Censorship

Hong Kong promises its latest national security law is not a ban on social media

Trust us – we're the government

Personal Tech21 Mar 2024 | 9

How to improve Chinese TV? Better censorship, says top tellie-maker

Sales are down at home and poor compared to other nations

Personal Tech20 Mar 2024 | 21

China could be doing better at censorship, think tank finds

Complex overlapping bureaucracy sometimes lacks the funds and skills to do it right

Security21 Feb 2024 | 10

Pakistani politician deepfakes himself to deliver a speech from behind bars

Grammar might be off, but use case remains groundbreaking

AI + ML19 Dec 2023 | 14

X fails to remove hate speech over Israel-Gaza conflict

98% of posts reported stay up, and Musk's response is to sue the messenger

Personal Tech14 Nov 2023 | 84

The problem with Jon Stewart is that Apple appears to have cancelled his show

Planned episodes on China and AI reportedly worried Apple top brass

Bootnotes20 Oct 2023 | 51

China to Meta: Flattery needed to get you into our VR market

Beijing likes Zuck's old stuff better than his new stuff

Personal Tech06 Jul 2023 | 10

Meta's Oversight Board wants a prime minister banned from Facebook and Instagram

Overrules decision that Cambodian leader Hun Sen's threats of political violence were newsworthy

Software30 Jun 2023 | 12

Hong Kong tries to outlaw uploads of unofficial and anti-Beijing anthem

State-sponsored SEO effort to send people to properly patriotic tune has its limits

Legal07 Jun 2023 | 23

India set to regulate AI, Big Tech, with sweeping Digital Act

Big semiconductor R&D strategy in the works, too

Legal26 May 2023 |

India bans open source messaging apps for security reasons. FOSS community says good luck

One banned tool is already working on Android-to-Android meshes that survive internet outages

Software09 May 2023 | 37

China again signals desire to shape global IPv6 standards

As local usage slips despite annual call to do better

Networks28 Apr 2023 | 36

China urges Apple to improve security and privacy

It's a juicy market that welcomes foreign investment, National development boss reminds Tim Cook

Security29 Mar 2023 | 7

Winnie the Pooh slasher flick mysteriously cancelled in Hong Kong

Do you Xi what I Xi?

Offbeat22 Mar 2023 | 33

Pakistan’s PM overturns Wikipedia ban, seeks end to whack-a-mole content blocks

Cabinet committee gets to find a solution after years of bans didn’t achieve a lot

Legal07 Feb 2023 | 21

Wikimedia Foundation confirms, and bemoans, Pakistan ban

Dear government, this thing is written by volunteers. Take it up with them. Also: shouldn't you know this already ?

Personal Tech06 Feb 2023 | 33

Hi, Pakistan? You do know anyone can edit Wikipedia, right? You don't have to ask

Telecoms authority has 'degraded' access and threatened total ban while it waits for 'blasphemous' content to be removed

Personal Tech03 Feb 2023 | 42

India uses emergency powers to order takedown of BBC documentary

Is a critical account of PM's past actions a real emergency, a political emergency, or a free speech emergency?

Legal24 Jan 2023 | 58

Vietnam celebrates 25 years of internet with advertising blacklist

Facebook and YouTube among companies that will have to monitor user content

Legal13 Dec 2022 |

China declares victory over teenage video game addiction

Suddenly discovers that game-adjacent tech has its uses – and it's a huge export industry

Personal Tech24 Nov 2022 | 27

Elon Musk shows what being Chief Twit is all about across weird weekend

Shares misinformation, re-litigates takeover trial, complains about on-boarding process, and more

Personal Tech31 Oct 2022 | 161

Indian government creates body with power to order social media content takedowns

Asia In Brief PLUS: China’s digital currency surges; Infosys tax portals wobble again; Singapore crypto protections; and more

Security30 Oct 2022 | 2

Meta mad as hell over allegations it let Indian politicians block content

Local outlet claims to have insider docs that prove takedown powers. Meta says they're fake. And around and around they go

Legal17 Oct 2022 | 8

PayPal decides fining people $2,500 for 'misinformation' wasn't a great idea

It'll just go back to randomly shutting down accounts

Personal Tech10 Oct 2022 | 85

China upgrades Great Firewall to defeat censor-beating TLS tools

Just in time to ensure nobody can disagree that giving Xi five more years as president is the best idea ever

Security06 Oct 2022 | 8

Google Translate dropped in mainland China

Search engine was banned so no surprise no one was using it

Applications03 Oct 2022 | 3

Girls Who Code books 'banned' in some US classrooms

Updated Culture wars may have come to gentle tales of tweens enjoying friends, fun, programming

Software26 Sep 2022 | 379

Appeals court already under fire for upholding Texas no-content-moderation law

Big Tech forbidden from taking down 'viewpoint-based' posts no matter how awful but lawful

