The microblogging service credited with helping free speech flourish goofed this past weekend. After suspending the Twitter account of journalist Guy Adams for a tweet that supposedly violated Twitter’s privacy rules, the service was besieged with media requests and outraged users over the dubious nature of the suspension.

Adams, a Los Angeles correspondent for UK-based publication The Independent, lost his account over a July 27 tweet that included the NBCUniversal corporate email of Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. On July 29, NBC Sports filed a support ticket with Twitter to suspend the account, which it did.

The Comcast Corporation subsidiary and Twitter entered a non-financial partnership for the duration of the London 2012 Olympics, which led to skepticism about the service’s quick response to its business partner.

There were also questions about the accuracy of Twitter’s privacy rules to ban the posting of “private and confidential information” with regards to Zenkel’s corporate email address, which follows the same format as all NBCUniversal employees: FirstName.LastName@nbcuni.com.

The situation became murkier on July 31, when UK-based publication the Telegraph broke news that the Twitter Olympics team assisted NBC in making the report, according to correspondence with Christopher McCloskey, vice-president of communications for NBC Sports.

Despite silence from the social networking website all weekend, Twitter unsuspended the Independent correspondent’s account on July 31 and issued an apology on its blog:

“The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.”

Posted by Twitter’s general counsel, Alex Macgillivray, the statement went out of its way to explain the service’s objectivity as a whole, separate from the actions of individual employees, “As I stated earlier, we do not proactively report or remove content on behalf of other users no matter who they are. This behavior is not acceptable and undermines the trust our users have in us. We should not and cannot be in the business of proactively monitoring and flagging content, no matter who the user is— whether a business partner, celebrity or friend.”

In response to the quandary surrounding whether Zenkel’s corporate email address fell into the realm of personal email addresses as defined by Twitter Rules, Twitter responded: “There are many individuals who may use their work email address for a variety of personal reasons— and some may not.” Therefore, the site’s response stemmed from the policy, which, as the post says, “That we can implement across all of our users in every instance.”

However, it had been determined that Zenkel’s corporate email had previously been revealed by a blog protesting NBC’s coverage of this year’s U.S. Open.

A report from Wired states that the Guy Adams incident has its own place in debates about Twitter’s future, and whether it has a place as a technology company or as a media entity.

A tweet from the reinstated account of Guy Adams suggested that his account was unsuspended because NBC rescinded its complaint.

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Under The Twitter Rules, it is stated that “You may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.”

The San Francisco-based microblogging service offered this reasoning to journalist Guy Adams for his account’s suspension on July 29. Adams, the Los Angeles correspondent for UK publication The Independent, had tweeted on July 27:

“The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com.”  The corporate email account belongs to Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics for NBCUniversal (a Comcast Corporation subsidiary), the American broadcaster with exclusive US media rights to the airing of the London 2012 Olympics.

As part of his email to Twitter’s European public relations executive Rachel Bremer, Adams wrote, “I’m of course happy to abide by Twitter’s rules, now and forever,” it reads. “But I don’t see how I broke them in this case: I didn’t publish a private email address. Just a corporate one, which is widely available to anyone with access to Google, and is identical [in form] to one that all of the tens of thousands of NBC Universal employees share.”

Although Zenkel’s email is not readily available on NBCUniversal’s website, the email accounts of executives at American cable channel Bravo – which is owned by NBCUniversal – follow the same format. Since his suspension, Twitter users have been reposting Zenkel’s email in a show of solidarity. Regarding the dubious “non-public” status of the account, New York Magazine wrote, “If it was ever private, it’s not now.” The hashtags #NBCFail and #TwitterFail are also trending in relation to the incident.

In a twist that had Adams writing about “various ethical issues relevant to journalism in the online era,” NBC Sports issued a statement yesterday regarding its role in bringing the message to Twitter’s attention. Matthew Keys of Reuters tweeted part of the statement, “”We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives.”

