Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Low-wage Facebook contractor leaks secret censorship list
By Stephen C. Webster RAW Story
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
A secret list curated by social network giant Facebook was published online recently after an employee for one of the company’s third-world contractors, upset at his poor working conditions and meager wage, decided to fight back.
The document reveals exactly what Facebook’s censorship brigade looks for on the social network, which boasts over 850 million users spanning the globe.
Referred to internally as the “bible,” the list prioritizes deletion of materials pertaining to Holocaust denial, graphic nudity, depictions of any sexual fetish, racial slurs and bullying — all of which are unsurprising — but a few of the other entries are raising eyebrows.
Namely, female nipples or even the impressions of nipples under clothing are unacceptable to Facebook censors, whereas male nipples are fine. Images of breast feeding, too, are forbidden if they show an exposed nipple. “Crushed heads” and mutilated limbs are also fine, so long as the person posting such images does not express delight and no internal organs are visible. The list specifically says that on this point, no exceptions would be made for news media.
Also verboten: images of bodily fluids, including ear wax and pus; dead animals; advocacy of violence; advocacy of eating disorders; racial jokes where “the humor is not evident”; and “any photoshopped images of people, whether negative, positive or neutral”; “pixelated or black-barred content showing nudity or sexual activity”; “digital/cartoon nudity”; and images of drunk or sleeping people with “things drawn on their faces.”
All that aside, images depicting marijuana use are fine, unless an individual appears to be growing, buying or selling the drug. “Art nudity” is okay, and so are videos of schoolyard fights — unless the video was posted with the intent to humiliate another user.
The list’s disclosure by gossip blog Gawker marks the first time that the public has been given a glimpse at the inner-workings of the planet’s largest social network.
Facebook has long been criticized by free speech activists for barring images of breast feeding and deleting accounts created by Palestinian resistance groups, but since it is a private company, Facebook is allowed to obstruct virtually any content it wishes.
The list also shines a light on Facebook’s darker underbelly: how it uses third-world laborers to police first-world content.
Amine Derkaoui, the 21-year-old Moroccan who leaked the document, claimed he was hired by a firm Facebook uses to outsource content policing, only to be paid $1 an hour for his efforts.
“They are just exploiting the third world,” he told Gawker.
Facebook’s media relations department did not respond to a request for comment.
Facebook’s application for an initial public offering (IPO) on the U.S. stock markets was valued earlier this month at somewhere between $75 billion and $100 billion, making it the largest IPO request ever. Shares in the company are expected to go up for sale later this year.
Facebook said it made over $3.71 billion in 2011, largely from advertising fees.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
A secret list curated by social network giant Facebook was published online recently after an employee for one of the company’s third-world contractors, upset at his poor working conditions and meager wage, decided to fight back.
The document reveals exactly what Facebook’s censorship brigade looks for on the social network, which boasts over 850 million users spanning the globe.
Referred to internally as the “bible,” the list prioritizes deletion of materials pertaining to Holocaust denial, graphic nudity, depictions of any sexual fetish, racial slurs and bullying — all of which are unsurprising — but a few of the other entries are raising eyebrows.
Namely, female nipples or even the impressions of nipples under clothing are unacceptable to Facebook censors, whereas male nipples are fine. Images of breast feeding, too, are forbidden if they show an exposed nipple. “Crushed heads” and mutilated limbs are also fine, so long as the person posting such images does not express delight and no internal organs are visible. The list specifically says that on this point, no exceptions would be made for news media.
Also verboten: images of bodily fluids, including ear wax and pus; dead animals; advocacy of violence; advocacy of eating disorders; racial jokes where “the humor is not evident”; and “any photoshopped images of people, whether negative, positive or neutral”; “pixelated or black-barred content showing nudity or sexual activity”; “digital/cartoon nudity”; and images of drunk or sleeping people with “things drawn on their faces.”
All that aside, images depicting marijuana use are fine, unless an individual appears to be growing, buying or selling the drug. “Art nudity” is okay, and so are videos of schoolyard fights — unless the video was posted with the intent to humiliate another user.
The list’s disclosure by gossip blog Gawker marks the first time that the public has been given a glimpse at the inner-workings of the planet’s largest social network.
Facebook has long been criticized by free speech activists for barring images of breast feeding and deleting accounts created by Palestinian resistance groups, but since it is a private company, Facebook is allowed to obstruct virtually any content it wishes.
The list also shines a light on Facebook’s darker underbelly: how it uses third-world laborers to police first-world content.
Amine Derkaoui, the 21-year-old Moroccan who leaked the document, claimed he was hired by a firm Facebook uses to outsource content policing, only to be paid $1 an hour for his efforts.
“They are just exploiting the third world,” he told Gawker.
Facebook’s media relations department did not respond to a request for comment.
Facebook’s application for an initial public offering (IPO) on the U.S. stock markets was valued earlier this month at somewhere between $75 billion and $100 billion, making it the largest IPO request ever. Shares in the company are expected to go up for sale later this year.
Facebook said it made over $3.71 billion in 2011, largely from advertising fees.
Monday, January 9, 2012
The News Networks' SOPA Blackout
Monday, January 9, 2012 by Save the Internet
You may have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.
Simply put, this Web-censorship bill in the House could open the door to
widespread Internet censorship.
Opposition to the bill has reached a boiling point. Millions of activists, hundreds of startups, social media sites like Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter and even big companies like Google, Yahoo! and eBay have joined with Free Press and other Internet advocacy groups against it.
This is one of the biggest tech stories of the year. Yet as a recent report from Media Matters for America shows, TV news has ignored it.
According to the report, SOPA — and Protect IP, its cousin in the Senate — have “received virtually no coverage from major American television news outlets during their evening newscasts and opinion programming.” Among the offenders are ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC.
A likely reason for the media blackout? The big networks — and their parent companies — support these two Internet-censorship bills.
This is what happens when the interests of big business get in the way of the need to inform the public and protect free speech. These same media giants are lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to loosen its ownership rules and allow for even more media consolidation — another issue they’ve failed to cover. If the FCC permits runaway consolidation, media blackouts like the one affecting SOPA could become even more common.
Meanwhile, rank-and-file journalists are coming out strong against these censorship bills. And print media have reported on them. Earlier this month New York Times columnist David Carr wrote that SOPA was “alarming in its reach.” Time, the Atlantic, Forbes and the Boston Globe have all reported on the legislation in the past week.
What is TV news afraid of?
These networks — ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC — need to be held accountable for failing to provide coverage of such damaging legislation.
Opposition to the bill has reached a boiling point. Millions of activists, hundreds of startups, social media sites like Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter and even big companies like Google, Yahoo! and eBay have joined with Free Press and other Internet advocacy groups against it.
This is one of the biggest tech stories of the year. Yet as a recent report from Media Matters for America shows, TV news has ignored it.
According to the report, SOPA — and Protect IP, its cousin in the Senate — have “received virtually no coverage from major American television news outlets during their evening newscasts and opinion programming.” Among the offenders are ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC.
A likely reason for the media blackout? The big networks — and their parent companies — support these two Internet-censorship bills.
This is what happens when the interests of big business get in the way of the need to inform the public and protect free speech. These same media giants are lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to loosen its ownership rules and allow for even more media consolidation — another issue they’ve failed to cover. If the FCC permits runaway consolidation, media blackouts like the one affecting SOPA could become even more common.
Meanwhile, rank-and-file journalists are coming out strong against these censorship bills. And print media have reported on them. Earlier this month New York Times columnist David Carr wrote that SOPA was “alarming in its reach.” Time, the Atlantic, Forbes and the Boston Globe have all reported on the legislation in the past week.
What is TV news afraid of?
These networks — ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC — need to be held accountable for failing to provide coverage of such damaging legislation.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Will Google, Amazon, and Facebook Black Out the Net?
By Alec Liu | FoxNews.com
Published December 30, 2011
Published December 30, 2011
In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coordinated blackout of their sites, some of the web’s most popular destinations.
No Google searches. No Facebook updates. No Tweets. No Amazon.com shopping. Nothing.
The action would be a dramatic response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill backed by the motion picture and recording industries that is intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. HR 3261 would require ISPs to block access to sites that infringe on copyrights -- but how exactly it does that has many up in arms. The creators of some of the web's biggest sites argue it could instead dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. companies -- and reshape the web as we know it.
A blackout would be drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.
“Mozilla had a blackout day and Wikipedia has talked about something similar,” Erickson told FoxNews.com, calling this kind of operation unprecedented.
"A number of companies have had discussions about that," he said.
With the Senate debating the SOPA legislation at the end of January, it looks as if the tech industry’s top dogs are finally adding bite to their bark, something CNET called "the nuclear option."
"When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA,” Declan McCullagh wrote, “you’ll know they’re finally serious.”
“This type of thing doesn’t happen because companies typically don’t want to put their users in that position,” Erickson explained. “The difference is that these bills so fundamentally change the way the Internet works. People need to understand the effect this special-interest legislation will have on those who use the Internet.”
The polarizing movement has many critics but also equally strong and diverse support, including most major media companies as well as businesses like 3M, Adidas, Burberry, CVS and more. News Corp., the parent company of FoxNews.com, also supports the law.
"SOPA targets foreign websites that sell counterfeit drugs and stolen copies of Hollywood movies -- not such American Web sites as YouTube or your favorite blog," wrote Richard Bennett, senior research fellow at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, in an editorial in the New York Post.
The law is necessary to deal with those sites, he said.
"Internet criminals selling bogus drugs or pirated movies simply set up shop in China or a distant island republic, knowing that they won't be harassed by law enforcement regardless of how many U.S. lives or jobs they endanger."
But opposition to the legislation has grown substantially louder in recent weeks as the vote looms.
