Account Deactivation and Content Removal: Guiding Principles and Practices for Companies and Users
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THE BUSINESS of CENSORSHIP: CONTENT MANAGEMENT and the CHINESE ECONOMY By
THE BUSINESS OF CENSORSHIP: CONTENT MANAGEMENT AND THE CHINESE ECONOMY by JOSHUA CLARK B.A. (Hons.), Queen's University at Kingston, 2009 MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2010 ©Joshua Clark, 2010 Abstract Content control and censorship on the Internet are increasingly important topics for scholars of democratization, media and communications. Most studies have examined the relationship between the Internet, content management and various elements important to democratization such as the formation of civil society organizations. This thesis attempts to expand this discussion by examining the effects of online content management on economic systems, using the People's Republic of China as an example. China features a globally integrated economy that is increasing dependent on manufacturing and services while simultaneously maintaining one of the most extensive online content management systems in the world. This paper attempts to show how the Communist Party of China is able to reconcile the need for connectivity in order to drive their economy while maintaining political control. It also discusses the long-term implications of this strategy. The first section consists of a series of quantitative and qualitative tests to determine how various classes of websites are managed. These tests reveal that in order to maintain the flow of information necessary for a globally integrated economy, the Chinese Communist Party utilizes strategies that manage but not block the information flows related to business. This survey is followed by a case study examining the relationship between Google and China, and the implications of Chinese regulation and control for the broader economy. -
West Censoring East
West Censoring East The Use of Western Technologies by Middle East Censors 2010-2011 Executive Summary The OpenNet Initiative has documented network filtering of the Internet by national governments in over forty countries worldwide. Countries use this network filtering as one of many methods to control the flow of online content that is objectionable to the filtering governments for social, political, and security reasons. Filtering is particularly appealing to governments as it allows them to control content not published within their national borders. National governments use a variety of technical means to filter the Internet; in this paper, we analyze the use of American- and Canadian- made software for the purpose of government-level filtering in the Middle East and North Africa. In this report, the authors find that nine countries in the region utilize Western-made tools for the purpose of blocking social and political content, effectively blocking a total of over 20 million Internet users from accessing such websites. 1 The authors analyze as well the increasing opacity of the usage of Western-made tools for filtering at the national level. Helmi Noman and Jillian C. York authored this report. ONI principal investigators Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain authored the foreword. Noman is a Senior Research Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, and is a Berkman Center Research Affiliate. York is the coordinator for the OpenNet Initiative at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The authors would like to thank James Tay of Citizen Lab for technical support and test data analysis. -
Everyone's Guide to Bypassing Internet Censorship
EVERYONE’S GUIDE TO BY-PASSING INTERNET CENSORSHIP FOR CITIZENS WORLDWIDE A CIVISEC PROJECT The Citizen Lab The University of Toronto September, 2007 cover illustration by Jane Gowan Glossary page 4 Introduction page 5 Choosing Circumvention page 8 User self-assessment Provider self-assessment Technology page 17 Web-based Circumvention Systems Tunneling Software Anonymous Communications Systems Tricks of the trade page 28 Things to remember page 29 Further reading page 29 Circumvention Technologies Circumvention technologies are any tools, software, or methods used to bypass Inter- net filtering. These can range from complex computer programs to relatively simple manual steps, such as accessing a banned website stored on a search engine’s cache, instead of trying to access it directly. Circumvention Providers Circumvention providers install software on a computer in a non-filtered location and make connections to this computer available to those who access the Internet from a censored location. Circumvention providers can range from large commercial organi- zations offering circumvention services for a fee to individuals providing circumven- tion services for free. Circumvention Users Circumvention users are individuals who use circumvention technologies to bypass Internet content filtering. 4 Internet censorship, or content filtering, has become a major global problem. Whereas once it was assumed that states could not control Internet communications, according to research by the OpenNet Initiative (http://opennet.net) more than 25 countries now engage in Internet censorship practices. Those with the most pervasive filtering policies have been found to routinely block access to human rights organi- zations, news, blogs, and web services that challenge the status quo or are deemed threatening or undesirable. -
JULIAN ASSANGE: When Google Met Wikileaks
