Information Policy

More Iran Internet Disruptions Raise Concerns Over Censorship As Elections Loom

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians faced a second and more extensive disruption of Internet access Monday, just a week after email and social networking sites were blocked, raising concerns about state censorship ahead of parliamentary elections.

The latest Internet blockade affected the most common form of secure connections, including all encrypted international websites outside of Iran that depend on the Secure Sockets Layer protocol, which display addresses beginning with "https."

"Email, proxies and all the secure channels that start with 'https' are not available," said a Tehran-based technology expert who declined to be identified.

"The situation regarding accessing these websites is even worse than last week because the VPNs are not working."

Many Iranians use virtual private network, or VPN, software to get around the extensive government Internet filter which aims to prevent access to a wide range of websites including many foreign news sites and social networks like Facebook.

Last week, millions of Iranians suffered serious disruption in accessing email and social networking sites amid concerns the government is extending its surveillance on ordinary citizens.

Iranians have grappled with increased obstacles to using the Internet since opposition supporters used social networking to organize protests after the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The government denied any fraud in the vote which ignited large-scale street protests that were crushed by security services after eight months.

Iran is preparing to hold parliamentary elections on March 2, the first national election since 2009

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/20/iran-internet-disruptions-elections_n_1288524.html

Google censors internet in Croatia

Details from Google's Transparency Report show that in the period between July and December 2010, Google was forced to censor content in "Croatian" on the internet.

The report showed that Google received over 10 requests from Croatian authorites for the removal of content from its service. Google had removed all of the disputed content. As Google explains, in situations when there are fewer than ten requests for censorship, no exact figures are published, so it is impossible to speculate on how many claims the Croatian government actually sent to Google.

When the number of requests is less than ten, details regarding the requests are not specified, so unfortunately more information about the content that was censored is not available. It is worth mentioning that in the periods before and after this, there were no more requests for censorship in Croatia, reported web portal Index.hr.

http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/General_News/2012-02-20/25209/Google_censors_internet_in_Croatia

OSCE representative warns against Internet restriction

PanARMENIAN.Net - Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, called for concerted global efforts to keep the Internet, as a platform for exercising free expression and for independent media, accessible and free.

According to the OSCE website, speaking on "Internet freedom after WikiLeaks" in Paris at a UNESCO conference on journalism ethics in the digital age on February 17, 2012, Mijatović warned that "unless companies, governments and individuals are truly committed to a free Internet, we are likely to see the open Internet become ever more restricted, the choice and control over content taken away from users and put in the hands of those aiming at limiting access to information."

"As citizen reporters, bloggers, and social media activists are increasingly using technology to speak up and voice their opinion, their right to free expression through online media must be better protected,” she added.

The two-day conference brought together media representatives, professional and “citizen” journalists and media law experts to discuss how the Internet and social media have changed journalism ethics.

http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/94595/

India will never censor social media - Sibal

No Indian government will ever censor social media, Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said, seeking to calm fears of a China-style crackdown on companies like Google and Facebook.

A court last year ordered 21 companies including Google and Facebook to block material from their websites that could offend religious groups, arousing concerns about freedom of speech in the world's biggest democracy.

"We have never had any intention nor did we ever say we are going to censor social media, but we do believe that all media must obey the laws of this country," Sibal told reporters on Tuesday.

Sibal and other Indian government officials have previously denied that they were promoting censorship of the Internet.

The controversy centres on a law passed last year that makes companies responsible for content posted by users on their sites and giving them 36 hours to remove it if someone complains.

The new law has led to two cases being brought by individuals against internet companies.

Despite the new rules to block offensive content, access to the Internet in India is still largely uncensored, in contrast to the tight controls in neighbouring China.

But like many other governments around the world, India has become increasingly nervous about the power of social media.

Google Inc (GOOG.O), Facebook, Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) are awaiting a Delhi High Court ruling on their appeal against a criminal case brought by journalist Vinay Rai related to content on their websites.

The sitting judge said in January that companies were responsible for content on their websites and that he could block sites "like China" if they did not get their house in order.

