Tag: censorship
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Copyright, Censorship, and Domain Name Blacklists at Home in the U.S.
Last week, The New York Times reported that Russian police were using copyright allegations to raid political dissidents, confiscating the computers of advocacy groups and opposition newspapers “under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software.” Admirably, Microsoft responded the next day with a declaration of license amnesty to all NGOs: To prevent non-government organizations…
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Google Threatens to Leave China
The big news today is Google’s carefully worded statement changing its policy toward China. Up to now, Google has run a China-specific site, google.cn, which censors results consistent with the demands of the Chinese government. Google now says it plans to offer only unfiltered service to Chinese customers. Presumably the Chinese government will not allow…
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Chilling and Warming Effects
For several years, the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse has cataloging the effects of legal threats on online expression and helping people to understand their rights. Amid all the chilling we continue to see, it’s welcome to see rays of sunshine when bloggers stand up to threats, helping to stop the cycle of threat-and-takedown. The BoingBoing team…
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The future of high school yearbooks
The Dallas Morning News recently ran a piece about how kids these days aren’t interested in buying physical, printed yearbooks. (Hat tip to my high school’s journalism teacher, who linked to it from our journalism alumni Facebook group.) Why spend $60 on a dead-trees yearbook when you can get everything you need on Facebook? My…
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Chinese Internet Censorship: See It For Yourself
You probably know already that the Chinese government censors Internet traffic. But you might not have known that you can experience this censorship yourself. Here’s how: (1) Open up another browser window or tab, so you can browse without losing this page. (2) In the other window, browse to baidu.com. This is a search engine…
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Watching Google's Gatekeepers
Google’s legal team has extraordinary power to decide which videos can be seen by audiences around the world, according to Jeffrey Rosen’s piece, Google’s Gatekeepers in yesterday’s New York Times magazine. Google, of course, owns YouTube, which gives it the technical ability to block particular videos — though of course so many videos are submitted…
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Economic Growth, Censorship, and Search Engines
Economic growth depends on an ability to access relevant information. Although censorship prevents access to certain information, the direct consequences of censorship are well-known and somewhat predictable. For example, blocking access to Falun Gong literature is unlikely to harm a country’s consumer electronics industry. On the web, however, information of all types is interconnected. Blocking…