The service entered into a partnership with NBC to tweet exclusive Olympic content through its website. According to the Wall Street Journal, the broadcaster will not be paying Twitter or sharing any advertising revenue.

Twitter has not responded publicly regarding the incident.

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According to A.C. Nielsen Co. which studies consumer behavior, the average U.S. Citizen watches TV more than four hours a day. This means that we spend one sixth of the day listening, and in a passive way, to the opinions of some characters that are the spokesmen of those who decide what has to, and what has not, to be said in their channel. In other words,during a 65 year life, we would spent 9 years in front of the tube.

What’s more is that during the time we watch television, we acquire the vulgar manners that some characters use on those comfortable sofas in the TV sets. We pick up on the fictional use of counterproductive verbiage in a jungle where law is established by the one that shouts most.

But my intention is not to criticize  this sensationalist programs, nor the unbiased loose of this media, since they are in their right of expressing their points of views even when boorish. Plus, no one forces us to consume these programs.

However, until that point, aren’t we forced to watch those things that just a few people from the elites want us to consume?

Ten mega corporations, including the  OL/Times Warner, Gannett Company, and the Rupert Murdoch conglomerate, News Corporation, share and control the biggest information medias from the United States. This means that what seems like a plural market is no more than a group of ten huge companies, where there is not a place for any type of individual voice.

Logically, these companies move around benefiting their own interests. In this profitability race, there is a place for every type of trick from hiding what does not benefit them to informing to exhaustion about what it does. For instance, let’s take the Spanish actual media case.

One month ago, the miners in northern Spain have cut several of roads to protest against the subsidies that were promised at one point by the government, and are now denied. Despite its importance, there is a clear news blackout about this topic.

On the other hand, we have soccer. Spain has reached the Euro Cup final. This is something historic, but it still does not deserve the treatment it receives. For hours and hours, many different channels chew any information related to the Spanish national team, while, in the meantime, the risk premium and the unemployment rate go higher and higher. A perfect example of bread and circus. McCombs already said in his 1968 Agenda Setting theory that news media have the power to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda. In other words, media influences society and determines which stories are newsworthy for them. 

There is an abuse because these carriers of information, which are an authority in the information field, use their medias to promote and to seat the ideas that benefit them. As an example, we just have to take a look at the role that most televisions took disseminating Iraq war propaganda. The different TV companies from different countries presented the war quite diversely according to where they came from. For example, when things went very bad at for U.S. forces, a story originated from a reporter that supposedly found a huge chemical weapons production facility. This story was quickly spread through the U.S. media, and after was discovered it was not true.

Also consider the Jessica Lynch case, a clear example of manipulating a story.

Whether forced by higher spheres such as the government, or maybe due to the profitable war, these companies constantly repeat their ideas and thoughts every time we read a newspaper or watch TV.

Think about it. A passive and frivolous society, that does not know the intentions of those who manage the world. Scary, is it not?

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Political blogging experts and social media activists in Thailand face frustration against their lack of liberty to express themselves at will. Thailand´s government uses two ways to censor and control the net. Firstly, by setting up an online roadblock –which already has stopped 32,500 pages- and secondly, through a government body that monitors the websites.

The increase of internet usage across the country has caused some concerns between political leaders. Thailand focuses their internet censorship energies on social issues, especially those related to online pornography, political separatists, and gambling. But their priorities are those cyber opinions that threaten the regime’s stability.

The Thailand government has invested millions of dollars for an internet gateway that will prevent any harsh comments on the country’s supreme monarch. The same system crosses out sites owned by terrorists. The Thailand Ministry of Information and Communication Technology works closely with the companies that provide internet in the country. If the companies do not block websites which have been asked to by the government body, these businesses could lose their licenses or have their networking area limited.

