Jul 3, 2013

Unwitting Chinese railway station worker plays porn on big screen

A maintenance worker surprised passers-by near a Chinese railway station when he started watching a banned porn film, not realizing his computer was connected to a giant screen, state media said Tuesday. The worker, identified only by his surname, Yuan, was supposed to repair ...

Jul 3, 2013

Porn: Do we really want ISPs to censor?

by John Naughton

Dearly beloved: our subject this morning is online pornography and what to do about it. The fact that there is a good deal of erotic material on the Internet is beyond dispute, though the precise amount is unclear. Let us assume that X percent ...

Jun 22, 2013

U.S. top court backs free speech of funded groups

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that it is a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution for the federal government to force groups to endorse the government’s views in order to receive funding to combat AIDS overseas. The justices ruled 6 to ...

Jun 21, 2013

New censors of Web media

by Daoud Kuttab

The Internet has proved to be a powerful tool for overcoming media restrictions and censorship worldwide. But new restrictions on Web-based news media, such as those in Jordan, threaten to reverse the progress that the Internet has enabled. For example, the tendency of Arab ...

Chen says China pressured NYU to ditch him

Jun 18, 2013

Chen says China pressured NYU to ditch him

Activist Chen Guangcheng charged that China waged an “unrelenting” pressure campaign that led New York University to end his studies as he voiced fear for academic freedom in the United States. The blind self-taught lawyer, one of the most emblematic Chinese human rights campaigners, ...

May 31, 2013

U.S. eases Iran tech sales ban to support free speech

The United States on Thursday lifted a ban on sales of communications equipment to Iranians and opened access to Internet services and social media, aiming to help the Iranian people circumvent tough government controls. The decision immediately allowed U.S. companies to begin selling computers, ...

New Delhi cracks down on foreign-funded NGOs

May 21, 2013

New Delhi cracks down on foreign-funded NGOs

by Rama Lakshmi

Amid an intensifying crackdown on nongovernmental groups that receive foreign funding, Indian activists are accusing the government of stifling their right to dissent in the world’s largest democracy. India has tightened the rules on nongovernmental organizations over the past two years, following protests that ...

Crackdown on Dhaka protests leaves 37 dead

May 8, 2013

Crackdown on Dhaka protests leaves 37 dead

Bangladeshi police broke up a protest by tens of thousands of religious hardliners and shut down Islamist television stations Monday as 37 people died in some of the fiercest street violence for decades. Hundreds more were injured in running battles as riot police broke ...

BBC in Thatcher death song row

Apr 14, 2013

BBC in Thatcher death song row

The BBC said Friday it will play just five seconds of “Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead” on its weekly radio chart show after the song surged toward the No. 1 spot following the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Opponents of the “Iron ...

Court drops suit to ban comedy show

Apr 8, 2013

Court drops suit to ban comedy show

CAIRO AP A Cairo court on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit filed by an Islamist lawyer demanding that a popular Egyptian satirist’s TV show be banned for allegedly insulting the president and containing excessive sexual innuendo. Judge Hassouna Tawfiq said the court dropped the complaint ...