The Indian edition of my book The Blogging Revolution was recently released. Here’s a just published review in The Telegraph from Calcutta: The Blogging Revolution: How the newest media is changing politics, business and culture in India, China, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Cuba and Saudi Arabia By Antony Loewenstein, Jaico, Rs 350 Antony Loewenstein’s book is…
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The Net Delusion is alive and well
My following book review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: THE NET DELUSION Evgeny Morozov Allen Lane, 408pp, $29.95 As people in the Middle East have been protesting in the streets against Western-backed dictators and using social media to connect and circumvent state repression, it would be easy to dismiss The Net Delusion as almost…
Web liberation in the Islamic Republic needs more than lip service
Iranian dissidents clearly need more global support but surely backing from the US government is sending the completely wrong message? At a time when the Obama administration is pressing for harsher sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program, democracy advocates in Iran have been celebrating the recent decision by the United States to lift sanctions…
How many more online addicts will we soon find in Havana?
What is the effect of Washington’s recent decision to allow web companies such as Google and Yahoo to operate in closed societies, such as Cuba and Iran?
What is Google now doing in China?
My following article appears today on ABC Unleashed/The Drum: Google has threatened to withdraw entirely from China in protest at the authoritarian regime’s oppressive online censorship and continuing attempts by Chinese hackers to gain sensitive information of local human rights workers. Perhaps most significantly, Google’s Chinse search engine, Google.cn, now allows once banned material to…
The threat of Gmail for Islamic leaders
The state of human rights in Iran in 2009 has been grim and worsening. Reporters Without Borders highlights the web apartheid (possibly backed by Western multinationals): The authorities have also targeted the Internet in an attempt to extend their control to the new media. News websites that were likely to criticise Ahmadinejad’s victory, including around…
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…
The ghost of Bill Gates in the shadow of helping the Communist Party
My book The Blogging Revolution thoroughly examines the complicity of Western multinationals such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in assisting online censorship in oppressive regimes. Nicholas Kristof in his blog on the New York Times discovers how shocking this situation has become. Lesson for the day; never trust the word of corporate executives (especially when…
Banning Gmail won’t solve Iran’s problems
The Iranian regime, already isolated internationally (well, the West doesn’t like her) continues to arrest dissenters. But this news places the country in the dubious role of copying China’s most draconian web censorship: On Wednesday, authorities temporarily blocked all access to e-mail programs such as Gmail and Yahoo during the demonstrations to prevent people from…
”˜Anti-Zionist’ Jew: author of ”˜My Israel Question’ heads for Bali
The following article by Katrin Figge is published today in one of Indonesia’s largest English newspapers, The Jakarta Globe: For a person who gets hate mail and death threats on a regular basis, Antony Loewenstein remains surprisingly cheerful. The Jewish-Australian journalist, activist, blogger and author, who is based in Sydney, has stirred up plenty of…