JULIAN ASSANGE JULIAN +OR Books Email Images Behind Google’s image as the over-friendly giant of global tech when.google.met.wikileaks.org Nobody wants to acknowledge that Google has grown big and bad. But it has. Schmidt’s tenure as CEO saw Google integrate with the shadiest of US power structures as it expanded into a geographically invasive megacorporation... Google is watching you when.google.met.wikileaks.org As Google enlarges its industrial surveillance cone to cover the majority of the world’s / WikiLeaks population... Google was accepting NSA money to the tune of... WHEN GOOGLE MET WIKILEAKS GOOGLE WHEN When Google Met WikiLeaks Google spends more on Washington lobbying than leading military contractors when.google.met.wikileaks.org WikiLeaks Search I’m Feeling Evil Google entered the lobbying rankings above military aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, with a total of $18.2 million spent in 2012. Boeing and Northrop Grumman also came below the tech… Transcript of secret meeting between Julian Assange and Google’s Eric Schmidt... wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt.html Assange: We wouldn’t mind a leak from Google, which would be, I think, probably all the Patriot Act requests... Schmidt: Which would be [whispers] illegal... Assange: Tell your general counsel to argue... Eric Schmidt and the State Department-Google nexus when.google.met.wikileaks.org It was at this point that I realized that Eric Schmidt might not have been an emissary of Google alone... the delegation was one part Google, three parts US foreign-policy establishment... We called the State Department front desk and told them that Julian Assange wanted to have a conversation with Hillary Clinton... -
Social Movements and Network Analysis in Tunisia Before the Arab Spring Movimientos Sociales Y Análisis De Redes En Túnez Antes De La Primavera Árabe
Social movements and network analysis in Tunisia before the Arab Spring Movimientos sociales y análisis de redes en Túnez antes de la Primavera Árabe Citation: Laura Pérez-Altable (2016) & Saúl Blanco. "Social movements and network analysis in Tunisia before the Arab Spring". Hipertext.net [Online], 2016. Núm. 14. http://raco.cat/index.php/Hipertext/article/view/311836/405621 DOI: 10.2436/20.8050.01.30 Laura Pérez-Altable Saúl Blanco [email protected] [email protected] Universitat Pomeu Fabra Universidad Carlos III Keywords: Social movements, social network analysis, arab spring, activism Abstract: In recent years, there has been a great deal of interest on the role of social media in the so-called Arab Spring revolt, but the uprising was not the result of a sudden event. Before it began in late 2010, protests have been staged in some Arab countries that paved the way to this major event (Al-Rawi, 2014, p. 916; Cassara, 2013, p.191). As Gilad Lotan et al. noted (2011, p. 1376) each country has its own context; hence this article focusses on Tunisia. Tunisia was the first Arab country where the Arab Spring began, on December 17, 2010, when Mohammed Bouazizi, a fruit vendor from Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire in front of a public building. As it is necessary to understand what led to the growing interest on the role of social media, this article examines the digital activism, specifically on Twitter, which took place during the months that preceded the uprising in Tunisia. Thus, this article focusses on the latency phase of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, following the framework proposed by Alberto Melucci in his seminal work Nomads of the present (1989). -
Deep Packet Inspection and Internet Censorship: International Convergence on an ‘Integrated Technology of Control’1
Deep Packet Inspection and Internet Censorship: International Convergence on an ‘Integrated Technology of Control’1 Ben Wagner, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Universiteit Leiden Introduction* The academic debate on deep packet inspection (DPI) centres on methods of network management and copyright protection and is directly linked to a wider debate on freedom of speech on the Internet. The debate is deeply rooted in an Anglo-Saxon perspective of the Internet and is frequently depicted as a titanic struggle for the right to fundamentally free and unfettered access to the Internet.2 This debate is to a great extent defined by commercial interests. These interests whether of copyright owners, Internet service providers, 1 (Bendrath 2009) * A first draft of this paper was presented at the 3rd Annual Giganet Symposium in December 2008 in Hyderabad, India. For their advice and support preparing this paper I would like to thank: Ralf Bendrath, Claus Wimmer, Geert Lovink, Manuel Kripp, Hermann Thoene, Paul Sterzel, David Herzog, Rainer Hülsse, Wolfgang Fänderl and Stefan Scholz. 2 (Frieden 2008, 633-676; Goodin 2008; Lehr et al. 2007; Mueller 2007, 18; Zittrain 2008) Deep Packet Inspection and Internet Censorship: International Convergence on an ‘Integrated Technology of Control’1, by Ben Wagner application developers or consumers, are all essentially economic. All of these groups have little commercial interest in restricting free speech as such. However some might well be prepared to accept a certain amount of ‘collateral damage’ to internet free speech in exchange for higher revenues. It can be argued that more transparent and open practices from network service providers are needed regarding filtering policy and the technology used. -
The Internet and Elections: the 2006 Presidential
