Censorship Watch: Default Filtering in the UK, Censorship Using Copyrights, Links as Crime
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-12 08:49:39 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-12 08:49:39 UTC
Summary: The latest flavours of censorship around the world, including the Western world where even links to sites are now treated like offenses
ORG
We want to end the UK-wide censorship system of web blocking by holding ISPs and the Government accountable.
We know that default filters prevent people accessing important and legal information. Over-blocking is a serious and unavoidable effect of filtering. Yet ISPs give website owners and customers minimal information on why and what is being blocked, or how to report problems.
Arab World
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Saudi Arabia has threatened to blockade its neighbouring Gulf State Qatar by land and sea unless it cuts ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, closes Al Jazeera, and expels local branches of two prestigious U.S. think tanks, the Brookings Doha Center and the Rand Qatar Policy Institute.
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The video had flimsy production values and was just 14 minutes long, but internet service providers fear they will pay a lasting price for Innocence of Muslims. A court order to remove the anti-Islamic film from YouTube has paved the way for attempts to menace other creative visual works under cover of copyright, some legal experts have warned.
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The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoßan, said Facebook and YouTube could be banned following local elections in March after leaked tapes of an alleged phone call between him and his son went viral, prompting calls for his resignation.
Erdoßan claims social media sites have been abused by his political enemies, in particular his former ally US-based Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who, he says, is behind a stream of "fabricated" audio recordings posted on the internet purportedly revealing corruption in his inner circle.
Link Censorship
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The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas today filed a motion to dismiss 11 charges against Barrett Brown in a criminal prosecution that would have had massive implications for journalism and the right of ordinary people to share links. EFF has written extensively about the case and had planned to file an amicus brief on Monday on behalf of several reporters groups arguing for the dismissal of the indictment.
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This– A LINK– could have sent me to jail. Another link came very, very close to sending Barrett Brown to jail.
First, a quick recap of how the internet works. People from all over the world put stuff on the web (“posts”). In many cases you the viewer do not know who posted something, when they did it, where they live or where they obtained the information they posted. It is just there on your screen. If the info is of interest, you can link to it, sending instructions via chat, email, HTML, Facebook or whatever to someone else, telling them where to find the information.
The act of linking is analogous to saying “Hey, did you see that article in the Times on page 4? Check it out.” It is kind of what the internet is about. Here’s how the government seeks to criminalize linking from one article on the web to another.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- EPO Staff Can Go Listen to Richard Stallman Next Week in Munich (Technical University of Munich, Rudolf-Diesel Hörsaal (MW2001) on Campus Garching at 18:00)
- "The talk is open to the public and attendance is free. Registration is not required."
- At IBM, Relocation Means Layoffs (Downsizing)
- Silent or 'invisible' layoffs?
- Dystopian Trends in Technology Make Richard Stallman More Relevant Than Ever
- It's good to see him attracting vast audiences
- Richard Stallman (RMS) Announced His Talk Less Than 24 Hours Before It Took Place and Still Filled Up the Auditorium at Sapienza Università di Roma
- Photos from yesterday evening [...] It looks like it was a very successful event
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- Proprietary and DRM Prisons Spiralling Down the Sinkhole? Not Just Yet.
- Let's hope that more people will flee to GNU/Linux
- The European Patent Office (EPO), the Second-Largest Institution in Europe, is Cracking Down on Recreational Activities
- Without AMICALE activities, and as staff already says it's pressured to work more for less, how can the EPO recruit bright people?
- Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Many Developers Have Many Political Views, They'll Never Agree on Everything
- It's an effort to divide and destroy, not build
- Gemini Links 14/10/2025: An Opportunity to Consider GNU/Linux and Another Simple IRC Client
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, LinuxSecurity, Google News, and the Serial Slopper Brian Fagioli
- Nothing of merit here, just more slop
- Links 14/10/2025: Lack of Trust in Slop and "Retirement Challenges"
- Links for the day
- Rhonda D'Vine, Gerfried Fuchs, Pronouns & Debian pregnancy cluster
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Central Staff Committee of the European Patent Office (EPO) Warns That EPO Management is Robbing or Manipulating Pension Funds Again
- Faking "growth" is just about as bad as forgery
- Probably a Lot Worse Than LLM Slop: GNOME Tying Itself to Divisive Politics, Even Where It's Clearly Not Relevant
- Something has gone terribly wrong in GNOME
- Links 14/10/2025: Microsoft OneDrive Scanning Faces in Photos (Without Asking First), "OpenAI Says It Will Move to Allow Smut"
- Links for the day
- They Generally Don't Like Scholars, as They're Less Compelled or Pressured to Repeat What Corporations and Oligarchs Say
- People who loathe scholars have an agenda in mind that, unlike that of reasonable people, revolves around controlling people
- Belated New Article About Last Thursday's Lecture by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
- there are good reasons to pay with cash, not limited to privacy
- Attacking Richard Stallman Has Become 'Career Suicide'
- If you're going to viciously attack somebody, make sure your arguments are rock-solid
- Microsoft's Failing XBox Business Has Turned Games Into Funerals
- How does it feel to depend on Microsoft?
