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World View
Online Reporters in Malaysia Struggle Against Jail, Fines and Filters
Malaysia ranked No. 132 out of 173 countries on last year's edition of Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index, which means it's already a hostile place for reporters. Thanks to recent initiatives aimed at controlling the flow of online information, the country appears ready to tighten its grip on the Internet, too. But bloggers and web journalists continue to...
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Monarchs Use 'Lese Majeste' Laws to Silence Online Critics
"When it comes to a monarchy, all reason goes away," according to a Thai reporter quoted in a Reporters Without Borders report on free expression in Thailand published this week. He was commenting on the multiple charges of lese majeste -- injury or insult to the king -- brought against journalists and writers in his country, where speaking negatively about...
more »Digging Deeper
Vodafone's Child Porn Filter Blocks Innocent Czech Tech Blogs
Last summer, the British cell phone carrier Vodafone announced it would be offering a new filtering service for its Czech customers. "Child pornography and promotion of racism [are] such socially dangerous content that we have access to it automatically blocked for all of our customers," said Philip Premysl, senior manager of corporate social responsibility of Vodafone in the press release....
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Vietnam Cracks Down on Dissident Blogger Dieu Cay
In Vietnam, speaking out against the government can come with a hefty price. Blogger Dieu Cay ("the Peasant Water Pipe") -- or Nguyen Van Haias in real life -- is learning this the hard way. The 56-year-old man is serving a 30-month jail sentence on a trumped-up charge of tax fraud, a poor excuse for the government to try to...
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Burmese Blogger Sentenced to 20 Years For Reporting on Protests
In many countries, you have to commit a serious crime to be sentenced to 20 years in jail, but in Burma this can happen just for using the Internet. There are almost 69 cyber-dissidents in jail worldwide, yet Burma's Nay Phone Latt has become the first blogger to receive such a lengthy prison term. His crime? To have informed the...
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Nigeria Joins List of Countries Harassing Bloggers
On October 19, U.S.-based Nigerian blogger and journalist Jonathan Elendu of Elendu Reports was arrested by the Nigerian State Security Services (SSS) upon his arrival at Abuja airport. It was some days before the SSS announced that Elendu had been charged, first with money laundering and then sedition. Yet another report claimed he was charged with sponsoring a guerilla news...
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China Blocks Blogs, Search Results on Tainted Milk Scandal
The evidence is accumulating. The censorship imposed on the Chinese media about the contaminated milk scandal has had disastrous consequences according to Reporters Without Borders. Last July, a journalist working for the investigative weekly Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekend) gathered reliable information regarding a wave of hospitalizations of new-born babies, with four killed and 53,000 sickened. These illnesses were linked to...
more »Digging Deeper
NYU Professor Stifles Blogging, Twittering by Journalism Student
After New York University journalism student Alana Taylor wrote her first embed report for MediaShift on September 5, it didn't take long for her scathing criticism of NYU to spread around the web and stir conversations. Taylor thought that her professor, Mary Quigley, was not up to speed on social media and podcasting -- even though the class she...
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Activists Face Obstacles Online in Winning Women's Rights in Iran
Women in Iran have learned to unleash the Internet's potential to promote freedom. In the country that has, according to the OpenNet Initiative, experienced the most explosive online growth in the Middle East, the Internet has become a battleground between a repressive regime and the increasingly active feminists demanding the end of legal discrimination against women. Women activists, who...
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China Partially Lifts Great Firewall for Media, but Access Remains Pricey
BEIJING -- Journalists scrambling to make Games-time deadlines might not make it to Badaling or Juyongguan during their trip overseas, but they're sure to become familiar with China's other Great Wall: the Great Firewall, that is. On July 31, Olympic officials admitted the International Olympic Committee had not yet secured unfettered Internet access to foreign journalists, leaving everyone to...
more »Weblogs
How Bloggers Covered Kenya Violence, Deal with Racism, Sexism
Within 24 hours of the outbreak of the post election violence in Kenya, Kenyan blogs were posting hour by hour reports. On December 31st there was a complete shutdown of the mainstream media.
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
YouTube, Flickr Become Forces for Cultural Change
The term "social web" brings to mind images of people around the world interacting with each other without borders or barriers. With the arrival of more and more sites that help us connect, express ourselves and share media, it seems like we're advancing toward a more open Internet, in which everyone has the right to view or post whatever...
more »Digging Deeper
Journalist Paints Bleak Picture for Media in Zimbabwe
The government shuts down independent newspapers. It jams radio signals from outside the country. Internet access is sporadic. Inflation is out of control. A bill is in Parliament that would allow the government to censor private email communications.
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