Internet in Africa is more than just Nigerian spam. There are honest
African bloggers who fight corrupt government and police to go where mainstream journalists dare not. Compare their blogging experience with your own. Imagine the government calling you over the phone at night and questioning about a particular post you just wrote.
posted by Surfin' Bird
on Jul 3, 2008 -
13 comments
An Indonesian TV crew was invited to Malaysia for their Visit Malaysia Year 2007 campaign but encountered many problems.
They write up about it - and start a flurry of comments and controversy across the Malaysian government about blogging. [more inside]
posted by divabat
on Apr 6, 2007 -
14 comments
Feds seek to gag D.C. Madam this madam threatens to spill the names about the biggies that used her services and so:
[...]government lawyers claim that some discovery documents contain "personal information" about Palfrey's former johns and prostitutes that is "sensitive." The prosecution filing does not detail the nature of this confidential information, though the identity of Palfrey's D.C. customers would surely be cloaked if the protective order was signed by Judge Gladys Kessler[...]
posted by Postroad
on Mar 7, 2007 -
46 comments
Blogspot, Geocities, and TypePad blocked in India. Indian ISPs, who had been ordered by the Indian government to block
certain
blogs, have blocked the entire blogspot.com, geocities.com, and typepad.com
(by IP), rendering hundreds of thousands of blogs inaccessible in India. The block
was ordered by the government apparently because terrorists were using blogs to
co-ordinate their activities. Indian bloggers,
upset
at the blanket ban, have
started
a wiki to keep track of the situation. They have also created a
mailing
list to discuss the issue. Some
prominent
Indian
bloggers are also
tracking updates. Indian laws require
ISPs to install filtering equipment and follow government orders to block sites,
or the can lose their licence to operate. This is not the first time such an
incident has occurred. In 2003, the government ordered a block on a Yahoo group
that was supposedly anti-national. Indian ISPs ended up
blocking
Yahoo Groups completely. India's recently introduced
Right-to-Information
Act, which many bloggers are planning to use, gives the government 30
days to respond to an RTI request. In the interim, despite
national
and international coverage of the issue from the likes of New York Times
(linked earlier),
Washington
Post,
CNN,
New
Statesman, and
WSJ
(paid reg. required), these major blogging sites remain blocked.
posted by madman
on Jul 19, 2006 -
37 comments
The Children's Internet Protection Act is hunky dory,
according to the Supreme Court. This means that public libraries are required by law to have web filters on public terminals.
While it's great that children will now be forever protected from the evils on online pornography, the drawback is that most filters are so unreliable that just me mentioning the word "sex" in this post could get Metafilter blocked by a web filter.
posted by zedzebedia
on Jun 23, 2003 -
39 comments
"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly
partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources.
We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing":
"We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'"
Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
posted by holgate
on Apr 14, 2001 -
7 comments
Potential Employment: Here is a chance to show what you are made of. Quit your high paying job you have now, for one that will give you the opportunity to "help the children."
posted by brent
on Feb 12, 2000 -
0 comments