Local internet providers, fearing sanctions, follow the Thai internet censorship. In more than four years, the country’s communication ministry has blocked about 15,000 websites. Today, the number of websites blocked is unknown and the reasons remain hidden to the public. This year, the Thailand government has officially endorsed Twitter’s ‘country-by-country’ censorship policy. Twitter’s new policy allows for restrictions of ‘certain types of content’ for various ‘cultural reasons.’

By reading some scholarly articles and journals, I found that Thailand is one of the most engaged countries in the world to practice internet filtering. Thailand is also listed as “Not Free” by Freedom on the Net 2011 report by Freedom house which works on censorship and freedom on the internet (read report here). Moreover, Thailand is listed in Internet Enemies Under Surveillance by Reporters Without Borders as of March 2011 (read report here). By restricting the freedom to use the net, the Thai government is converting political, social and religious subjects into a taboo.

The future of global internet freedom looks dark in spite of the growth of Thai net users. Private companies respond with more innovation to cyber security instead of promoting news ways to implement a democracy,due to fear.

Future Thai generations will see their political and social knowledge being dwindled, in spite of the new ways that modern technologies offer citizens to build a democracy. Despite the Thai government’s wish to control Thai residents’ online activities, the internet is too vital in this new era, where foreign companies look at these kind of issues in order to decide whether to invest in a country or not.

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The Monarchy of Thailand is fed up over years of Thailand’s citizens criticizing the government and Thailand traditions. And, as more people are resorting to the Internet to speak out about their beliefs that collide with ancient Thailand traditions, the government has decided to finally take action.

According to Mobiledia, the government is “realizing the serious threats the technology, especially its social and mobile elements, can bring to governance and traditional beliefs. Countries around the globe are struggling to balance their population’s embrace of mobile communications with order, public safety and streamlining government affairs, and the challenges are beginning to show.”

Because governments in Kuwait, Turkey and Thailand revolve around what they believe, as each other’s survival, they believe that the citizens of these countries are damaging to each countries beliefs and values, while also damaging foreign relations with other countries. (Who is “they,” the government or the citizens?  What do you mean by “each other’s survival?” Can you rephrase this so it is more clear?)

The legal case that has grabbed international media attention revolves around Thailand resident Chiranuch Premchaiporn, a webmaster who manages a local news site, after she insulted Thailand’s king, 84-year-old Bhumibol Adulyadej. According to the ITTO (Who is the ITTO?), “Premchaiporn did not post the material, she is responsible for its message under Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act, a law which criminalizes hosting anti-monarchical content and puts content providers like Premchaiporn at risk for prison time if they fail to censor such comments quickly.” She had 11 days to remove the comments from her site but considering she failed to do so, Premchaiporn was sentenced to spend eight months in prison. Her sentencing was based on each comment that was derogatory toward the government, king, queen, or an heir.

Thailand has extremely strict consequences for those who go up against their government, with the standard penalty being a one year prison sentence for each insulting comment that is posted. However, Premachaiporn’s sentence was reduced based on her cooperation.

Thailand has extremely strict, what they call, “lese-majeste” laws which prohibits the public expression of criticism against the monarchy in any media form whether it be television, print, radio or the Internet.

According to Reporter Kendra Srivastava, “the sentence reflects Thailand’s long history of censorship, which is gaining attention and sparking controversy as technology advances in the digital age. Lese-majeste laws are also coming under fire with demands for reform due to the recent death of a 62-year-old man who was serving a 20-year jail sentence for insulting the king. A petition of almost 27,000 signatures calling for reform of the laws was delivered to the Thai parliament yesterday in response to the man’s death.”

Fortunately for other countries in Asia and the Middle East, governments are looking at ways to go about the penalties of violating censorship laws among its citizens. Rather than punishment, countries like Iran and Syria are exploring ways to limit the Internet’s reach to citizens by not allowing access to sites that can give them information to retaliate and denounce their governments as well as forbidding them to insult the religions and politics of their countries.

While Thailand is censoring the media to prevent the denouncement of their ancient beliefs that go centuries back, it might actually end up hurting the country’s future.

