Censorship

Source: The Pirate Party of Finland

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international consortium for WWW-standards on the Internet has ended up on the child pornography blacklist maintained by the Finnish police. Anyone who tries to access it through at least the Finnish ISP 'DNA' gets an announcement stating that “access to this site has been denied based on the law against distribution of child pornography (1.12.2006/1068)”.

The law on Internet censorship that came into effect in Finland at the end of 2006 gives Finnish police the authority to maintain a blacklist that Finnish ISP:s can use. The law was heavily criticized for only trying to sweep the problems out of sight. The list, maintained by officials, is not controlled by any level of court, is impossible to keep up-to-date, and easily blocks access to fully legitimate sites. The addresses of the blocked sites are not public information, although they can be examined by testing. Among other things, the list contained a memorial website devoted to the Princess of Thailand, and a Finnish site that openly criticizes the blacklist. The possible financial losses due to unfounded blacklistings are not compensated by anyone.

This fresh incident is an addition to the hapless history of the blacklist. W3C, which was founded in 1994, is an international organization with the mission to create shared standards for the world wide web. The site is used as reference material by vocational schools and universities, as well as by IT companies. The censorship of the W3C-website for suspicion of distributing child pornography is absurd in every way, and insults the reputation of one of the most important standardization organizations in the world.

The Pirate Party of Finland considers this further evidence that the blacklist does not work as intended, and as a very concerning symptom of the updating practice. “If the website of a large, well-known and significant organization can end up blocked, is there any reason to believe that some smaller and less known sites doesn’t share its fate? Based on experience so far, none whatsoever”, states the announcer of the party, Kaj Sotala. Blocking the W3C-website shows us that despite promises made by the government, updating of the list is not any more reliable now than what it was before.

The Pirate Party of Finland appeals to the Finnish government to stop wasting valuable public resources with child protection as an excuse. The blacklist does not stop the distribution of child pornography in any way, and children’s rights are a far too valuable thing to be used as a means to collect cheap political points.

We recommend using OpenDNS to bypass any censorship projected by the Finnish government. // Fl0wer.net

Source: Associated Press

The popular video-sharing site YouTube has moved to purge terrorists training films and other videos that extremist groups might use to attract new members, an imperfect process that will rely on users to report objectionable videos.

It's sort of like the post Sept. 11 advice — if you see something, say something. It's nearly impossible to vet every video when 13 hours of new video are uploaded every few minutes.

A quick search on Google-owned YouTube on Friday, one day after the new policies were posted, turned up several videos on how to make bombs using, for instance, such household items as toilet bowl cleaner and tin foil.

In addition to barring terror training videos, the new YouTube community guidelines include bans on videos that incite others to commit violent acts, videos on activities such as how to make bombs and footage of sniper attacks. Previously, it had policies in place against showing people "getting hurt, attacked or humiliated," banning even clips OK for TV news shows.

YouTube has not identified specific videos on its site that led to the change, nor said exactly how it will choose those that are purged. YouTube does not deny that extremist groups could have used the site.

Source: Telegraph

Yang Jia, a 28-year-old unemployed man from Beijing, appeared in court in Shanghai charged with an alleged attack against the police on July 1, the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr Yang is said to have thrown molotov cocktails into a police station in Zhabei, a northern suburb of the city, before entering the building and attacking a group of unarmed officers with a knife. He was arrested at the scene.

However, instead of condemnation, he has received widespread approval from Chinese internet users, or netizens, for his apparent act of defiance.

He has become a symbol for the growing number of people who are attacking Chinese police in protest at the brutality of the state.

Source: If Americans Knew

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s major sources of instability. Americans are directly connected to this conflict, and increasingly imperiled by its devastation.

Below are charts of nine little-known statistics.
Please click on any statistic for the source and more information.

Israeli and Palestinian Children Killed Since September 29, 2000
118 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 952 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000. (View Source)

Israelis and Palestinians Killed Since September 29, 2000
	1,024 Israelis and at least 4,274 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000. (View Source)

Israelis and Palestinians Injured Since September 29, 2000
7,633 Israelis and 31,531 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000. (View Source)

Real Version:

TV Version:

Source: Wired

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging," said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. "No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- it's most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced."

Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

Failure to do so, the document adds, could result in a court-martial, or "administrative, disciplinary, contractual, or criminal action."