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A new paper on Australia's proposed mandatory filtering plan in context of Australia's broader stance on child pornography. It uses the example the consumption of "Japanese Boys Love" manga by people (mainly girls) underage to explore issues around censorship and governance

This article discusses Austin Heap, a US citizen being awarded for his innovative program Haystack, which sidesteps Iran's heavy internet filtering through servers located elsewhere in the world. This article is important in today's internet censorship debate, as it promotes the awarding of individual's who openly seek ways around censorship.

Korean government might celebrate by themselves for making perfect panopticon in Korean online environment.

Censorhip originally meant protecting the property owners from infringement. But it has been changed to deny free speech to wealthy organisations or governements they deem facist. it happens everywhere and

Blog post number 1

The search giant has hit back at state requests (or court orders) to censor content on YouTube or in Google search by releasing a map showing the number of requests for censorship by country. Google has stated this move is "part of its continuing championing of openness of information" and insists the timing is purely coincidental regarding the complaint from 10 nations that Google releases new products without due consideration for privacy implications (as posted by Liz Gan), Reading the comments in these articles is always insightful. Someone points out that a lot of the requests may simply relate to slanderous items requested by courts to be removed (rather than evil government censorship requests).

Many people do not know that the internet in Australia is already heavily censored, even before the Rudd Government's plan for mandatory ISP filtering is implemented. In fact, Australia almost undoubtedly has the most restrictive internet censorship regime in the Western world. Under amendments made to the Broadcasting Services Act in 1999, material rated as low as MA-15+ can be prohibited.

Although the State aims to ensure suffcient technological support for Internet censorship, it is still challenging for the system to monitor the online communicaion completely.

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.

South Korea, the world's most wired country, has been listed as an "Enemy of the Internet" by the Paris-based rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) for its draconian censorship. Now, North Korea has a company to talk how to effectively contorl people on the Net.

Blog post 3

Australian government ask googel to hand over user data. Google has for the first time released information about the number of such requests that it gets from countries around the world.Top of the list is Brazil, followed by Germany, the United States and India.

Ilse Aigner, Germany's minister of food, agriculture and consumer protection, who usually concentrates on issues over rotten meat, genetically engineered corn and imitation cheese, recently took on a different kind of issue: the Internet and data privacy. Suddenly Aigner finds herself facing online giants Amazon, Facebook and, above all, Google. Soon Google plans to send cars equipped with cameras out onto Germany's roads once again for the company's Street View project. Aigner is now insisting that Google should ask permission before violating the privacy of German citizens. The minister's attack and the following discussions reveal just how divided the German government is when it comes to the online world. The debate revolves around questions of national security and individual self-determination on the Internet. But it also concerns the power of the large giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and MySpace, as well as the question of what these companies are doing with the records of our everyday data, and how they will be able to obtain information from us, influence us or perhaps even control us in the future. It seem like, once again, a German politician is exploiting the popular issue of internet privacy and censorship in a superficial way in the hope of scoring political points.

Is this the end of the story? Google seems to challenge China by taking out the filters to content

Great comment by Lawrence Lessig on his speech at the Italian Parliament last week and the discussions that arose afterwards. In this article, he also summarizes the key issues of Italy and the Interent, covering censorship, copyright issues but also Italian's push to get the Nobel Committee to consider the Internet for the Peace Prize.

The "Digital Economy Bill" has been passed by the Lords and is now expected to be rushed through the Commons before the general elections. Despite criticism by the UK's major telecommunication providers and global internet giants like Google, the government said it was still committed to giving courts the power to block websites which are infringing copyright. The bill is mainly aiming to tackle internet privacy. Some of it's paragraphs however could lead to internet censorship.

Nobel prizewinner Shirin Ebadi accused German engineering giant Siemens and Finnish telecoms firm Nokia of supplying Iran with technology to help it suppress democratic dissent. The European Parliament also supports that arguement and strongly criticised international companies, in particular Nokia Siemens for giving Iranian authorities the tools needed for censorship and surveillance. Both companies argue that they could not be blamed for the misuse but that their technologies "play a significant role in the development of societies and the advancement of democracy"

Google speaks out on censorship and the violation of user privacy in China. Yahoo in the US agrees but its Chinese partner Alibaba Group does not. Are they afraid of a backlash from Beijing and fear for their ungoing business success? Makes me wonder how bad the quagmire in China really is...

Media hyperbole or a serious threat? Threatening posts on the '4chan' boards has the government ad the SMH worried...

Although in some respects, the public response to Australia's push to impose mandatory internet filtering, there has been a violent and disturbing response from a select group calling for the assassination of Stephen Conroy and advising on how to make bombs.

This is the Iranian government's answer to US anti-internet censorship groups who aim to undermine the regime's strict filtering rules through funding from the CIA. It brings up questions of international involvement in extreme national governance of the internet.