According to Srivastava, “Google called Premchaiporn’s sentence a threat to the potential of Thailand’s Internet economy.”

However, the real questions still remain. How far is censorship going to go? And, how far are these countries willing to risk the free speech of their citizens in order to save face for their governments? Is all this censorship worth the protests, deaths and detriment to these countries economies?

Image Courtesy of  AJP / Shutterstock.com

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Social Media is everywhere; it’s all over the world. There are blogs, social networking sites, podcasts, discussion forums, photo sharing and microblogs. China even has its very own microblog. It is so popular and rapidly growing that, in fact, an anonymous group of individuals in China have created their own version of Twitter. This is China’s largest microblogging service, and “critics are saying this is the latest attempt of the Chinese Government to censor social media,” according to Chinese Correspondent, Angus Walker. This microblog is known as Sina Weibo and has an estimated 300 million users.

Speculation of censorship of the website began earlier this year after people began spreading false rumors of senior politician and former Governor of Chongqing, Bo Xilai. The government had warned users to stop, but users continued to post photographs of tanks in the streets of Beijing, “claiming a military coup was underway in the wake of the sacking of Xilai,” according to ITV News.

As a result, the government has created a rule system for all users of the microblogging system to abide by. Under this system, every user of the site will start with 80 points. A convention for the rules has been created known as the “community convention” and if a user breaks any of the rules, they will receive a deduction in points. If enough points are deducted, they will be banned from the site. Thus far, the rules are as follows:

As stated by Walker, “the company that runs the site, Sina, has not come up with the idea itself and it remains to be seen whether the regulations will be imposed and policed. Using social media to criticize government policies or chat about political events has become a new way for “netizens”, as they are called, to voice their opinions.” And, “with a half a billion people online in China, around 300 million are using microblogging sites – that is roughly the population of the United States all making comments on a regular basis.”

China has some of the strictest social media censorship regulations in the world, with Facebook still being banned in the country to this day. According to Clifford Coonan, a Beijing Reporter with ‘The Independent,’ even though micro-blogging in China started less than three years go, it has become enormously popular, with growth quadrupling last year. Nearly half of all Chinese internet users now use micro-blogs.”

Thus far, Sina has been incredibly cooperative with the rules and regulations proposed in order to avoid further censorship and clashes with the Chinese government in the future

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Because so many countries are starting to censor what their citizens can access on the internet, or ban websites from being seen entirely, citizens have found a way to access those sites through a program known as Green Simurgh.

According to ComputerWorld, “Green Simurgh is an anti-censorship application that routes a computer’s outbound connections to a server located in the U.S. This allows the software’s users to bypass network filters and access Internet resources that would normally be banned by their ISP. Green Simurgh doesn’t require any installation and can run directly from USB memory sticks, which makes it suitable for users who access the Internet from cafes and public computers.”

Unfortunately for users however, several copies of Green Simurgh that have been distributed have been found to have a Trojan horse and malware that reveals the internet user’s each and every keystroke they make. According to a University of Toronto laboratory, Citizen Lab (known for its specialization in researching digital media, human rights and global security), the software has been used in Iran since 2009 and Syrian users have also begun to rely on it.

“It has recently come to our attention that this software is being recommended and circulated among Syrian Internet users for bypassing censorship in their country,” said Citizen Lab technical adviser Morgan Marquis-Boire in a blog post on Friday. “This information led to the discovery and analysis of a back-doored version of this software.”

The malicious version of Green Simurgh comes in a package Simurgh-setup.zip from file sharing websites, one of which is 4shared.com.

Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at antivirus vendor Sophos explains how users were convinced to use the malware version of Green Simurgh:

“When run on a Windows machine, the rogue installer drops a legitimate copy of the Green Simurgh software in the Program Files directory, but also installs a computer Trojan horse that runs in the background. [The Trojan horse] keeps a log of your username, machine name, every window clicked and keystroke entered,” he said.

