[censorship] Forum Topics

[ATTACH=right]16650[/ATTACH]In the wake of the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story302388.html"]Wikileaks scandal[/URL], the National Guard has announced new "[URL="http://www.ng.mil/news/archives/2010/08/081110-NGB.aspx"]social media guidelines[/URL]" for the nation's citizen soldiers. While a lot of the guidelines are the same sort of common sense, don't-embarrass-your-family's good name restrictions we might place on our teenagers' use of Facebook and MySpace, there's …

Justin Bieber is, so my 10 year old daughter informs me, a pop sensation. Actually, her exact words when I asked just who the heck this Bieber bloke who keeps topping the Twitter trending chart is were: Oh My God, Justin Bieber, he's gorgeous. A little more journalistic investigation turned …

On Thursday 2nd June 2009 it will be the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre when an undisclosed number of student protesters were killed after tanks rolled into squash the protests. You might imagine, then, that in China services such as Twitter would be a-buzz with talk about the …

On Friday, July 9th 2010 Blogetery.com went dark and over 73,000 user generated blogs disappeared without warning, without notice...and without any explanation whatsoever. Blogetery.com hosted thousands of WordPress based blogs that suddenly disappeared when their host, BurstNet abruptly pulled the plug in what has become one of the current mysteries …

It's not exactly news that the relationship between Google and China has soured over the last month or two and it looks as though [URL="http://www.macworld.com/article/147096/2010/03/china_google.html?lsrc=rss_main"]Google may quit China soon[/URL] leaving the vastly lucrative Chinese market to Microsoft and others. What's not clear is what the implications will be for the …

To protest a planned Internet filter in Australia, Australian websites and users are being encouraged this week to turn themselves black. "The Federal Government wants to pass laws to force internet service providers to block banned material hosted on overseas servers," explained one Australian [URL="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/26/2801759.htm"]media source[/URL]. "Communications Minister Stephen Conroy …

For a while it looked like the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story252590.html"]Google threat[/URL] to pull out of China was just a load of hot air, and pretty late hot air at that considering [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story253371.html"]it had taken years[/URL] for the search giant to realise that [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4434.html"]state censorship is a bad thing[/URL]. But that has all …

If it is so concerned about the online rights of users, as the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/news/story252590.html"]Google statement about pulling out of China[/URL] would suggest, maybe it should consider pulling out of Italy next. Unless of course the China crisis is more to do with commercial failure to dominate an emerging and important …

With some [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3427.html"]11.5 million subscribers[/URL] playing it worldwide, there is no denying that World of Warcraft is one popular online game. Nowhere more so than in China, where it has been reported around 5 million of those subscribers are based. It should [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4434.html"]come as no surprise[/URL] that not everyone in …

[I]"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." [URL="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gilmore"]John Gilmore[/URL], founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in 1993.[/I] In the same way that people in Mumbai used Twitter last fall to [URL="http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/28/mumbai-twitter-sms-tech-internet-cx_bc_kn_1128mumbai.html"]publicize[/URL] news of terrorist attacks in that Indian city, Iranians are using Twitter to let the world …

Everyone knows that China is not exactly the most Internet friendly country, in fact the Chinese government pretty much hates it. Despite being a truly [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1269.html"]connected superpower[/URL], the Chinese government has already [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1407.html"]declared war on Internet porn[/URL]. Of course, the Internet is a cool tool when used as a weapon …

Scared that students taking an exam might cheat, teachers at the posh Harrow School in England took the unusual step of banning them from using the Internet and re-routing their email so it could be read by the headmaster. The irony of the exam being concerned with Nazi foreign policy …

The App Store is a beautiful idea that is [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4149.html"]wildly successfu[/URL]l, but Apple has a big App Store problem. They are trying to control the content in the Apps and they really, really need to just get out of the way and let the market judge the quality of an …

The Chinese Government obsession with eradicating all 'lewd' and pornographic content from the Internet marches on. It all started back in 2007 when the authorities [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1407.html"]declared war on porn[/URL] and setting a seemingly impossible target of purging the web of sexually-explicit images, stories and AV clips within a six month …

Remember when China officially declared war on Internet pornography and set a target of just six months to purge the Web of sexually explicit images, stories and AV clips? No, well [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1407.html"]read this[/URL] to refresh your memory. While you are at it, make a note of the date: that story …

It had to happen, and it has. Ever since the Internet Watch Foundation, a British charitable organisation that acts as the official watchdog to track and report illegal content online, in particular child pornography, introduced a blacklist we all knew it would get controversial one day. That day has come. …

Facebook is many [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/21230/53/"]different[/URL] things to many [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20059/53/"]different[/URL] people, but surely a social networking should be just that, social. Sure, there will always the odd group with a less than pleasant agenda, although usually these take the humour route rather than being downright nasty. So while an anti-Microsoft group might …

So I'm scrolling through the features rather than the news and I come across [URL="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10031076-93.html?tag=mncol"]this[/URL]. Software developers, apparently, are under threat from censors. Apple is refusing to put violent games onto its iTunes store and Facebook is going to refuse to distribute some applications. I'm interested mostly in the psychology …

According to [URL="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/07/31/dlyoutube131.xml"]The Telegraph[/URL] newspaper here in the UK, British Members of Parliament are kicking up a right old stink about YouTube. Specifically regarding what it does, or more to the point what it does not do, to prevent sexually explicit and violent video clips from being posted. The House …

Andrew Cuomo, New York Attorney General, has been fighting one of those fights that you sadly cannot win: to rid the Internet of child pornography. Believe me, as a father of four I would love to say that it was possible but as a technology journalist with some 20 years …

Google told Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to [URL="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/05/dialogue-with-sen-lieberman-on.html"]pound sand[/URL] Monday -- politely, of course -- after the Senator [URL="http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=8093d5b2-c882-4d12-883d-5c670d43d269&Month=5&Year=2008&Affiliation=C"]called on Google[/URL] to remove all "Internet video content produced by terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda" from YouTube. "YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. …

According to reporters at [URL="http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/13450/14474/Manhunt-2-given-UK-release.phtml"]Pocket Lint[/URL] it would seem that the controversial ban upon the sale of the equally controversial video game Manhunt 2 in the UK has been overturned. The site reports that the Rockstar Games developed title has been edited to the satisfaction of the British Board of …