In late September 2014, the people of Hong Kong embarked on a civil disobedience movement demanding genuine democracy and universal suffrage for the 2017 Chief Executive election. Recently dubbed the “Umbrella Revolution” for its use of umbrellas to counteract pepper spray and tear gas from the police, the Occupy Central movement has captured worldwide attention. Since the Occupy Central movement started, much information has been circulating regarding the various aspects of the protest. This post is an attempt to provide and overview of the major trends relating to Internet and media freedom.
Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution makes use of novel social media communication, powerful US tech execs discuss the future of the Internet in a post-Snowden world, Estonia to offer e-residency, and more in this week's IMWeekly.
In this week’s #IMWeekly: a dissident Cuban blogger “disappears” from his jail cell under fishy circumstances, a former Malaysian Prime Minister backtracks on his calls for no Internet censorship, and the owner of an independent news site in Somaliland is arrested.
Baidu, China's largest search engine, has just expanded in Brazil. Some netizens have noticed, however, that Baidu's censorship tactics in mainland China have crossed the ocean to its Brazilian counterpart.
Between Friday, June 13, and Wednesday, June 18, Hong Kong suffered two DDoS attacks aimed at pro-democracy sites. The targets—one, the site of civil society group “Occupy Central with Love and Peace”, the other newspaper Apple Daily—both seek to advocate for universal suffrage in Hong Kong.
In this week's #IMWeekly: new leaks reveal NSA collection of phone data even broader than previously thought, Iran arrests cyberactivists despite reform promises, Huawei to take its business elsewhere than US, and more!
In this week's #IMWeekly: Vietnamese blogger sentenced to 15 years for defamation, Chinese Weibo users want to "un-verify" their accounts in the face of the country's new anti-rumor policy, and more.