censorship

Video games given full First Amendment protection

The U.S. Supreme Court today reaffirmed the principle that the First Amendment protects free speech in the digital age, rejecting a 2005 California law that severely restricted the sale of "violent" video games to minors.

The statute had been blocked from taking effect by lower court rulings in suits brought by industry representatives. Following today's decision by a 7-2 majority of the court (PDF), the law is now a dead letter.

The decision was highly anticipated, and the result entirely expected.

The decision in Brown v. EMA is the second in as many weeks from the … Read more

Turkey arrests 32 after Anonymous' Web attacks

After hacker group Anonymous' apparently successful Operation Turkey to protest Internet censorship, the country's authorities have detained 32 people in connection with the attack on Turkish government Web sites.

After Friday's attack, Turkey's telecommunications authorities investigated and took the people into custody, according to a report today by Turkey's state news agency. Eight of those detained were under 18 years old, the report said.

The arrests come just days after Spain said Friday it arrested three Anonymous hackers in connection with attacks on Sony's PlayStation Network, governments, banks, and others. Retribution followed quickly, with an … Read more

NYT: U.S. funds censor-evading Internet work

In the days of the Cold War, the United States used the Voice of America radio station to spread information in countries without speech and press freedoms. Now it's begun a 21st century equivalent to bypassing censors using independent Internet and mobile phones technology.

Through the shadow network effort, reported yesterday by The New York Times, involves activities such as building a mesh network of suitcase-housed wireless Internet access points. Another $50 million project seeks build an independent mobile phone network in Afghanistan that the Taliban can't shut down, the newspaper reported. A third shadow network, not described … Read more

Amid unrest, Egypt went offline (roundup)

Following widespread street protests demanding an end to autocratic rule by President Hosni Mubarak, a country of more than 80 million people found itself almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the world. Here's how the story has unfolded:

Vodafone: We were forced to send pro-Mubarak texts Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak forced carrier to send prescripted, propagandistic text messages during recent unrest, Vodafone says. (Posted in Politics and Law by Lance Whitney) February 3, 2011 11:43 AM PST

U.S. defended Egyptian activist's YouTube videos WikiLeaks cable shows U.S. State Department talked Google into … Read more

Egypt gets its Internet back

Egyptian authorities have restored Internet service to the country after anti-government protests last week led to a five-day Net blackout.

"Egyptian Internet providers returned to the Internet at 09:29:31 UTC (11:29 a.m. Cairo time)," said a blog post by Net monitoring firm Renesys today.

Indeed, a variety of Egyptian Web sites, including the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, the Central Bank of Egypt, and the Egyptian Stock Exchange are available. And Twitter activity relating to Egypt is surging.

"The Internet is back in Egypt! FINALLY!" tweeted Cairo-based human rights activist Dalia Ziada … Read more

Big Brother on the Internet? (week in review)

There is a move afoot in the U.S. government to require Internet service providers to keep tabs on their customers.

Criminal investigations "are being frustrated" because no law currently exists to force Internet providers to keep track of what their customers are doing, the U.S. Department of Justice told Congress. The department's position on mandatory data retention says Congress should strike a "more appropriate balance" between privacy and police concerns.

"Data retention is fundamental to the department's work in investigating and prosecuting almost every type of crime," said Jason Weinstein, … Read more

Twitter: We aren't blocking WikiLeaks info

Twitter yesterday tried to put an end to rumors that it's blocking WikiLeaks-related terms from its list of trending topics--the most popular phrases appearing at a given time throughout the microblogging service.

The reason why terms like #wikileaks and #cablegate fell off Twitter's trending topics list, according to a post on the official company blog, is simply because not enough people are talking about them.

"Sometimes a topic doesn't break into the Trends list because its popularity isn't as widespread as people believe," the blog post explained. "And, sometimes, popular terms don't … Read more

Facebook: We won't block WikiLeaks, for now

The biggest social-networking site in the world broke with many of its online brethren today when it issued a statement saying that it will not ban content from a "fan page" associated with WikiLeaks, the controversial repository of leaked confidential documents whose founder, Julian Assange, is currently on the run.

"The WikiLeaks Facebook Page does not violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies," said the statement, which was prepared when ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick started poking around to see which online services may follow the … Read more

T-Mobile 'pot censorship' case goes up in smoke

A federal case which alleged wireless carrier T-Mobile had blocked text messages from a service that claimed a medical marijuana dispensary as one of its clients, was settled outside of the court this week according to a report in Wired.com.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleged that T-Mobile had blocked all clients of a New York company called EZ Texting, specifically because one of those clients was a medical marijuana dispensary search service that operates the site WeedMaps.com. EZ Texting's service lets its clients solicit customers … Read more