Greece's Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, known as ERT, went silent on June 11, but Greek journalists continued reporting the news on the Internet, via live stream on the European Broadcasting Union's website. People protested in the streets and the citizen media community tackled the government's controversial decision online.
Is Google's autocomplete function steering users away from buying Microsoft's new gaming console the Xbox One? This article examines the social impact of algorithms and the difficulty their creators face trying to control them once they've been released into the wild Web.
Digital data centers worldwide use 30 billion watts of electricity each year, prompting questions about the effect of "the cloud" down here on Earth.
This week Tunisian turned the building responsible for Internet censorship before the Arab Spring into a hackerspace and wifi hotspot, it was discovered that Pakistan has been using filtering technology managed by a Canadian company, human rights activists investigate the Mexican government's use of FinFisher, and Facebook leaked 600 million users' email addresses and phone numbers.
In the context of civil war, tech-savvy and socially engaged Syrian citizens are resisting the state in creative ways. Eye-catching posters began to show up on Syrian streets around the time the uprising began in March 2011. In May 2011, citizens launched the “I am with Syria” Facebook page.
New details about PRISM, Saudi Arabia temporarily blocks access to messaging service Viber, and phishing attacks against Gmail users in Iran.
New research into the Twittersphere reveals that users connect with people nearby and far away at almost equal rates. People also share local and faraway news at almost equal rates. This study, the first to examine tweets based on geography, illustrates that social media helps people transcend the boundaries of distance that have typically hindered communication.
Several of the biggest social networking sites have recently come under fire for being too complicit with government requests for user information, failing to protect activists and dissent online, and enforcing arbitrary posting prohibitions for their users. This article presents the best alternative social networks currently in active development that hope to innovate the way people connect and share information online.
Saudi authorities, acting like government bird dogs, have been on the hunt for Twitter users lately.
A new torrent of words including "today" and "June 4" referencing the Tiananmen Square Anniversary have been blocked from Chinese social media as the country engages in its annual crackdown on Internet, also known as "Internet Maintenance Day." And though the Chinese government is running a sophisticated and tight censorship ship, they're having a bit harder time blocking memes.