Week in Review: July 13, 2017
This week, Internet Monitor takes a look at China’s latest crackdown on VPNs, restricted Internet access in the Gaza Strip, and the July 12 day of action for net neutrality.
This week, Internet Monitor takes a look at China’s latest crackdown on VPNs, restricted Internet access in the Gaza Strip, and the July 12 day of action for net neutrality.
The Shifting Landscape of Global Internet Censorship, released today, documents the practice of Internet censorship around the world through empirical testing in 45 countries of the availability of 2,046 of the world’s most-trafficked and influential websites, plus additional country-specific websites. The study finds evidence of filtering in 26 countries across four broad content themes: political, social, topics related to conflict and security, and Internet tools (a term that includes censorship circumvention tools as well as social media platforms). The majority of countries that censor content do so across all four themes, although the depth of the filtering varies.
This week, we cover Pakistan’s first death sentence for social media blasphemy, China’s reproach of its Internet censors, and Egypt’s crackdown of media and increased surveillance after its April terrorist attacks.
This week, the Internet Monitor takes a look at censorship on Weibo during the 28th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, a “day of action” by major U.S. websites for net neutrality, Ethiopia’s recent Internet blackout, and Theresa May’s proposed social media backdoor for the U.K. police.
This week, the Internet Monitor describes a new community-governed Twitter alternative called Mastodon, Russia’s ban of political talk on LiveJournal, China’s censorship of sensitive photos on WeChat, and the introduction of new Internet privacy bills in state legislation.
This week, the Internet Monitor investigates the Senate’s vote to remove FCC privacy rules, Amazon’s $150 million typo, an emerging cellphone giant in India, a sex offender’s challenge to Internet restrictions, the court’s rejection of live TV on the Internet, the new IBM and Wanda partnership in China, Facebook filters for nudity and violence, blocking Pinterest in China, and the open-source LinkedIn tool Flashback.
This week, the Internet Monitor learns about the State of the Internet from Akamai, the use of machine learning in Alphabet’s Project Loon, the AT&T and China Mobile deal, the rollback of privacy rules in the FCC, and the arrival of 5G in 2020.
This week, the Internet Monitor catches up on VPN blocks in China, tracking internet censorship with Ooniprobe, the Internet shutdown in Cameroon, FCC removals of ISPs from federal low-income broadband subsidies, and the discontinuation of Alphabet’s Titan Internet-Drone project.
This week, Internet Monitor takes a look at the alleged story that Facebook is developing censorship software that would allow the company to enter the Chinese market.
This week, the Internet Monitor covers the October DDoS attack and the growing threat of unsecure IoT devices, the new cybersecurity law in China that will reduce security and potentially expose personal information of users, the risk of hacking the U.S. presidential election, and the FCC privacy laws that protect user data from broadband providers.