Facebook wages censorship war against moms of autistic children who protest GMOs: Exclusive interview with Andrea Lalama
When Facebook suspended the account of a mom of two autistic children who held anti-GMO signs at the recent rally, it became national news. Drudge Report linked to our Natural News story which documented Facebook censoring multiple accounts for sharing a photo Facebook absurdly called “abusive.”
That photo, it turns out, was nothing more than a picture of two children holding up hand-made signs at the March Against Monsanto. One of the signs read, “Biopesticides = Autism, Say No to GMO” and the other sign read, “Organic Food It’s My Medicine, Label GMOs” (see videos in source).
This defiance against GMOs was apparently too much for Facebook to tolerate, so it took immediate action to censor the account of the mom, Andrea Lalama.
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Google, Facebook And Twitter Ordered To Delete Photos By UK Law Enforcement
It seems that, once again, the UK is going censorship crazy and not realizing how that only attacts more attention to that which they’re trying to censor. This time, it involves some photos that were posted online of one Jon Venables, who at the age of 10, murdered 2-year old James Bulger, in a rather horrifying story. Venables was released from jail in 2001, at the age of 19 (though he has since gone back to prison). Photos of Venables, now 30 years old and apparently using a new identity to avoid his past, appeared online. The UK apparently wants a right to forget the fact that Venables did what he did, and seems to think that there should be no additional public consequences. Attorney General Dominic Grieve has said he’s going to take legal action against anyone posting the photo, and has gone even further in telling Google, Facebook and Twitter that they need to magically delete any and all such photos that appear via their services.
It appears that at least Twitter has pushed back a little bit, pointing out that it will take down images if the law requires it upon notification, but that it cannot and will not monitor every one of its users to prevent them from posting the image […]
Google, Facebook And Twitter Ordered To Delete Photos By UK Law Enforcement | Techdirt
Greek government makes extraordinary and undemocratic attacks on free speech
via @kaatje36:
There’s no element of surprise in the fact that things move faster when going downhill. In the wake of revelations such as the alleged torture of detained anarchists and the crackdown against activists in Skouries (Northern Greece), the Greek government and especially New Democracy has decided to use the “rule of law” in order to tighten its grip of the Greek media while at the same time winning back some of the voters they lost to the Golden Dawn.
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Greek government makes extraordinary and undemocratic attacks on free speech
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Playwright Gurpreet Bhatti said that her play scheduled for broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 1 February has had lines removed from the script. During Index on Censorship’s arts conference Taking the Offensive at the Southbank Centre on 29 January, Bhatti told attendees that her play Heart of Darkness had been altered by broadcasters. The episode, due to be played on the Afternoon Drama slot, followed the investigation into the honour killing of a 16 year old Asian girl – a case investigators are told to handle sensitively because of her Muslim heritage. Bhatti’s play Behzti was axed from a Birmingham theatre in 2004 following protests from the Sikh community. The playwright denied the BBC’s compliance department accusations that lines were offensive in Heart of Darkness, saying “we live in a fear-ridden culture.”
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Index Index – International free speech round up 30/01/13 | THE FREE SPEECH BLOG](http://24.media.tumblr.com/de5a7d9f39dc8dacefb6fb0b96c6bfcf/tumblr_mhgbfcXC9L1qi5tjxo1_400.gif)
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Playwright Gurpreet Bhatti said that her play scheduled for broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 1 February has had lines removed from the script. During Index on Censorship’s arts conference Taking the Offensive at the Southbank Centre on 29 January, Bhatti told attendees that her play Heart of Darkness had been altered by broadcasters. The episode, due to be played on the Afternoon Drama slot, followed the investigation into the honour killing of a 16 year old Asian girl – a case investigators are told to handle sensitively because of her Muslim heritage. Bhatti’s play Behzti was axed from a Birmingham theatre in 2004 following protests from the Sikh community. The playwright denied the BBC’s compliance department accusations that lines were offensive in Heart of Darkness, saying “we live in a fear-ridden culture.”
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Index Index – International free speech round up 30/01/13 | THE FREE SPEECH BLOG
Controlling your media (by Sowingthewinds, via @agapevitae)
#Twitter Finally Reinstates Journalist's Twitter Account, But Questions Raised Over Its Actions
from the failures dept
Yesterday, we wrote about Twitter suspending the account of Guy Adams, an LA-based journalist for the UK-based Independent paper. Just a little while ago, the account was turned back on, and Twitter has now published a statement about the incident.
Adams had been highly critical of NBC Universal’s coverage of the Olympics, and at one point tweeted out the corporate email address of NBC’s Olympics boss, Gary Zenkel. As many people have noted, that information was hardly private, as NBC Universal follows a standard format for emails (firstname.lastname@nbcuni.com). Furthermore, Zenkel’s email address was already easy to find online. Making this a lot more complicated is the fact that NBC Universal and Twitter have a business partnership over Olympics coverage.
After the initial story came out, in which it was confirmed that Twitter suspended the account over the publishing the email address, NBC Universal put out a statement, claiming that it had filed the complaint. Making things more complicated, however, is the news that Twitter apparently alerted NBC Universal to the tweets in the first place. Twitter’s statement puts a lot of focus on the fact that it is not their policy to proactively monitor tweets, and then admits they violated that policy in this case: […]
#Portugal: #Tugaleaks Bank Account Deemed as #Terrorist and Closed #censorship
Website Tugaleaks, which aims to serve since December 2010 as Portugal’s Wikileaks, had its bank account for donations arbitrarily closed on July 13 with no official communication [pt]. Tugaleaks contributors were finally told the account had been closed based on Act 25/2008 [pt] of money laundering and terrorist financing, which they contested and thus concluded: “We must bother lots of people, for sure”.
Portugal: Tugaleaks Bank Account Deemed as Terrorist and Closed · Global Voices
“Anonymous” Hacks Anti-Piracy Takedown Tool
By Ernesto, July 6, 2012
This spring nearly all popular BitTorrent sites were blocked by Indian ISPs following a court order. The blockades were eventually lifted, but the many “Anonymous” groups who revolted are not done yet. The latest target is the anti-piracy group Copyright Labs, whose servers were painfully compromised this week. The hackers didn’t take the site down, but altered the message that is sent to website owners by their automated takedown tool.
Two months ago millions of Indians were shaken up by a mass anti-piracy action.
Internet providers all across the country blocked access to major BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and Torrentz.eu after a local court issued a so-called John Doe order.
The order wasn’t targeted at a specific site or ISP but gave the copyright holder carte blanche to demand broad blockades, which they did. In response, Internet providers, government websites and media companies were targeted in DDoS attack reprisals by “Anonymous” groups.
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