Group items tagged

The United Kingdom parliament has passed the Digital Economy Bill, an extensive and controversial piece of legislation, by a vote of 189 to 47. The legislation encompasses online copyright infringement, Internet piracy, regulation of TV and radio, the classification of video games, regulations over ISPs, and a hodgepodge of other digital topics.

Controversial! But the article summarises many of the difficulties of most opinions on this divide... does bad stuff justify bad laws? The second comment - re why do media exacerbate the situation? is also pertinent. The internet has changed power and social relations causing disequilibrium amongst existing controls and power structures and social norms. This marks a highly contested border dispute.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) scheme has been adopted in Uruguay and Panama, in a move that has received support from US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. The article also refers to the need for more laptops in disaster-affected Haiti, as well as Clinton's opinion on the Google China controversy.

Sydney gamers protest the lack of an R18+ classification in the city centre on Saturday, dressed as Zombies from the controversial game Left 4 Dead 2, which has been censored for release here.

There has been some controversy about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's comments in an online chat from 2006 that surfaced recently. He told a friend that Facebook users were dumb for trusting him and submitting private, personal information on his then-fledgling website. An initiative by four young programmers to counteract the negative effects that Facebook has had on privacy and the ability of users to control the data they put online is Diaspora. It is a decentralised, open source social network that wants to compete with centralised social networks that allow "spying for free". It will be interesting to see whether the initiative really takes off as a viable alternative to Facebook.

In 2001, the South Korea''s Ministry of Information and Communication promulgated the controversial Internet Content Filtering Ordinance. In addition, new rules are expected, which will set down relatively rigid provisions requiring news Websites to comply with the same restrictions as newspapers, TV, and radio.

A media rights watchdog has listed Australia in a report on countries that pose a threat of internet censorship.

Why does everyone get so worked up with the word "censorship"? In some cases, like with child porn, if a medium is used to violate a human right or indeed foments a crime, then there should be some sort of control. Why look at it from a b&w perspective when there are so many grey areas?

Is this really where Australia's future in censorships is heading?

This article is looking at the release of some details of former President Bush's secret cybersecurity plan. It focuses around the debate as to whether cybersecurity should be extended into infrastructure or scaled back. It will be interesting to see how President Obama will react to this issue especially now that many details have been made public which will spark interest and debate.

South Korean government still thinks that the benefits of censorship are worth the opprobrium. They block dusscusion sites, arrest bloggers for rediculous reasons; for instance, they publish controversial opinions or propagating falsehood online. Since many popular foreign websites such as Google and Youtube decided to require its users to undergo identity verification, Korean internet users have nowhere to have the freedom of speech on the web planet.

"Let us all renounce the harsh rhetoric about the POTUS [president of the U.S.]. Several, including myself, hv used inappropriate language. Let's remain civil! #tcot." See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/dCqW2m

Google blames Chinese-backed groups for attacking blogs of political critics. But who can stop this actions, who has the power to, within the current legal framework, do so?

This article gives a closer look at the controversial study that suggests regulating the Net will cost millions. You can even dowload the 23-page of PDF report In interested in Net neutrality the following reading titled "Net Neutrality rules would damage business, says industry-funded study" (26 April 2010) provides complementary information: http://news.techworld.com/sme/3221610/net-neutrality-rules-would-damage-business-says-industry-funded-study/

Verizon has imposed a version of the controversial graduated response policy which was recently uncovered in the US- in which ISP's basically disconnect repeat copyright infringement offenders from the internet. Verizon is terminating internet service to an undisclosed number of repeat offenders.

Reporters without boarders has set up the new enemes of the Internet 2010. Australia and South Korea where draconian laws are creating too many specific restrictions on Web users by challenging their anonymity and promoting selfcensorship. they are democratic countries under surveillance and their upcoming implementation of a highly developed Internet filtering system is very controversial.