29 Apr 2011 | Uncategorized
UNESCO will convene its annual World Press Freedom Day conference this weekend in Washington against the backdrop of rapidly evolving revolutions throughout much of the Middle East and North Africa that are changing long-held views of who’s in the media, how it uses technology and what access to information means.
The United States is hosting the conference — which Index on Censorship will attend and cover — for the first time, in conjunction with more than a hundred events internationally celebrating press freedom and focusing attention on the corners of the world where it does not yet exist.
“Until recently, when we were talking about freedom of expression and the media, we were talking also about monopolies and the concentration of ownership of some media,” UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in a conference call with attending media this week. “Now with new technology we have an entirely different picture.”
Even in the few months since UNESCO first unveiled plans for this year’s events, news around the world has dramatically altered the range of issues at stake. Bloggers are now jailed alongside professional journalists. New-media tools that have helped connect dissidents are now just as likely to be used to track and crack down on them by repressive regimes. Technology has made possible both more sophisticated firewalls and circumvention tools that can be funded and developed from afar. And social media sites have become a live source for worldwide news – but in a world where access to digital information can be blocked with the pull of a plug.
Millions of people around the world who possess neither television, nor computer, nor newspaper subscription are also now accessing information in the palm of their hands.
“In Africa, it’s well-known for a fact that they may not have electricity as widely as they have mobile phones,” Bokova said. “New technologies are not only changing the media landscape, they’re changing the way we look at teaching and all of our access to knowledge in general.”
The conference in Washington — focusing on “21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers” — will also examine censorship in the digital age and global access to the Internet. Imprisoned Iranian journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi will also be honored with the UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Zeidabadi has been in jail since mass protests following Iran’s 2009 disputed election first presaged the uprisings now sweeping the region.
“What we saw was the fact that one single person can make history with a kind of very direct impact on political developments,” Bokova said of events over the last three months that give this year’s World Press Freedom Day additional urgency. “Who would have thought some months ago that one single young unemployed Tunisian in the market in a small town, that his reaction would have such an enormous wave of revolutions and repercussions. It was exactly because of these of social media, these new technologies.”
Index will blog here throughout the discussion, but you can also follow along with Twitter hashtag #WPFD.
27 Apr 2011 | News and features
Index on Censorship is pleased to announce it is to join the Global Network Initiative, the multi-stakeholder organisation created to protect and advance free speech and privacy. This unique coalition includes companies, civil society organisations (including human rights and press freedom groups), investors and academics. Corporate members including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have signed a code of conduct designed to tackle the key human rights challenges facing the information and communications technology sector.
Index on Censorship’s chief executive John Kampfner said:
“Events in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere have demonstrated the key role communications technology plays in enabling human rights, especially freedom of expression. The Global Network Initiative helps companies present a united front against governments with poor human rights records and Index on Censorship is delighted to join this groundbreaking initiative.”
Susan Morgan, executive director of GNI, commented “We welcome the knowledge and experience that Index on Censorship bring, and while the gain of such a valuable participant is news in it’s own right, we are also excited by the momentum that GNI is gaining with Folksam joining recently and now Index.”
Rob Mahoney of The Committee to Protect Journalists, an original member of the GNI, welcomes the addition of Index. “Index on Censorship has been a leader in the battle for freedom of expression in print, on air, and online. Their experience and expertise in this field will be an invaluable asset for all members of the Global Network Initiative. As a European-based organisation their presence will further expand the international reach of GNI.”
4 Apr 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
Al Jazeera reporter Lotfi Al Masoudi has been released after being detained by Libyan forces. He was one of four journalists who were arrested on 19 March. They were released on the 31 March, then rearrested later the same day. The Libyan officials offered no explanation as to why they were detained and would not reveal where they were held. Al Masoudi has now returned to his native Tunisia, and has said that they were not mistreated.
