Issue no. 389 - 22 June 2008

• Blogger arrests hit record high (BBC)
  More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says the World Information Access Report. Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report. In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006, it revealed. More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran. See Blogger Arrests.

• CN / EU - China's censorship of Web unacceptable (Reuters)
  EU's telecoms chief Viviane Reding has said that China's censorship of the Internet was "unacceptable" and that the Beijing Olympics were a chance for the country to show its commitment to free flow of information. Reding, who is the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media said she regards the Internet as a free medium for expression and any curtailment of that is limiting the citizen's right to information. "People should be free to receive information, we do not think blocking of sites for political reasons is the right way to proceed," Reding told Reuters. "We say, for instance, to the Chinese very clearly that their blocking of certain Internet content is absolutely unacceptable to us," she said.

• UK - ASA puts brakes on LG mobile phone (Guardian)
  A television ad for LG mobile phones has been banned by the advertising watchdog because it appeared to show a woman using her handset while driving.

• UK - Minister backs code to tackle online sex and violence (Guardian)
  The government has signalled its support for a common set of standards for internet content in response to worries about the impact of violent and sexual output online. The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, said he wanted to see online content meet the same standards required for television as the boundaries between the two media continue to blur. Television in the UK is governed by the broadcasting code of Ofcom, the media regulator. There is no overall regulation for the internet. See Secretary of State speech to the Convergence Think Tank 11 June 2008.

• US - Website judge dropped from trial (BBC)
  A US judge has removed himself from an obscenity trial he was overseeing after it emerged that his own website featured sexually explicit images. Federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski, 57, earlier suspended the trial of a businessman accused of distributing obscene videos. Mr Kozinski said he was not aware the explicit photographs and videos on his website could be seen by the public. Public access to his site has since been blocked. Mr Kozinski is a high-ranking and highly respected judge, and is chief judge of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. See also The Kozinski mess by Larry Lessig.

Issue no. 388 - 1 June 2008

• SG - Singapore bans two porn websites in symbolic move (Reuters)
  Singapore has banned access to two pornographic websites in a "symbolic statement" of the country's societal values, its media regulator said. The two sites, which the regulator declined to identify but local media named as YouPorn and RedTube, work in a similar fashion to popular video-sharing website YouTube. The two Web sites allow users to add and download sex videos.

• UK - Ofcom defends 9pm watershed (Guardian)
  Ofcom has dismissed claims by a group of MPs that the 9pm watershed is failing to protect young children because they can now access television online. Giving evidence at a culture, media and sport committee hearing, the Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards, denied the regulator had put itself in an "impossible and absurd position" by not doing more to regulate objectionable content on the web. Richards was responding to claims made by Nigel Evans, the Ribble Valley conservative MP, who argued that Ofcom's powers over broadcasting should be more rigorously applied to internet content. The cross-party group of MPs raised concerns about services such as the BBC iPlayer, which make it possible for anyone to view post-watershed content at any time of the day. The Ofcom partner for content and standards, Stuart Purvis, said a lot of the responsibility rested with parents to make sure their children were not watching inappropriate material.

Issue no. 387 - 12 May 2008

• UK - Blogger fined for 'menacing' rant (BBC)
  A blogger who "let off steam" about the way he was treated by police has been convicted of posting a grossly offensive and menacing message.

Issue no. 386 - 20 April 2008

• CN - Most Chinese say they approve of government Internet control (Pew Internet)
  Many Americans assume that China's internet users are unhappy about their government's control of the internet, but a new survey finds most Chinese say they approve of internet regulation, especially by the government.

Issue no. 385 - 21 March 2008

• Dynamic Medien Vertriebs GmbH v Avides Media AG (European Court of Justice)
  Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 14 February 2008 Case C-244/06. Reference for a preliminary ruling: Landgericht Koblenz - Germany. Free movement of goods - Article 28 EC - Measures having equivalent effect - Directive 2000/31/EC - National rules prohibiting the sale by mail order of image storage media which have not been examined and classified by the competent authority for the purpose of protecting children and which do not bear a label from that authority indicating the age from which they may be viewed - Image storage media imported from another Member State which have been examined and classified by the competent authority of that State and bear an age-limit label.

• Facebook: We didn't give data leading to Morocco arrest (CNET.com)
  Facebook has denied giving the Moroccan government information to identify a man who was sentenced to prison for posting a fake profile of a Moroccan prince. A Moroccan court sentenced the 26-year-old IT engineer to three years and fined him 10,000 dirhams ($1,320) for setting up a Facebook account in the name of King Mohammed's brother, Prince Moulay Rachid.

• Seeking Tighter Censorship, Repressive States Target Web 2.0 Apps (Wired)
  It's not the governments who censor keywords that worries Ethan Zuckerman, whose job it is to help dissidents around the world. He fears that governments will simply decide to go after the Web 2.0 tools that activists are using to publish.

• US - Congress, Content Regulation, and Child Protection: The Expanding Legislative Agenda (Progress & Freedom Foundation)
  by Adam Thierer. The 110th session of Congress has witnessed an explosion of legislative proposals dealing with online child safety, or which seek to regulate media content or Internet communications in some fashion. More than 30 of these legislative proposals are cataloged in a new joint legislative index that was released today by the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Progress & Freedom Foundation, compiled to help keep track of the growing volume of legislative activity on these fronts. Many of the measures highlighted in the index raise serious free speech concerns.

• US - Wikileaks gets its domain name back (CNET News)
  Iconoclast blog by Declan McCullagh. Wikileaks is getting its domain name back. After spending more than three hours hearing arguments from a raft of attorneys - two representing the Swiss bank that fought to get the site's plug pulled and about 10 who have been trying to get the site back online - a federal judge here has ruled in favor of Wikileaks. Wikileaks, which uses Wikileaks.org as its primary domain, is a whistle-blowing site that focuses on posting leaked documents.

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