protest

US Uncut, an organization that fights companies that try to avoid taxes, is planning to target Apple retail stores on June 4, protesting the company's support of the Win America Campaign.

The group seeks to have Apple leave the WAC, which it claims is lobbying Congress for what would end up being a $4 billion tax cut for the company, as well as to cease other lobbying activities relating to "tax loopholes."

"Apple plays huge games with their taxes. By disguising profits in the U.S. as foreign earnings in low-tax countries, Apple dodges billions of … Read more

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday that he's "very, very proud" of the key role that employee Wael Ghonim played in the recent Egyptian protest movement.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Schmidt addressed the topic of Ghonim, Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, who used Facebook and other online tools to help spark the protests in Egypt.

"They were able to use a set of technologies that included Facebook, Twitter and a number of others to really express the voice of the people," Schmidt said, according … Read more

On January 27, the Egyptian government sought to combat growing public unrest by disconnecting the Internet and mobile phone services--the thinking being that protesters couldn't organize if they couldn't communicate. Ignoring for the moment the fact that there have been protests since long before the Net, this is still a significant and historical action. Previously, Iran and Tunisia have sought to quell protests with similar policies and actions, but the Egyptian example is perhaps the largest and most heavy-handed communications shut-down the modern world has seen.

Our guests for today's discussion are Declan McCullagh, our own political reporter; and Deborah Wheeler, a political science professor who spent the last 10 years in the Middle East studying how social technologies impact politics. Author of The Internet in the Middle East, she teaches as visiting professor at the American University of Kuwait. She is also a professor at one of the U.S. service academies, but the views expressed here are her own.

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Some of our discussion points… Read more

If you are at a computer and you're not riveted by the Al Jazeera live video coverage of the protests in Egypt, you should be.

The images are fascinating to watch. Protesters--calling for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak--are seen ignoring curfew, running through the streets, clashing with tear gas-wielding police, and setting buildings on fire.

While the region's popular satellite channel broadcasts live footage of the events, a nearly countrywide clampdown on the Internet means there are few trickles from people on the ground via blogs and Twitter.

Mohamed Nanabhay, the head of Al Jazeera English online, … Read more

Amid a third day of anti-government protests, Internet outages and disruptions occurred today in Egypt.

Facebook and Twitter confirmed the disruptions for their sites.

"We are aware of reports of disruption to service and have seen a drop in traffic from Egypt this morning," a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. "You may want to visit Herdict.org, a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University that offers insight into what users around the world are experiencing in terms of web accessibility."

According to Herdict.org, there were 459 inaccessible sites … Read more

Gmail appeared to be unavailable to some users in Iran on Wednesday, possibly as part of a government crackdown designed to suppress anti-regime demonstrations scheduled for Thursday.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Iranian government said it would shut down Gmail and replace it with a national e-mail system. CNN reported that government officials were believed responsible for blocked text messages and sluggish Internet speeds in Tehran for days.

Gmail users in Iran reported to Google that they were having trouble getting to the service, Google said in a statement later on Wednesday.

"We can confirm … Read more

An Oklahoma City man who allegedly threatened on Twitter to turn a tax protest into a massacre has been arrested on suspicion of making interstate threats in what is believed to be the first federal prosecution based on posts made to the micro-blogging site.

The FBI arrested Daniel Knight Hayden, 52, after agents identified him as Twitter user CitizenQuasar. Using the micro-blogging site, Hayden allegedly threatened to start a "war" against the government at the Oklahoma City Capitol where a "Tea Party" tax protest was planned.

"START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be … Read more

The controversy regarding the text-to-speech function offered by Amazon.com's Kindle 2 digital book reader appears to be heating up again.

Groups advocating for the blind and reading disabled on Tuesday held a protest at the Manhattan offices of the Authors Guild. The guild was very vocal in opposing the text-to-speech technology in the Kindle. The group, which represents 4,000 authors, argued that the Kindle infringes on copyright and could hurt audio book sales.

The whole debate seemed to be over in February when Amazon appeared to give in. The Web's largest retailer said it had decided … Read more

More than 100 people were arrested in downtown Oakland on Wednesday night when a protest turned violent, fueled at least in part by videos that quickly spread online of a subway policeman fatally shooting an unarmed man while he was lying on the ground restrained by another officer.

The case--and the overall intense community response to it--highlights the impact technology can have on news events. The devices people carry in their pockets give them the ability to turn what would normally be a case played out in the courtroom into one in which anyone with an Internet connection can serve … Read more