 ”It attempts to submit these logs to some servers located in the United States, but registered to an entity that appears to be based in Saudi Arabia. Considering that thousands of users depend on the legitimate Simurgh software, it’s likely that a lot more people have been impacted by this malware than by Flame — a recently discovered cyber espionage threat that has received a lot of attention in the media.”

The creators of Green Simurgh have sent out a warning on their website to their users regarding the malware software, and for future users to only download the software directly from the Simurgh website itself. For those who have already been infected, the company recommends to run an anti-virus program and remove the program immediately.

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As technology advances at such a rapid pace, government regulations of censorship of the internet are cracking down just as fast. In recent weeks, an anonymous group has begun attacking the Indian government in retaliation of the government blocking citizens from using certain websites.

The websites that have been banned to the public thus far include, “YouTube, Vimeo (a video sharing website), Pastebin (a web application that allows users to write a large amount of text for public viewing), Daily Motion (another video sharing website) and The Pirate Bay (a Swedish website that allows users to download music, movies, games, software, etc), all in an effort to fight online piracy,” says Reporter DJ Pangburn.

Internet censorship has become a global issue. Is it perhaps that governments in various countries don’t want their citizens to see certain things on websites? Pangburn uses examples of the growth of censorship by mentioning that, “of course, it isn’t right to steal and distribute content, but it’s also not right to resort to draconian, Orwellian measures that empower governments to control the Internet.

Indeed, this architecture of control could be used for any variety of measures to stop what the government doesn’t want Internet users to see. This Internet censorship effort is truly global, with various treaties, executive agreements and UN proposals such as one currently being pushed by Russia, Iran and China that would have the UN implement an Internet code of conduct and create a superstructure to manage it all.”

The group ‘Anonymous’ keeps their identity concealed by wearing decorated masks or cloth to cover everything but their eyes. The group is communicating with the Indian government and the rest of the world through a program on the internet they created called ‘Anonymous Operations.’

On their website, the group recently announced they “had taken down the Indian Supreme Court and All India Congressional websites, as well as the Department of Telecommunications with the hacking collective accusing the Indian government of censorship and corruption in the form of bribery,” says Pangburn.

A member of India’s Upper House, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, wrote a letter to India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, expressing his opposition over India’s recent attempt to control the Internet through a United Nations committee. He wrote that, “any attempt to expand government’s power over the Internet should be turned back,” according to his website, Death & Taxes.

‘Anonymous’ chose June 9 as the protest day for the censorship of the internet in India. Several protest sites have already been announced including Mumbai, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Indore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, Kozhikode, Nagpur and Pune, according to the Times of India.

‘Anonymous’ has made a statement in regard to what they are hoping for as a result of the protests, but wants it to be known that they have no plans of this becoming a violent retaliation against the government. In the groups press release they stated, “this is to be a 100% Non-Violent Civil rights protest,” and encouraging “any one who feels they need this movement needs to be in their city can start a FB page for the Occupy City movement and let us know about it.”

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E.L. James’ “50 Shades of Grey” reached number one on both USA Today and the New York Times’ bestseller lists. The book sold over 3 million copies in less than a month. The author, astounded at her success, has received much praise for her book from adoring fans. The book’s erotic content has also sparked some opposition, so much so that several libraries in Georgia, Florida, and Wisconsin banned the book from their shelves.

As book one in the Fifty Shades Trilogy, the author describes the fictional romance of student Anastasia Steele and business success story Christian Grey. Grey, focused on an overwhelming desire to control, offers a sadistic relationship. Steele, a virgin, but passionately curious, unlocks some of her own dark desires. The novel is erotica, but it also portrays some true relationship issues.

