
A Taiwanese blogger was sentenced to 30 days detention with a 2 year probation and subjected to a TWD200,000 (approximately USD7,000) compensation for writing food critics in her blog. The court in Taichung city stated that her comment was not based upon objective fact and hence defamatory. Defamation is a...
Taiwan restricting the press?
Reports suggest Taiwan is restricting the press and Freedom House has downgraded the island nation in its annual global free press report. According to The Christian Science Monitor, “Freedom of speech and press are among the most lauded achievements of Taiwan’s democratic transition since martial law was lifted more than two decades...
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 from police asking for the IP information of some of the plurkers’ accounts. However, the police did not present any...
Info-Rhizome: Report on Independent Media in the Chinese-speaking World
I have just announced the launching of Info-Rhizome: Report on Independent Media in the Chinese-speaking World at interlocals.net. Individual can download free copy from here. The book is consisted of reports on the development of independent media in four regions: China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan, with special focus on...
LGBT content unreasonably filtered away in Hong Kong
A LGBT concern group, leslovestudy, conduced a research in Hong Kong [Chinese pdf] in November, 2008 on 5 major commercial and public filters in Hong Kong. The NGO found out that a large amount of LGBT content, including community, health and academic websites, has been widely filtered away in Hong...
