After a fan posted a video of a horrific crash at a NASCAR event, the organizer removed it claiming copyright infringement, but Google over-ruled the company — an example of a decision that happens all too rarely. Read more at paidContent »
As Twitter becomes an increasingly global media entity — and one that controls its own platform — it is running into demands from governments in countries like France and Germany to censor or block access to certain kinds of speech. How will it respond? Read more at paidContent »
A string of offensive hashtag memes in France has spurred the government to announce a consultation on hate speech with Twitter. It could mark a watershed for the country’s approach to social media — but it’s not just Paris that has a problem. We all do. Read more »
Being falsely accused of a crime like child abuse is a traumatic experience that has become worse with social media. Two recent incidents in the US and UK highlight the problems — and show America’s approach to libel works better in the age of Twitter. Read more »
Israel is waging war on Hamas, but it is also waging an information war using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other tools. How firmly do these networks support the principle of free speech, and how do they decide what content to permit and what to remove? Read more »
An article at Jezebel identifies high-school students who posted racist tweets in the wake of the election, raising a number of questions about what we consider to be an appropriate response to that kind of behavior, and when the cure is worse than the disease. Read more »
First Reddit and now Twitter have had to confront issues related to freedom of speech recently, and decide which way they are going to go when it comes to protecting it. As social media becomes more mainstream, such battles will likely become more frequent. Read more »
In addition to occasional acts of journalism, Reddit is also known for its less savory content, including a page featuring creepy photos of women taken without their permission — and the controversy over that kind of content says a lot about the nature of the community. Read more »
When the man at the center of the ‘Twitter Joke Trial’ had his conviction quashed, it seemed some sanity had returned to the British legal system’s approach to online offensiveness. But that’s not how things worked out. Read more »
North Carolina wants to ban students from signing up their teachers for online porn sites or engaging in other forms of cyber-bullying aimed at school officials. Read more »
Twitter has argued that it doesn’t own a user’s tweets, but at the same time the company wants to control what users do with their content so that it can monetize the network. There’s an inherent conflict there that is becoming increasingly difficult for Twitter to avoid. Read more »
Most of the recent attention around WikiLeaks has been focused on the legal issues surrounding its controversial founder, Julian Assange. But we shouldn’t let that blind us to what the organization has accomplished and the critical role it plays as a “stateless news organization.” Read more »
Facebook is stepping in to support a deputy sheriff who was fired for “Liking” his boss’s rival. The case, which will determine whether a “Like” is like a bumper sticker, is helping to define free speech in the age of social media. Read more »
Twitter set off its first major public relations crisis this week when it suspended the account of a journalist who had been criticizing the social media site’s corporate partner, NBC, over its Olympic coverage. It is finally trying to fix things. Read more »
Twitter has restored the account a U.K. journalist who is at the center of a firestorm over corporate control of media and speech. And the tweet that landed him in trouble is still visible on his timeline. Read more »
Internet censorship is once again in the news after a federal judge posited a proposed Washington law aiming to prevent child prostitution is likely unconstitutional under the Communications Decency Act. A bigger question is why free speech still reigns online except when copyright is involved. Read more »
NBC asked Twitter to suspend the account of a journalist who has been a prominent critic of its Olympics coverage. Twitter — an NBC partner — complied. Is this censorship or is there some other explanation? Read more »
July celebrations this week were marked by hot dogs, fireworks and three proclamations to preserve the revolutionary spirit of the interent. Here’s a guide to what’s going on. Read more at paidContent »
New data released by Google shows that US government requests to remove search results, YouTube videos and other content has increased by 103 percent. Information from around the world show countries targeting everything from social network profiles to a citizen peeing on a passport. Read more »
As general counsel for Avvo, Josh King has responded to hundreds of lawsuit threats — all for activity that is soundly protected by the First Amendment. Here, King outlines three areas where he believes companies can take a stand to protect free speech on the Internet. Read more »
How many restless women wouldn’t fall for an animal-loving firefighter who sent gifts and liked to talk on the phone? Read more »
Just as the New York Times can decide “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” search engines have a free speech right to choose who or what to put in their search rankings. Read more at paidContent »
The National Labor Relations Board has bad news for employers that want to restrict their employees’ speech rights on social media. Employers can either update their policies to allow for the same types of speech the NLRA allows elsewhere, or they can find themselves in court. Read more »
A British parliamentary committee is asking Google, Twitter and Facebook to filter their services and protect individuals’ privacy. But as the web services start to push back, they may have already sealed their own fate. Read more »
Embattled BlackBerry maker Research In Motion got a rare bit of good news this week after judges refused to let a gadget site trademark the… Read more at paidContent »
Twitter says it has implemented a new system that will allow it to remove tweets from specific countries if required to do so by law, but that it will try hard not to do this, and will be as transparent as possible if it does. Read more »
Bowing to the reality of modern technology, Canada today said it is changing a 1938 law that forbids broadcasting election results before po… Read more at paidContent »
The case of “investigative blogger” Crystal Cox reinforces that some governments are lagging behind when it comes to extending freedom-of-the-press protections to non-traditional journalists like bloggers. When anyone can be a journalist, how do we decide who gets protection and who doesn’t? Read more »
A new copyright bill proposed in the House would give governments and private corporations unprecedented powers to remove websites from the internet completely, on the flimsiest of grounds, and would also force internet service providers to play the role of copyright police or face penalties. Read more »
Any lingering fantasies of the web as a no-man’s land where content is free from the restraints of geographical boundaries probably should be put to rest. Google released a treasure trove of data relating to content-takedown requests, showing that requests are up and Google often complies. Read more »
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo talked about the company’s recent growth during an interview at the Web 2.0 conference, but he also made some strong statements about Twitter’s commitment to free speech and to defending the rights of its users against governments in Britain and the U.S. Read more »
A Wall Street Journal columnist says that blocking access to social media during emergencies isn’t a big deal, and that “techno-utopians” are over-reacting. But are they? Or are these kinds of moves a step on a slippery slope that leads to Chinese-style control over information networks? Read more »
It seems totalitarian states like Egypt aren’t the only ones struggling with the impact of social media and the desire to muzzle services like Twitter and Facebook. Britain says it’s considering a ban on social media in the wake of the riots in London. Read more »
A new voluntary effort by the major U.S. Internet service providers to help enforce copyright restrictions and protect content owners from pirates, parodists and cheap teens who are sharing files could result in some folks losing access to their broadband. Read more »
Amazon has refused to remove a book from its Kindle store despite criticism from hundreds of commenters on the self-published title, which advocates pedophilia. The retailer says it doesn’t believe in censorship, and that customers should be free to buy such books if they wish. Read more »
