Censorship

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 | 61

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

Cambodia to force all internet traffic through national 'Internet Gateway'

De facto one-party state decrees censorship scheme that sounds a lot like China's Great Firewall

Networks18 Feb 2021 | 16

Myanmar Junta delivers harsh cyber law and more IP blocking orders

Gives itself power to snoop and block anything, anytime – but at least it’s also consulted with industry

Networks12 Feb 2021 | 25

.uk registry operator Nominet responds to renewed criticism – by silencing its critics

It’s always important for us to understand your views. That's why we’re shutting them down

Networks23 Sep 2020 | 68

Pakistan demands TikTok and YouTube block 'vulgar' content

Calls for more moderation to stop video nasties reaching local eyeballs

Personal Tech01 Sep 2020 | 15

China's internet watchdog freezes 10 too-trashy online video services before they undermine socialism

Scantily-clad presenters and vulgar language 'corrupt the social atmosphere' and 'endanger the healthy growth of young people'

Personal Tech24 Jun 2020 | 26

Facebook to save US users from ads bought by foreign state-controlled media

Leaving more room for false ads bought by local politicians, which it still allows

Security05 Jun 2020 | 23

Zuck loves free speech so much Facebook will censor 'anti-state' content in Vietnam after telcos 'crippled' access

Updated Fine, fine, we'll ban whatever the government says is illegal, just give us back access, says US giant

Networks22 Apr 2020 | 18

Cloudflare family-friendly DNS service flubs first filtering foray: Vital LGBTQ, sex-ed sites blocked 'by mistake'

Updated For a biz that prides itself on not censoring the internet, it sure likes censoring the internet

Security01 Apr 2020 | 95

Super-leaker Snowden punts free PDF* of tell-all NSA book with censored parts about China restored, underlined

* In Simplified Chinese

Bootnotes10 Feb 2020 | 48

Like other tech giants, Netflix gets govt takedown demands – and impressively, none of them involve Adam Sandler

Nor any requests to remove the works of Rob Schneider, Kevin James, or Ashton Kutcher, sadly

Personal Tech07 Feb 2020 | 37

China and Russia join to battle 'illegal internet content,' which means what you fear it does

Authoritarian regimes continue wrestling internet back into box

Networks09 Oct 2019 | 45

What? No way. Apple? Censoring iOS 13 to appease China? Gosh. How shocking. Who'd have thought it?

iGiant declines to Taiwan on for Hong Kong and Macau

Personal Tech07 Oct 2019 | 40

We are shocked to learn oppressive authoritarian surveillance state China injects spyware into foreigners' smartphones

Border cops accused of loading tourists' mobiles up with snoop app in Muslim area

Security02 Jul 2019 | 80

Having a bad day? Be thankful you don't work at a Russian ISP: Kremlin signs off Pootynet restrictions

In Russia the internet regulates you

Legal03 May 2019 | 42

Russian parliament waves through powers for internet iron curtain

High potential of cutting off the nose to spite the face

Networks12 Apr 2019 | 26

French internet cops issue terrorist takedown for… Grateful Dead recordings?

Internet Archive perplexed and annoyed over idiotic demands

Legal12 Apr 2019 | 100

Who pressured WHO to put gaming on a par with drug addiction to help silence political dissent? Oh hi there, China

Devs point finger at Beijing for framing pastime as an illness – and how the West could follow

Personal Tech21 Mar 2019 | 29

Ivan to be left alone: Russia preps to turn its internet into an intranet if West opens cyber-fire

In Putin's Russia, internet logs off from you

Networks12 Feb 2019 | 56

Iron Mike Pence blasts Google for its censor-happy Dragonfly Chinese search engine

Wait until the Veep finds out what Apple is doing for them

Legal04 Oct 2018 | 29

Did you know? The word 'Taiwan' would crash iOS thanks to a buggy filter for the Chinese govt

蒂姆，我们告诉你谨慎！

Personal Tech10 Jul 2018 | 31

Silk road adviser caught, Kaspersky sues Dutch paper, and Vietnam's tech clampdown

Roundup Also, Weight Watchers is light on security

Security16 Jun 2018 | 8

Google listens to New Zealand just long enough to ignore it

'We can't delete court cases, and you can't make us'

Legal23 May 2018 | 51