On November 15, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn wrote a letter to Washington warning of SOPA's dangers. "We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation's cybersecurity," the letter argued
Google co-founder Sergey Brin himself has loudly denounced the bill. “While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don't believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world,” Brin wrote on Google+ social networking site earlier this month.
Others have taken a more proactive approach, voting with their dollars against those who support the bill.
GoDaddy.com, one of the largest domain registrars on the Internet, stands to potentially lose thousands of customers on Thursday, Dec. 29, or “Dump GoDaddy Day,” the culmination of an ongoing boycott of the company.
GoDaddy.com, one of the largest domain registrars on the Internet, stands to potentially lose thousands of customers on Thursday, Dec. 29, or “Dump GoDaddy Day,” the culmination of an ongoing boycott of the company.
Microblogging site Tumblr generated 87,834 calls to Congress with its own anti-SOPA campaign -- a total of 1,293 total hours spent talking to representatives.
Hollywood and the recording industry have maintained the bill's necessity in the name of piracy. "Rogue Web sites that steal America's innovative and creative products attract more than 53 billion visits a year and threaten more than 19 million American jobs," the US Chamber of Commerce (a Republican SuperPAC) wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times.
But Erickson believes this is “just the tip of the iceberg in terms of response.”
“People take the Internet very personally," Erickson told FoxNews.com. “It’s a very important part of their lives."
Computer hackers plan to protect the internet by launching own satellites
By Muriel Kane - RAW Story
Friday, December 30, 2011
Forget science fiction — this one sounds like pure fantasy — but hackers at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin are dreaming of creating their own network of communications satellites and ground stations to forestall any attempt to control the internet.
They’d also like to put a hacker on the moon by 2035.
According to the BBC, hacker activist Nick Farr began calling for contributions to the Hackerspace Global Grid last August, spurred on by threats of online censorship such as that posed by the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
The technical obstacles to such a plan might seem daunting. The BBC points out that “hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit – usually only for brief periods of time — but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.” Participants in Farr’s project, however, believe that the tracking problem would be easy to address given sufficient funding.
The Chaos Computer Club, which was founded in 1981, has been a center of support for transparency, freedom of information, and the hacker ethic, and its annual congress is Europe’s largest hacker event. The CCC is best known for its hacks carried out to demonstrate security flaws, but now it appears to be turning into a center of hardware tinkering as well.
As described by the BBC, “When Mr Farr called for contributions to Hackerspace, Mr [Armin] Bauer and others decided to concentrate on the communications infrastructure aspect of the scheme. … In the open-source spirit of Hackerspace, Mr Bauer and some friends came up with the idea of a distributed network of low-cost ground stations that can be bought or built by individuals.”
“It’s kind of a reverse GPS,” Bauer explained. “GPS uses satellites to calculate where we are, and this tells us where the satellites are.”
Friday, December 30, 2011
Forget science fiction — this one sounds like pure fantasy — but hackers at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin are dreaming of creating their own network of communications satellites and ground stations to forestall any attempt to control the internet.
They’d also like to put a hacker on the moon by 2035.
According to the BBC, hacker activist Nick Farr began calling for contributions to the Hackerspace Global Grid last August, spurred on by threats of online censorship such as that posed by the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
The technical obstacles to such a plan might seem daunting. The BBC points out that “hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit – usually only for brief periods of time — but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.” Participants in Farr’s project, however, believe that the tracking problem would be easy to address given sufficient funding.
The Chaos Computer Club, which was founded in 1981, has been a center of support for transparency, freedom of information, and the hacker ethic, and its annual congress is Europe’s largest hacker event. The CCC is best known for its hacks carried out to demonstrate security flaws, but now it appears to be turning into a center of hardware tinkering as well.
As described by the BBC, “When Mr Farr called for contributions to Hackerspace, Mr [Armin] Bauer and others decided to concentrate on the communications infrastructure aspect of the scheme. … In the open-source spirit of Hackerspace, Mr Bauer and some friends came up with the idea of a distributed network of low-cost ground stations that can be bought or built by individuals.”
“It’s kind of a reverse GPS,” Bauer explained. “GPS uses satellites to calculate where we are, and this tells us where the satellites are.”
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
'Uncut' Activists Claim Purge of Facebook Pages
Friday, April 29, 2011 by The Guardian/UK
Protest groups claim Facebook has taken down dozens of pages in a purge of activists' accounts
Protest groups claim Facebook has taken down dozens of pages in a purge of activists' accounts
Activists are claiming that dozens of politically linked Facebook accounts have been removed or suspended by the company in the last 12 hours.
The list of suspended pages include those for the anti cuts group UK Uncut, and pages that were created by students during last December's university occupations.
A list posted on the UCL occupation blog site says the Goldsmiths Fights Back, Slade Occupation, Open Brikbeck, and Tower Hamlet Greens pages as no longer functioning.
It is not yet known how many websites have been affected in total or why they are not working. Facebook is currently looking into the issue.
Guy Aitchison, 26, an administrator for one of the non-functioning pages said, "I woke up this morning to find that a lot of the groups we'd been using for anti-cuts activity had disappeared. The timing of it seems suspicious given a general political crackdown because of the royal wedding."
"It seems that dozens of other groups have also been affected, including some of the local UK Uncut groups."
Earlier, it was reported that the Metropolitan police had invoked special powers to deter anarchists in central London ahead of the royal wedding.
Police threw a section 60 cordon around the whole of the royal wedding zone on Friday morning to respond to anarchists masking up at a small gathering in Soho Square in central London.
The section 60 order allows police officers to stop and search anyone without discretion. The police also imposed section 60a, which gives them the power to remove masks and balaclavas from anyone within the area.
Scotland Yard said the decision was made after individuals were seen putting on masks in Soho Square where a group of anarchists had gathered.
The Guardian is awaiting a comment from Facebook.
• If your page is affected, please email the Guardian at newseditor@guardian.co.uk
The list of suspended pages include those for the anti cuts group UK Uncut, and pages that were created by students during last December's university occupations.
A list posted on the UCL occupation blog site says the Goldsmiths Fights Back, Slade Occupation, Open Brikbeck, and Tower Hamlet Greens pages as no longer functioning.
It is not yet known how many websites have been affected in total or why they are not working. Facebook is currently looking into the issue.
Guy Aitchison, 26, an administrator for one of the non-functioning pages said, "I woke up this morning to find that a lot of the groups we'd been using for anti-cuts activity had disappeared. The timing of it seems suspicious given a general political crackdown because of the royal wedding."
"It seems that dozens of other groups have also been affected, including some of the local UK Uncut groups."
Earlier, it was reported that the Metropolitan police had invoked special powers to deter anarchists in central London ahead of the royal wedding.
Police threw a section 60 cordon around the whole of the royal wedding zone on Friday morning to respond to anarchists masking up at a small gathering in Soho Square in central London.
The section 60 order allows police officers to stop and search anyone without discretion. The police also imposed section 60a, which gives them the power to remove masks and balaclavas from anyone within the area.
Scotland Yard said the decision was made after individuals were seen putting on masks in Soho Square where a group of anarchists had gathered.
The Guardian is awaiting a comment from Facebook.
• If your page is affected, please email the Guardian at newseditor@guardian.co.uk
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Censorship: Made in the USA
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 by SavetheInternet.com
by Tim Karr
by Tim Karr
March has been a stormy month across the Arab world as the hope for new democracy faces the harsh reality of despots armed with guns, tanks and the tools of censorship.
In Libya, the Gaddafi regime plunged the nation into digital darkness during the first week of March, turning off Internet access to keep Libyans from organizing one another and documenting Gaddafi's crimes for the world to see.
In Bahrain, the kingdom reacted to democracy demonstrators by blacking out websites where locals shared cell phone videos, blocking YouTube pages containing videos of street protests, and taking down a large Facebook group that called for more demonstrations.
It doesn't end there.
According to a new report by the not-for-profit OpenNet Initiative (ONI), Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, UAE and Sudan have joined the ranks of censors, using software to block access to homegrown protest sites.
This crackdown is having a ripple effect across the United States, in ways many might not expect. Much of the censorship technology in use in the Arab world was made by American companies willing to look the other way as regimes use it to smother opposition.
The ONI report fingers several American companies, including Intel-owned McAfee, Inc., San Diego-based Websensce, Inc., and Palo Alto Networks, for selling software that red lists websites and blocks all access.
Last month, I reported on another U.S. company, Narus of Sunnyvale, California, which sold to Egypt and Libya an Internet spying technology that lets state security forces track online and cellphone communications and even target the speaker's whereabouts for arrest.
The Narus report prompted Republican and Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee to demand a State Department investigation, the results of which are pending.
In the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois slammed the U.S. tech industry for not owning up to the abusive application of their products. He wrote, "If U.S. companies are unwilling to take reasonable steps to protect human rights, Congress must step in."
It's encouraging to hear members of Congress speak out. But curtailing the sale of this technology won't happen until they match words with action.
Rep. Bill Keating of Massachusetts is the only voice on the Hill to pledge to take that next step, proposing legislation that would prevent U.S. trafficking in censorship technology.
"People are losing their lives based on this technology," he said during a House Foreign Relations Committee hearing. In a later statement he said he would introduce legislation "that would provide a national strategy to prevent the use of American technology from being used by human rights abusers."
I'm hopeful we'll see this legislation soon. (You can contact both congressmen Keating and Durbin to encourage them to act, too.)
Freedom of speech and assembly shouldn't end at America's border, or whenever we log on to the Internet. It's time Washington took action against U.S. technology companies that are helping despots silence their people.
