Category: Censorship

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China banned the letter ‘N’ from Weibo and WeChat

sudshr47 February 28, 2018

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In some sort of Sesame Street ‘Letter of the Day’ nightmare situation, the letter N was temporarily banned on many of China’s most popular social platforms.

On Sunday, China’s Communist Party announced that it was planning to abolish the presidential two-term limit, which would enable Xi Jinping to stay in power indefinitely.

Some Chinese citizens weren’t too keen on the plan. Apparently, many started criticizing it on popular messaging apps Weibo and WeChat, referencing dystopian novels like 1984, and poking fun at Jinping by invoking the popular (and hilarious) comparison of Jinping to — wait for it — Winnie the Poo.  Read more…

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UK outs extremism blocking tool and could force tech firms to use it

sudshr47 February 13, 2018

 The UK government’s pressure on tech giants to do more about online extremism just got weaponized. The Home Secretary has today announced a machine learning tool, developed with public money by a local AI firm, which the government says can automatically detect propaganda produced by the Islamic State terror group with “an extremely high degree of accuracy”. Read More

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ECJ to rule on whether Facebook needs to hunt for hate speech

sudshr47 January 11, 2018

 Austria’s Supreme Court is referring a legal challenge over the extent of Facebook’s responsibility to remove hate speech postings to Europe’s top court for an opinion. The case has clear implications for freedom of speech online. Read More

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Europe keeps up the pressure on social media over illegal content takedowns

sudshr47 January 9, 2018

 The European Union’s executive body is continuing to pressure social media firms to get better at removing illegal content from their platforms before it has a chance to spread further online.  Read More

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Twitter will tell users if content was blocked to comply with local laws or legal demands

sudshr47 December 21, 2017

 Twitter will now display messages to inform users if blocked tweets were withheld to comply with local laws or court orders, which it calls Country Withheld Content (CWC). The public already has information about CWC through notices sent directly to affected accounts, Lumen, a database of legal requests for the removal of online content, and Twitter’s own biannual transparency reports.… Read More

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Tim Cook ‘optimistic’ Chinese cyber regulators will allow pulled apps back on iPhone

sudshr47 December 7, 2017

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Apple CEO Tim Cook expressed ‘hope’ that the communist Chinese government will allow Apple to reinstate certain apps to the tech giant’s App Store on Wednesday. 

Earlier this year, Apple removed some messaging and VPM apps — which allow users to mask their IP address and access websites censored by the authoritative Chinese government — from the App store at the request of Chinese officials.  

The app ExpressVPM, or instance, received a notice from Apple in July stating that “your application will be removed from the China App Store because it contains content that is illegal in China….”

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China is deleting posts about a kindergarten allegedly abusing its toddlers

sudshr47 November 30, 2017

As anger swells around a Chinese kindergarten accused of abusing its toddlers, online discussion about the topic has been systematically deleted.
Earlier this week, the RYB Education New World kindergarten in Beijing was accused of feeding drugs to t…

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Pakistan reportedly blocks Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube amid protest crackdowns

sudshr47 November 25, 2017

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Pakistan has reportedly blocked Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter amid a broader crackdown on protests. 

The blockages come after six people died and 200 others were injured after authorities attempted to clear Islamist protests from highways near the capital of Islamabad, according to the Associated Press. 

Pakistan also instituted a media blackout, with many of its major TV stations going off the air. 

We are aware of reports that the Pakistani government has taken action to block Twitter service, as well as other social media services, and that users are having difficulty using Twitter in Pakistan. We are monitoring the situation and hope service will be fully restored soon.

— Twitter Public Policy (@Policy) November 25, 2017 Read more…

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