· May, 2015

Stories about Censorship from May, 2015

An Online Joke Captures China's Censorship Practices

  28 May 2015

Letscorp, a site devoted to bridging information across Chinese speaking communities, reposted an online joke on Twitter that vividly captures mainland Chinese censorship practices. 老大:官员好不好,百姓说了算。宣传部:我补充一句,大多数百姓不明真相。团中央:没事,我们有一千万网评员保证舆论。公安:还有漏网的我们就抓。央视:再让他们嫖娼。环球:就说他们收了美国人的钱。外交部发言人:依据相关法律和政策,我国有充分言论自由。人民日报:你瞧,这是人民的选择嘛 — 墙外楼 (@letscorp) May 28, 2015 Man on top [implying Chinese president Xi Jinping]: Whether a government official is performing well should be judged by...

Robot Commenters Accidentally Expose Themselves on China's Weibo Platform

Advox  27 May 2015

Patrick Wong contributed to this post. Chinese netizens are having a good laugh over the mechanized missteps of government-controlled robot commenters, who have been criticizing messages sent by their own masters. A few weeks ago, a group of robots seized upon a congratulatory message posted on Weibo over a year...

Venezuela Bans 22 Media Editors and Executives from Leaving the Country

  16 May 2015

Over 20 members of three Venezuelan media groups, El Nacional and Tal Cual, as well as news site La Patilla, are now prohibited from leaving the country. Caracas judge María Eugenia Núñez ordered the restriction on the opposition media figures, who are “accused of ‘continuing aggravated defamation'”, according to broadcaster NTN24. Venezuela places travel ban on opposition media execs...

Amid “Intelligent” Censorship Discussions, Iran Affirms Facebook Will Remain Blocked

Discussions regarding the implementation of “intelligent” filtering have proliferated Internet policy discussions within Iran. “Intelligent” filtering is a process whereby they filter select content on a social media platform, rather than the entire site. Our recent research covered the extent of this program on Instagram. In response to “intelligent’ filtering...