Stop Censorships

Internet Censorship Floods Serbia

BELGRADE, Jun 2 2014 (IPS) - Waters have receded in Serbia after the worst flooding the country has seen in 120 years, and something new has surfaced, apart from devastated fields and property – censorship of the internet.

A number of sites and blogs that criticised the government’s behaviour at the peak of the floods two weeks ago – in which over 50 people died – were hacked, unavailable or removed, showing the “error 404″ message whenever an attempt was made to access them.

Some 30 people have been detained in the past two weeks for “dissemination of false news and panic”, in the words of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Three young men spent nine days in custody for their Facebook posts, which cited hundreds of casualties in the worst hit town of Obrenovac, 33 kms south west from Belgrade. The three were released but will soon face trial. If guilty, they face six months to five years in prison.Read More!

China targets instant messaging services in latest online censorship campaign

China is targeting popular smartphone-based instant messaging services in a month-long campaign to crack down on the spreading of rumours and what it calls “hostile forces at home and abroad,” the latest move to restrict online freedom of expression.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the campaign started Tuesday and the services targeted included WeChat, a service run by TenCent Holdings Ltd, which incorporates social media functions that resemble microblog features and that has surged in popularity the last two years.Read More!

Net Neutrality

Net neutrality rules were established by the FCC in their 2010 Open Internet Order. These rules prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Verizon from blocking or discriminating against certain online services.

The FCC enacted the Open Internet Order in 2010 in order to prevent large telecommunications firms like Verizon and Comcast from stifling competition and innovation online. The agency wrote in the Order that the net neutrality rules were intended to “preserve the Internet as an open platform enabling consumer choice, freedom of expression, end-user control, competition, and the freedom to innovate without permission.”

Without net neutrality rules in place, ISPs can prevent users from visiting some websites, provide slower speeds for services like Netflix and Hulu, or even redirect users from one website to a competing website. Net neutrality rules prevent this by requiring ISPs to connect users to all lawful content on the internet equally, without giving preferential treatment to certain sites or services.

In the absense of net neutrality, companies can buy priority access to ISP customers. Larger, wealthier companies like Google or Facebook can pay ISPs to provide faster, more reliable access to their websites than to potential competitors. This could deter innovative start-up services that are unable to purchase priority access from the ISPs. Also, if ISPs can charge online services to connect to consumers, consumers would ultimately bear these additional costs (for example, on their monthly Netflix bill or in the cost of products from a local online store). Read More!

Can Senator Leahy Actually Get Anything Done To Help With Civil Liberties And Innovation?

Senator Patrick Leahy is often considered one of the most powerful Senators. He's the most senior Senator, third in the presidential line of succession (after the VP and the Speaker of the House) and the head of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. He's often presented as a "friend" to both the technology and civil liberties communities -- even though many in both of those communities still view him skeptically for his all out support for dangerous copyright legislation in the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which would have seriously messed with the underlying DNS structure of the internet. Even so, on a variety of other issues, including NSA reform, ECPA reform and patent reform, he's often been seen as leading the charge.

But over and over again, it seems that charge is... to go nowhere. Read More!