The latest unrest in Iran is about something far more serious than rising gasoline prices. The proof is that, over the weekend, the regime took most of the country offline. NetBlocks, a nongovernmental organization that monitors digital rights, says that by Saturday, Iran's internet connectivity ...
Sweden honors detained political writer Gui Minhai despite Chinese threats
Sweden's culture minister on Friday defied a Chinese threat by awarding a Swedish rights prize to detained Chinese-Swedish book publisher Gui Minhai. Known for publishing gossipy titles about Chinese political leaders out of a Hong Kong book shop, Gui disappeared while on vacation in Thailand ...
Twitter on Friday said its political advertising ban will include references to political candidates or legislation, and it will not allow ads that advocate for a certain outcome on social and political causes. The popular social media site, which first announced its political ads ban ...
Lights, camera ... cut! Japan soul-searching over freedom of expression
Withdrawn endorsements for films and art exhibitions are re-igniting a debate in Japan over self-censorship, exposing a struggle to balance freedom of expression with a cultural penchant for avoiding conflict. The latest controversy arose when Japan last week canceled its endorsement of an art exhibition ...
Russia's web-censoring and -snooping tool sets pace for imitators, study says
Russia is successfully imposing a highly effective internet censorship regime across thousands of privately owned providers and also aims to make government snooping pervasive, according to a study released Wednesday. The University of Michigan study says the Russian model can be easily exported to other ...
Japan film festival scraps screening of 'comfort women' movie
A film festival that began over the weekend in Kawasaki has decided not to show a documentary focused on debates over the issue of "comfort women." The phrase refers to women who provided sex, including those who did so against their will, for Japanese troops ...
Yale's Singapore college has become embroiled in a row about academic freedom after axing a course on dissent, with the controversy fueling a wider debate on whether universities are compromising their values to expand abroad. The Yale-NUS College, a partnership with the National University of ...
Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook's policy against fact-checking politicians
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday defended the huge social network's policy of refraining from fact-checking politicians, saying it's not the job of tech firms to "censor." Speaking to students at Georgetown University in Washington, Zuckerberg responded to critics who argued that Facebook is ...
India is deliberating potential censorship on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, a senior government source said. While film and TV certification bodies already moderate public content in India, the country's laws do not allow censorship of content on the increasingly popular ...
Russia and China will sign a cooperation treaty aimed at combating illegal content on the Internet this month, Russia's state communications watchdog said on Tuesday, an example of deepening cooperation between the powers. Critics have accused Russia's authorities of trying to implement Chinese-style curbs on ...
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV announced Tuesday it will no longer air two NBA preseason games set to be played in the country. In a statement, CCTV indicated the decision was prompted by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's remarks in Japan following a tweet by Houston Rockets ...
The creators of "South Park" have issued a mock apology to China after censors scrubbed their popular animation from the Chinese web. The tongue-in-cheek statement, skewering Beijing's demands that Western brands conform to its world view, came with officials apparently annoyed about an episode that ...
