Digital Trends
A few months ago, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. made headlines by announcing it was planning to start charging users to read online versions of the company’s newspaper properties, by putting portions of its content behind so-called “paywalls” that could only be accessed by paid subscribers. Now, The Los Angeles Times reports that News Corp has been meeting with other news publishers with an eye towards forming a consortium to charge for online news access.
Prior to the Olympics this summer, there was a furor when foreign journalists complained that the Chinese government was blocking ‘sensitive’ sites. In the spirit of the games, those were opened up. But now, after the outsiders have long gone, the government has re-blocked several of those sites, including the BBC Chinese site and Voice of America in Chinese, the BBC reports.
According to a Chinese government spokesman, the sites – which also include Asiaweek, Reporters Without Borders and some Hong Kong and Taiwanese sites – include content that violates Chinese law. But spokesman Liu Jianchao would not confirm that the government was behind the censorship.
China, North Korea, Burma…they’re places where protest has been crushed. But yesterday people demonstrated against Net censorship in virtual locations from those countries. Organized by the group Reporters Without Borders, the first Online Free Expression Day invited people to create avatars and take part in demonstrations in virtuallocations where protest would not be allowed in the real world. In a statement RWB said, “From now on, we will organize activities every 12 March to condemn cyber-censorship throughoutthe world. A response of this kind is needed to the growing tendency to crack down on bloggers and to close websites." “Today, the first time this day is being marked, we are giving allInternet users the opportunity to demonstrate in places were protests are not normally possible. We hope many will come and protest in virtual versions of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square,Cuba’s Revolution Square or on the streets of Rangoon, in Burma. At least 62 cyber-dissidents are currently imprisoned worldwide, while more than 2,600 websites, blogs or discussions forumswere closed or made inaccessible in 2007.” UNESCO had originally supported the demonstration, but later withdrew its support. RWB lists 15 countriesas Internet Enemies (Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe) which censor Net use and imprisondissenting voices. Another 11 – Bahrain, Eritrea, Gambia, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Yemen – are classed as “countries underwatch.”
Reporters Without Frontiers have released their Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007, and it highlights not only the problems with press freedom for traditional journalists around the globe, but also the threat to bloggers. A number of countries have seen their rankings fall because of the way they’ve restricted or violated the freedom of bloggers. Several countries, like Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Egypt, have arrested bloggers and closed sites. Globally, at least 64 people are currently in prison for postings they’ve made online, with 50 of those being in China (the report does not consider recent events in Myanmar). Eight more are being held in jail in Vietman, while an Egyptian man was jailed for criticizing the country’s president and the Islamist control of the country’s universities. “We are concerned about the increase in cases of online censorship,” Reporters Without Borders said. “More and more governments have realised that the Internet can play a key role in the fight for democracy and they are establishing new methods of censoring it. The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media.” The top-ranked countries for press freedom were Iceland, Norway, Estonia, Slovakia and Belgium. The bottom five were Cuba, Iran, Turkmenistan and North Korea, with Eritrea claiming bottom place. The UK was ranked 24th and the US 48th.
There’s just a year to go before the next Olympics are held in China. That’s intended to shine as a beacon for the country. But, according to a new joint report by Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, China has a long way to go in terms of online censorship and surveillance. The report was compiled withthe help of someone working in the IT industry in China, who, for fairly obvious reasons, is kept anonymous.
Released just before the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the report indicates the vast resources, both human and financial, that China has put behind the limiting of free online expression. The Beijing Internet Information Administrative Bureau has in practice asserted its daily editorial control over the leading news websites based in the nation’s capital, and Chinese news websites and blogs have been brought under the editorial control of the propaganda apparatus at both the national and local levels, the report asserts.
Imagine the virtual field – but with real cows. That’s what scientists in Australia have been doing. They’ve spent three years developing a project with the wonderful name ofBovines Without Borders, intended to make sure cattle don’t stray from their fields. The system creates virtual boundaries in a field using GPS technology. As a cow approaches theboundary, the battery-powered collar it wears emits a hum. If they continue, then sound becomes a low hum. When they reach the limit, the chip-fitted collar gives the cow a mild shock. Testshave shown that the cattle learn to adapt within an hour, mostly from the sound. The collars only emit a 250 milliwatt shock, approximately the same as that from static electricity. “It’s an invisible electric fence,” explained Commonwealth, Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation spokesman Andrew Fisher. “Theboundaries are drawn by GPS and exist only as a line on a computer. There are no wires or fixed transmitters at all. It achieves the same result as a conventional fence without posts and wire.” However, it’ll be a while before Bovines Without Borders reach a farm near you. Since the current collar battery life is just a week, practical commercial versions are still severalyears away.
The World Organization for Human Rights USA has filed a lawsuit (PDF) against Internet giant Yahoo in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of Yu Ling, wife of jailed Chinese dissident Wang Xiazoning. Wang was arrested by Chinese authorities in September, 2002, in part on the basis of email records and other information willingly turned over by Yahoo. In July, 2003, Wang was charged with “incitement to subvert state power,” and in September, 2003, sentenced to ten years in prison and two additional years of deprivation of political rights. The suit alleges Wang has been subjected to abuse at the hands of Chinese prison officials; his wife, Ling, currently lives in San Francisco.
T-Mobile is rolling out the welcome mat to owners of Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) haldheld gaming device, offering six months of free Wi-Fi access from more than 7,000 T-Mobile Hotspot locations. PSP users can get access via Sony’s new version 3.30 firmware update for the PSP; after that, they’ll be able to sign on to T-Mobile wireless networking and play games, surf the Internet, download media, and more—and, even better, T-Mobile Hotspot access is free for six months.
As part of its 24-hour online demonstration against online censorship, international watchdog organization Reporters Without Borders has released a list of 13 nations it dubs “enemies of the Internet” for restricting speech and suppressing freedom of expression on the Internet. And the organization is also inviting visitors to sound off to Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang regarding the company’s involvement in the Chinese Internet market.
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