The problem comes from people that read the book, disagree with the content, and do not want anyone else to read it either. The libraries in the three states that banned the book agreed that they listen to reader interests. Public libraries, because they are funded by taxpayer money, listen to residents who make a complaint. If the demand is high enough, they will pull the book from the shelf. Many of the complaints are filed by concerned parents, who do not want children getting their hands on what could be labeled pornography.

Other librarians, such as Kate Hall from the New Lenox Public Library in Illinois, strongly oppose taking any book from the shelf, no matter the content. So far, Hall’s library has only received requests for the book.

According to New Lenox Patch, Hall says, “People are always going to have issues with some books…. It does chill me a little bit just because it’s one person speaking out for the entire community.” One person should not be the deciding factor for a library.

Random House, the publisher of “50 Shades”, is calling the ban unconstitutional. Under the First Amendment, banning books is censorship and deprives readers of the right to choose what they want to read. According to TMZ, a representative from Random House claims that the library asserts that they “will judge what you can read.” They are taking away the book that readers want and have a right to buy.

There is no denying that this racy book is not for everyone. The debate is bound to continue as popularity of the book escalates and talk of a movie adaptation is well underway.

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Google launched a new website in China which allows users to search for goods online more easily. The website, beta aggregation Shihui, allows people to shop by searching different categories, products, locations, and prices. The group-buying market has exploded recently for China, and there are now approximately 4,000 such services in the country.

Groupon is not in the picture, which can work as a major positive factor in Google’s new business venture. While Google is suffering in the face of Groupon in the U.S., Groupon has not been able to get a foothold in China, despite its efforts to do so, starting this year. Currently, it appears that Google has its place in the Chinese market.

To accelerate the project, Google bought several sales sites, such as Lashou, Meituan, Gaopeng (also known as Groupon China), Groupon.cn (also known as a clone) and Nuomi. Virtually every major group involved. However, a Google representative said that Google Shihui is built entirely in China and has nothing to do with the Dealmap, for now.

As Google is entering the industry according to date, it has won the early stages of brand recognition – Google China could become a very powerful asset. According to Shihui, the new site is still in the early stages of development.  Right now, the main priority is to test things out; Google wants to get traffic to their sites and develop features that guide users to the offers that are most valuable to them.

The Chinese government’s censorship has been a bit of a road block for Google. Such censorship makes it difficult to conduct business. But Google is hopeful that the Chinese government’s attention will not go to a simple search service. And even if they did, the probability of any set of results that require censorship appearing would be far less than with web searches.

Additionally, Google will begin to shift traffic from its search site in China to servers outside the mainland while other operations will remain within the country. It has been very difficult to enter to the Chinese market, therefore, Google is interested in growing their business in the China market to the best of their abilities.

Shihui Google seems to be a promising endevor, but not without up and coming competition. There are a handful of sites of its kind in China that are going strong. So, despite censorship, it seems the Chinese people have the ultimate “say” in what they want and like.

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The deliberation 668/2010 of the Italian Authority for Communications Guarantees (AGCOM) in matter of online copyright threatens the freedom of the web.

According to this deliberation, AGCOM would be entitled to remove contents from web pages or to block the access to foreign web sites for Italian users in case of copyright violation, all within 48 hours. The Authority would be free to decide following an administrative procedure, this means that judicial proceedings won’t be required and AGCOM will operate with complete independence from the judiciary system.

No distinction among public web sites, blogs, private pages, web portals. Any web page would be under AGCOM’s control and would be subjected only to the Authority’s censorship rules, bypassing the judges’ pronouncement required until now. A simple report by the copyright owners will be sufficient for proceeding to the removal of the contents or, in case of a foreign web site, to the IP address blockage denying the access to all Italian users.

This measure should come into effect on July 6^th making Italy become the first country in the world where an administrative authority can order the removal of a multimedia content from the public telematic space. A sad “world record” for a democratic European country.

AGCOM denies the censorious nature of this measure and explains it away as a necessary and targeted action aimed to fight digital piracy. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who also owns the Mediaset Group – the largest commercial broadcaster in Italy -, strongly pushed and supported the measure for obvious commercial and political interests.