In Libya, the Gaddafi regime plunged the nation into digital darkness during the first week of March, turning off Internet access to keep Libyans from organizing one another and documenting Gaddafi's crimes for the world to see.
In Bahrain, the kingdom reacted to democracy demonstrators by blacking out websites where locals shared cell phone videos, blocking YouTube pages containing videos of street protests, and taking down a large Facebook group that called for more demonstrations.
It doesn't end there.
According to a new report by the not-for-profit OpenNet Initiative (ONI), Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, UAE and Sudan have joined the ranks of censors, using software to block access to homegrown protest sites.
This crackdown is having a ripple effect across the United States, in ways many might not expect. Much of the censorship technology in use in the Arab world was made by American companies willing to look the other way as regimes use it to smother opposition.
The ONI report fingers several American companies, including Intel-owned McAfee, Inc., San Diego-based Websensce, Inc., and Palo Alto Networks, for selling software that red lists websites and blocks all access.
Last month, I reported on another U.S. company, Narus of Sunnyvale, California, which sold to Egypt and Libya an Internet spying technology that lets state security forces track online and cellphone communications and even target the speaker's whereabouts for arrest.
The Narus report prompted Republican and Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee to demand a State Department investigation, the results of which are pending.
In the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois slammed the U.S. tech industry for not owning up to the abusive application of their products. He wrote, "If U.S. companies are unwilling to take reasonable steps to protect human rights, Congress must step in."
It's encouraging to hear members of Congress speak out. But curtailing the sale of this technology won't happen until they match words with action.
Rep. Bill Keating of Massachusetts is the only voice on the Hill to pledge to take that next step, proposing legislation that would prevent U.S. trafficking in censorship technology.
"People are losing their lives based on this technology," he said during a House Foreign Relations Committee hearing. In a later statement he said he would introduce legislation "that would provide a national strategy to prevent the use of American technology from being used by human rights abusers."
I'm hopeful we'll see this legislation soon. (You can contact both congressmen Keating and Durbin to encourage them to act, too.)
Freedom of speech and assembly shouldn't end at America's border, or whenever we log on to the Internet. It's time Washington took action against U.S. technology companies that are helping despots silence their people.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
How to Foil a Nationwide Internet Shutdown
How to Foil a Nationwide Internet Shutdown
By Adam Dachis Jan 28, 2011
The Egyptian government cut internet connections across their country to silence protests, leaving nearly all of its citizens without online access. But they weren't entirely successful. When governments shut down broadband and mobile connections, here's what to do.
What's Going on Now?
If you haven't been keeping up with the story, here's the gist. Citizens across Egypt are protesting their government in unprecedented numbers, and its believed that the internet played a major role in the protests. So what did the Egyptian government do? First, they started blocking domain name servers (DNS)—the phone book of the internet—but citizens circumvented this limitation by using proxy servers. In reaction, the government cut broadband connections to the web and forced mobile providers to do the same. For more details, read Gizmodo's take on how Egypt turned off the internet. The result: a nationwide internet blackout that's preventing Egyptian citizens from communicating online. To put it bluntly, this sucks. But it's still not good enough. We're going to look at how Egyptian citizens can (and are) circumventing the problem.
Old School Internet
Unless the Egyptian government kills all of the phone lines as well, you might remember one means of getting online that broadband has since relegated to obsolescence: dial-up. While there's no Egyptian ISP that will allow internet access to Egyptian citizens, other countries will, meaning any Egyptian citizen with long-distance calling capabilities can break out their old school 56k modem and dial-up an ISP in another country. (Sure it's going to be a slow connection, but you can survive.)
Several ISPs—such as Budget DialUp—offer dial-up numbers all over the globe. Some ISPs in other countries are offering free access to Egyptians specifically in response to the Egyptian government's actions. According to twitter user @ioerror, French ISP FDN is one of them:
Others report that even DSL is still a possibility:
While dial-up isn't an ideal means of getting online for most of us, it's still a perfectly effective means of connecting when your government shuts down the internet. And until the Egyptian government shuts down all landline access—another huge step up the censorship ladder—there's not much they can do to completely shut down the internet.
By Adam Dachis Jan 28, 2011
The Egyptian government cut internet connections across their country to silence protests, leaving nearly all of its citizens without online access. But they weren't entirely successful. When governments shut down broadband and mobile connections, here's what to do.
What's Going on Now?
If you haven't been keeping up with the story, here's the gist. Citizens across Egypt are protesting their government in unprecedented numbers, and its believed that the internet played a major role in the protests. So what did the Egyptian government do? First, they started blocking domain name servers (DNS)—the phone book of the internet—but citizens circumvented this limitation by using proxy servers. In reaction, the government cut broadband connections to the web and forced mobile providers to do the same. For more details, read Gizmodo's take on how Egypt turned off the internet. The result: a nationwide internet blackout that's preventing Egyptian citizens from communicating online. To put it bluntly, this sucks. But it's still not good enough. We're going to look at how Egyptian citizens can (and are) circumventing the problem.
Old School Internet
Unless the Egyptian government kills all of the phone lines as well, you might remember one means of getting online that broadband has since relegated to obsolescence: dial-up. While there's no Egyptian ISP that will allow internet access to Egyptian citizens, other countries will, meaning any Egyptian citizen with long-distance calling capabilities can break out their old school 56k modem and dial-up an ISP in another country. (Sure it's going to be a slow connection, but you can survive.)
Several ISPs—such as Budget DialUp—offer dial-up numbers all over the globe. Some ISPs in other countries are offering free access to Egyptians specifically in response to the Egyptian government's actions. According to twitter user @ioerror, French ISP FDN is one of them:
Egypt can use this number for dial up: +33172890150 (login 'toto' password 'toto') - thanks to a French ISP (FDN)#egypt #jan25
Others report that even DSL is still a possibility:
@SultanAlQassemi DIAL-UP ISP IS WORKING. DSL still working#Egypt,Try their Dial up numbers (0777 7770),(0777 7000) SPREAD THE WORD #jan25
While dial-up isn't an ideal means of getting online for most of us, it's still a perfectly effective means of connecting when your government shuts down the internet. And until the Egyptian government shuts down all landline access—another huge step up the censorship ladder—there's not much they can do to completely shut down the internet.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Will Internet censorship bill be pushed through lame-duck Congress?
By Daniel Tencer - Sunday, November 14th, 2010
A bill giving the government the power to shut down Web sites that host materials that infringe copyright is making its way quietly through the lame-duck session of Congress, raising the ire of free-speech groups and prompting a group of academics to lobby against the effort.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced in Congress this fall by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). It would grant the federal government the power to block access to any Web domain that is found to host copyrighted material without permission.
Critics say the bill is both a giveaway to the movie and recording industries and a step towards widespread and unaccountable censorship of the Internet.
Opponents note that the powers given the government under the bill are very broad. Because the bill targets domain names and not specific materials, an entire Web site can be shut down. So for example, if the US determines that there are copyright-infringing materials on YouTube, it could theoretically block access to all of YouTube, whether or not particular material being accessed infringes copyright.
Activist group DemandProgress, which is running a petition against the bill, argues the powers in the bill could be used for political purposes. If the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is found to be hosting copyrighted material, for instance, access to WikiLeaks could be blocked for all US Internet users.
Though the bill was delayed in September after an outcry from activist groups, it now appears to be back and potentially poised for quick passage in the lame-duck session of Congress, reports DemandProgress.
A group of academics, led by Temple University law professor David Post, have signed a petition opposing COICA.
"The Act, if enacted into law, would fundamentally alter U.S. policy towards Internet speech, and would set a dangerous precedent with potentially serious consequences for free expression and global Internet freedom," Post wrote in the petition letter (PDF).
A TOOL FOR POLITICAL CENSORSHIP?
Free speech advocates argue that Internet censorship laws are inevitably used for purposes other than the ones claimed by lawmakers.
For instance, Australia in recent years set up a "firewall" around its Internet, with the intention of blacklisting child pornography Web sites. But a list of the blocked sites, leaked to Wikileaks, showed that the Australian government was censoring more than porn: The blacklist contained religious and political Web sites.
According to the Melbourne Age:
A bill giving the government the power to shut down Web sites that host materials that infringe copyright is making its way quietly through the lame-duck session of Congress, raising the ire of free-speech groups and prompting a group of academics to lobby against the effort.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced in Congress this fall by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). It would grant the federal government the power to block access to any Web domain that is found to host copyrighted material without permission.
Critics say the bill is both a giveaway to the movie and recording industries and a step towards widespread and unaccountable censorship of the Internet.
Opponents note that the powers given the government under the bill are very broad. Because the bill targets domain names and not specific materials, an entire Web site can be shut down. So for example, if the US determines that there are copyright-infringing materials on YouTube, it could theoretically block access to all of YouTube, whether or not particular material being accessed infringes copyright.
Activist group DemandProgress, which is running a petition against the bill, argues the powers in the bill could be used for political purposes. If the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is found to be hosting copyrighted material, for instance, access to WikiLeaks could be blocked for all US Internet users.
Though the bill was delayed in September after an outcry from activist groups, it now appears to be back and potentially poised for quick passage in the lame-duck session of Congress, reports DemandProgress.
A group of academics, led by Temple University law professor David Post, have signed a petition opposing COICA.
"The Act, if enacted into law, would fundamentally alter U.S. policy towards Internet speech, and would set a dangerous precedent with potentially serious consequences for free expression and global Internet freedom," Post wrote in the petition letter (PDF).
The bill is "awful on many fronts," he wrote at Volokh Conspiracy. "It would allow a court to effectively shut down a site operated out of Brazil, or France, without any adversary hearing ... or any reasoned determination that the site actually is engaged in unlawful activity."The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a list of Web sites it believes are at highest risk of being shut down under the proposed law. Included in the list are file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Mediafire, music mash-up sites like SoundCloud and MashupTown, as well as "sites that discuss and advocate for P2P technology or for piracy," such as pirate-party.us and P2PNet.
