Image: Shaun Greiner/Flickr (Creative Commons)
In a radio interview with 891 ABC Adelaide, South Australia’s Attorney-General John Rau has outlined his new classification laws, declaring that he will scrap not only the MA15+ rating, but the M15+ and PG ratings as well.
Reporters Without Borders have released their list of countries that they consider to be “Internet Enemies” as part of its World Day Against Cyber-Censorship on March 12. However, while some countries – like China – are expected to be on the list; France and Australia have made the list under “Countries under Surveillance”.
A threat of a crackdown “like China” by India has forced Google and Facebook to remove content that were deemed offensive to religions in the country. The threat comes after a lawsuit by one person claiming that both companies were violating Indian law.
Wikipedia and Reddit are not the only sites to black-out their website in protest of the PROTECT IP and Stop Online Piracy Acts that are running through the US Congress. Many other sites, including Destructoid, and Imgur will also participate.
Have you heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or the PROTECT IP Act? The tech industry is talking about it. And that could be because it hasn’t gotten any mainstream media attention until the White House publicly said it would not let it through if Congress passed it in its current form. But what is it? Why are Google and Facebook against it?
Wikipedia could have a total “blackout” – by blanking out every single page in the online encyclopedia, even the 1 million pages in the English version – as a protest to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, which is heading to the US Senate.
Screenshot of Mortal Kombat – a game that has been given an RC classification
The attorneys-general from the states and territories, in addition to their federal counterpart, have now agreed to create an adult classification rating for video games sold in Australia, finally aligning the system with its other Western counterparts.
More censorship is coming to the App Store, Kogan makes the $1 million bet, and we see the insides of the iPad 2. Oh, and we have gone Charlie Sheen-mad this week after the release of the Gregory Brothers’ “Winning” song.
Remember last year when we reported that the OFLC was looking into forcing games on App Store’s to get classifications? Well today Ben Grubb from The Sydney Morning Herald interviewed Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor about the matter.
Image by: Skye Inominatus/Flickr
The creator of the Great Firewall of China has come out to the public spotlight and is reported to have said that the firewall needs improvement if it needs to combat people trying to bypass the firewall in order to access sites blocked by the Government, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Image: Al Jazeera English/Creative Commons
We are hearing reports across the web and over Twitter that the last ISP in Egypt, the Noor Group, who was not affected by the previous shutdown, has been taken offline. The closure of Noor means that there is no longer any Internet access in Egypt.
Image: Al Jazeera English/Creative Commons
The internet may be blocked in Egypt, and what we can tell on Twitter, many of the other communication services are also down; but that hasn’t stopped many people trying to bypass the blocks, with many finding alternative services to disseminate information to the entire world.
Reports are now circulating that both Twitter and Facebook have now been re-blocked by the Egyptian government as protests in the country continue as it reaches its third day with calls for President Hosni Mubarak to leave his position.
Egypt authorities have blocked many social networking sites – including Twitter, Facebook – in an effort to contain any news coming out of the country, as riots escalate. Meanwhile, the group Anonymous have threatened denial-of-service attacks on the Egyptian government over its censorship.
2010. What a year to end a decade. From political uncertainty in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, the leaking of important US documents – from Afghanistan to diplomatic cables – and even a possible upheaval of our classification system to finally allow a R18+ rating in Australia, bringing it in line with other western nations.