The negative effects on freedom of speech and expression on the web could be very heavy. It’s unimaginable what may happen only making a quote or linking a page, or using a song as a video soundtrack for example. All the simple and usual actions we do daily on the web would be subjected to censure. There is no real control warranty and it’s not clear how AGCOM is going to manage the matter.

The web site Agorà Digitale (http://www.agoradigitale.org/) launched a campaign against the web censorship and the AGCOM measure, and from facebook to twitter the users’ mobilization is constantly increasing. Moreover, Anonymous Italy and Lulzsec Italy, two hackers groups united in fighting the measure, started the “Operation Italian Internet Freedom” attacking the AGCOM web site. The two hackers groups asked everybody to join the protest and fight for the right of a free and impartial web. The Authority’s web site is currently not accessible as a consequence of the hackers’ attacks.

Meanwhile, another web site committed in the no censorship campaign www.sitononraggiungibile.it has been victim of a hacker attack. At risk the data and the email addresses of the people who signed a petition against the AGCOM measure through the web site. It seems a real no holds barred war on the web.

In the opinion of many experts and jurists the measure is a threat for the freedom of the web and it should be rejected.The web represents an actual source of freedom and democracy, how is it possible for a democratic country to put into effects a measure like this?

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This past Sunday, 15th of May, a huge demonstration against liberty of expression was performed by hundred of thousand Turkish citizens. They all represented a mash up of Internet users, and gathered together in Taksim Square, located in  the center of Istanbul. They protested against the “draft bill that was appealed by Bianet in an application filed to the Council of State in April” (Bianet).

The demonstration was organized through Facebook and Twitter. The citizens walked through Istiklal Avenue. The main message they want to send out was  that the freedom of expression and right to access information of Internet should not be obstructed. Many organizations such as the Linux Users Association, the LGBTT initiative LambdaIstanbul, the Hands off the Internet Initiative, also many different groups took part in the manifestation.

The walk lasted around three hours, with the support of 31 Turkish provinces. The citizens protested against the filtering system, which will come into effect on August 22nd of the present year. Which will ban sites such as Youtube, Blogspot, WordPress and many other thousands of websites in Turkey.

The people express themselves by shouting and showing slogans that contains phrases as: “Internet without TiB”, “The strings of the BTK are attached to Fetullah’s hand” and “ Hands off our freedom, opinions, books and Internet”.

In a press released exposed and emitted by the Sourtimes, the declaration of May 15^Th, 2011 regarding some great points about why fundamental rights and Freedoms Cannot Be Obstructed are exposed:

• The BTK (IT and Communications Institute) decision dated 02/22/2011 with number 2011/DK-10/91 lacks legal basis. The unjust decision gives BTK a right, which is not prescribed by law. The legal decision also limits basic rights and freedoms protected by the Constitution and international treaties directly. While open and unfiltered Internet access is being regarded as a basic human right by international institutions, in Turkey filtered Internet is about to become “the standard”

• The comments made by the BTK president claiming the “standard profile” is the current standard and anybody who opts-out will be left out of the filtering system are not correct. Neither there is a notion called neither “the standard profile” nor an established filter mechanism currently. With the forthcoming mechanism it will not be possible to stay out of the filtering system. If the government officials are really sincere they have to provide an “unfiltered” alternative to Internet users in Turkey.

• Internet is about to become “the standard”. “The BTK filtering system which will take effect on August 22nd, 2011 is unpredictable by the users, arbitrary, and essentially a control and censorship mechanism structurally. The criteria for filtering websites through the different profiles under the BTK system are not disclosed to Internet users. The full authority to build and maintain the filtering lists is handed to BTK by BTK itself. Now BTK will render hundreds of thousands of websites unreachable arbitrarily which is far beyond the current disproportional blocking caused by Law No. 5651. Illegitimate, disproportional and arbitrary administrative operations are unacceptable in a democratic country.