"Even more significant and more troubling, the Act represents a retreat from the United States’ historical position as a bulwark and beacon against censorship and other threats to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the free exchange of information and ideas around the globe."
A TOOL FOR POLITICAL CENSORSHIP?
Free speech advocates argue that Internet censorship laws are inevitably used for purposes other than the ones claimed by lawmakers.
For instance, Australia in recent years set up a "firewall" around its Internet, with the intention of blacklisting child pornography Web sites. But a list of the blocked sites, leaked to Wikileaks, showed that the Australian government was censoring more than porn: The blacklist contained religious and political Web sites.
According to the Melbourne Age:
But about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.As predicted by some critics, the "great Aussie firewall" ended up blocking access to parts of WikiLeaks.
"It seems to me as if just about anything can potentially get on the list," [University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn] Landfelt said.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Congressional Plans for Internet Blacklist in the Works
A group of powerful Senators -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- have signed onto a bill that would vastly expand the government's power to censor the Internet.
By David Segal and Aaron Swarz, AlterNet
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced in late September, but it's greased and ready to move, with a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee this Thursday. US citizens could soon find themselves joining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broad chunks of the public Internet.
Click here to sign petition.
COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.
The lists are for sites "dedicated to infringing activity," but that's defined very broadly -- any domain name where counterfeit goods or copyrighted material are "central to the activity of the Internet site" could be blocked.
One example of what this means in practice: sites like YouTube could be censored in the US. Copyright holders like Viacom often argue copyrighted material is central to the activity of YouTube, but under current US law, YouTube is perfectly legal as long as they take down copyrighted material when they're informed about it -- which is why Viacom lost to YouTube in court.
But if COICA passes, Viacom wouldn't even need to prove YouTube is doing anything illegal to get it shut down -- as long as they can persuade the courts that enough other people are using it for copyright infringement, the whole site could be censored.
Perhaps even more disturbing: Even if Viacom couldn't get a court to compel censorship of a YouTube or a similar site, the DOJ could put it on the second blacklist and encourage ISPs to block it even without a court order. (ISPs have ample reason to abide the will of the powerful DOJ, even if the law doesn't formally require them to do so.)
By David Segal and Aaron Swarz, AlterNet
Posted on October 1, 2010
When it really matters to them, Congressmembers can come together -- with a panache and wry wit you didn't know they had. As banned books week gets underway, and President Obama admonishes oppressive regimes for their censorship of the Internet, a group of powerful Senators -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- have signed onto a bill that would vastly expand the government's power to censor the Internet.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced in late September, but it's greased and ready to move, with a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee this Thursday. US citizens could soon find themselves joining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broad chunks of the public Internet.
Click here to sign petition.
COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.
The lists are for sites "dedicated to infringing activity," but that's defined very broadly -- any domain name where counterfeit goods or copyrighted material are "central to the activity of the Internet site" could be blocked.
One example of what this means in practice: sites like YouTube could be censored in the US. Copyright holders like Viacom often argue copyrighted material is central to the activity of YouTube, but under current US law, YouTube is perfectly legal as long as they take down copyrighted material when they're informed about it -- which is why Viacom lost to YouTube in court.
But if COICA passes, Viacom wouldn't even need to prove YouTube is doing anything illegal to get it shut down -- as long as they can persuade the courts that enough other people are using it for copyright infringement, the whole site could be censored.
Perhaps even more disturbing: Even if Viacom couldn't get a court to compel censorship of a YouTube or a similar site, the DOJ could put it on the second blacklist and encourage ISPs to block it even without a court order. (ISPs have ample reason to abide the will of the powerful DOJ, even if the law doesn't formally require them to do so.)
COICA's passage would be a tremendous blow to free speech on the Internet -- and likely a first step towards much broader online censorship. Please help us fight back: The first step is signing our petition. We'll give you the tools to share it with your friends and call your Senator.
Friday, July 23, 2010
90% of web snoop document censored to stop 'premature unnecessary debate' in Australia
(Look at what Australia's going through to see what our future looks like...--jef)
***
BEN GRUBB | July 23, 2010
This video will automatically play after a 5 second delay.
From black list to blacked out. Documents on plans to store web surfing data are heavily censored due to the possibility of 'premature and unnecessary debate'.
The federal government has censored approximately 90 per cent of a secret document outlining its controversial plans to snoop on Australians' web surfing, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, out of fear the document could cause "premature unnecessary debate".
The government has been consulting with the internet industry over the proposal, which would require ISPs to store certain internet activities of all Australians - regardless of whether they have been suspected of wrongdoing - for law-enforcement agencies to access.
All parties to the consultations have been sworn to secrecy.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland and part of the censored document.
Industry sources have claimed that the controversial regime could go as far as collecting the individual web browsing history of every Australian internet user, a claim denied by the spokesman for Attorney-General Robert McClelland.
The exact details of the web browsing data the government wants ISPs to collect are contained in the document released to this website under FoI.
The document was handed out to the industry during a secret briefing it held with ISPs in March.
But from the censored document released, it is impossible to know how far the government is planning to take the policy.
The government is hiding the plans from the public and it appears to want to move quickly on industry consultation, asking for participants to respond within only one month after it had held the briefings.
------------------------------------------
The Attorney-General's Department legal officer, FoI and Privacy Section, Claudia Hernandez, wrote in her decision in releasing the highly censored document that the release of some sections of it "may lead to premature unnecessary debate and could potentially prejudice and impede government decision making".
Hernandez said that the material in question related to information the department was "currently weighing up and evaluating in relation to competing considerations that may have a bearing on a particular course of action or decision".
"More specifically, it is information concerning the development of government policy which has not been finalised, and there is a strong possibility that the policy will be amended prior to public consultation," she wrote.
Further, she said that although she had acknowledged the public's right to "participate in and influence the processes of government decision making and policy formulation ... the premature release of the proposal could, more than likely, create a confusing and misleading impression".
"In addition, as the matters are not settled and proposed recommendations may not necessarily be adopted, release of such documents would not make a valuable contribution to public debate."
Hernandez went further to say that she considered disclosure of the document uncensored "could be misleading to the public and cause confusion and premature and unnecessary debate".
"In my opinion, the public interest factors in favour of release are outweighed by those against," Hernandez said.
The "data retention regime" the government is proposing to implement is similar to that adopted by the European Union after terrorist attacks several years ago.
Greens Communications spokesman Scott Ludlam said the excuse not to release the proposal in full was "extraordinary". Since finding out about the scheme, he has launched a Senate inquiry into it and other issues.
"The idea that its release could cause 'premature' or 'unnecessary' debate is not going to go down well with the thousands of people who have been alarmed by the direction that government is taking," he said in a telephone interview.
"I would really like to know what the government is hiding in this proposal," he said, adding that he hoped that the Attorney-General's Department would be "more forthcoming" about the proposal in the senate inquiry into privacy he pushed for in June.
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, George Brandis, said the government’s decision to censor the documents showed ‘‘how truly Orwellian this government has become".
"To refuse disclosure of material that had already been circulated among stakeholders, on an issue of intense current political debate on the ground that it might provide unnecessary discussion, shows that the Gillard government has become beyond satire," Brandis said.
Online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia spokesman Colin Jacobs said what was released was "a joke".
"We have to assume the worse," he said. "And that is that the government has been badgering the telcos with very aggressive demands that should worry everybody."
Jacobs said that the onus was now on government to "explain what data they need, what problem it solves and, just as importantly, why it can't be done in an open process".
"The more sensitive the process and the data they want, the more transparent the government needs to be about why it wants that data," he said. "Nobody could argue that public consultation ... would somehow help criminals," he added.
"We have to turn the age-old question back on the government: if you don’t have anything to hide, then you shouldn't be worried about people having insight into the consultation.
"This is a very sensitive and important issue. It raises huge questions about privacy, data security and the burden of increased costs to smaller internet service providers. What really needs to be debated is what particular information they want, because that's where the privacy issue rears its ugly head," he said.
According to one internet industry source, the release of the highly censored document was "illustrative of government's approach to things where they don't want people to know what they're thinking in advance of them getting it ready to package for public consumption".
"And that’s worrying."
The Attorney-General's spokesman declined to comment, referring comment to the department. The department said it had "nothing to add" to the FOI letter it provided.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
BP & Govt. Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence
Also see this article posted previously in this blog.
BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence
Orange Beach, Alabama -- While President Obama insists that the federal government is firmly in control of the response to BP's spill in the Gulf, people in coastal communities where I visited last week in Louisiana and Alabama know an inconvenient truth: BP -- not our president -- controls the response. In fact, people on the ground say things are out of control in the gulf.
Even worse, as my latest week of adventures illustrate, BP is using federal agencies to shield itself from public accountability.
For example, while flying on a small plane from New Orleans to Orange Beach, the pilot suddenly exclaimed, "Look at that!" The thin red line marking the federal flight restrictions of 3,000 feet over the oiled Gulf region had just jumped to include the coastal barrier islands off Alabama.
"There's only one reason for that," the pilot said. "BP doesn't want the media taking pictures of oil on the beaches. You should see the oil that's about six miles off the coast," he said grimly. We looked down at the wavy orange boom surrounding the islands below us. The pilot shook his head. "There's no way those booms are going to stop what's offshore from hitting those beaches."
BP knows this as well -- boom can only deflect oil under the calmest of sea conditions, not barricade it -- so they have stepped up their already aggressive effort to control what the public sees.
