NextGov: “In the last two years, there’s been a cascade of lawsuits in the U.S. against public officials who have blocked people on social media and deleted critical comments. The list starts with the highest one in the country, president Donald Trump, and goes all the way down to a county board chair. As officials use social platforms… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Censorship
Ajit Pai’s FCC gives carriers the option to block text messages
Cnet: The agency approves new rules to help phone companies combat spam texts. But opponents have censorship concerns. “The one Democrat on the FCC, Jessica Rosenworcel disagrees. She warned that the FCC is misleading the public about what the new classification will actually do. “Today’s decision offers consumers no new ability to prevent robotexts,” she… Continue Reading
Questions We Should Be Asking About Facebook’s Smear Campaign Against Its Critics
EFF: “The New York Times published a blockbuster story about Facebook that exposed how the company used so-called “smear merchants” to attack organizations critical of the platform. The story was shocking on a number of levels, revealing that Facebook’s hired guns stooped to dog-whistling, anti-Semitic attacks aimed at George Soros 1 and writing stories blasting… Continue Reading
How China Walled Off the Internet
The New York Times – “Today, China has the world’s only internet companies that can match America’s in ambition and reach. It is years ahead of the United States in replacing paper money with smartphone payments, turning tech giants into vital gatekeepers of the consumer economy. And it is host to a supernova of creative… Continue Reading
How China Made Its Own Internet
The New York Times – Today, China has the world’s only internet companies that can match America’s in ambition and reach. It is years ahead of the United States in replacing paper money with smartphone payments, turning tech giants into vital gatekeepers of the consumer economy. And it is host to a supernova of creative… Continue Reading
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker
“Journalists in the United States face hostility from local and federal governments, along with a number of legal threats to themselves and their sources. This nonpartisan website aims to be the first to provide reliable, easy-to-access information on the number of press freedom violations in the United States—from journalists facing charges to reporters stopped at… Continue Reading
Google Is Teaching Children How to Act Online. Is It the Best Role Model?
The New York Times: “The tech giant is positioning itself in schools as a trusted authority on digital citizenship at a moment when the company’s data-handling practices are under growing scrutiny – “Google is on a mission to teach children how to be safe online. That is the message behind “Be Internet Awesome,” a so-called… Continue Reading
Department of Interior’s proposal to destroy records may be of interest
“As I mentioned a while back, I’ve started a new project to bring much-needed transparency to the process whereby agencies get permission to destroy their records at fixed intervals (chosen by the agencies and okayed by the National Archives). I’m obtaining and posting every such request, which have never appeared online before. This project is… Continue Reading
Leaked Google presentation shows company grappling with censorship and free speech
The Verge: “A leaked research presentation [note – the Verge includes a link to the entire presentation posted on Scribd] put together by employees of Google shows the extent to which the search giant is grappling with decisions around freedom of speech and censorship. The presentation, leaked to Breitbart News this week and published in… Continue Reading
Google China Prototype Links Searches to Phone Numbers
The Intercept: “Google built a prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users’ searches to their personal phone numbers,thus making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people’s queries, The Intercept can reveal. The search engine, codenamed Dragonfly, was designed for Android devices, and would remove content deemed sensitive by China’s… Continue Reading
White House’s website deleted the whole archive of its daily newsletters
Quartz: “American citizens can get daily updates on the government directly from the White House’s “1600 Daily” newsletter, which was launched in March 2017. The newsletter shares daily updates from the White House, together with a feed of positive news about Donald Trump’s administration (primarily from conservative outlets supportive of the government, such as Breitbart… Continue Reading
AP – EU proposed to give internet firms 1 hour to remove extremist content
Via ABCNews.com: “European authorities are planning to slap internet companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook with big fines if they don’t take down extremist content within one hour. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in a speech Wednesday that the Commission is proposing the new rules as part of efforts to step up the bloc’s… Continue Reading