Sibal said the government had nothing to do with the case.

"It is between the complainant and those who have been called," said the minister, who was speaking at an event organised by NASSCOM, an industry body for information technology companies.

Fewer than one in 10 of India's 1.2 billion people have access to the Internet, but that still makes it the third-biggest internet market after China and the United States.

The number of internet users in India is expected to almost triple to 300 million over the next three years.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/02/14/sibal-no-censorship-on-social-media-idINDEE81D04G20120214

Iran blocks email, restricts net access: reports

Iran has further restricted access to the Internet and blocked popular email services for the past few days, in a move a top lawmaker said could "cost the regime dearly," media reports said on Sunday. Millions of Iranians have been unable to log onto their accounts on popular email websites such as Google's Gmail, Yahoo's Mail and Microsoft's Hotmail since Thursday without any official explanation, the Arman newspaper reported. But the Mehr news agency said the restrictions were not related only to email. "It has been a while that Internet users have had difficulty accessing domestic and news websites as well as foreign search engines and email services," it said on its website. These difficulties include "low speed, outage and blocking" of websites, Mehr said

http://www.ejc.net/media_news/iran_blocks_email_restricts_net_access_reports/

Brazil set to test Twitter's selective blocking policy

By Danny O’Brien/Internet Advocacy Coordinator

I've been telling reporters that Twitter's new national blocking policy was like Chekhov's gun. Its recent appearance inevitably prefigured its future use.

High up on the list of countries that I thought might take the first step was Brazil; it was one of the first countries to make demands on Google for takedowns, and still remains the country with the highest number of content takedown requests for that company. Sure enough, today, Brazil's federal prosecutor was seeking an injunction to prevent Twitter users from warning others of radar speed traps.

As we've explained before, Brazil's high ranking in Google's transparency data doesn't mean that Brazil is the most draconian censor in the world; it just means that Brazil, like many South American countries, has a judicial system that allows individuals to demand content takedown, and often instructs intermediaries like Google and Twitter to comply with these orders. The prosecutor's order, if a judge agrees, will be aimed at users, but would almost certainly be enforced via a demand on Twitter itself.

The question I posed last week will then come up: will simply hiding the content from Brazilian users, post facto, be enough to satisfy the courts? Will seeing notification of the content vanishing from their Twitter streams encourage readers to search for it elsewhere? Will the courts pursue these traffic reports if they move to other social media sites? News of radar traps and roadblocks are obviously highly time-sensitive. Will the prosecutor seek to require the courts (or Twitter) to preemptively filter future tweets on this topic?

When discussing press freedom, it might seem a stretch to seize on the right to send bite-sized traffic reports as a bellwether. But it does not take much to move from radar trap announcements to the reports made by citizen journalists in Mexico, who use Twitter to notify their community of drug cartel roadblocks and shootings. In China, allegedly false rumors spread online have led to arrests; in Mexico, incorrect rumors spread on Twitter have been transformed into charges of terrorism. When simply disseminating information becomes a criminal offense, the more dangerous it becomes to report any news. And the more topical news is, the more tempted governments will be to press for pre-emptive censorship, instead of slow-moving and retrospective court orders.

http://www.cpj.org/internet/2012/02/brazil-set-to-test-twitters-selective-blocking-pol.php

Twitter censorship announcement sparks public #outrage

By LINDSEY COOK

Twitter announced last week it would allow country-specific censorship, sparking public debates on free speech. Many users flocked to the popular social network to voice their #outrage, using hashtags such as #Twitterblackout and #TwitterCensored.

The company, which has long marketed itself as a champion of free speech, made the announcement via its blog, saying Tweets would be removed on a country-by-country basis as Twitter expands into “countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.”

Twitter has played key roles in revolutions throughout the world in the past year. Last week, the company said it would start censoring on a country-by-country basis. FILE

Under the new procedures, Tweets will be “withheld” from the specific country after an individual, company or business makes a complaint. The message will continue to be displayed on Twitter in other countries and Twitter won’t remove Tweets proactively.