At the same time I was en route to Orange Beach, Clint Guidry with the Louisiana Shrimp Association and Dean Blanchard, who owns the largest shrimp processor in Louisiana, were in Grand Isle taking Anderson Cooper out in a small boat to see the oiled beaches. The U.S. Coast Guard held up the boat for 20 minutes - an intimidation tactic intended to stop the cameras from recording BP's damage. Luckily for Cooper and the viewing public, Dean Blanchard is not easily intimidated.
A few days later, the jig was up with the booms. Oil was making landfall in four states and even BP can't be everywhere at once. CBS 60 Minutes Australia found entire sections of boom hung up in marsh grasses two feet above the water off Venice. On the same day on the other side of Barataria Bay, Louisiana Bayoukeeper documented pools of oil and oiled pelicans inside the boom - on the supposedly protected landward side - of Queen Bess Island off Grand Isle.
With oil undisputedly hitting the beaches and the number of dead wildlife mounting, BP is switching tactics. In Orange Beach, people told me BP wouldn't let them collect carcasses. Instead, the company was raking up carcasses of oiled seabirds. "The heads separate from the bodies," one upset resident told me. "There's no way those birds are going to be autopsied. BP is destroying evidence!"
The body count of affected wildlife is crucial to prove the harm caused by the spill, and also serves as an invaluable tool to evaluate damages to public property - the dolphins, sea turtles, whales, sea birds, fish, and more, that are owned by the American public. Disappeared body counts means disappeared damages - and disappeared liability for BP. BP should not be collecting carcasses. The job should be given to NOAA, a federal agency, and volunteers, as was done during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
NOAA should also be conducting carcass drift studies. Only one percent of the dead sea birds made landfall in the Gulf of Alaska, for example. That means for every one bird that was found, another 99 were carried out to sea by currents. Further, NOAA should be conducting aerial surveys to look for carcasses in the offshore rips where the currents converge. That's where the carcasses will pile up--a fact we learned during the Exxon Valdez spill. Maybe that's another reason for BP's "no camera" policy and the flight restrictions.
On Saturday June 12, people across America will stand up and speak out with one voice to protest BP's treatment of the Gulf, neglect for the response workers, and their response to government authority. President Obama needs to hear and see the people waving cameras and respirators. Until the media is allowed unrestricted access to the Gulf and impacted beaches, BP - not the President of United States - will remain in charge of the Gulf response.
By Muriel Kane
Saturday, June 12th, 2010
It is becoming apparent that efforts to prevent the oil gushing out of BP's blown-out Deepwater Horizon rig from ravaging the Gulf Coast may be largely ineffective. An increasing number of stories are also starting to circulate concerning deliberate attempts by both BP and government officials to block coverage of the damage and the clean-up attempts.
In a video clip obtained by ThinkProgress, a local news team from WDSU in New Orleans was told by a private security guard that they were not allowed to talk to cleanup workers on a public beach or come within 100 yards of cleanup operations.
"Who’s saying that?" reporter Scott Walker asked the guard. "Because no one can tell me that, unless you’re the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, you’re the Coast Guard, or you’re the military, can you tell me where to go on this public beach."
"I can tell you where to go because I’m employed to keep this beach safe," the guard replied, adding, "You are not allowed to interview any workers."
CNN's Jim Acosta similarly reported on Thursday that his efforts to film attempts by the Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Service to rescue oil-covered birds had been blocked, even though his news team had received permission from the state Fish and Wildlife Service to enter the bird triage center.
"I'm going to have to ask you to stop taking pictures," a National Guardsman told them.
"It's more important for the animals to have a quiet, calm, controlled area at this point," a Fish and Wildlife Service representative insisted when asked for an explanation.
CNN's Anderson Cooper also recounted being "prevented by federal wildlife officials from photographing birds covered in oil being brought ashore. ... They actually now have this area where the birds come in roped off and guarded by National Guard troops."
This obstruction of the media is occurring even though BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles sent out a message to BP employees and contractors on Wednesday, stating, "Recent media reports have suggested that individuals involved in the cleanup operation have been prohibited from speaking to the media, and this is simply untrue. BP fully supports and defends all individuals rights to share their personal thoughts and experiences with journalists if they so choose."
BP guards have continued to block reporters from interviewing the cleanup workers, and the workers themselves have spoken off camera of threats that they will lose their jobs if they talk to reporters.
The WDSU reporter specifically mentioned the Suttles memo to the BP guards who were blocking his access to cleanup workers and asked, "Still hasn’t trickled down to you all?"
The guards' unhelpful response was, "We already heard that one too. ... The e-mail did not explicitly give you permission to do that."
video link
***
Orange Beach, Alabama -- While President Obama insists that the federal government is firmly in control of the response to BP's spill in the Gulf, people in coastal communities where I visited last week in Louisiana and Alabama know an inconvenient truth: BP -- not our president -- controls the response. In fact, people on the ground say things are out of control in the gulf.
Even worse, as my latest week of adventures illustrate, BP is using federal agencies to shield itself from public accountability.
For example, while flying on a small plane from New Orleans to Orange Beach, the pilot suddenly exclaimed, "Look at that!" The thin red line marking the federal flight restrictions of 3,000 feet over the oiled Gulf region had just jumped to include the coastal barrier islands off Alabama.
"There's only one reason for that," the pilot said. "BP doesn't want the media taking pictures of oil on the beaches. You should see the oil that's about six miles off the coast," he said grimly. We looked down at the wavy orange boom surrounding the islands below us. The pilot shook his head. "There's no way those booms are going to stop what's offshore from hitting those beaches."
BP knows this as well -- boom can only deflect oil under the calmest of sea conditions, not barricade it -- so they have stepped up their already aggressive effort to control what the public sees.
At the same time I was en route to Orange Beach, Clint Guidry with the Louisiana Shrimp Association and Dean Blanchard, who owns the largest shrimp processor in Louisiana, were in Grand Isle taking Anderson Cooper out in a small boat to see the oiled beaches. The U.S. Coast Guard held up the boat for 20 minutes - an intimidation tactic intended to stop the cameras from recording BP's damage. Luckily for Cooper and the viewing public, Dean Blanchard is not easily intimidated.
A few days later, the jig was up with the booms. Oil was making landfall in four states and even BP can't be everywhere at once. CBS 60 Minutes Australia found entire sections of boom hung up in marsh grasses two feet above the water off Venice. On the same day on the other side of Barataria Bay, Louisiana Bayoukeeper documented pools of oil and oiled pelicans inside the boom - on the supposedly protected landward side - of Queen Bess Island off Grand Isle.
With oil undisputedly hitting the beaches and the number of dead wildlife mounting, BP is switching tactics. In Orange Beach, people told me BP wouldn't let them collect carcasses. Instead, the company was raking up carcasses of oiled seabirds. "The heads separate from the bodies," one upset resident told me. "There's no way those birds are going to be autopsied. BP is destroying evidence!"
The body count of affected wildlife is crucial to prove the harm caused by the spill, and also serves as an invaluable tool to evaluate damages to public property - the dolphins, sea turtles, whales, sea birds, fish, and more, that are owned by the American public. Disappeared body counts means disappeared damages - and disappeared liability for BP. BP should not be collecting carcasses. The job should be given to NOAA, a federal agency, and volunteers, as was done during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
NOAA should also be conducting carcass drift studies. Only one percent of the dead sea birds made landfall in the Gulf of Alaska, for example. That means for every one bird that was found, another 99 were carried out to sea by currents. Further, NOAA should be conducting aerial surveys to look for carcasses in the offshore rips where the currents converge. That's where the carcasses will pile up--a fact we learned during the Exxon Valdez spill. Maybe that's another reason for BP's "no camera" policy and the flight restrictions.
On Saturday June 12, people across America will stand up and speak out with one voice to protest BP's treatment of the Gulf, neglect for the response workers, and their response to government authority. President Obama needs to hear and see the people waving cameras and respirators. Until the media is allowed unrestricted access to the Gulf and impacted beaches, BP - not the President of United States - will remain in charge of the Gulf response.
***
BP and government blocking coverage of oil damageBy Muriel Kane
Saturday, June 12th, 2010
It is becoming apparent that efforts to prevent the oil gushing out of BP's blown-out Deepwater Horizon rig from ravaging the Gulf Coast may be largely ineffective. An increasing number of stories are also starting to circulate concerning deliberate attempts by both BP and government officials to block coverage of the damage and the clean-up attempts.
In a video clip obtained by ThinkProgress, a local news team from WDSU in New Orleans was told by a private security guard that they were not allowed to talk to cleanup workers on a public beach or come within 100 yards of cleanup operations.
"Who’s saying that?" reporter Scott Walker asked the guard. "Because no one can tell me that, unless you’re the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, you’re the Coast Guard, or you’re the military, can you tell me where to go on this public beach."
"I can tell you where to go because I’m employed to keep this beach safe," the guard replied, adding, "You are not allowed to interview any workers."
CNN's Jim Acosta similarly reported on Thursday that his efforts to film attempts by the Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Service to rescue oil-covered birds had been blocked, even though his news team had received permission from the state Fish and Wildlife Service to enter the bird triage center.
"I'm going to have to ask you to stop taking pictures," a National Guardsman told them.
"It's more important for the animals to have a quiet, calm, controlled area at this point," a Fish and Wildlife Service representative insisted when asked for an explanation.
CNN's Anderson Cooper also recounted being "prevented by federal wildlife officials from photographing birds covered in oil being brought ashore. ... They actually now have this area where the birds come in roped off and guarded by National Guard troops."