Personal Tech16 Sep 2022 | 112

Cloudflare stops services to 'revolting' hate site

Escalation of targeted threats is an 'emergency' that required 'dangerous' decision 'we are not comfortable with,' says CEO

PaaS + IaaS05 Sep 2022 | 156

Zuckerberg: Yes, Facebook kept Hunter Biden's laptop under wraps

Also: Smiling, eye tracking, and general 'social presence' baked into Project Cambria

Personal Tech26 Aug 2022 | 93

Open source VideoLAN media player asks why it's blocked in India

Rubbishes suggestions poisoned clones or ancient malware are worthy reasons for ban

Software17 Aug 2022 | 29

Cloudy Chinese word processor vendor denies deleting defiant docs

But Kingsoft has admitted to blocking access to some material and Chinese creative types are worried

Software12 Jul 2022 | 10

Always read the comments: Beijing requires oversight of all reader-generated chat

'Editing and review' teams will be required to read everything and report dissent

Legal20 Jun 2022 | 62

Another VPN quits India, as government proposes social media censorship powers

New Delhi now fighting criticism of eroding free speech and privacy with two proposed regulations

Legal08 Jun 2022 | 13

Internet went offline in Pakistan as protestors marched for ousted prime minister

Two hour outage 'consistent with an intentional disruption to service' said NetBlocks

Networks26 May 2022 | 1

Florida's content-moderation law kept on ice, likely unconstitutional, court says

So cool you're into free speech because that includes taking down misinformation

Personal Tech23 May 2022 | 51

Microsoft Bing censors politically sensitive Chinese terms

Updated Research claims it fails to autofill certain names in Han characters, Microsoft says it's technical error

Research20 May 2022 | 22

China reveals its top five sources of online fraud

'Brushing' tops the list, as quantity of forbidden content continue to rise

Cyber-crime17 May 2022 | 15

Sina Weibo, China's Twitter analog, reveals users' locations and IP addresses

Sssshhhh! Nobody tell Elon Musk

Security29 Apr 2022 | 9

China's internet regulator squeezes famously freewheeling Reddit-alike

App already banned, now it's getting very close supervision

Personal Tech16 Mar 2022 | 5

Iran's internet chokepoint caught fire, caused outages

Digital karma at its finest

Networks07 Mar 2022 | 13

Internet 'spy system' delayed because nation can't get the equipment

Quick, blame COVID-19

Security16 Feb 2022 | 20

Hong Kong Watch says its website suddenly can't be seen in Hong Kong

Who could possibly want readers in HK not to access independent opinions about the rule of law?

Legal15 Feb 2022 | 26

Full-time internet surveillance comes to Cambodia this week

Locals fear sharing their views on new National Internet Gateway

Security14 Feb 2022 | 23

China orders web operators to spring clean its entire internet

Purveyors of rumours, flirty teens, dodgy infomercials, or bloody violence all told to get in the bin – yet again

Security27 Jan 2022 | 22

Vulnerabilities and censorship tools among hot new features in Beijing's Olympics app

Visitors have to install it 14 days prior to arrival in China until their departure

Security19 Jan 2022 | 37

China lists 100 topics citizens can't include in online vids

No crypto, no sex, no clips from the telly. Enthusiastic and historically accurate socialism welcome

Legal17 Dec 2021 | 29

China: Bars app that often hosted dissenting conversations

Also China: This one guy sent feedback to the government online, it was adopted, that shows we’re a democracy

Legal10 Dec 2021 | 14

Indian government committee slams 'gross misuse' of internet shutdowns – even in Kashmir

Officials use them for mundane matters, not big emergencies as laws intend

Legal07 Dec 2021 | 5

Lithuania tells its citizens to throw Xiaomi mobile devices in the bin

Updated Baltic state's cyber security centre uncovers remote censorship blocklist function in Mi 10T handset

Security22 Sep 2021 | 64

Apple, Google yank opposition voting strategy app from Russian software stores

Oh, sorry, we thought you wanted us to obey the law?! – Silicon Valley

Applications18 Sep 2021 | 37

Chinese app binned by Beijing after asking what day it is on anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre

Hybrid Instagram/Amazon app Xiaohongshu may just have been making mirthful TGIF post

Legal08 Jun 2021 | 24

Tiananmen Square Tank Man vanishes from Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, other search engines – even in America

Coincidentally, it's the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 massacre in Beijing

Personal Tech04 Jun 2021 | 113

Cloudflare stops offering to block LGBTQ webpages

Like, you wouldn't filter out pages by Black people, right?

Networks21 May 2021 | 89

Russia botches Twitter throttling, cripples anything with t-dot-co in the name – including Reddit, Microsoft

See, regular expressions are hard

Networks10 Mar 2021 | 16

India's demand to identify people on chat apps will 'break end-to-end encryption', say digital rights warriors

Announced rules also require fast takedowns of content, online profile verification, and more

Security26 Feb 2021 | 32