LISNews – Ten Stories That Shaped 2019: “As we limp headfirst into a new decade, it’s beginning to feel like many of these stories have become perennial entries. 2019 saw yet more drag queen story hour protests, vendor buyouts, the persistence of fake news, scandals, and lawsuits aplenty, along with the usual spate of book… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Censorship
Surveillance Net Blankets China’s Cities Giving Police Vast Powers
The New York Times – The authorities can scan your phones, track your face and find out when you leave your home. “One of the world’s biggest spying networks is aimed at regular people, and nobody can stop it. China is ramping up its ability to spy on its nearly 1.4 billion people to new… Continue Reading
How the 1% Scrubs Its Image Online
WSJ.com [paywall]: “Prominent figures from Jacob Gottlieb to Betsy DeVos got help from a reputation management firm that can bury image-sensitive Google results by placing flattering content on websites that masquerade as news outlets..Jacob Gottlieb was considering raising money for a hedge fund. One problem: His last one had collapsed in a scandal. While Mr.… Continue Reading
Journalists imprisoned in 2019
“The number of journalists imprisoned globally for their work in 2019 remained near record highs, as China tightened its iron grip on the press and Turkey, having stamped out virtually all independent reporting, released journalists awaiting trial or appeal. Authoritarianism, instability, and protests in the Middle East led to a rise in the number of… Continue Reading
Book burning by Chinese county library sparks fury
The Guardian UK – Blaze complying with ministry directive meant for schools harks back to Qin dynasty and Nazi Germany, critics say – “A county library in north-western China has been criticised for burning books in line with a nationwide cull of “illegal” or “improper” materials used in school libraries. Reports and photos of two women… Continue Reading
I Invented the World Wide Web. Here’s How We Can Fix It
The New York Times Opinion – I Invented the World Wide Web. Here’s How We Can Fix It. I wanted the web to serve humanity. It’s not too late to live up to that promise. By Tim Berners-Lee: “My parents were mathematicians. My mother helped code one of the first stored-program computers — the Manchester… Continue Reading
How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results
WSJ.com: “More than 100 interviews and the Journal’s own testing of Google’s search results reveal: Google made algorithmic changes to its search results that favor big businesses over smaller ones, and in at least one case made changes on behalf of a major advertiser, eBay Inc., contrary to its public position that it never takes… Continue Reading
The Internet Dream Became a Nightmare. What Will Become of It Now?
The New York Times Magazine: “In this special Tech & Design Issue of The New York Times Magazine, we ponder the internet’s future at a time when that future has never felt more unsettled. It isn’t just about Facebook and the other American tech giants, which no longer enjoy the rapid growth that characterized their… Continue Reading
Freedom on the Net 2019 The Crisis of Social Media
Freedom House – “Governments around the world are increasingly using social media to manipulate elections and monitor their citizens, tilting the technology toward digital authoritarianism. As a result of these trends, global internet freedom declined for the ninth consecutive year, according to Freedom on the Net 2019, the latest edition of the annual country-by-country assessment… Continue Reading
Publication of Mueller Report’s Secret Memos Begins
“BuzzFeed News sued the US government to see all the work that Mueller’s team kept secret. We have published the first installment, with revelations about the Ukraine conspiracy theory, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, and more… In response to a court order, the Justice Department released the first installment of documents: hundreds of pages of summaries… Continue Reading
Trump to Tell Federal Agencies to Cut New York Times, Washington Post Subscriptions
WSJ.com – The move comes days after President Trump told his staff to cancel the White House’s print subscriptions to the Post and the Times. “The White House is planning to instruct federal agencies to not renew their subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post, administration officials said, escalating President Trump’s attacks… Continue Reading
BBC News launches ‘dark web’ Tor mirror
BBC News: “The BBC has made its international news website available via Tor, in a bid to thwart censorship attempts. Tor is a privacy-focused web browser used to access pages on the dark web. The browser can obscure who is using it and what data is being accessed, which can help people avoid government surveillance… Continue Reading
