United States of America
ONI Blog: Global Online Freedom Act Approved By House Subcommittee
The House of Representative's Africa, Global Health and Human Rights Subcommittee approved the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA) last week. GOFA would require the State Department to identify countries that censor Internet content and restrict online accress in its annual Country...
ONI Blog: Threats to the Open Net: March 23, 2012
Pakistan halts its plans to implement a firewall against a list of objectionable URLs. The Ministry of Information Technology reversed its decision after the National Assembly withdrew due to stakeholder concerns.
PayPal eased up on its policy on companies using their...
- Posted on 23/Mar/2012; tagged in Iran, United States of America, Pakistan, United Kingdom, United States/Canada, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Europe, Political filtering
ONI Blog: PayPal Backs Off on "Erotica" Policy After Criticism of Censorship
PayPal recently announced that it would allow e-book merchants who sell erotic content to use their payment system. Previously, the company prohibited erotic e-book sellers from using its payment services. On PayPal's corporate blog, spokesperson Anuj Nayar wrote:
Unlike many other...
- Posted on 20/Mar/2012; tagged in United States of America, United States/Canada, Obscenity, Social filtering
ONI Blog: Threats to the Open Net: February 24, 2012
Hacktivist group Anonymous announces that it plans to attack government and corporate websites on a regular, weekly basis.
The European Commission has suspended ratification of ACTA. To obtain a second opinion on any possible violations of rights, they passed the proposal...
- Posted on 24/Feb/2012; tagged in United States of America, United States/Canada, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Europe, Threats to the Open Net
ONI Blog: Reddit Users Create "Free Internet Act" in Response to SOPA/PIPA
Reddit users are actively combating controversial proposed Internet legislation SOPA and PIPA with a proposal of their own. Austrian Reddit user “RoyalWithCheese22" initiated the Free Internet Act and now heads the subreddit "r/fia." According to its mission statement, the group seeks...
- Posted on 23/Feb/2012; tagged in United States of America, United States/Canada, Legislation, Internet tools filtering
ONI Blog: Anonymous Protests ACTA with Planned Regular Attacks
Hacking group Anonymous is taking more severe measures to protest ACTA. Last week, the group hacked into several Federal Trade Commission websites, including business.ftc.gov, consumer.gov and ncpw.gov. It also announced plans to attack government and corporate websites on a regular, weekly...
- Posted on 22/Feb/2012; tagged in United States of America, United States/Canada, Europe, Legislation, Anonymity
ONI Blog: Threats to the Open Net: February 17, 2012
Iran's government blocked a number of foreign-based websites right before the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The government also blocked encrypted traffic, causing Tor users to drop offline on Friday. After a concerted effort by Tor to mask...
- Posted on 17/Feb/2012; tagged in Iran, United States of America, United States/Canada, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Europe, Threats to the Open Net
ONI Blog: Threats to the Open Net: February 10, 2012
The Russian government blocks the Andrey Rylkov Foundation's website for publishing information about methadone, which can combat opiate addiction (and, relatedly, help stop the spread of HIV through the use of infected needles). The drug is banned in Russia.
Google and Facebook...
- Posted on 10/Feb/2012; tagged in United States of America, Russia, United States/Canada, Europe, Threats to the Open Net
ONI Blog: Threats to the Open Net: February 3, 2012
Polish citizens protested on the streets in Warsaw and other cities around the country in response to the government's decision to sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Many who are against the proposed bill to protect against copyright infringement is calling ACTA...
- Posted on 03/Feb/2012; tagged in United States of America, United States/Canada, Europe, Threats to the Open Net
ONI Blog: Twitter Announces Censorship on Country-to-Country Basis
Last Thursday, Twitter announced on its blog that it would begin censoring tweets on a country-by-country basis. The company stated:
As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression....
- Posted on 01/Feb/2012; tagged in United States of America, United States/Canada