- Yesterday's "Distinguished Lecture" by Richard Stallman Possibly Attended by Close to 1,000 People
- The capacity of the place is about 900
- Slop Poisons Everything
- Imagine wanting to find what Torvalds has just said or what has just been released
- Taking Software Freedom 'Mainstream'
- interest in Software Freedom must have grown
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 13, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, October 13, 2025
- Gemini Links 14/10/2025: Ada Lovelace Day, Sony CLIE PEG-TG50 Review, Why to Avoid Network Solutions
- Links for the day
- The EPO's War on Techrights Was a Massive Mistake
- The EPO started the SLAPPs after we had published a few hundreds of articles; we've since then published close to 6,000 because the attacks on us emboldened insiders to help us
- General-Purpose Computers to Become Growing Area of Coverage
- Without them, we have little left for controlling our lives
- "They missed a great opportunity to shut up." -Jacques Chirac
- Brett Wilson LLP has been trying to cheat the legal system many times
- Harassment evidence: Switzerland, overcrowded fitness and yoga centers, incompetence and racism in accident response
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Vincent Danjean & Debian NXIVM collateral, blackmail risks
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- In Sweden This Past Friday Richard Stallman Explained Why Copyleft is Important
- And he didn't have to 'bash' BSDs, either
- IBM Layoffs Due to a Lack of Money and Company Debt Rising by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in 6 Months
- IBM didn't buy Red Hat for any ideological reasons; it was a fast "cash grab" for revenue
- Forbes Already Stopped Being a News Sites. Now It's a Spam and Propaganda Platform for "Paying Partners" (Companies).
- news from Forbes became very scarce
- Is the Second-Largest Institution in Europe (EPO) Gradually Becoming More Like a Sweatshop?
- Underpaid, unqualified, inexperienced and incompatible people are already recruited to replace veteran examiners
- The Register MS Has No FOSS Coverage Anymore
- The Editor in Chief is like a Microsoft plant
- Links 13/10/2025: "Toasty Subwoofer" and WiFi Speakers "Are About To Go Dumb"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 13/10/2025: iNaturalist and Tove Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Does Not Deny That Large Retailers Like Walmart, Costco and Target Are Giving Up on XBox (and Not Stocking It)
- No doubt XBox is in trouble and rumours suggest that more mass layoffs are imminent
- We'll Encourage Richard Stallman to Talk About Software Patents at the EPO Next Week When He Visits Munich (EPO Headquarters)
- Go listen to Richard Stahlmann
- Investigative Journalism Protects Society From Corruption, Crimes Against Women, Assaults on Civil Society
- "what is the point of men doing military practice to defend a system that is so rotten?"
- Swiss pimp usurping reputation of legendary Tissot boss Francois Thiébaud from France (BaselWorld, SWATCH Group SA)
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Paris 'Love Nest' & Debian Outreachy: from Lycée Lakanal to ENS Cachan, Cr@ns, nepotism
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk in 3 Hours, Then in the Technical University of Munich (Germany) Next Week
- Richard Stallman at TUM on 21.10.2025 18:00, MW2001
- Arnaud Parreaux lost case defending rogue employer
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Mathieu Elias Parreaux declared bankrupt in Switzerland
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Breakdown of the Rule of Law and Patent Law in the European Union (EU)
- The EPO cannot recruit suitably qualified patent examiners this way, let alone retain them
- Gemini Links 13/10/2025: Good Films, Wizard of Earthsea, Upgrading the Steam Controller's Stick
- Links for the day
- Leaks and Whistleblowers: Our Plan for Today
- Society simply cannot advance when too many people self-censor
- It's Not Justice When One Side Denies the Other Side the Ability to Even Speak
- At this stage, Brett Wilson LLP is in my humble opinion acting in contempt of the Court
- Links 13/10/2025: Australian Catholic University Uses Slop to Libel Students, Canada Threatens to Kill Beluga Whales
- Links for the day
- How Not to Silence Tux Machines (It'll Only Backfire, Badly)
- defending Microsoft while attacking this site
- Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT and Google News
- It seems abundantly clear that Google News and Google in general participates in the slop epidemic
- Vincent Danjean (not INTERPOL), Claire Bardel & Debian pregnancy cluster
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Christmas lynchings: Martin Krafft (madduck), Penny Leach (mjollnir) & Debian pregnancy cluster
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 13/10/2025: Birthdays and "Committee Unable to Contact Nobel Prize Winner"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 12, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 12, 2025