The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees telecommunications like radio, TV, and the internet in the U.S., doesn’t regulate content on online platforms like YouTube. But that hasn’t stopped people from sending complaints about the video site to the federal agency—and they’re every bit as unhinged as…
Apple has begun removing applications that use the CallKit framework from the Chinese version of its App Store after the nation’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology moved to more strictly enforce recent cybersecurity regulations, per a report in 9to5Mac.
Top brass from Facebook, Twitter, and Google stopped by Stanford Law School Thursday to participate in a conversation about the challenges social media companies face in regulating free speech and protecting democracies. The panel showed the companies are much better at identifying problems than actually solving them.
Few people would think of the British cartoon character Peppa Pig as a subversive icon. But don’t tell that to the Chinese government. China has started to ban Peppa Pig from social media for being too “gangster,” deleting over 30,000 videos of the cartoon pig on one platform alone.
Tanzania issued a warning over the weekend that all online media creators, including everything from online radio providers to bloggers, have just two weeks to register with the government. Registration and license fees add up to about $920, roughly what the average Tanzanian earns in an entire year.
A recent change to Google’s App Engine will discontinue a practice called domain-fronting, an essential technique used by dozens of internet freedom tools designed to allow users to work around state-level internet censorship.
Sina Weibo, one of China’s most popular social media sites, has reversed a ban on content “related to” homosexuality.
The hashtag #IAmGay trended on Chinese social network Sina Weibo after censors launched a crackdown on “illegal” content including media supposedly “related to” homosexuality, Sky News reported on Saturday.
The Chinese government has banned all online sales of the Christian Bible, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Iranians have been banned from downloading apps from the App Store, Gizmodo has confirmed.
The Turkish government is reportedly blocking the use of ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email service.
The British government, which is currently alternating between panicking over Brexit and not preparing for Brexit, originally planned to have to have its very prim and respectable new system for preventing people under the age of 18 from looking at naked people on the internet operating by April 2018. But per the …
The government of Sri Lanka ordered internet and mobile service providers to temporarily block Facebook and its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as separate messaging service Viber, this week as part of a crackdown on what officials said was rampant online hate speech fueling real-life violence.
After the passage of China’s new cybersecurity laws, watching out for international consequences might be par for the course for brands that do business there. Per a report in the Wall Street Journal, hospitality chain Marriott International Inc. fired 49-year-old social media manager Roy Jones (who was making just…
Apple has moved encryption keys for mainland Chinese iCloud users to China, potentially enabling much easier access to data for the nation’s heavy-handed authorities and worrying privacy advocates.
With fears of government crackdowns looming from every corner of the globe, tech giants have to decide who they’re willing to piss off. Following a demand from Russia’s internet censor, Instagram has removed videos relating to bribery allegations made by the country’s most prominent activist. So far, YouTube hasn’t…
On Tuesday, Wired published an article (which also appears in the February edition of the magazine) recounting the stories of six individuals who were asked to freely discuss their experiences with “censorship.” Among the six chosen individuals is James Damore, the former Google engineer known for the lengthy…
On Tuesday, Brazil’s Federal Police used Twitter to announce a new censorship program to “identify and punish the authors of ‘fake news’” ahead of the country’s upcoming presidential election. The announcement echoes French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to introduce legislation that could involve blocking entire…
2017 was the year public sentiment began to turn against massive tech conglomerates like Facebook and Google. But nowhere in the West has the backlash been bigger than Germany, which last year passed a sweeping anti-hate speech law requiring websites to promptly investigate reports of posts illegal under German law…
The government of Iran has shut down mobile internet access and blocked apps including Telegram and Instagram after days of protests that exploded into widespread civil unrest. According to the Washington Post, at least two people are reported dead during the demonstrations, “the largest in Iran since an uprising over…