ONI Internet Watch 001 2 About OpenNet Initiative’s Internet Watch Reports Internet Watch reports investigate emerging trends in Internet filtering and control. These occasional reports take a detailed look at events, policies, technologies and countries where filtering and content controls are occurring in new and unexpected ways, or where filtering has been alleged but undetected using conventional ONI testing methodologies. They are designed to test hypotheses, refine monitoring techniques, and report on the cutting edge of the global informational battle space. Internet Watch reports are available in download or hard copy from the ONI. ONI Internet Watch 001 3 Executive Summary As Internet penetration increases globally, so too does its importance to political contests. Both the Internet and cell phones were used to mobilize the masses during the recent “colour revolutions” in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, which brought down long-standing authoritarian regimes. This first Internet Watch report, which focuses on election monitoring, represents a pilot venture for the OpenNet Initiative. The motivating hypothesis is that in democratically-challenged countries, the openness of the Net is likely to come under increasing pressure at key political times. One key conclusion thus far is that state tampering with the Internet during election periods is likely to be multi- faceted, elusive, less direct, and more difficult to prove than outright filtering and blocking. A second conclusion, based on the first, is that monitoring the Internet for openness during elections is an extremely slippery task that requires the development of new testing methodologies and monitoring capabilities. This report presents the findings of ONI’s efforts to monitor the Internet during the March 2006 presidential elections in Belarus. -
The International Politics of Authoritarian Internet Control in Iran
International Journal of Communication 12(2018), 3856–3876 1932–8036/20180005 Transforming Threats to Power: The International Politics of Authoritarian Internet Control in Iran MARCUS MICHAELSEN1 University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Authoritarian Internet control is generally explained by domestic power preservation: to curtail dissent within their borders, authoritarian regimes censor, monitor, and shape online communications. Yet this focus neglects important external factors. As a global communication technology, the Internet carries strategic and normative interests of competing international actors. This article investigates the influence of international politics on practices of Internet surveillance and censorship. Using the case of Iran, I analyze how opposition to the West, and particularly to the United States, led the Iranian state to perceive the Internet as a strategic battleground for regime stability. I argue that external threats in the form of democracy promotion, cyberattacks, and sanctions have created conditions enabling the Iranian state to advance and justify capabilities for censorship and surveillance. They have also pushed the regime to build a “national Internet” that is more resistant to outside influence and open to state control. Authoritarian practices are thus produced in international struggles over the use, content, and infrastructure of digital technologies. Keywords: information and communication technologies, censorship, surveillance, authoritarianism, international relations, Iran The fundamental aim of authoritarian rulers is to maintain and expand political power. In the field of Internet politics, authoritarian power holders have pursued this aim by establishing sophisticated systems of Internet control to curb alternative information and dissent perceived as challenge to their rule. They have also come to benefit from digital communication technologies for information manipulation, monitoring, and surveillance. -
Social Media and Protest Mobilization: Evidence from the Tunisian Revolution
Social Media and Protest Mobilization: Evidence from the Tunisian Revolution Anita Breuer German Development Institute Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik German Development Institute Tulpenfeld 6 D - 53113 Bonn www.die-gdi.de [email protected] Todd Landman Institute for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, University of Essex University of Essex Wivenhoe Park Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ United Kingdom www.idcr.org.uk [email protected] Dorothea Farquhar Institute for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, University of Essex University of Essex Wivenhoe Park Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ United Kingdom www.idcr.org.uk [email protected] Paper prepared for the 4th European Communication Conference for the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), Istanbul, Turkey, 24-27 October 2012. DRAFT ONLY: DO NOT CITE WITHOUT THE AUTHORS’ PERMISSION Abstract One of the hallmarks of the Arab Spring uprisings has been the role of social media in articulating demands of the popular protesters and broadcasting dramatic events as they unfolded, but it is less clear whether social media acted as a catalyst for many of the movements in the region. Using evidence from the popular protests in Tunisia between December 2010 and January 2011, this paper argues that social media acted as an important resource for popular mobilization against the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Drawing on the insights from ‘resource mobilization theory’ (RMT), we show that social media (1) allowed a ‘digital elite’ to break the national media blackout through brokering information for mainstream media; (2) provided the basis for intergroup collaboration that facilitated a large ‘cycle of protest’ to develop; (3) overcame the collective action problem through reporting event magnitudes that raised the perception of success for potential free riders, and (4) led to an additional element of ‘emotional mobilization’ through depicting the worst atrocities associated with the regime’s response to the protests. -