After a message is removed, users will receive a message of “Tweet withheld” or “@Username withheld” instead of the Tweet or account. Twitter will publicly log removals via a partnership with Chilling Effects.

Jamie Lewis, a senior English major from Dallas who hopes to enter social media marketing after graduating, said the social network is especially useful because of its “wildfire” effect. She said messages can be easily spread through retweets and organized by hashtags.

“I definitely think it’s not something that they would ever get by with in America,” she said.

Users living in countries that enforce tough censorship laws will face the brunt of the new rulings. The Thai government was the first Monday to publicly support Twitter’s changes, saying the decision was a “welcome development” and citing present cooperation with Facebook and Google.

Twitter’s blog post cites censorship rules in France and Germany that ban pro-Nazi content, however, many have speculated that the new decision will greatly affect countries with tighter requirements, citing Twitter’s recent role in the Arab Spring.

Many of the Tweets using #Twitterblackout and #TwitterCensored are in Arabic.

Adam Sabra, a University history professor specializing in the Middle East, said Syria and Saudi Arabia specifically may find Tweets censored because of harsh speech regulations regarding the Internet.

Other countries affected by Twitter’s new policy may be North Korea, Syria, Iran, Bahrain, Vietnam, Yemen and Sudan. Today, Twitter is blocked in China.

“If you find yourself supporting a dictatorial government, it may reflect badly on the company,” Sabra said.

Citizen journalism through Twitter and Facebook was an important part of the Arab Spring as users would tweet pictures and information for the world to see, easily found via hashtags, Sabra said.

Rebels also used social media sites to organize protests and relay important information.

Despite the site’s usefulness, rebellions occur regardless of social media, Sabra said, noting the Egyptian rebellion, where the Internet was shut off for days. Demonstrations continued.

Twitter offered its own form of rebellion to the new decision.

Users will be able to change their declared countries from the account settings page despite location information. In the blog post, Twitter even linked to a help page entitled “What If Twitter Has Misidentified My Country?” with instructions on how to change your profile to a different country or to “worldwide,” if your country is unavailable. Wink, wink.

Because Tweets are censored on a country-specific basis, changing to a different country would make Tweets available again.

Twitter spokeswoman Rachel Bremer told Foreign Policy the user-controlled country setting was “because geo-location by IP address is an imperfect science.”

Despite these loopholes, flirting with censorship is dangerous, especially given Twitter’s previous commitments to free speech. During the height of the 2009 Iranian protests, Twitter postponed a scheduled outage and when Egypt’s government shut down social networks during protests, Twitter collaborated with Google for a “speak-to tweet” service.

As Twitter declared, the Tweets must continue to flow.

Still, critics say censorship is a slippery slope.

“If it starts somewhere, there’s always a chance it could spread,” Lewis said. “It’s disappointing that they don’t make more of a stand against it, but it’s a difficult spot for them to be in.”

Sabra echoed this opinion, saying companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter walk a fine line, facing constant pressure from governments that want to restrict content and from activist who want to broaden it.

“I think the companies find themselves in a difficult position,” he said. “Even if Twitter feels it has to do this, it won’t stop people from communicating.”

http://redandblack.com/2012/02/03/twitter-censorship-announcement-sparks-public-outrage/

Google Will Start Country-Specific Censorship for Blogs

Google figured out Twitter‘s trick for avoiding universally censoring content weeks ago, but it managed to go unnoticed — for a while.

That is, until TechDows wrote about Blogger‘s plan for country-specific URLs Tuesday.

At some point “over the coming weeks,” Google’s Blogger will begin redirecting users to country-specific domain names — think Google.fr in France rather than Google.com — to avoid universally removing content that would not be tolerated in specific jurisdictions.

A Blogger support post, “Why does my blog redirect to a country-specific URL?,” last updated Jan. 9, explains that Google is using the method to limit the impact of censored content.

Readers will be redirected to sites with their own country’s domain name when they try to visit blogs recognized as foreign, as determined by their IP addresses.

