internet censorship

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Zuckerberg: We Stifled COVID Info at White House's Request

Meta CEO alleges White House turned up heat on his teams to take down certain items on COVID

(Newser) - During the height of the pandemic, Meta scrubbed tens of millions of items on Facebook and Instagram that it said pushed misinformation on COVID-19, vaccinations, and the like, with warnings placed on nearly 200 million more pieces of content. Now, the company's CEO is saying that the Biden administration...

Supreme Court Punts on Social Media Speech Rights

SCOTUS returns cases in Texas and Florida claiming that users were being censored

(Newser) - The Supreme Court on Monday kept a hold on efforts in Texas and Florida to limit how Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube, and other social media platforms regulate content posted by their users. The justices returned the cases to lower courts in challenges from trade associations for the companies, reports the...

Microsoft: 'Human Error' Caused Famous Pic to Vanish Online

Company denies censorship led Bing to stifle search results for Tiananmen Square's 'Tank Man'

(Newser) - Friday was the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in China, which means lots of people headed online to peruse articles and pictures of the incident that led to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of protester deaths. One photo that interested parties in several countries couldn't initially find, at least...

China Blocks the Buzzy 'Clubhouse' App

Citizens were using it to discuss sensitive topics

(Newser) - Chinese authorities are blocking access to Clubhouse, a social media app that allowed users in China to discuss sensitive topics with people abroad, the AP reports. The move adds Clubhouse to thousands of websites and social media apps to which the ruling Communist Party blocks access in an effort to...

Eric Schmidt: Internet Could Split in 2 by 2028

He says there could be a 'real danger' of censorship under new regime

(Newser) - Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt suspects there will be two separate Internets a decade from now—and you're not going to be able to Google "Tiananmen Square massacre" on one of them. Schmidt, who led Google from 2001 to 2011, told the audience at an event in San...

Google Accused of 'Gross Attack' on Internet Freedom

Company reportedly developing apps in line with Chinese censorship

(Newser) - Google is looking to reenter the Chinese market it exited in protest over government censorship in a move critics say is nothing short of hypocritical. According to the Information and Intercept , Google has presented to Chinese officials two mobile apps—one for internet searches, one focusing on news aggregation—that...

With Eye on Trump, Internet Will Be Backed Up in Canada

'Preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions'

(Newser) - The US-based nonprofit Internet Archive, responsible for continuously archiving as much of the web as it can and perhaps best known for its 279 billion-web-page-strong Wayback Machine , is moving to Canada. Or, more precisely, expanding to Canada. The organization announced on its blog on Tuesday that it is raising money...

'Fatty Kim the Third' Not an OK Nickname in China

But the AP notes 'Kim Fat Fat Fat' still works

(Newser) - Chinese Internet users apparently have to search for news of Kim Jong Un by his given name, or at least not via the term "Jin San Pang"—meaning "Fatty Kim the Third." The phrase has been blocked on Chinese websites including social media site Weibo and...

Man Loses 14 Years of Work When Google Deletes His Blog

Dennis Cooper's misfortune is raising new censorship concerns

(Newser) - Artist Dennis Cooper made a horrifying discovery June 27: His 14-year-old blog—the sole home of his experimental writing, research, photographs, and more—was gone, Art Forum reports. According to Fusion , Cooper's blog was hosted by Google-owned Blogger, and those headed to denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com are greeted with the...

Ray Bradbury Inspires New Web Error Code

The code 451 will alert Internet users to government censorship

(Newser) - A reference to one of Ray Bradbury's most famous novels can now be used to alert Internet users when their governments are censoring information, Engadget reports. The Internet Engineering Steering Group recently approved status code 451 for use, which means web developers can start implementing it, according to the...

Gmail Now Fully Blocked in China

It had been usable via 3rd-party apps

(Newser) - The Great Firewall has apparently expanded. Gmail hasn't been directly accessible for six months in China; now users can't reach it through third-party services like Microsoft Outlook either. The latest crackdown on Google in the country appears to have begun on Friday, according to Google data , the Wall ...

Iran Arrests 6 for 'Vulgar' Video of Pharrell's 'Happy'

Clip 'hurt public chastity,' Tehran's top cop says

(Newser) - A joyful homemade video of Pharrell Williams' "Happy" resulted in arrest and public humiliation for six young Iranians. Tehran's chief of police says the six people seen singing and dancing on the city's rooftops—including three unveiled young women—created a "vulgar clip which hurt public...

Russia's New 'Blogger's Law' Tightens Grip on Internet

Putin also signs law banning swearing

(Newser) - Russia's Internet is going to start looking a lot more like China's under a restrictive new law signed by Vladimir Putin, critics say. The measure dubbed the "blogger's law" will remove anonymity from bloggers and declares any website with more than 3,000 daily visitors to...

Now Turkey's Trying to Ban YouTube, Too

Leaked security meeting prompts 'administrative action'

(Newser) - Not content with having blocked/" eradicated " Twitter, Turkish authorities today blocked YouTube, after a video that appeared to show Turkish officials debating their next move regarding Syria leaked to the site. "After technical analysis and legal consideration … an administrative measure has been taken for this website,"...

Glitch Reroutes China's Internet... to Wyoming

Great Firewall seems to have backfired

(Newser) - Hundreds of millions of Internet users in China struggled to get online yesterday after most of the country's web traffic was mysteriously rerouted to a small building in Wyoming. Chinese authorities say the redirection was the result of a glitch in the country's domain system, but analysts believe...

Sudan Has 'Cut Itself Off' From Internet

Possibly blacked out by gov't amid riots, says expert

(Newser) - Amidst deadly riots over its government scrapping fuel subsidies, Sudan has severed its Internet access. Following several reports, Internet monitoring firm Renesys has confirmed that the country "has cut itself off from global Internet," though it's still uncertain whether the government is behind the outage, the Washington ...

China Dropping Facebook Ban—in Part of One City

Banned sites allowed in Shanghai free-trade zone

(Newser) - Chinese authorities hope the new Shanghai free-trade zone will cement the city's place as a financial center, in spite of a potential drag on worker productivity—the zone will be the only place in China where banned social media sites including Facebook and Twitter are allowed, sources tell the...

Gone Again: Twitter, Facebook Access in Iran

'Technical glitch' lasted just a few hours

(Newser) - Iranians were free to share duckface selfies , waste hours on FarmVille, and get angry at their friends for spoiling Breaking Bad plots ... for a few glorious hours, at least. Yes, after four years, Facebook and Twitter were back online in Tehran—at least for some local Internet service providers, the...

Google Reader's Demise a Win—for Iranian Censors

But most Americans won't care

(Newser) - The news of Google Reader's demise was met with cries of despair from news nerds, and shrugs from most of America. "Normal people don't use Google Reader, so get over it," reads one Daily Intel headline. "New rule: You get one tweet to memorialize how...

Iceland Moves to Ban All Online Porn

Iceland pols call porn a human rights violation against women and children

(Newser) - Calling all porn a civil rights violation against the women who appear in it and the children who see it, Iceland is considering a ban on Internet pornography, reports the Daily Mail . Iceland's interior minister has created a working group to find the best way of doing so, with...

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