This obstruction of the media is occurring even though BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles sent out a message to BP employees and contractors on Wednesday, stating, "Recent media reports have suggested that individuals involved in the cleanup operation have been prohibited from speaking to the media, and this is simply untrue. BP fully supports and defends all individuals rights to share their personal thoughts and experiences with journalists if they so choose."
BP guards have continued to block reporters from interviewing the cleanup workers, and the workers themselves have spoken off camera of threats that they will lose their jobs if they talk to reporters.
The WDSU reporter specifically mentioned the Suttles memo to the BP guards who were blocking his access to cleanup workers and asked, "Still hasn’t trickled down to you all?"
The guards' unhelpful response was, "We already heard that one too. ... The e-mail did not explicitly give you permission to do that."
video link
Monday, June 7, 2010
BP buys Google, Yahoo search words to keep people away from real news on Gulf oil spill disaster
Maryann Tobin | June 6
In their most tenacious effort to control the ‘spin’ on the worst oil spill disaster in the history, BP has purchased top internet search engine words so they can re-direct people away from real news on the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
BP spokesman Toby Odone confirmed to ABC News that the oil giant had in fact bought internet search terms. So now when someone searches the words ‘oil spill’, on the internet, the top link will re-direct them to BP’s official company website.
This would not be the first time that BP has tried to control information to protect the company’s public image.
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, BP executives quickly underestimated the size of the disastrous oil spill. Some suggest they did it to avoid costly EPA per-gallon spill fines. The less oil spilled, the lower the fines.
A month into the spill, the public learned through independent science, that the spill was in fact a million gallon a day gusher.BP got caught in their own lie when the used a syphon pipe in one of the broken riser pipes and proudly proclaimed that they were capturing 5,000 barrels of oil a day. With the oil obviously still gushing, they had to up their spill rate to explain the reported discrepancy in their earlier estimates.
As the dead bodies of birds, turtles and dolphins began showing up on land, BP used a private security company as their ‘oil spill police’ to try to keep photographers and reporters away from the true death toll from their spill. Tides of black goo lapping a shore lined in corpses did not portray the company image Tony Hayward and his oil rich executives wanted.
BP can spend millions on advertising campaigns, and they can try to misdirect people on the internet. But no matter how hard BP tries or how much money they spend on public relations, they will never be able to hide the apocalypse unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. You just can’t buy or smile your way out of a multi-billion gallon oil spill disaster.
The world is watching the Gulf of Mexico from airplanes, boats and satellite images. Sending people to the BP company website when they click on the words ‘oil spill’ is not going to erase the horrors of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, nor will the trickery of British Petroleum.
In their most tenacious effort to control the ‘spin’ on the worst oil spill disaster in the history, BP has purchased top internet search engine words so they can re-direct people away from real news on the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
BP spokesman Toby Odone confirmed to ABC News that the oil giant had in fact bought internet search terms. So now when someone searches the words ‘oil spill’, on the internet, the top link will re-direct them to BP’s official company website.
This would not be the first time that BP has tried to control information to protect the company’s public image.
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, BP executives quickly underestimated the size of the disastrous oil spill. Some suggest they did it to avoid costly EPA per-gallon spill fines. The less oil spilled, the lower the fines.
A month into the spill, the public learned through independent science, that the spill was in fact a million gallon a day gusher.BP got caught in their own lie when the used a syphon pipe in one of the broken riser pipes and proudly proclaimed that they were capturing 5,000 barrels of oil a day. With the oil obviously still gushing, they had to up their spill rate to explain the reported discrepancy in their earlier estimates.
As the dead bodies of birds, turtles and dolphins began showing up on land, BP used a private security company as their ‘oil spill police’ to try to keep photographers and reporters away from the true death toll from their spill. Tides of black goo lapping a shore lined in corpses did not portray the company image Tony Hayward and his oil rich executives wanted.
BP can spend millions on advertising campaigns, and they can try to misdirect people on the internet. But no matter how hard BP tries or how much money they spend on public relations, they will never be able to hide the apocalypse unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. You just can’t buy or smile your way out of a multi-billion gallon oil spill disaster.
The world is watching the Gulf of Mexico from airplanes, boats and satellite images. Sending people to the BP company website when they click on the words ‘oil spill’ is not going to erase the horrors of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, nor will the trickery of British Petroleum.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Corporate Censors Flex Their Muscles
The New Morality Police
By DAVID ROSEN
A couple of weeks so ago, Jason Goldberg, founder and CEO of the soon-to-be-launched website, fabulis.com, woke to a shocking situation: Citibank had blocked his corporate bank account. As Goldberg posted on his blog, the bank’s action was done without prior notice and was imposed because of the site’s apparent “objectionable content.” And the content? Fabulis is to be a social networking and lifestyle service targeted to gay men.
A few days later, and after much indignant buzz on the web about the bank’s arbitrary action, Goldberg got a call from Citibank’s Bill Brown. According to Goldberg, “Bill runs all the New York branches. Bill seems like a good and smart guy. He is sincerely apologetic that an individual made a bad judgment call about our site.” Fabulis’ account was reinstated.
In all likelihood the blocking of Fabulis’ account was the result of a “bad judgment call.” As Goldberg reports, “Bill [Brown] will use this as an education and training opportunity.” One can only wonder what corporate “education and training” means at Citibank. The problem, sadly, seems more systemic: How is it that an individual bank employee (or small group) can block an account? What criteria and procedures does the bank use to determine “objectionable content”? These issues seem not to have been discussed between Goldberg and Brown.
Whether Citibank’s action was due to the action of a single employee or a decision by its top management, it speaks to the apparent increase in the censorship of online content now being imposed by corporate America. The struggle over censorship, over the content Americas can experience, dates from the nation’s founding. In 1711, the Massachusetts Bay Colony introduced regulations prohibiting the “Composing, Writing, Printing, Publishing, of Any Filthy Obscene or Prophane Song, Pamphlet, Libel or Mock-Sermon, in Imitation or in Mimicking of Preaching, or any other part of Divine Worship.”
Today, the battle over censorship, over the limits of acceptable content, is being fought on two fronts. The first is the formal or legal front; it involves the contestation over FCC “decency” standards (e.g., CBS’s fine for the over-the-air broadcast display of Janet Jackson’s nipple) and Court decisions (e.g., U.S. v. librarians over Internet porn).
The second front is more informal, non-legal and involves corporations selectively restricting what they offer the public. It often involves more subtle forms of censorship ranging from corporate identity or branding issues, product “quality” or technical standards, to market control factors and to unstated political or religious values. Both fronts need to be challenged with equal vigor; nevertheless, there appears to be an increase among the latter front, corporate censorship.
* * *
The battle between the Dixie Chicks and the country music establishment is the paradigmatic example of corporate censorship, both its imposition and its undoing. The Chicks appeared at a now-famous London concert in 2003 as the U.S. illegal invasion of Iraq loomed. One of the “chicks,” Natalie Maines, told the anti-war audience, "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."
Reports of Maines’ statement spread rapidly and the group faced a vicious backlash. It came from not only the pro-war right wing and the media establishment, but the country music industry as well. The Chicks found that radio stations (especially the reactionary Clear Channel network) refused to play their music, retailers refused to carry their albums, their live shows were cancelled and they suffered a plunge in record sales. They also received death threats.
As support for Bush’s imperialist folly eroded, anti-war sentiment became popular, acceptable among the political elite and corporate media. Those who long opposed the war were transformed from traitors to patriots. In 2007, the Dixie Chicks were rehabilitated, receiving five Grammy awards.
More recent examples of corporate censorship are equally political, but in a more arbitrary fashion. The Fabulis experience is illustrative. Clearly, the Citibank decision-maker(s) didn’t know their customer nor who backed his latest venture. Goldberg was a co-founder of Jobster, also started and ran socialmedian.com, which was sold to Xing in 2008. He’s a player in the web-entrepreneur ballgame. His latest venture is backed by the “Washington Post,” Mayfield Fund’s Allen Morgan and Burson-Marsteller’s Don Baer.
The experience of Goldberg’s Fabulis may well be an exception. However, Apple’s actions speak to a different form of censorship. The “New York Times” recently blew the whistle of Apple’s restrictions of applications it will run on its iPhone. Among those blocked are “SlideHer,” a videogame depicting a scantily-clad women, and “Sexy Scratch Off,” a lottery-type game depicting a woman wearing a scratch-off dress and revealing undergarments.
Apple’s iPhone supports an estimated 150,000 “apps” through its App Store and draws the line over what it considers “objectionable content.” Philip Schiller, Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing, argues that developers have been submitting “an increasing number of apps containing very objectionable content.” He added: “It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see.”
What all this huffing-&-puffing fails to acknowledge is that Apple offers the “Sports Illustrated” soft-core porn swimsuit issue. As Schiller acknowledged, “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format.” At Apple, as at many media companies, corporate interests determine decency standards.
Apple’s blockage of a variety of other “objectionable content” received less media attention. As first reported on the invaluable site, BoingBoing, Apple initially blocked episodes of the South Park cartoon series. South Park announced: "We first announced our iPhone App back in October [2008], after we submitted the Application to Apple for approval. After a couple of attempts to get the application approved, we are sad to say that our app has been rejected." Apple also banned Infurious Comics' “Murderdone.” Weirdly contradictory, it is now forgotten that while Apple’s banned the juvenilia app “iBoobs,” it permitted “iJiggles” and “Wobble,” although with “Wobble,” references to "boobs" and "booty" were removed.
Apple’s arbitrary censorship practices involve more than popular entertainment. It initially blocked Project Gutenberg's “The Kama Sutra of Vatsayana,” the ancient Sanskrit text (without illustrations) on sexual pleasures. Unacknowledged by Apple, the Kama Sutra was already available through other iPhone apps. A similar pattern is evident in its restricted e-publication of David Corney’s novel, “Knife Music.” Apple blocked it because of its apparent excessive use of the word "fuck.”