“Over the coming weeks you might notice that the URL of a blog you’re reading has been redirected to a country-code top level domain, or “ccTLD.” For example, if you’re in Australia and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you might be redirected [blogname].blogspot.com.au. A ccTLD, when it appears, corresponds with the country of the reader’s current location.”

If you would like to see a non-affected page, you can direct to google.com/ncr (NCR stands for “no country redirect”), which places a short term cookie that temporarily prevents geographical redirection.

Google says migrating users to local domains will help promote the freedom of expression while allowing the flexibility to abide by local law.

Do you think censoring content by specific countries is a good move for freedom of expression? Let us know what you think of Google and Twitter’s moves.

http://mashable.com/2012/01/31/google-twitter-country-censorship/

Twitter's Clever Censorship Policy

Written by Robert McGarvey

You would think Twitter had singlehandedly pulled the plug on Internet free speech, given the brouhaha in reaction to the company’s recent announcement that it had developed tools that would let it censor tweets on a “granular,” country-by-country basis. That triggered worried teeth-gnashing, reported everywhere from the Los Angeles Times (“Twitter’s new censorship plan stirs global furor”) to ABC News (“Twitterati Protest New Twitter Censorship Policy With Blackout”) to the New York Times (“Censoring of Tweets Sets Off #Outrage”).

But what if the following were true: Twitter had no choice. It just may have cleverly outwitted those who demand more government control of the Internet by enlisting their aid in shining a spotlight on the very content the censors most want to keep in the shadows.

Face this reality. Attempts at Internet censorship are pervasive worldwide. In addition to the usual totalitarian players (China, Russia, and Tunisia, for instance), India is a prime wannabe censor as it aggressively pursues comments it does not like on every Website from Google to Facebook. France and Germany both want to censor pro-Nazi comments on Websites. Even the United Kingdom has made noises about wanting to censor tweets along with Facebook postings when it dislikes the rambunctious politics of the posters.

That noisy government pressure will only ratchet up as ruling-class jitters over social media escalate, and Twitter, realistically, made the response it had to make.

“Twitter is probably trying to prevent the same kind of probes that Google and Facebook have been facing by a variety of governments internationally,” said Darren Hayes, a professor at Pace University. “Social media companies are being forced more and more to comply with local legislation and are facing greater censorship. Twitter is being proactive.”

But, maybe, too, Twitter is luring the censors into an Internet game of three-card monte, where the dictators are the dupes.

William J. Ward, a professor of social media at Syracuse University, elaborated:

Unfortunately, if Twitter wants to do business internationally, they have to abide by national laws to enter these countries. These compromises, although regrettable, give Twitter a foot in the door that may possibly open opportunities for more free and open communication in the future, not less.
Although not ideal, the compromise by Twitter gives the leaders of these countries an opportunity to save face. In reality, although the tweets may be censored in a specific country, the communications will still be going out globally, and will likely find their way back in through other channels, albeit delayed.

Tune into reality. Twitter, in its blog, says it will not enforce prior restraint -- that is, it will zap a tweet only after proper notification by a government agency.

Here is the language from Twitter’s blog:

Q: Do you filter out certain Tweets before they appear on Twitter?
A: No. Our users now send a billion Tweets every four days -- filtering is neither desirable nor realistic. With this new feature, we are going to be reactive only: that is, we will withhold specific content only when required to do so in response to what we believe to be a valid and applicable legal request.
As we do today, we will evaluate each request before taking any action. Any content we do withhold in response to such a request is clearly identified to users in that country as being withheld. And we are now able to make that content available to users in the rest of the world.

It adds up to Twitter flagging content deemed offensive by certain governments and then keeping it in the streams of the rest of the world, pretty much guaranteeing huge spikes in readership. Don’t you want to read what is banned in Delhi or Dubai?

Now about all we need is a clever coder group to cobble together a “Censored on Twitter” bot that collects and streams globally, including to countries where the original tweets are banned.

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=852&doc_id=238541

Consumers in the middle of battle over Internet privacy

For the past two years, each company has experimented with different ways to divine more and more about how people live their lives on the Internet, without sparking a revolt.

