09 Jun 10 | Index Index, minipost
In addition to blocking Youtube, Turkey has now blocked access to various Google functions. The High Council for Telecommunications has revealed that since June 2010, Turkish internet service providers have been instructed to block Youtube-linked IP addresses. On 4 June, Google investigated complaints that certain Google services, including Google Analytics and Google Docs, were restricted. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has estimated that 3700 websites are currently blocked in Turkey, including GeoCities, gay community sites and Kurdish sites.
21 May 10 | Uncategorized
The scale of the internet censorship imposed in Pakistan is startling. The supposed sacrilege of depicting Muhammad is once more the trigger. The government there has blocked first Facebook and now YouTube in reaction to the popular “Everybody Draw Muhammad” day that took off on Facebook and then went viral. Other social network sites including Flickr have had restrictions put on them.
The provocative idea was itself a reaction to the recent censorship of a South Park episode that had angered some Muslims because it showed their prophet in a bear outfit. The new protest seems to have achieved its desired effect. Escalation seems inevitable.
The Pakistani government’s solution is foolish, not just because it curbs freedom of speech, but also because it will result in far more images of Muhammad in circulation and far more people looking at them (I’m sure I’m not the only one to have Googled “Everybody Draw Muhammad” this morning). Presumably this is the opposite of what they want to achieve.
It is disconcerting that in yesterday’s Guardian the journalist Declan Walsh wrote
At one level, the controversy pits free speech fundamentalists in the west against religious extremists in Pakistan
The phrase “free speech fundamentalists” here is sloppy rhetoric. Presumably a “free speech fundamentalist” would be someone who believed that total freedom of speech was an absolute right that shouldn’t be compromised under any circumstances. He or she would tolerate direct incitements to violence, disclosure of official secrets, false advertising, and much more. But you don’t have to be a fundamentalist in this or any sense to believe that broad brush internet censorship is morally wrong as well as completely counterproductive.
The Pakistani censorship isn’t just an issue for free speech fundamentalists (if indeed they exist), but one for free speech moderates and advocates of openness everywhere.
28 Apr 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
Musician M.I.A‘s video for her new single Born Free has been banned from Youtube just days after it was released. The controversial video, directed by Romain Gavras, shows American police rounding redheads, and subjecting them to brutal violence. Critics have suggested the explicit video is a publicity stunt for M.I.A and the director, whose debut feature film Redheads, is based on the same premise.
24 Feb 10 | Uncategorized
This is genuinely alarming.
An Italian court has convicted Google executives David Carl Drummond, George De Los Reyes and Peter Fleischer (now retired), for violation of privacy, after a video of an Autistic child being bullied was uploaded to Google Video.
The case was brought by charity Viva Down, who claimed that Google (which owns YouTube) was culpable for not gaining the consent of all parties in the video before it was uploaded. The charity also claimed that Google had been too slow to react when asked to remove the video.
Can Google really be responsible for every piece of content on Googe Video or YouTube? Doesn’t this seriously confuse how the web works?
This from the Google blog:
Google’s statement
But we are deeply troubled by this conviction for another equally important reason. It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.