• Similar to previous blocking decisions, state officials are trying to use irrelevant countries as examples to legitimize their unjustified decisions. They are intentionally perverting the description of various state policies in their justifications. It is impossible to accept the state officials’ appeal to negative examples from across the globe to interfere with everybody’s lives in Turkey.

• Member states must encourage the use of filtering software in houses, school computers and Internet cafes but must avoid employing mandatory nationwide filtering policies.If filter use is found appropriate by families, that should be use on their own personal computers.

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The People’s Republic of China is know worldwide as upholding strict censorship rules on all publicized material in the country. The country has also proved itself capable of censoring foreign opinions from penetrating national debates and to serve harsh punishment to anyone suspected of dissidence towards the state. Hong Kong was officially handed back to China from British colonial rule 14 years ago, but the city is still one of two special administrative regions, the other being Macau, which enjoys some form of autonomy. In the period of 50 years after the handover in 1997, Hong Kong will retain its citizen privileges, including less restriction on freedom of speech, while its system is being reformed for full incorporation into mainland China.

Jes Randrup, Danish correspondent for Jyllands-posten, took a look at one of the interesting side effects of Hong Kong’s status. He found that the special freedom enjoyed by the region has made the peninsula’s publishing companies an important mouthpiece for alternative viewpoints, controversial political material and other written material that are banned by Beijing. In an interview with Bao Pu, a political commentator and veteran human rights activist, he reported about the work that publishers are able to do under the ‘safety’ of Hong Kong law.

Mr. Bao is the owner of New Century Publishing and has since 2005 been one of the city’s most prominent publishers of non-fiction. “We contribute to a niche in Hong Kong which has been created by Chinese censorship,” Mr Bao explains, “Some subjects and writers are banned in mainland China and there is a range of things you know will not be tolerated so what do people do? They come to Hong Kong to look for publishers.” The best selling book from his repertoire was the sensational ‘Prisoner of the State’ – a memoir written from secret recordings of the former Premier Zhao Ziyang who was purged politically and put under house arrest following an internal dispute with the party leadership in 1989. Mr Zhao remained under house arrest until his death in 2005 and his name has been taboo since his ousting. Bao Pu secured the recordings from his father, Bao Tong, who was once the right hand of Mr Zhao and still lives under house arrest in Beijing.

Despite the book’s sensitive subject, it sold 120.000 copies and it is especially tourists from mainland China who take advantage of the market in Hong Kong, buying a lot of their otherwise banned political literature in the airport book stores. “We know that it is the buyers from the mainland who purchase many of the nonfictional books in Hong Kong. They constitute a significant market segment,” says Mr Bao.

But Bao Pu and others in his trade are also not afraid to admit that their business is not only to publish. Equally important is the message of their work – to challenge the Chinese state. “The censorship provides us with a form of mission. We exist to undermine the censorship. As long as it exists we will too.”

Mr Bao describes Hong Kong as a haven of information which is considered secret in the mainland. Under the 50-year agreement, Chinese leader have found it politically useful to feed the political discourse through Hong Kong during internal power stuggles. “The most important information comes from insiders in the party,” Mr Bao explains. “A number of articles are based on information which has been leaked by one of the wings in the party. It is leaked to writers in Hong Kong where control over the media is nothing like in China. It is very difficult to leak anything to the media in China.”

Despite the special freedom of speech enjoyed in Hong Kong, there are limitations. When Bao Pu announced his plan to publish a secret diary, said to be written by China’s most hated politician, former Premier Li Peng, Beijing mobilized a stop of the printing and seized the material under copyrights. Mr Bao is reluctant to talk about the incident but acknowledges that the future of freedom of speech in Hong Kong is bleak once the implementation of the Chinese mainland system is complete. “I am not sure how long the current situation can last,” the publisher asses.

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