But the plans the rivals announced this week, which critics say could dramatically rev up their respective abilities to gather intelligence on individual Internet users, seem to have struck a chord.

An informal and unscientific survey of Web users by USA Today found a majority speaking out against the new business practices announced by Google and Facebook.

"It's dangerous for two companies to have so much personal data, regardless of whether the specific threats of that data consolidation are immediately clear," said Sarah Downey, a privacy analyst at software maker Abine.

Compelled to tap what many experts predict will be the next big Internet mother lode - online advertising - Google and Facebook laid down very big bets, during a week when European regulators are hashing out strict new rules that could prevent much of what the tech giants seek to do.

Google signaled its intent to begin correlating data about its users' activities across all of its most popular services and across multiple devices. The goal: to deliver those richer behavior profiles to advertisers.

Likewise, Facebook announced it will soon make Timeline - the new, glitzier user interface for its service - mandatory.

Timeline is designed to chronologically assemble, automatically display and make globally accessible the preferences, acquaintances and activities for most of Facebook's 800 million members.

 Google and Facebook have repeatedly insisted that the changes are intended strictly to improve users' experiences.

"Facebook works the way it always has," spokeswoman Meredith Chin said. "There is no new information on Facebook as a result of Timeline, and no privacy settings have been changed with the introduction of it. It's simply an updated version of the profile."

But the changes have stirred anger from many consumers. Some, such as Joyce Norman, a writing consultant from Birmingham, Ala., are considering ways to limit their exposure to Google's and Facebook's new business practices. "Mine is not a lone voice crying in the wilderness," Norman said.

Benjammin Gaultney of Montague, Mich., sees it differently, looking forward to the possibility of more appropriate ads coming to his screen. "You have to deal with ads all over the Internet either way," he wrote on USA Today's Facebook page. "Advertisers could at least try to sell me something I'm actually interested in rather than life insurance."

Meanwhile, a high-stakes lobbying effort is unfolding in Washington aimed at shaping policies favorable to U.S. tech companies and blunting any potential move to follow Europe's more conservative proposals to limiting online tracking by companies.

The tech giants sharply increased their lobbying spending last year. Google spent $9.7 million in lobbying in 2011, up from $5.2 million in 2010, says the Center for Responsive Politics. Facebook spent $1.4 million in 2011 vs. $351,000 in 2010.

The driver: advertising revenue. The global online advertising market is expected to swell to $132 billion by 2015, up from $80 billion this year, according to eMarketer. Google and Facebook are putting their abilities to index individuals' online activity and behaviors into high gear to tap into this market, analysts say.

"If they can make the ads more relevant, the logic goes, they can increase the number of advertisers and the price they can charge per click (on each ad)," said Alex Daley, chief investment strategist at Casey Research. "Because the click will be from more qualified leads - customers who are more interested in the product - they can grow the revenue base."

But security analysts, privacy advocates and technologists say consumers probably should be very concerned. While making richer behavioral data more readily available to advertisers, Google's new data-correlating practices and Facebook's new Timeline and Open Graph, a more powerful way to express preferences on third-party websites, also tend to aid and abet more unsavory uses.

Richer personal details are very beneficial to identity thieves and cyberspies, as well as to parties motivated to use such data unfairly against consumers, such as insurance companies, prospective employers, political campaigners and, lately, hacktivists, security analysts say.

"What these unilateral decisions by Google and Facebook demonstrate is a complete disregard for their users' interests and concerns," said John Simpson, spokesman for Consumer Watchdog. "It's an uncommonly arrogant approach not usually seen in business, where these companies believe they can do whatever they want with our data, whenever and however they want to do it."

Google has a long history of running into privacy problems.

Its Gmail raised hackles early on when the search giant decided to mingle advertising alongside users' email. The move initially concerned people because the ads' relevancy was linked to e-mails inside users' accounts. For example, if a person was writing about buying a car, ads for cars could appear alongside that individual's email. To many, that felt like a privacy intrusion.

