My following article is published today by the Sydney Morning Herald/Age online: We live under the illusion that governments can protect us from the evils of the world. Paedophilia, extreme violence, lessons in self-harm and suicide, race hatred and terrorism. We have every right to expect governments to monitor hate and terror sites and arrest…
Showing all posts tagged Twitter
Iranian autocrats will have a harder time blocking material
Whenever any repressive regime tries to censor online content, rest assured somebody somewhere will find a way around it (Western governments also take note): While the Iranian government has intensified its aggressive efforts to expand Internet filters, Austin Heap, a young programmer in the U.S., says he has developed software that would enable Iranians to…
Give me the internet, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
A nation of addicts proudly (and desperately?) need their daily fix: American college students are hooked on cellphones, social media and the Internet and showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full…
Twitter will now never be forgotten
Just how many Tweets are really worth remembering? If you tweet this, it will be in the Library of Congress, which said Tuesday it has acquired every public tweet since Twitter‘s service started four years ago. The Library of Congress put it simply today in its own tweet, “Library acquires ENTIRE Twitter archive. ALL tweets.”…
When most Iranian Twitter fiends were actually living in the US
Food for thought. Moeed Ahmad is the head of New Media at Al Jazeera and he spoke a few months ago at Australia’s Media 2010 Conference. An astute reader pointed out this clip and he comments about Iran’s so-called Green Revolution in 2009: Moeed studied the “Twitter” accounts of posters purporting to be in Tehran…
Is the internet actually helping authoritarianism in Iran?
Web contrarian Evgeny Morozov (I use that term with affection) argues that web tools such as Twitter and blogging are not really assisting dissidents in Iran but are in fact making it far easier for the regime to crack down.
The internet leads coverage of Israel’s East Jerusalem cleansing
The Jerusalem Post explains why the growing public protests over Sheikh Jarrah have been helped greatly by the web (and ironically, the failure of the Western press to adequately report an issue a few kilometres from their offices): Social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, along with a slew of blogs, are playing an…
Meanwhile, away from Cairo, the region has its own pace
I’m flat-out here in Cairo working on multiple projects related to the Gaza Freedom March. But some interesting articles and reports on the Middle East are worth sharing: – 1 Year after Gaza Massacre: Over 500 Academics and Cultural Workers Call for Boycott. – On Sunday, 20 December 2009, Al Dameer Association for Human Rights…
Washington’s Big Brother is watching us
Talking about internet censorship in a nation like Iran is necessary and chilling. But, correctly writes the New York Times in an editorial today, how much do we know about the American government’s meddling in the online world? The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers…
Iranians won’t stop shouting against oppression
While Iran erupts again with protesters against dictatorial rule, Reporters Without Borders finds massive attempts by authorities to shut down modern communications (a futile act, and only temporarily successful, that shows its desperation): The Iranian censors targeted the new-generation media with renewed energy. The authorities have responded, blow by blow, to demonstrations in recent months…