MetaFilter posts tagged with government and censorship

African Bloggers

Surfin' Bird — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:13:42 -0800

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.

Malaysia, Politics, and Bloggers

divabat — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:31:19 -0800

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]

Fed seek to gag D.C. Madam

Postroad — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:46:54 -0800

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[...]

Indian free speech goes the China way

madman — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:51:43 -0800

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.

NSFW?

MrMoonPie — Fri, 19 Dec 2003 11:10:52 -0800

The (new) 7 (8, really) words you can't say on television. Carlin must be proud.

US v ALA

zedzebedia — Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:45:52 -0800

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.

troutfishing — Thu, 10 Oct 2002 22:46:58 -0800

US Dept. of Education to erase website info which "does not reflect the priorities, philosophies, or goals of the present administration." Can you say 1984? Say it now....OVER and OVER and OVER again so you can GET USED TO IT......a brutal, clever strategy of the Bush Adm.to rewrite reality: erase problematic info and then channel money to people willing to produce the right stuff. Samizdat opportunity -- use a website capture program: WebWhacker costs $, but there are freeware site suckers available too. Orwell is turning in his grave.....Download and archive this stuff before it gets erased. Remember, Information Wants to Be Free!...or does it?

mattpusateri — Wed, 18 Sep 2002 12:45:58 -0800

Paging Winston Smith... Not content with mere cynical doublespeak, the Bush Administration is now trying to shape government reports and research to agree with the President's beliefs: an EPA report omits a section on global warming for the first time in six years; the Department of Health and Human Services is being "restructured," eliminating committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views; and at the Department of Education, old studies that contradict the current administration's policies are being removed from the agency's web site. When you add this trend to the administration's "permanent war," I suspect George Orwell is smiling somewhere...

Postroad — Fri, 23 Nov 2001 10:29:39 -0800

'Tell Them Nothing Till It's Ovber and Then Tell Them Who Won' Governmental and military censorship of battle news. Is it necessary to winning?

andrew cooke — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 00:47:54 -0800

White House instructs TV networks not to air bin Laden videos

holgate — Sat, 14 Apr 2001 15:09:10 -0800

"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?

brent — Sat, 12 Feb 2000 21:45:46 -0800

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."