American First Amendment protections (and restrictions!) cover public media not private media. Thus, Janet Jackson’s exposure of her nipple on the CBS over-the-air broadcast of the Super Bowl was a contestation between the limits of expression and notions of public decency. It involved the FCC and, ultimately, the federal Courts. However, Apple’s iPhone is a proprietary mobile communications platform; its refusal to offer Project Gutenberg's “The Kama Sutra,” like Clear Channel’s refusal to play the Dixie Chicks, does not involve First Amendment issues but the arbitrary imposition of corporate standards of morality.
Apple is not alone in using its corporate muscle to censor what it determines to be “objectionable content.” Wal-Mart has long prided itself on censoring materials it considered to violate its “family values” policy. Censorship applies to books and music, extending to not only music lyrics but also album cover artwork. But what is “objectionable” is purely arbitrary, as Wal-Mart’s own policies indicate. “Wal-Mart does not display album or song titles that contain profanity,” its online music policy states. “However, Wal-Mart may carry some recordings that some customers might find offensive, indecent or objectionable.” Some?, which ones? and who decides?
Amazon was recently outed for delisting non-pornographic gay literature, including James Baldwin’s “Giovanni's Room,” Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” and Gore Vidal’s "The City and the Pillar." After being exposed, Amazon quickly claimed it was a technical error with no anti-gay censorship intended. Curiously, Chronicle Books’ “Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds," with photos of some 600 nude women, was never affected.
CVS, the nationwide drugstore chain, has found itself at the center of a series of local censorship confrontations. In Milwaukee, it faced community objections over its decision to no longer permit the in-store stocking of the “Shepherd Express,” a local weekly. In New York, it ran into flack at its Chelsea store over the content of two Christian-themed books that called homosexuality a “cancer,” sinful and “detestable” to God. When outraged residents informed the local paper, “Chelsea Now,” and the story was picked up by the “Times,” CVS removed the two books. A CVS spokesman, Michael DeAngelis, stated, “We are committed to building an environment of inclusion and acceptance that values diversity across all areas of our business.”
AT&T has faced repeated charges of arbitrary censorship among a host of corporate misdeeds. In 2007, it faced a firestorm of controversy when the lyrics of Pearl Jam were “accidentally” edited during the webcast of a Lollapalooza concert. Lead singer Eddie Vedder had revised the lyrics of the song "Daughter" to include anti-Bush sentiments and they were bleeped out. In addition, the revised lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" ("George Bush, leave this world alone; George Bush find yourself another home.") mysteriously disappeared from the webcast. AT&T quickly retreated, offering an apology that a programming partner had “accidentally” edited the webcast.
Last year, AT&T took a direct hand in locking access to parts of 4chan.org. 4chan is an anonymous Internet message board community that is known for its irreverence, mischief and lewdness. Specifically, AT&T blocked the img.4chan.org sub-domain used by the /b/ message board. Many web activists initially faulted AT&T for apparent censorship. AT&T claimed the blocking was a response to what is technically known as a DDoS (denial-of-service) attack and service was restored once the attack was thwarted.
* * *
Corporate facilitators are gaining increasing power to determine the appropriateness of media content. Facilitators are the middle-vendors who distribute media communications between the content producer and the (adult) audience or consumer. Such vendors include cable operators, telecommunication companies and retail chains. They are the pipeline between what is said and who gets to hear it.
The matrix of facilitators who control media distribution include AT&T and Amazon, Apple and CVS, Wal-Mart and Citibank. They exert an often-invisible stranglehold over freedom of expression. Once Americans step beyond the formal boundaries of “public” communications, be it by a newspaper, radio or broadcast television, First Amendment protections do not apply.
Corporations are anti-democratic organizations in two respects. They arbitrarily determine the content they choose to distribute, whether they function as a quasi-monopoly (like Wal-Mart) or a public carrier (like Apple). In addition, they formally restrict the rights of their employees to speak their mind.
The Supreme Court recently granted corporations greater First Amendment rights to participate in the electoral process. One can only wonder when the Court will extend similar rights to facilitate free expression through the respective distribution pipelines that these corporations control.
Why does Apple (and not the proverbial “marketplace”) determine the apps it runs? Apple’s iPhone’s use of the public airways in essentially no way different then a broadcast TV channel. Why is it not governed by the same common-carriage requirements? Wal-Mart takes full advantage of the public highway system to get customers to its doors. Why do the public’s freedoms of choice not extend into the store itself?
The deep suspicion of corporate censorship shared by web activists, civil libertarians and the public itself is well taken. To overcome such suspicion, the arbitrary, non-transparent and anti-democratic control that corporation facilitators have over content distribution must stop. If corporations are rewarded with greater influence (if not control) over the political process, they should at least be required to cease all attempts to control what free people can say or hear or see.
By DAVID ROSEN
A couple of weeks so ago, Jason Goldberg, founder and CEO of the soon-to-be-launched website, fabulis.com, woke to a shocking situation: Citibank had blocked his corporate bank account. As Goldberg posted on his blog, the bank’s action was done without prior notice and was imposed because of the site’s apparent “objectionable content.” And the content? Fabulis is to be a social networking and lifestyle service targeted to gay men.
A few days later, and after much indignant buzz on the web about the bank’s arbitrary action, Goldberg got a call from Citibank’s Bill Brown. According to Goldberg, “Bill runs all the New York branches. Bill seems like a good and smart guy. He is sincerely apologetic that an individual made a bad judgment call about our site.” Fabulis’ account was reinstated.
In all likelihood the blocking of Fabulis’ account was the result of a “bad judgment call.” As Goldberg reports, “Bill [Brown] will use this as an education and training opportunity.” One can only wonder what corporate “education and training” means at Citibank. The problem, sadly, seems more systemic: How is it that an individual bank employee (or small group) can block an account? What criteria and procedures does the bank use to determine “objectionable content”? These issues seem not to have been discussed between Goldberg and Brown.
Whether Citibank’s action was due to the action of a single employee or a decision by its top management, it speaks to the apparent increase in the censorship of online content now being imposed by corporate America. The struggle over censorship, over the content Americas can experience, dates from the nation’s founding. In 1711, the Massachusetts Bay Colony introduced regulations prohibiting the “Composing, Writing, Printing, Publishing, of Any Filthy Obscene or Prophane Song, Pamphlet, Libel or Mock-Sermon, in Imitation or in Mimicking of Preaching, or any other part of Divine Worship.”
Today, the battle over censorship, over the limits of acceptable content, is being fought on two fronts. The first is the formal or legal front; it involves the contestation over FCC “decency” standards (e.g., CBS’s fine for the over-the-air broadcast display of Janet Jackson’s nipple) and Court decisions (e.g., U.S. v. librarians over Internet porn).
The second front is more informal, non-legal and involves corporations selectively restricting what they offer the public. It often involves more subtle forms of censorship ranging from corporate identity or branding issues, product “quality” or technical standards, to market control factors and to unstated political or religious values. Both fronts need to be challenged with equal vigor; nevertheless, there appears to be an increase among the latter front, corporate censorship.
* * *
The battle between the Dixie Chicks and the country music establishment is the paradigmatic example of corporate censorship, both its imposition and its undoing. The Chicks appeared at a now-famous London concert in 2003 as the U.S. illegal invasion of Iraq loomed. One of the “chicks,” Natalie Maines, told the anti-war audience, "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."
Reports of Maines’ statement spread rapidly and the group faced a vicious backlash. It came from not only the pro-war right wing and the media establishment, but the country music industry as well. The Chicks found that radio stations (especially the reactionary Clear Channel network) refused to play their music, retailers refused to carry their albums, their live shows were cancelled and they suffered a plunge in record sales. They also received death threats.
As support for Bush’s imperialist folly eroded, anti-war sentiment became popular, acceptable among the political elite and corporate media. Those who long opposed the war were transformed from traitors to patriots. In 2007, the Dixie Chicks were rehabilitated, receiving five Grammy awards.
More recent examples of corporate censorship are equally political, but in a more arbitrary fashion. The Fabulis experience is illustrative. Clearly, the Citibank decision-maker(s) didn’t know their customer nor who backed his latest venture. Goldberg was a co-founder of Jobster, also started and ran socialmedian.com, which was sold to Xing in 2008. He’s a player in the web-entrepreneur ballgame. His latest venture is backed by the “Washington Post,” Mayfield Fund’s Allen Morgan and Burson-Marsteller’s Don Baer.
The experience of Goldberg’s Fabulis may well be an exception. However, Apple’s actions speak to a different form of censorship. The “New York Times” recently blew the whistle of Apple’s restrictions of applications it will run on its iPhone. Among those blocked are “SlideHer,” a videogame depicting a scantily-clad women, and “Sexy Scratch Off,” a lottery-type game depicting a woman wearing a scratch-off dress and revealing undergarments.
Apple’s iPhone supports an estimated 150,000 “apps” through its App Store and draws the line over what it considers “objectionable content.” Philip Schiller, Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing, argues that developers have been submitting “an increasing number of apps containing very objectionable content.” He added: “It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see.”
What all this huffing-&-puffing fails to acknowledge is that Apple offers the “Sports Illustrated” soft-core porn swimsuit issue. As Schiller acknowledged, “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format.” At Apple, as at many media companies, corporate interests determine decency standards.
