From Torrentfreak
Last Friday The Pirate Bay moved to Ukraine after its Swedish bandwidth supplier was forced to stop servicing the tracker. In the new setup, traffic to TPB is routed through The Netherlands, but anti-piracy outfit BREIN has now asked ISP NForce to stop handling TPB’s traffic. As a result the site is now down for most people.
For eight years the Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak has been detained without a trial in a prison in Eritrea. It is difficult to imagine what that must be like. He was imprisoned on the 23 September 2001.
Here is an excercise in perspective:
One month after his imprisonment the first iPod was launched (23 October 2001) and Microsoft released Windows XP (25 October 2001). Facebook was launched in 2004 and so was the first version of the Ubuntu operating system.
For more information FreeDawit.
Wikipedia is planning to add a feature called “flagged revisions” which will fundamentally alter the basic philosophy of WIkipedia. The plan will effect the articles of now living people and will require trusted voluntary Wikipedia editors to accept changes made to any article. Prior to acceptance the changes will not be visible. The New York Times writes:
The change is part of a growing realization on the part of Wikipedia’s leaders that as the site grows more influential, they must transform its embrace-the-chaos culture into something more mature and dependable.
The original free for all attitude where anyone can change articles – which is still the main boast of Wikipedia – has not been true since the Seigenthaler “scandal” in 2005. After John Seigenthaler was accused in a Wikipedia article of being directly involved in both the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy Wikipedia removed anonymous edits.
But the basic change occurring now is that the simple user cannot change articles (of now living people) which means that the balance of power in the creation of online information on Wikipedia shifts and gives the voluntary editor more power – even in relation to the knowledgeable writer.
Considering the past problems and the ways in which Wikipedia articles are often used for marketing and boastfulness these changes are probably necessary. But at the same time it is sad to see that the power over the online knowledge infrastructure is fundamentally shifting from the users into the hands of the gatekeepers.
Martin Rundkvist is an unusual combination he is an archeologist and a wikipedia watcher. His recent blog post discusses censorship on Wikipedia in an article Wikipedia Cracks Down On Cult Propagandists. The article b eginning with Wikipedias decision in May to bar all Church of Scientology users from editing CoS articles on wikipedia. But the interesting focus of his article is the struggle over the articles about Falun Gong (a.k.a. Chinese Scientology).
They used to be a battleground between Chinese Communist Party loyalists and Falun Gong devotees, both sides trying to cram as much propaganda into the articles as possible. Then the FGers managed to get the CCP guys banned from editing…it led to a prolonged situation where the articles were entirely taken over by cult propagandists… And now a similar clean-up effort has reached the Falun Gong pages. A swarm of experienced Wikipedians with no pro-FG or pro-CCP agenda has descended on them. Yesterday the nastiest of the FGers (a fellow Scandy, no less) was banned for six months from touching any of the FG articles. And the delicious irony is that this is the very same guy who got the CCP propagandists thrown out!
In the amazing arguments which pop up in academia about whether or not Wikipedia should be used by students or not. The facts of articles is often brought to the fore of the argument. But very rarely is there a initiated discussion about the truthfulness of wikipedia articles. Who is writing and editing them and why?
One of the most obvious censors are the voluntary editors within the system, here is a typical complain from The Register (2007)
Is Wikipedia running a censorship board? John Barberio thinks so. After more than two years as an active contributor to the free online encyclopedia, the 27-year-old Oxfordshire man recently left the project over the behavior of its “OTRS volunteers,” unpaid administrators who act on reader complaints about the site’s content…I dislike using the scary C word, but OTRS are acting as a censorship board,” he says. “And worse, they appear to be acting as an inept, heavy-handed amateurish censorship board.”
This is unfortunately nothing new but what is probably more concerning is the slick group of workers who change or adapt wikipedia to suit there own needs. The Independent in Wikipedia and the art of censorship (2007) have given several examples of such censorship including:
A computer registered to the Dow Chemical Company is recorded as deleting a passage on the Bhopal chemical disaster of 1984, which occurred at a plant operated by Union Carbide, now a wholly owned Dow subsidiary. The incident cost up to 20,000 lives.
A computer linked to the Israeli government twice tried to delete an entire article about the West Bank wall that was critical of the policy. An edit from the same address also modified the entry for Hizbollah describing all its operations as being “mostly military in nature”.
A computer with an Amnesty International IP address was used to delete references accusing the charity of holding an anti-American agenda.
And finally there is the whole problematic issue of Jimmy Wales’ role in the suppression of the David Rohde capture by the Taliban.
What it all amounts to is the freedom of information or the importance of correct information or the dangers of sensitive information – who gets to decide and what the implications of such decisions are. This is a topic which cannot be easily fobbed off and needs to be discussed in much greater detail.
In case anyone missed it President Sarkozy recently decided to attack the Burka
In our country we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” Mr Sarkozy said to applause in the parliament’s ceremonial Versailles home. The burka is not a religious sign. It is a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement,” he added. “It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.”
So ok the man has a point. Equality cannot be achieved in a society when one group has the power to enforce dress codes on another group. The intentions behind forcing a sub-group to behave or dress in a special manner is irrelevant. As the saying goes: “the road to hell is paved with good intentions…”
Photo: Stencils Oslo May 2009 by svennevenn (CC BY-NC-SA)
So even we can agree with Sarkozy what can be done? Sarkozy seems to be attempting to regulate the wearing of a specific style of clothes in public. This is not the same as refusing to allow different types of clothes inside public buildings such as schools or courts. Attempting to enforce such a rule would in itself be a form of denial of freedom. Can you imagine police arresting burka wearing women on the street? This would hardly strengthen the image of France as a democracy.