1 Apr 2011 | Uncategorized
Hillary Clinton offered a glowing narrative of the US role in Middle Eastern Internet freedom in a speech back in February that championed American values while chastising regimes that trample free expression.
“Our commitment to Internet freedom is a commitment to the rights of people, and we are matching that with our actions,” she declared. “Monitoring and responding to threats to Internet freedom has become part of the daily work of our diplomats and development experts. They are working to advance Internet freedom on the ground at our embassies and missions around the world. The United States continues to help people in oppressive internet environments get around filters, stay one step ahead of the censors, the hackers, and the thugs who beat them up or imprison them for what they say online.”
All of this action certainly sounded good (and the image of America as benevolent global Internet expression cop surely flattered many Americans listening). But Clinton left out of her speech one messier topic – the role of US companies in facilitating those filters, sometimes even in supporting the Internet blockades State Department money then pays to help locals circumnavigate.
That element of the story out of the Middle East over the last few months has been largely obscured from public debate in the US over global Internet freedom. Some Internet advocates lamented that Clinton’s speech didn’t tackle the topic, or propose serious measures the US could take to halt the export of homegrown technology used (often with the knowledge of US companies) in censorship abroad.
Lately, though, this uncomfortable complication has been getting real attention.
“Ethical Quandary for Social Sites,” blared a New York Times headline on Monday. The story recounted the case of Flickr, the photo-sharing site (owned by Yahoo), which removed photos uploaded by an Egyptian blogger of images swiped by activists from the State Security Police headquarters. Flickr insisted the photos violated its policy that users may post only their own, original work. But activists jeered what appeared to be selective application of a policy some of Flickr’s own employees don’t follow themselves.
Facebook, meanwhile, was caught this week in a similar awkward spot over a fan page devoted to promoting a Third Palestinian Intifada. Israeli officials demanded Facebook remove the page, which had already amassed more than 200,000 friends. Facebook originally refused, arguing that content that is upsetting to some “alone is not a reason to remove the discussion.” But Wednesday, the social networking site reversed course and yanked the page (now with more than 350,000 followers), on the grounds that its peaceful discourse had dissolved into out-right calls for violence that violated Facebook policy.
That flip-flop has compounded claims that Facebook hinders protesters around the world just as much as it helps them, particularly given the company policy that porhibits activists from signing up for accounts without exposing their true identities.
In the media, stories questioning the role of less visible US technology companies have also proliferated.
“US Products Help Block Mideast Web,” warned the Wall Street Journal this week.
“Censorship: Made in the USA,” read the Huffington Post headline above a story written by Free Press campaign director Tim Karr.
Both pieces relied on revelations unearthed in a new report from the OpenNet Initiative by Jillian C York (a contributor to the new Index magazine) and Helmi Noman. The two found that American and Canadian-made software had been used to block socially and politically objectionable online content for more than 20 million web users in nine North African and Middle Eastern countries: Bahrain, the AUE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Sudan and Tunisia.
“This is not simply a case of a general purpose, neutral tool being used for an end not contemplated by its maker,” reads the forward to the report. “The filtering products of today engage in regular communications with their makers, updating lists of millions of websites to block across dozens of content categories, including political opposition and human rights. When McAfee Smartfilter or Websense do their utmost to maintain lists of non-profit and advocacy groups their efforts directly affect what citizens in some authoritarian regimes can and cannot access online.”
The discovery is about as embarrassing as those images of Made-in-the-USA tear gas canisters that turned up in Tahrir Square, and US politicians have begun to take notice, too. Earlier this month, Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate human rights subcommittee, wrote an op-ed for the popular Washington-based political site Politico under the banner “Tyrants can use Facebook, too.”
He finally said what Hillary Clinton did not.
“US technology companies allow millions around the world to express themselves more fully and freely,” the senator wrote. “But the industry has a moral obligation to ensure that its products and services do not help repressive governments. If U.S. companies are unwilling to take reasonable steps to protect human rights, Congress must step in.”