Apple’s blockage of a variety of other “objectionable content” received less media attention. As first reported on the invaluable site, BoingBoing, Apple initially blocked episodes of the South Park cartoon series. South Park announced: "We first announced our iPhone App back in October [2008], after we submitted the Application to Apple for approval. After a couple of attempts to get the application approved, we are sad to say that our app has been rejected." Apple also banned Infurious Comics' “Murderdone.” Weirdly contradictory, it is now forgotten that while Apple’s banned the juvenilia app “iBoobs,” it permitted “iJiggles” and “Wobble,” although with “Wobble,” references to "boobs" and "booty" were removed.
Apple’s arbitrary censorship practices involve more than popular entertainment. It initially blocked Project Gutenberg's “The Kama Sutra of Vatsayana,” the ancient Sanskrit text (without illustrations) on sexual pleasures. Unacknowledged by Apple, the Kama Sutra was already available through other iPhone apps. A similar pattern is evident in its restricted e-publication of David Corney’s novel, “Knife Music.” Apple blocked it because of its apparent excessive use of the word "fuck.”
American First Amendment protections (and restrictions!) cover public media not private media. Thus, Janet Jackson’s exposure of her nipple on the CBS over-the-air broadcast of the Super Bowl was a contestation between the limits of expression and notions of public decency. It involved the FCC and, ultimately, the federal Courts. However, Apple’s iPhone is a proprietary mobile communications platform; its refusal to offer Project Gutenberg's “The Kama Sutra,” like Clear Channel’s refusal to play the Dixie Chicks, does not involve First Amendment issues but the arbitrary imposition of corporate standards of morality.
Apple is not alone in using its corporate muscle to censor what it determines to be “objectionable content.” Wal-Mart has long prided itself on censoring materials it considered to violate its “family values” policy. Censorship applies to books and music, extending to not only music lyrics but also album cover artwork. But what is “objectionable” is purely arbitrary, as Wal-Mart’s own policies indicate. “Wal-Mart does not display album or song titles that contain profanity,” its online music policy states. “However, Wal-Mart may carry some recordings that some customers might find offensive, indecent or objectionable.” Some?, which ones? and who decides?
Amazon was recently outed for delisting non-pornographic gay literature, including James Baldwin’s “Giovanni's Room,” Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” and Gore Vidal’s "The City and the Pillar." After being exposed, Amazon quickly claimed it was a technical error with no anti-gay censorship intended. Curiously, Chronicle Books’ “Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds," with photos of some 600 nude women, was never affected.
CVS, the nationwide drugstore chain, has found itself at the center of a series of local censorship confrontations. In Milwaukee, it faced community objections over its decision to no longer permit the in-store stocking of the “Shepherd Express,” a local weekly. In New York, it ran into flack at its Chelsea store over the content of two Christian-themed books that called homosexuality a “cancer,” sinful and “detestable” to God. When outraged residents informed the local paper, “Chelsea Now,” and the story was picked up by the “Times,” CVS removed the two books. A CVS spokesman, Michael DeAngelis, stated, “We are committed to building an environment of inclusion and acceptance that values diversity across all areas of our business.”
AT&T has faced repeated charges of arbitrary censorship among a host of corporate misdeeds. In 2007, it faced a firestorm of controversy when the lyrics of Pearl Jam were “accidentally” edited during the webcast of a Lollapalooza concert. Lead singer Eddie Vedder had revised the lyrics of the song "Daughter" to include anti-Bush sentiments and they were bleeped out. In addition, the revised lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" ("George Bush, leave this world alone; George Bush find yourself another home.") mysteriously disappeared from the webcast. AT&T quickly retreated, offering an apology that a programming partner had “accidentally” edited the webcast.
Last year, AT&T took a direct hand in locking access to parts of 4chan.org. 4chan is an anonymous Internet message board community that is known for its irreverence, mischief and lewdness. Specifically, AT&T blocked the img.4chan.org sub-domain used by the /b/ message board. Many web activists initially faulted AT&T for apparent censorship. AT&T claimed the blocking was a response to what is technically known as a DDoS (denial-of-service) attack and service was restored once the attack was thwarted.
* * *
Corporate facilitators are gaining increasing power to determine the appropriateness of media content. Facilitators are the middle-vendors who distribute media communications between the content producer and the (adult) audience or consumer. Such vendors include cable operators, telecommunication companies and retail chains. They are the pipeline between what is said and who gets to hear it.
The matrix of facilitators who control media distribution include AT&T and Amazon, Apple and CVS, Wal-Mart and Citibank. They exert an often-invisible stranglehold over freedom of expression. Once Americans step beyond the formal boundaries of “public” communications, be it by a newspaper, radio or broadcast television, First Amendment protections do not apply.
Corporations are anti-democratic organizations in two respects. They arbitrarily determine the content they choose to distribute, whether they function as a quasi-monopoly (like Wal-Mart) or a public carrier (like Apple). In addition, they formally restrict the rights of their employees to speak their mind.
The Supreme Court recently granted corporations greater First Amendment rights to participate in the electoral process. One can only wonder when the Court will extend similar rights to facilitate free expression through the respective distribution pipelines that these corporations control.
Why does Apple (and not the proverbial “marketplace”) determine the apps it runs? Apple’s iPhone’s use of the public airways in essentially no way different then a broadcast TV channel. Why is it not governed by the same common-carriage requirements? Wal-Mart takes full advantage of the public highway system to get customers to its doors. Why do the public’s freedoms of choice not extend into the store itself?
The deep suspicion of corporate censorship shared by web activists, civil libertarians and the public itself is well taken. To overcome such suspicion, the arbitrary, non-transparent and anti-democratic control that corporation facilitators have over content distribution must stop. If corporations are rewarded with greater influence (if not control) over the political process, they should at least be required to cease all attempts to control what free people can say or hear or see.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Freeing the Foulmouthed Two
Torn from the pages of history, and picking up the torch once held by the likes of the great Lenny Bruce, the saga of Bowley & Wilson and the lovely and talented First Amendment.
These guys are friends of the family...
THE HARROWING ACCOUNT OF BOWLEY AND WILSONS' ARREST AND TORTUROUS INCARCERATION IN THE DALLAS CITY JAIL (BOWLEYS' VERSION.....WILSON TELLS THIS MUCH BETTER THAN I DO, BUT I'LL TAKE THE FIRST SWING AT IT). First of all, there had been some contact with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC), concerning the deportment of Bowley and Wilson on stage. "A little over the line..." was mentioned. And a $5000 fine. Deal or no deal? No deal. We took it as a shakedown. Extortion even. And we were young and cocky and stupid. Stupid smart, as it turned out. So, the TABC started to send in undercover "agents" (these were guys who didn't quite get accepted to the Dallas Police Department, but still wanted to walk around with a gun. And cheap suit). They didn't own tape recorders (or didn't know how to run 'em) so they'd write down everything we said, and had a secretary transcribe it later. (BTW, I read some of the transcriptions and was reallllllly funny......where I said to some gal "Don't be such a sour-puss" in a double entendre-ish wise-guy way, the TABC wrote down "Mr. Bowley says to the young lady "You have a sour smelling Pussy"). Yikes!!!
When the TABC thought they had a tight and righteous case, they launched their invasion plan. Would have loved to have been in that meeting. The maps. The second by second schedule. Blocking the escape routes. What kind of ammunition. Hollow points??? Please please just this once??????
Now, Bowley and Wilson almost always ending the first show singing Eric Claptons' 'Cocaine'....during which the band and the whole audience would get drenched in corn starch powder, Bowley head to toe. it was then the TABC sprung their trap. The head TABC guy was named Elvis.....Something-or-other.....anyone remember to help me out here......who lead the "task-force" to the stage. Guns . Badges. Bad haircuts. The audience HOWLED thinking it was part of the show. Top gun Elvis I guess was introducing him self ("I"m officer Elvie ---------- from the TABC and you're under arrest, " or something. My ears were packed with corn starch and my eyes with the same....the only word i heard was "Elvis" and thinking someone was requesting an ELVIS song at that inconvenient moment, I said something like "f**k off, were takin a break." Yikes!! The handcuffs went on. The audience HOWLED. The fake fuzzies went through the dressing room looking for drugs, and OF COURSE found nothing. It was in the kitchen. Putzes.
Into the police cars and downtown to jail. The fake fuzzies turning us over to real cops. Please bare in mind that we knew tons of Dallas Police Officers. We'd had so many cops' bachelor parties in our place we were practically members of the union. They made sure we got home at night. They were incredulous when we were hauled in. And HOWLED.
The booking officer, whom we did not know, took our information and wanted to take our stuff. I was wearing (and still am actually) a solid gold band that my friend Jerry Forrest of the jewelry forrest had made for me and permanently soldered onto my wrist. The officer wanted to get it off me. "How do you get this f**kin' thing off? There's no f**kin clasp here? What the f**k am I supposed to do with this? God damn motherf........" He cut it off. "Now" he said "what were you boys arrested for?" "Sayin' the word f**k" we said.
Remember, we were covered head to toe in white powder. And a matter of GREAT CURIOSITY to all the other prisoners. "What's with you guys?" they asked. "Well,' we'd explain "we were making a Coke delivery in the convertible when the Cops started chasing us. We tried to throw it all out during the chase, but it kept blowing back on us." We were stars. Dollar bill were rolled, pens taken apart to make straws, and we were followed everywhere, our clothes and clouds of trailing dust sniffed, snorted, licked and loved.
Our crackerjack legal team of Kevin Clancy and Bill Bratton arrived and bailed us out. The law the TABC had arrested us under had already been declaired unconstitutional, but some prick in the D.A.'s office decided to charge us with public obscenity. Because it was already all over the newspapers and TV I guess. We were famous. And now obligated to be ten times dirtier than we ever were before. Eventually the Playboy Magazine Defense Team got involved in the case (read all about it in the 1982 August issue of Playboy Magazine). We have been in prison in Huntsville Texas ever since.
~John Bowley
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