muslim

Brazil detains local Google chief for not removing YouTube videos

Brazil made good on its promise today and detained the country's head of operations for Google, according to the Associated Press.

The debacle began last week when Google refused to remove denigrating video clips of a politician from YouTube as ordered by a Brazilian judge. Laws in the country limit public criticism of political candidates.

Since Google failed to remove the clips, Judge Flavio Peren initiated a statewide, 24-hour suspension of Google and YouTube, while also ordering the arrest of Google executive Fabio Jose Silva Coelho.

According to the Associated Press, Brazil's federal police said that Coelho should … Read more

Wells Fargo is latest bank to be hit by cyberattacks

Wells Fargo is the most recent mega-bank to be hit by a distributed denial-of-service attack. According to the Wall Street Journal, roughly 220 customers filed complaints of outages on its Web site today saying they had problems logging on.

"The amount of bandwidth that is flooding the websites is very large, much larger than in other attacks, and in a sense unprecedented," chief executive of private security firm CrowdStrike Dmitri Alperovitch told the Wall Street Journal.

Last week, similar attacks happened on J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America's Web sites. Users would try to log-on … Read more

YouTube slapped with lawsuit by 'Innocence of Muslims' actress

As violence and outrage continues throughout the Middle East over a video trailer posted on YouTube that mocks Islam's prophet, one of the film's actresses filed a lawsuit today requesting that the video site remove the clip.

Cindy Lee Garcia, who has a role in "Innocence of Muslims," said that she did not know about the movie's anti-Muslim content while filming and her script did not mention the prophet Muhammad, religion, or sexual content, according to The Huffington Post.

"The film is vile and reprehensible," Garcia's attorney, M. Cris Armenta, wrote in … Read more

White House pressures Google over anti-Islam video

The White House has acknowledged pressuring Google over an amateur anti-Islam video that is legally protected under U.S. law.

Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, told The Washington Post that the White House "reached out to YouTube to call the video to their attention and ask them to review whether it violates their terms of use."

A White House spokesman didn't immediately respond to questions from CNET asking for details, but any phone call to YouTube would be more politically symbolic than anything else. YouTube executives were not only well aware of the video … Read more

Kayak tortures logic in withdrawing from 'All-American Muslim'

This is a tale of communication and miscommunication.

Which so often happens when religion, education, fundamentalism and reality television attempt to achieve co-existence.

You might be aware that pressure has been applied to certain companies that happened to advertise on the TLC reality show "All-American Muslim."

The squeeze, coming as it did from the Florida Family Association, persuaded Lowe's to withdraw its constructive commercials from the show.

Online travel site Kayak also appeared to feel a shuddering frisson and withdrew its ads for the coming season.

As the clip I have embedded reveals, the FFA was upset … Read more

Anonymous lashes out at Norway massacre suspect

The man accused of the attacks in Norway last Friday that left dozens of people dead is the latest target of the "hacktivist" group Anonymous.

In an attempt to discredit the manifesto of accused murderer Anders Behring Breivik, Anonymous has unveiled its own campaign known as Operation UnManifest. The hactivist group's latest action is aimed at hacking into and modifying Breivik's "European Declaration of Independence" with the goal of republishing fake editions of the so-called manifesto everywhere online, thus turning Anders into a "joke."

As part of Operation UnManifest, Anonymous also is … Read more

Brits use SEO strategies to fight terrorism

Islam is getting a little help from Britain's Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism, which says it plans to train government-approved groups to "flood the Internet" with "positive" interpretations of that religion in an online fight against radicalization.

The OSCT plans to coach moderate Islamic groups on how to manipulate the Google rankings of their Web sites in order to boost the online profile of moderate voices in the Muslim community, reports The Register, a British online investigative newspaper.

It is widely understood that terrorists use the Web to radicalize and recruit the vulnerable and disaffected; … Read more

Days of rage on the Internet

Must be the special circumstances regarding current events, but folks again are losing their minds in very public fashion--on the Internet.

Monday's New York Times ran a piece detailing how a fringe activist has helped spread the rumor that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

The press release was picked up by a conservative Web site, FreeRepublic.com, and spread steadily as others elaborated on its claims over the years in e-mail messages, Web sites, and books. It continues to drive other false rumors about Mr. Obama's background.

(And while I write these words, another e-mail arrived, asking in … Read more