Global Media News

Internet Censorship in Turkey

Turkish legislators have passed a bill giving the right to ban websites within 4 hours upon a prime minster and/or minsters request,  without a court order.  This comes to a shock to the world of journalism and the people who stand for their right of freedom of speech.  According to BGN News,

"The new provision allows for the removal of any content that endangers an individual’s right to life and property, is deemed a threat to national security or public order, incites criminal activity or is a risk to public health. The TİB will restrict access to website within 4 hours of the decision by the ministers, and can also demand domain or service providers submit a user’s information to help locate suspects, with fines as high as TRY 500,000 (USD 190,000) for those who don’t comply."

Under this new law any website can be blocked up to 24 hours.  The laws comes out of fear that social media sites will become more of a risk to the public.  Others see it as a way to control criticism in the upcoming elections for Turkey. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have shown their concern and are fighting back by pressuring Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to decline the new law censoring the internet. The Committee to Protect Journalist made their plea, stating, 

""Under this legislation, national security and the public order are a pretext for Internet censorship in Turkey," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. "We call on President Erdoğan to reject this bill and for Turkish lawmakers to tolerate the flow of news and commentary online, as befits a modern democracy.""

Just 6 months ago, in September, the Parliament passed a bill comparable to the likes of this new bill, but it was overturned by the Constitutional Court.  Turkey higher-ups are looking to have total control over the internet, making Turkey's freedom of speech more and more distant.

Censorship Of Journalists In Hungary

Jounalist platforms are constrained in Hungary. Jounalists are charged taxes to write articles on news media. The independence of journalists is diminishing. 

The citizens of Hungaray are against the new amendments because they are being forced to pay internet taxes. Tamas Bodoky is editor and chief of  the investigative news website, Atlatszo. Tamas was awarded for his invasive use of technology at the Index Awards. He received the 2015 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Digital Activism. Atlatzso uncoververd the cases of state control in the media, election fraud, government corruption, and misuse of public funds.  "Atlatzso means transparent in Hungarian" says Bodoky. The website strives to promotes free press in Hungary. 

Tamas wanted to bring to light the injustice of the citizens in Hungary and expose the challenges that they are facing. The website's team produce investigative reports and fights freedom of information for the press. Before Atlatszo, journalists were giving up on challenge their work because it was being restricted.  

Delhi Bus Gang Rape Documentary Banned in India

 

  In 2012, a 23 year old female student in Delhi along with a male companion were victims of a vicious assault. The young woman had been brutally gang raped on a public bus for several hours before being left to fight for her life in a hospital. In the end her injuries were so bad that she died from them. Wishing to shed light on the crime, director Leslee Udwin interviewed one of the rapists in prison and made a documentary about it. The documentary titled "India's Daughter" has been banned from release in India.

    Every country has problems with different forms of censorship, but one must wonder with India being the world's largest democracy, why is free speech being stifled? The home minister Rajnath Singh conveyed a feeling of shame brought to his country by the words of the rapist, Mukesh Singh. He and many others believe that the film glorifies the criminal and gives him a platform to share his sick and perverted views on women's place in Indian society. As noble of a gesture as this might be, banning the film undermines a much larger problem in Indian culture; despite being such an advanced nation, India is another in a long list of countries that suffers from misogynistic societal norms. 

    These norms include but are not limited to the popular South Asian practice of "Eve Teasing". Eve Teasing is in its simplest form, sanctioned sexual harassment. Women in South Asian
countries experience constant verbal abuse, groping, pinching, pushing, and poking from men who are just having "fun" in one of the most juvenile ways they can. There's a slew of laws and practices that value men over women in this culture, and perhaps that is the reason why showing this movie has been banned; it might not be that the country will be ashamed that five Indian men committed such an atrocity, but rather that the views expressed by these rapists coincide with views expressed by many people who have been raised in the same culture. The director (right) of the documentary has said that her work can be used as a "powerful tool for change".

    The documentary has been unofficially screened in the slum homes of the rapists, and will hopefully be shown to more upper class Indian residents to enlighten them not only to the mindset of the men who committed the crime, but also to the underlying problem that as long as societies throughout the world, not just in India, continue to devalue women, these atrocities will continue to happen.

The Severity of Internet censorship in China

Since its foundation the Chinese government has shown to keep a tight grip on the content of its media. The media regulations endorsed by its laws allows the government to censor what China deems as a threat to their national security or reveal state secrets.

Additionally the law dictates they can censor anything that deems harmful to their political or economic interests. Seemingly these laws are extremely vague and allow the government to facilitate censorship at their own discretion. 

Internet censorship  in China has become increasingly obvious over the decade. Sites that contain sensitive phrases and violate China law have been blocked from the country entirely. 

According to abcNEWS: "If an Internet user in China searches for the word "persecution," he or she is likely to come up with a link to a blank screen that says "page cannot be displayed."The same is true of searches for "Tibetan independence," "democracy movements".

OpenNet Initiative, an academic cooperative that tracks censorship issues says that China has the world's "most sophisticated" Internet filtering system. 

Another form of internet censorship used by the Chinese government is banning access from websites around the world. They even issued an order stating that "the internet users of china including foreign organizations and individuals must abide by Chinese law and regulations". 

 

Hackers weaken Great Firewall of China

 "According to abcnews.com, an army of self described hacktivists are engaged in a kind of technological arms race, inventing software and using other tactics to allow ordinary Chinese to beat the "Great Firewall of China" and access information on sensitive subjects such as Chinese human rights and Tibet, the province where pro-independence sentiment has boiled over in recent months."