Tunileaks, Les Documents Dévoilés Par Wikileaks Concernant La Tunisie
Les documents sont reproduits à lʼissue de cette Il est important ici de signaler quʼil sʼagit donc des présentation. câbles du pouvoir civil par opposition aux instances militaires. Pour le cas des documents auxquels nous TuniLeaks, les documents dévoilés par avons eu accès, en lʼoccurrence ceux concernant la Tunisie, il est frappant de relever la place des Wikileaks concernant la Tunisie : préoccupations américaines relatives aux droits de Quelques réactions à chaud. lʼHomme. Ce qui pour nous a été une surprise, dʼautant plus quʼil ne sʼagit pas de communiqués publics destinés à calmer des ONG, mais des Nawaat relaye, en exclusivité, une partie des échanges privés entre des diplomates. Sans aucun documents secrets qui concernent la Tunisie doute, l'ensemble des documents mis en ligne par dévoilés par Wikileaks. Le site qui a déjà été à Wikileaks révélera-t-il, s'agissant d'autres pays, des l'origine de la fuite de milliers de documents sur éléments qui heurtent des principes de droit de l'engagement américain en Irak et en Afghanistan. l'Homme. Mais pour le cas de la Tunisie, cela ne Les documents sont issus du réseau SIPRNet semble pas avoir été le cas au sein des documents (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) de dont nous avons disposés. lʼadministration américaine utilisé pour la transmission de mémos diplomatiques et autres Nos premières appréciations sur le contenu sont des documents secrets. Tous les documents relatifs à la appréciations à chaud. Mais nous aurons lʼoccasion Tunisie sont classés secrets : (Classification de revenir dessus après plusieurs lectures SECRET//NOFORN). « Noforn », qui est une approfondies, seules à même de permettre de saisir restriction supplémentaire, signifie « Not releasable des détails qui pourraient sembler anodins à to Foreign Nationals », autrement dit « non diffusable première vue. -
Development and Democracy in the Tunisian Revolution
The Process of Revolutionary Protest: Development and Democracy in the Tunisian Revolution Christopher Barrie∗ July 30, 2021 Abstract Revolutionary protest rarely begins life as democratic or revolutionary. Instead, it grows in a process of positive feedback, incorporating new constituencies and generating new demands. If protest is not revolutionary at its onset, theory should reflect this and be able to explain the endogenous emergence of democratic demands. In this article, I combine multiple data sources on the 2010-11 Tunisian Revolution, including survey data, an original event catalogue, and field interviews. I show that the correlates of protest occurrence and participation change significantly during the uprising. Using the Tunisian case as a theory-building exercise, I argue that the formation of protest coalitions is essential, rather than incidental, to democratic revolution. ∗Christopher Barrie is Lecturer in Computational Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Correspon- dence to: [email protected]. 1 1 Introduction Mass mobilization is now a central pillar in in the theoretical and empirical scholarship on democratization. But while political transition to democracy can be marked in time—by the ouster of an authoritarian or the holding of elections—mass mobilization constitutes a pro- cess. A large body of empirical work in the democratization literature nonetheless treats revolutionary protest, or revolutionary protest participation, as discrete, unitary events amenable to cross-sectional forms of analysis. A separate body of work, particular to the formal modelling tradition, incorporates elements of endogeneity and process but assumes common thresholds governing participation dynamics, thereby again conceiving of revolu- tionary protest as unitary. In this article I propose that this ontology is wrongheaded; protest is rarely revolutionary at its onset and the goals and orienting demands of protest waves can be generated in the context of contention. -
State Power 2.0.Pdf
STATE POWER 2.0 Proof Copy 000 Hussain book.indb 1 9/9/2013 2:02:58 PM This collection is dedicated to the international networks of activists, hactivists, and enthusiasts leading the global movement for Internet freedom. Proof Copy 000 Hussain book.indb 2 9/9/2013 2:02:58 PM State Power 2.0 Authoritarian Entrenchment and Political Engagement Worldwide Edited by MUZAMMIL M. HUSSAIN University of Michigan, USA PHILIP N. HOWARD University of Washington, USA Proof Copy 000 Hussain book.indb 3 9/9/2013 2:02:59 PM © Muzammil M. Hussain and Philip N. Howard 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Muzammil M. Hussain and Philip N. Howard have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street Union Road Suite 3-1 Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818 Surrey, GU9 7PT USA England www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Howard, Philip N. State Power 2.0 : Authoritarian Entrenchment and Political Engagement Worldwide / by Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4094-5469-4 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4094-5470-0 (ebook) -- ISBN 978- 1-4724-0328-5 (epub) 1.