Another question is what other forms of dress would be prohibited? Are we to focus on the fully dressed aspect then maybe wearing hoods, scarves and masks would be considered wrong. On the other hand if we were to see the lack of individual freedom as an important aspect then wouldn’t all the slaves to fashion be violating the intent of the law?
Times Online has a list of dress related regulation:
— In France a law was passed in 2004 banning pupils from wearing “conspicuous” religious symbols at state schools, a move widely interpreted as aimed at the Muslim headscarf
— In Turkey where 99 per cent of the population is Muslim, all forms of Muslim headscarf have been banned in universities for decades under the secular government. In June 2008 the country’s Consitutional Court overruled government attempts to lift the ban, prompting protests
— In Britain guidelines say that the full Islamic veil should not be worn in courts, but the final decision is up to judges. Schools may forge their own dress codes and in 2006, courts upheld the suspension of Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant who refused to remove her veil in class
— German states have the option of choosing to ban teachers and other government employees from wearing Muslim headscarves; four have done so
—The Italian parliament in July 2005 approved anti-terrorist laws that make hiding one’s features from the public — including through wearing the burla — an offence
— Tunisia, a Muslim country, has banned Islamic headscarves in public places since 1981. In 2006 authorities began a campaign against the headscarves and began strictly enforcing the ban
— The Dutch Government said in 2007 that it was drawing up legislation to ban burkas, but it was defeated in elections in November and the new centrist coalition said it had no plans to implement a ban
On March 26 the United Nations Human Rights Council voted yes a resolution that makes blasphemy a serious offense against human dignity. Unsurprisingly the countries behind the proposal are the same countries that view blasphemy as a serious crime and punish it with long criminal sentences, corporal punishment or death. The Economist has a good article that explains why free speech should protect individuals not religions.
The pope claims that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. He recently said
“You can’t resolve it [Aids] with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
What a nutter…
Tomorrow the long awaited file sharing/internet piracy trial will begin. The Times Online called it the Internet piracy trial of the decade. It’s the Pirate Bay website (or rather four men behind the site) that go on trial for enabling millions of internet users to make illegal downloads of music, movies, games and software. The courts will look into subjects like
– what is a link
– what is a search engine
– aiding criminal offences
Most of the stuff is interesting from a legal-technical point of view since the outcome will hardly have any effect on file sharing on the Internet. The most probably outcome will be a court “victory” for the copyright industry and an appeal to the next level. The case will move towards the inevitable Supreme Court trial. The whole affair should be very interesting and yet, in practical terms, not relevant the total amount of file sharing online. User may have to switch to another provider or service but most probably the Pirate Bay will remain online in some form.
The story so far on ars technica, Times Online, Guardian. Also take a look at the Pirate Bays own dedicated trial site The Spectrial.
To understand how big this is take a look at the torrent user statistics on a map in real time here. Killing a website like the Pirate Bay will not stop this.
Listening to the radio this morning and heard that Karim Massimov, the Prime Minster of Kazakhstan started his private, yet official blog on 9th January and apparently has been so happy with the result that he has ordered his minsters to start personal blogs.
A politician starting a blog is hardly worth mentioning and starting in 2009 seems even to be a late starter but this one is a bit interesting.
According to the American State Department Country Report on Kazakhstan
The Government’s human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit numerous abuses. The Government severely limited citizens’ right to change their government and democratic institutions remained weak. On some occasions, members of the security forces, including police, tortured, beat, and otherwise mistreated detainees; some officials were punished for these abuses. Prison conditions remained harsh; however, the Government took an active role in efforts to improve prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners. The Government continued to use arbitrary arrest and detention and to selectively prosecute political opponents; prolonged detention was a problem. Amendments to several laws governing the authority of procurators further eroded judicial independence. The Government infringed on citizens’ privacy rights.
Reporters sans frontières begin their 2008 report on Kazakhstan:
As well as the usual problems journalists get when they expose corruption or criticise President Nazarbayev, the media was the victim of power struggles inside the regime. Three opposition journalists died in suspicious circumstances and coverage of the August 2007 parliamentary elections was biased.
So the idea that the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan starting a blog and praising the way in which it allows citizens to communicate more directly with government is surprising to say the least. Either the whole thing is a propaganda attempt gone wrong or a total misunderstanding of the power of online communication.
Or maybe those in power just don’t get how bad they are?
The UK has adopted and intepreted the silliest anti-terrorist laws – they have created a state of paranoia which is hard for any sensible person to explain or understand.
The Independent reports that artist and photographer Ruben Powell was arrested last week his photographing of the old HMSO print works close to the local police station posed an unacceptable security risk.
For Powell, this brush with the law resulted in five hours in a cell after police seized the lock-blade knife he uses to sharpen his pencils. His release only came after the intervention of the local MP, Simon Hughes, but not before he was handcuffed and his genetic material stored permanently on the DNA database.
The Independent gives even more examples of people who have run afoul of the strangest intepretation of misguided security. Not only are phographers being seen as suspicious in one way or another. Another sad thing is that the data is stored permanently in the DNA database even when no crime has been committed.
Security is a bad joke creating a social paranoia beyond belief. Common sense has been suspended and seems to be nowhere in sight.