    China is infamous for is strict and private media and how censored the internet is in China. According to wikipedia.com, China has been censored since the 1980's. China and many other Asian countries are known to be private and they feel if their internet and press is open many other countries they might by nosy and spy on China. 

    In the article China has the world's "most sophisticated" Internet filtering system, according to the OpenNet Initiative, an academic cooperative that tracks censorship issues. Also China is not as strict as Russia or North Korea in that it allows its citizens to use the internet but it regulates what they can or cannot view. 

    Also the punishment for breaking censorship rules can be fines or jail time depending on the crime. The most basic tool at the Chinese government's disposal — and, perhaps, the one most easily circumvented by dissidents — is to ban access within China to websites

Ugandan Magazine Advocates Gay Lifestyle

A Ugandan Magazine was recently published to support gays and help tell their story. The publisher, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera is openly gay and hopes to raise awareness about gay experiences. Tabloids make it difficult to supports homosexuality because they expose LGBT people in a country where homosexuality is illegal. "Politicians have stoked anti-gay sentiment by proposing laws that appeal to conservative Christians – the latest of which seeks to criminalise the “promotion” of homosexuality". (Agence France-Presse)

Along with many of her followers, Kasha has experienced violence and hate. She decided to create the magazine entitled Bombastic after she received hundreds of Facebook messages about harassment of LGBT people. Kasha developed the idea of producing the magazine concerning the lack of media support in Uganda, towards gays. She wanted to give people the LGBT people a platform in a country that shames them. Many people that have spoke out about gay rights have been threatened and attacked. The media is a major factor to the violence and harassment against gays. Magazines, television broadcasts , and newspapers exploit the LGBT community by plastering their photos on publications. Her dear friend, David Kato had been eaten to death with a hammer, in broad daylight after his name was published by a tabloid. “They would target me a lot, they would cook up stories – how I’m getting married … I’m training people to become lesbians,” Nabagesera said.

The people of  Uganda ad many other African countries are afraid to speak out because they fear or their jobs, homes, families and life. She wanted to be the voice for those afraid to weak out. After printing 15,000 copies of Bombastic Kasha sent them everywhere. “We took lots of copies to parliament, government offices, everywhere,” she said. Kasha further sought to promote Bombastic using a website, driving major traffic. 

One hundred thirty-eight volunteers including mainstream media help distribute the magazine. Awareness was being raised about the trouble Ugandan media causes for the LGBT community, although some burnt and dismissed them. Kasha was told "“the president’s wife refused even to open it”. “It is our wish, our hope, that if people read just one story it changes their attitude,” she said. Kasha's goal is to gain more support for gay rights.

Reference:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/09/uganda-gay-magazine-homophobia

http://www.dougcooperspencer.com/black-lgbtq-people-in-history.html

FPB set to censor the internet in South Africa?

One of the draft policies ready to be implemented by the Film and Publications Board (FPB), is that it will not allow any digital content to be distributed in South Africa without the organizations consent. The organizations policy even applies to major online corporations such as Google. It will even go as far as taking legal action against bloggers who post online videos and clips. 

 

According to http://mybroadband.co.za/news/  here is the reason for such strict supervision:

"The primary mandate of the FPB, formerly a censorship board under the apartheid regime, is to protect children from exposure to disturbing and harmful material, and premature exposure to adult experiences; to provide consumer advice to enable adults and the children in their care to make informed viewing, reading and gaming choices; and to make the use of children in and the exposure of children to pornography punishable."

Another aspect of this policy is the payment fee for outside digital distributors set by FPB. Once the fee is payed and the content follows the guidelines of the FPB it will be set on display in South Africa. However according to http://mg.co.za/

"“In all classification decisions for digital content, the online distributor must ensure that the board’s classification decision and logo is conspicuously displayed on the landing page of the website, the website catalogue of the online distributor’s landing page of the website, at the point of sale and during the streaming of the digital content,” the document states."

 

Therefore, with this policy in place FPB will still remain in full control of all online based content in South Africa. This payment applies to anyone who tries to distribute any online games, videos, blogs, films etc. via the internet. The policy is non-negotiable and perpetrators will be vulnerable to immediate legal action The bill as of now is at it's final stages and was sent to the minister of communications in August 2014. If approved it is ready to be enacted in March 2016 and the censorship of the internet in South Africa will begin. 

Head of News And Current Affairs at Botswana TV Resigned

       In 2001 The Press Gazette published an article about British journalist Chris Bishop who quit Botswana TV after less of a year because he was against the censorship that the country imposed on the TV station. Bishop resigned after government officials blocked the broadcast of a documentary about a white South African woman who was hanged for murder.  

    Bishop would constantly get interference and harassment from the country's government officials. According to the Press Gazette, "Bishop said he had made it clear before he agreed to work for the government-funded TV station that he would only do so if he could run it without interference." Censorship in Africa is common and Bishop thought that he could have freedom in producing a TV show.

Verizon Tech News Site Bans Stories on U.S. Spying

 Verizon is getting into the news business. What could go wrong?

Global Media News Webcast #1: September 19, 2013

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• Will Papers Fold? Print in the Age of the Internet
•  Social Media & the Press:  Death Match or Love Story?
• Fired for Tweeting?  Journalists & Social Media
• TV News Goes Social
• Egyptian Crackdown on Journalists
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