The removal of the Facebook page belonging to film critic Roger Ebert and blocking of content from a protest group in Britain has raised questions about the site’s censorship of content. We treat Facebook as a semi-public space, but it is controlled by a private company. Read more »
As countries like Iran and Syria step up their attempts to filter and even shut down access to the Internet, a new UNESCO report looks at the attempts by repressive governments around the world to censor and corral free speech on the Internet. Read more »
A local Russian court in in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur has banned YouTube as well as four other sites, ruling that local ISP Rosnet could block users from accessing the site due to extremist videos that had been uploaded by some of its users. Read more »
Turkish Internet users have been blocked from accessing YouTube since 2008 – but the country still wants Google to pay taxes for the video site. The demands come as Turkey is actually stepping up its censorship against YouTube, inadvertently blocking many other Google services as well. Read more »
A day after a Pakistani court suspended access to Facebook, the country has blocked its citizens from being able to access YouTube and about 450 other sites as part of a widening ban on Internet content deemed offensive. Read more »
Thailand’s government is cracking down on opposition protests in Bangkok, leaving protesters wounded and dead. Opposition groups are using the Internet do get the word out, but live streaming sites like Livestream.com and Justin.tv can’t be accessed from within the country due to censorship. Read more »
Citibank has admitted that a staffer blocked the bank account of gay-networking startup Fabulis and threatened to terminate the company’s account because of what it termed “objectionable content” on the Fabulis blog, but says it has now clarified its internal policies for Internet business accounts. Read more »
Due to repeated and numerous customer complaints, and despite the fact that they seem to pretty regularly make their way into the top 25 and 50 lists of both free and paid apps, Apple decided this week to begin removing software from the App Store it […] Read more »
Though its web site has been blocked by Chinese censors since last June, Twitter is working on utilizing the distributed nature of its service to become available to Chinese users, said CEO Evan Williams at Davos according to a report by the Financial Times. Read more »
Google, in response to what it called “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure” aimed at penetrating the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, said today it will cease censoring results on Google.cn. Read more »