The search giant maintains that such contextual ads, where advertisers can bid on keywords that relate to a users' content, don't reveal personal identities. Gmail users can turn some of the ads off, but adjusting the feature requires some work.

Much of this type of product development is the result of Google taking a very engineer-focused approach to mining data rather than serving consumer interests, say industry experts. Google engineers want to play with technology first, but they think about how the product plays with consumers and privacy second, said IDC analyst Karsten Weide.

When Google tried to build its Buzz social network in 2010 from Gmail contacts, it ran into privacy problems. It began publicizing users' contacts without asking. The Federal Trade Commission last year charged Google with "deceptive privacy practices" in the handling of Buzz.

Google "did not respect" consumers' expectations of privacy, said Helen Nissenbaum, a professor of media, culture and communication at New York University. "They (Google) seem to be doing the same thing here" with the privacy update.

Under terms of the FTC consent order, Google agreed to a 20-year independent review of its privacy practices.

But the changes announced Tuesday may again set it on a collision course with the FTC.

"We do believe the proposed changes - they have not yet been adopted - violate the FTC consent order," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. Those changes could subject Google to monetary damages under Google's agreement with the FTC, Rotenberg said.

But Rachel Whetstone, Google's senior vice president for public policy and communications, said the company would not have proposed privacy updates that run afoul of the FTC settlement.

"We try to be transparent about the data we collect and give meaningful controls about how data is used," Whetstone said.

There are also concerns about Google's recent move to roll activities on its Google+ social network into users' search results. The opt-in integration of those two Google products mingles profiles, photos and posts of people a user follows on Google+ into the user's search results if they choose.

Whetstone said it doesn't raise privacy issues because the information is viewed only by the user.

Facebook has had its own issues, most recently in November when the FTC announced a broad settlement that requires the company to respect the privacy wishes of its users and subjects it to audits for the next 20 years.

The order, which claimed Facebook engaged in "unfair and deceptive" practices in December 2009, stems largely from the way Facebook handled information its users deemed to be private information.

On Tuesday it announced that Timeline will become the default user interface for all members over the next few weeks.

Combined with the addition last week of some 60 apps specifically written for Timeline, consumers can provide a detailed account, often in real time, of the music they listen to, what they eat, where they shop - even where they jog.

The deeper personal data of Timeline - which Facebook users willfully share - are potentially online advertising gold for marketers and advertisers. This is especially crucial, analysts say, as Facebook steamrolls toward an initial public stock offering this year.

The company is under pressure to increase sales and profits to meet the lofty expectations of shareholders, and online advertising is the most logical place to do that. Facebook gleaned 89 percent of its estimated $4.3 billion in revenue last year, or about $3.8 billion, from online ads, according to eMarketer.

"If Facebook has richer behavioral targeting data than Google, then it has an edge up in relevance," said Casey Research's Daley. "And an edge up in relevance is an edge up in revenue."

Some Wall Streeters believe the changes made by Google and Facebook will have only an "incremental" effect on the battle between the two giants in going after online advertising dollars.

Both companies continue to be dominant in their markets, which "tend to be winner-takes-all markets," said Ryan Jacob of the Jacob Internet Fund. Google continues to hold strength in online search and is a strong player in online video with YouTube and in mobile with its Android operating system, he said.

But "Google has a long way to go before it can be considered a credible competitor to Facebook," he said.

Google's moves, if anything, are "somewhat defensive," he said. "For (Google) to maintain their position in search, it's important for them to be players in other areas."

Channing Smith of money management firm Capital Advisors, which owns shares of Google, is more optimistic. "If it continues to put up numbers for Google+, it can be a competitor to Facebook," he said.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who has already been pressing Facebook to explain its tracking systems, said on Wednesday that he would ask the FTC to take a close look at Google's new privacy policies.

"Google's privacy policy changes mean consumers can't say no to sharing their personal information across Google's websites," Markey said. "Consumers, not Google, should be able to make these decisions."

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-consumers-middle-internet-privacy.html