censorship

When Batman makes his triumphant return in "The Dark Knight Rises" at midnight on July 19, keep an eye on the evening skies if you live in San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., or London for an illuminated "cat signal" spotlight.

The cat's face, similar to Batman's infamous bat signal, stands for the Internet Defense League, and symbolizes a team that acts like the Super Friends of Internet freedom. The IDL's slogan: "Make sure the Internet never loses. Ever." … Read more

Despite court cases in the Netherlands and the U.K. forcing ISPs to place blocks on their systems to prevent customer access to The Pirate Bay, the blocks may ultimately prove futile, according to data seen by the BBC and others.

One major U.K. broadband provider said peer-to-peer traffic on its network returned to "just below normal" only a week after it was forced to block customers' access.

But in the days following the court decision in late April, traffic had reached record levels as a result of the increased media coverage. This backs up earlier claims … Read more

The International Olympic Committee has always been a highly progressive organization.

Why, it allowed women into its bosom as early as 1981.

So who can be surprised that the Olympic movement has continued along its headlong path toward untrammeled world freedom?

I am grateful to the Index on Censorship, which has quickly discovered something higher and stronger in the area of joyous freedom than many might have imagined possible.

For, in the Terms of Use of the London 2012 Olympics Web site, there exists a clause that truly has fearsome claws.

For it reads:

The Russian parliament has voted to approve a controversial bill that would see "illegal" websites blacklisted from the Web.

The bill proposed that websites that incited suicide or drug use, or offered 'extremist' material -- or any content deemed 'illegal' under Russian law -- could be added to a government-operated blacklist that would see the sites blocked to Russia's 145 million citizens.

Websites found breaching the law would have 24 hours to remove offending material, after which they would face blacklisting.

The bill was amended before today's parliamentary hearing to limit the threat of immediate blacklisting … Read more

Wikipedia shut down for 24 hours, just six months ago, joining a massive Web protest in the U.S. over the proposed anti-piracy laws SOPA and PIPA. Now, it's stepping up again in a major Internet revolt against online censorship in Russia.

According to The Next Web, the Russian government is looking to amend a law called the "Act for Information." The proposed changes to the law could lead to sweeping censorship of the Internet, including the complete closure of Wikipedia in Russia.

Wikipedia posted a statement in Russian on its Web site, which The Next Web … Read more

In 1993, Internet activist John Gilmore said "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

Nearly 20 years later, China is still putting up blocks on the Internet in an attempt to restrict the flow of information within its borders. Despite China's persistence, the effort will eventually fail, and when it does, the country will see political and social openness on a huge scale, predicts Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

"I believe that ultimately censorship fails," he said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine's blog The Cable at the 2012 Aspen Ideas … Read more

The United States had SOPA, and Britain has the Digital Economy Act. China is -- well, in a league of its own.

Russia is next on the list of developed nations pushing for widespread Web site blocking and censorship capabilities in the wake of an online uprising prior to the inauguration of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Thousands of protesters took to the streets, set up blogs, and disseminated demands for a fresh ballot over social networks following claims of a rigged votes and electoral corruption in the recent presidential elections.

Under the draft bill, all Web sites that contain pornography … Read more

Twitter released its first ever Transparency Report detailing statistics on international requests for user data and content removal today, the same day news came out that it would have to hand over user information in a court case in New York.

The Twitter Transparency Report breaks down the countries from where such requests come and specifies how many requests it has received, what percentage it complied with, and numbers of user accounts affected, all spanning the first six months of this year.

The company has received more government requests in the first half of this year than in all of … Read more

Do you believe the Internet needs protection against censorship and other threats? If so, then you may want to join in on the new Declaration of Internet Freedom.

Launched by a large coalition of privacy groups, Web sites, and individuals, the Declaration of Internet Freedom is the start of a process striving to keep the Internet free and open. The organizations and people who kicked off this process are looking for other Internet users to discuss the ideas, share their own thoughts, and sign the declaration.

"We've seen how the Internet has been under attack from various directions, … Read more