Group items tagged

Wow. Read it and weep. Tim O'Reilly is promoting this article. I haven't read anything quite so scarily propagandist since Caberet. What do I mean? (and who is this 'state'?) Courtesy of One Economy Corporation "If e-mail lives in the cloud, who owns that information?" says State Department's Alec Ross. Cloud computing is a double-edged sword in the fight for Internet freedom, a top State Department official said on Wednesday." "During a major policy speech in January, Clinton announced that Internet freedom would become a strategic priority for the United States in 2010. In March, State revived the Global Internet Freedom Task Force, a Bush administration initiative that worked to harmonize policies departmentwide on protecting free speech. The renamed NetFreedom Task Force met on March 4, when 19 telecommunications and information technology companies discussed the corporate sector's role in facilitating Internet freedom."

In the words of one infamous US President, Australia - "you are either with us or against us". Australia's proposed mandatory filtering laws runs contrary to stated US foreign policy championing an open internet. Read US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's remarks on internet freedom.

Scroll down and read the discussion forum paper, "Child Protection and Freedom of Expression Online". The report aims to open discussion and reframe the debate surrounding child protection by bringing together, rather than isolating, advocates of online child protection and those of freedom of expression. It rejects the current moral panics that dominate the debate, particularly in the media, which over-represents the likelihood of harm to children online. It highlights the unproductive nature of framing online protection as a moral panic because it obscures and undermines the work of both freedom of expression and child protection advocates. Rather than keeping these two parties as diametrically opposed the discussion laid the first steps in finding common ground between the two. From here they can work together to advance both of their agendas and therefore achieving a more desirable balance between defending the rights of children and maintaining freedom of expression.

The conversation first looked at internet censorship from an international perspective covering issues of internet governance from and internet freedom. Unfortunately one or two members of the panel were prone to regurgitating policy rather than engaging in an actual debate. Towards the end inevitably the discussion was drawn to the proposed filtering laws within Australia. The general consensus from the panel members was that education had to be an essential part of policy when addressing online safety. Interestingly the government representative, the Minister for Home Affairs, was a keen supporter of this policy stance.

Great Larvatus Prodeo post over the weekend, written for Electronic Frontiers Australia about the internet filter. Quite long, but here is a key quote: "The Internet ... is part of that secular movement towards the democratisation of social relations; and of knowledge. It's precisely because the Internet affords so much promise for those who wish to decide their destinies in common, to learn, to form an informed judgement and habit of thought that its freedom from state interference is so important at the level of principle." http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/04/16/left-reasons-to-oppose-the-net-filter-nocleanfeed/

"Don't believe the hype", should be the sub title for this article...let's get real people! Questions whether the internet is a tool for freedom or whether it is just an instrument enabling further oppression in certain countries. Features quotes and examples from academic and former "cyber-utopian" Evgeny Morozov. The comments section of the article also provides more insight.

The elderly in an effort to uphold their right to freedom of information are undertaking workshops which teach them how to circumvent the internet filters so that they can still access information regarding euthanasia which would otherwise be fettered with the proposed ISP filtering law …..how effective are these filters going to actually be?

American officials are going to encounter their Chinese counterparts for a scheduled human-rights meeting in Washington next month. They are likely to broach the subject of Internet freedom when they join . This will be the first round of bilateral dialogue between the United States and China since May 2008.

Internet censorhip and interenet surveilance in South Korea have been very harsh in recent years; therefore, the freedom of speech and the public's right to know has been restricted. Internet surveilance has been less tolerant on not only violent and explicit content but also on the political issue-related online discussion. After the South Korean government has arrested the netizens for posting personal and critical views on the goverment, internet users in South korea are now silenced. South Korea is allegedly a "democratic country."

How on earth can he guarantee that this will be 100 percent accurate - with no overblocking, and no underblocking!?!?! And in this interview, he advises that this is not a limit on freedom of speech and that the internet should not be considered a special platform.

This article discusses how the Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has dismissed the Internet as a special medium, claiming that it is nothing more than, "just a communication distrbution platform." Which, is quite short sighted, as the notion of open source, crowd sourcing, collective/collecting intelligence, collaborative intelligence is achievable because of the Internet. Conroy also claims that his filter is 100 percent accurate..." which begs to question, according to who? Filtering, content only prevents access, it does not prevent those individuals from crimnimal acts offline, nor does it address how to protect victims from their predators.

A 'Digital Economy Bill' was passed by the House of Lords recently, and this article look at its implications for internet users whose freedom to share files will be punishable by a severing of their internet connection.

This offers an overview of how the debate over the proposed mandatory internet filtering law has played out to date. In particular it outlines key voices in the debate and their stance.

After the Secretary of State in the US Hillary Clinton's speech on Internet freedom, open source source code repository SourceForge.net blocked access to IP addresses originating in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Open source software provides important infrastructure to these oppressed and developing nations. I hope the American government can see what a blow this is to the infrastructure and fledgling industries in these countries.

This study explores an under-studied layer of Chinese Internet censorship: how Chinese Internet companies censor user-generated content, usually by deleting it or preventing its publication. Systematic testing of Chinese blog service providers reveals that domestic censorship is very decentralized with wide variation from company to company. Test results also showed that a great deal of politically sensitive material survives in the Chinese blogosphere, and that chances for its survival can likely be improved with knowledge and strategy. The study concludes that choices and actions by private individuals and companies can have a significant impact on the overall balance of freedom and control in the Chinese blogosphere.

Describes how twitter is being used for citizen participation and "democracy" in various countries from Moldova, Iran and now China. The author proposes that the best way to reduce censorship and promote "democracy" is not political pressure, but to "flood the Chinese market, and those of other countries that restrict freedom of expression, with cutting-edge technology". My opinion: Although Twitter seems to be good at allowing citizens to organise and to create consensus, it does not seem to translate well to actual policy outcome. 

The Thai government is increasing censorship over the Internet, with a special focus on political websites due to the uprising in the country.  What is interesting is that this has been going on for a few years, but it has not received that much media attention compared to Internet censorship in China. It is possible that the websites being banned are not that widely accessed by Thai people in the first place.

EFA Board Member, Stephen Collins, spoke yesterday at an event at Parliament House hosted by the Menzies Research Centre in a debate with Tony McLellan of the Australian Christian Lobby. The audience was primarily members of the Australian Liberal Students Federation; young Liberals destined for jobs as political staffers and politicians.

Governments say they need Internet censorship, surveillance of the Internet, internet filtering system and so on to protect their citizens. But they should know that they are taking the freedom of choice away from the individual and also taking the responsibility away from the individual.

Good article on the social and political uses of social media (sic.) in Indonesia. There have been attempts to filter/censor content, but so far they have been avoided. Uses of Twitter, Facebook by politicians is also described.