Apple's Crystal Prison and the Future of Open Platforms (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless on May 29, 2012 - 107 comments

Cory Doctorow's 28C3 talk The Coming War on General Purpose Computation (abstract, transcript) warns that "the coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race." [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges on Jan 4, 2012 - 138 comments

The Guardian: Online commenting: How the internet created an age of rage
posted by zarq on Jul 25, 2011 - 93 comments

The real challenge for Internet freedom? US hypocrisy. And there's no app for that.
posted by - on Feb 22, 2011 - 53 comments

Restoring Journalism Maureen Tkacik talks about her life as a journalist, the nothing-based economy, and the future of journalism. She suggests abandoning authority and productively channeling narcissism. (via 2p & dd) [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Jun 12, 2010 - 18 comments

As a result of the Dutch film Fitna, Indonesia has blocked several websites including MySpace and YouTube. This follows hot on the heels of a new bill which could see people face six years of jail time or a 1 billion rupiah fine for being caught sending out porn, “false news” or racial or religious slurs on the Web. The Indonesian government will start censoring the Internet next month with specialised software. Very disappointing for a country which had a reasonably free press.
posted by BobsterLobster on Apr 8, 2008 - 43 comments

In the same spirit as the Open Net Initiative and Committee to Protect Bloggers that both track global internet filtering, Sami ben Gharbia's Access Denied Map tries to track the blocking of sites like Blogger, Flickr, YouTube and others by governments, as well as efforts by activists to keep them accessible or to challenge their blockage.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Nov 19, 2007 - 5 comments

Sheep and Ostriches Closed brothels. Banned books. Closed minds. Internet censorship. Australia, the land of the free.
posted by altman on Jan 20, 2007 - 30 comments

Oh, Henry! Soft spoken Henry Rollins says a few words about internet freedom. (NSFW)
posted by birdhaus on Dec 14, 2006 - 223 comments

Psiphon facilitates circumvention of national firewalls.
posted by Optamystic on Nov 29, 2006 - 15 comments

The Internet is now basically banned and controlled for all but the elite in Cuba. In Iran, an unelected body has eliminated hundreds of reformist candidates from the general elections. That's what stiffling of dissent looks like. Stare it in the face, and ask your politicians and NGOs and friends to raise their voices against it as loud as they did against the war in Iraq. Promote freedom for people just like you around the world in a nonviolent way. (And I'm not talking about writing Bush to ask for Regime Change)
posted by swerdloff on Jan 11, 2004 - 19 comments

Future of the Net: "Information wants to be free" vs. "truth costs extra" "...a coalition that included Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Disney and others....spoke of "tiered" service, where consumers would be charged according to "gold, silver and bronze" levels of bandwidth use. The days where lawmakers once spoke about eradicating the "Digital Divide" in America has come full circle. Under the scenario presented by the lobbyists, people on fixed incomes would have to accept a stripped-down Internet, full of personally targeted advertising. Other users could get a price break if they receive bundled content -- news, music, games -- from one telecom or media company. Anybody interested in other "non-mainstream" news, software or higher-volume usage, could pay for the privilege. The panel's response was warm, suggesting that the industry should work this out with little federal intrusion. That approach has already been embraced by the industry-friendly Federal Communications Commission." For more, see The Center For Digital Democracy
posted by troutfishing on Aug 5, 2003 - 38 comments

It is not a crime to look at bomb-making websites... or so says Lieutenant Jason Ciaschini, police spokesman in Punta Gorda, where a Briton who was using a computer to look at bomb-making websites is now being held at Charlotte County Jail on immigration violations.
Florida police had evacuated the library and arrested him after he looked at bomb-making websites, and found suspicious liquids in his backpack.
"Looking up stuff on the Internet - everybody has freedom to do that," he also said.
posted by Blake on Jul 30, 2002 - 6 comments

Most of us are familiar with stories about government suppression of the free flow of information on the Internet - e.g. China's crackdown on internet dissidents; France's tussle with Yahoo over online sales of Nazi memorabilia; and, fresh from yesterday's news, Iran's closure of 400 internet cafes. But did you know there are no web servers to speak of in North Korea? That you need government permission to own a fax machine or modem in Burma? That Somalia has only one ISP? If you can forgive some of its design peculiarities, this Enemies of the Internet report (by Reporters Without Borders) gives a pretty comprehensive rundown of the international state of online freedoms.
posted by varmint on May 14, 2001 - 6 comments