Today’s Censorship For The Internet Age on Four Continents

The Internet was supposed to be the great democratizer, granting global information access and freeing peoples from censorship and repression. But when the government or its friends don’t want you to see something, the fact remains that they have plenty of ways to keep you from seeing it. MediaChannel presents a world tour of computer-aided censorship:

Turkey Bans YouTube Based on a Single Greek Video Clip

A Turkish court ordered access to YouTube’s website blocked Wednesday, after a prosecutor recommended the ban because of videos allegedly insulting the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Paul Doany, head of Turk Telekom, Turkey’s largest telecommunications provider, said his company had immediately begun enforcing the ban.

“We are not in the position of saying that what YouTube did was an insult, that it was right or wrong,” Doany told the state-run Anatolia news agency. “A court decision was proposed to us, and we are doing what that court decision says.”

Visitors to the YouTube site from Turkey were greeted with the message: “Access to this site has been blocked by a court decision!…”
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During the past week, Turkish media publicized what some called a “virtual war” between Greeks and Turks on YouTube, with people from both sides posting videos to belittle and berate the other.

The video prompting the ban allegedly said Ataturk and the Turkish people were homosexuals, news reports said. The CNN-Turk website featured a link allowing Turks to complain directly by e-mail to YouTube about the “insult.”

On its front page Wednesday, the newspaper Hurriyet said thousands of people had written to YouTube and that the Ataturk videos had been removed from the site. “YouTube got the message,” the headline said.

Insulting Ataturk or “Turkishness” is a crime in Turkey punishable by prison.

UPDATE: Reuters reports that a second ruling lifting the block has been issued, after YouTube removed the offending video; but it isn’t clear whether the block will still be in effectat this point.

China Blocks LiveJournal

On another continent, in China this time, the online diary and blogging platform Livejournal seems to have been blocked.

“Users who are wondering if the block is on our end can be told “no, we still love you; take it up with your ISP if you have further questions””, said an announcement on the Livejournal community forum.

In an interview with Wired reporter Quinn Norton, the Chinese dissident and founder of China Digital Times Xiao Qiang said that “It could be one of the blogs in Livejournal has the content they want to block.”

Norton’s article notes that SixApart — the company that owns Livejournal — claims that China has blocked “roughly 1.8 million of its blogs,” and that it is not the first time that the Chinese government has blocked Livejournal. They did it in March 2004 and again in June 2005. As Xiao Qiang says, “You never know when they are going to block it again.”

In France, Only Journalists Can Film Violence

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers’ acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles.

If Holliday were to film a similar scene of violence in France today, he could end up in prison as a result of the new law, said Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi. And anyone publishing such images could face up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (US$98,537), potentially a harsher sentence than that for committing the violent act.

GlobalVoices Online has a more detailed description of the law and its genesis:

Two weeks ago, the French blog AgoraVox, one of the leading European citizen media blogs, warned against what it termed the gradual “berlusconisation” of the French media and the threat posed by the rise of Nicolas Sarkozy, French Minister of the Interior and conservative party head, to freedom of speech in the country.
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One has to wonder now what the next move by the French Republic, in its fervor to “prevent criminal behavior”, will be. Will it be the banning of video-sharing sites like YouTube and the France’s Dailymotion, which were widely used by young citizen journalists during the “émeutes de Paris” (Paris riots) two years ago? And will music videos like “Paris Brûle” (”Paris Is Burning” — seen below) be forbidden in France?

Yet it seems like France is not the only country having trouble coming to terms with the tools and trappings of modern technology and the explosion in video-sharing that is empowering citizen journalists. Last year, Jack Straw, the UK’s former home secretary, openly supported a plan to impose controls on YouTube: “There is a very serious issue how such videos should better be controlled,” he said.

Australia: Mining Industry Shuts Down Australian Environmentalist Website

The mining industry has used copyright laws to close an anti-mining website launched by a small protest group in Newcastle.

The NSW Minerals Council has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a TV, print and billboard advertising campaign and launched a website extolling the virtues of mining. The campaign’s slogan is “Life: brought to you by mining”.

The anti-coal group Rising Tide created its own website sending up the campaign with comments such as “Rising sea levels: brought to you by mining”.

The website’s hosts were forced to remove it within 24 hours of its launch, after the Minerals Council issued a notice under the Copyright Regulations 1969 complaining the content and layout infringed copyright.

Rising Tide remade the website, using its own photographs and layout. However, the council lodged a second complaint.

“They are trying to silence us,” said a Rising Tide member, Steve Phillips. “We have issued a counter-notice rejecting the Minerals Council’s spurious claims. [It] now has 10 days in which to take the matter [to court].”

There is growing public concern about coal’s contribution to climate change, and mining’s threat to underground and above-ground water supplies.

The United States: Kansas Judge Blocks Publication of Damaging Article

A judge barred The Kansas City Star on Friday from publishing an article based on a local utility’s confidential document addressing its power plant upgrades.

Jackson County Circuit Judge Kelly Moorhouse also ordered the newspaper and The Pitch newsweekly to remove articles from their Web sites Friday night.

The three-page order said that the Board of Public Utilities of Kansas City, Kan., would be “irreparably harmed” if the newspapers didn’t take down the articles. Moorhouse scheduled a hearing about the case for 9:30 a.m. next Friday.

An attorney for The Star was attempting Friday night to schedule an expedited hearing to have the order overturned.

Mark Zieman, editor and vice president of The Star, said the public has the right to know about the operations of local utilities.

“To have a published story pulled from our Web site is unprecedented and unbelievable,” said Zieman. “When justice prevails, we will publish our findings again.”

Sam Colville, the newspaper’s attorney, said the injunction violated the constitutional rights not only of the press but also of the people to be informed.

It’s a good thing this shocking example of what Peter Zenger would have called ‘prior restraint’ only stops the newspapers in question from publishing the article. You can read the piece in question at a blog called Fifteen Minutes 2:

Breaking News: BPU Could Face Thousands in Fines
A confidential report reveals the utility didn’t follow federal pollution regulations when upgrading its plants.

Justin Kendall

Published: March 1, 2007

The Board of Public Utilities in Kansas City, Kansas, may be liable for thousands of dollars in fines for failing to comply with anti-pollution regulations, according to a confidential document obtained by the Pitch.

The document was prepared November 16, 2004, by lawyer Stanley A. Reigel. It weighs the pros and cons of admitting to the Environmental Protection Agency that upgrades at BPU power plants did not comply with the federal Clean Air Act.

The report was hand-delivered to Marc Conklin, BPU general counsel and human resources director. The report is stamped “CONFIDENTIAL” and warns against duplication without Conklin’s approval. Conklin did not return a call from the Pitch.

BPU spokeswoman Susan Allen also declined to comment and instead sent an e-mail that read: “BPU cannot comment on a BPU confidential report. The Pitch should be aware that it possesses a confidential, legally protected document. The document should be returned to BPU.”

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