Posts Tagged censorship
China Forcing News Sites to ID Commenters
News sites in China are now being required to obtain the true identities of their commenters, likely in an attempt to suppress and deter so-called “subversive” behavior. Previously, commenters had been offered a bit more anonymity where they could either post without registering at all or with much less personal information.
The new policy took effect last month and requires a real name and government issued identification number. This would positively identify every commenter on top of their already traceable IP address.
It appears from news reports that the government has tried to keep its involvement in the change under wraps, working to suppress reports on the matter in the media. It has worked for much of this decade on bringing a “real name” system to the Chinese Internet, and those in China say this is likely just the beginning.
There’s also another reason why the government didn’t want this publicized: it is unpopular and previous attempts have gotten a lot of blowback. China tried in 2006 to implement the policy on blogs, but after prominent bloggers in the country came out against the new policy and the public also overwhelmingly opposed it, the country backed off.
Local officials tried it too: Hangzhou officials wanted a similar policy for all who post on sites in the city earlier this year, however again public criticism killed the government’s plans.
It is certainly disappointing to see China once again working to curtail their citizens rights. The “subversion” tactic is something they use frequently: in most cases it’s an excuse to prevent free speech. Truly, there isn’t much that can be said that could truly disrupt the country.
What they’re paranoid of is the fact that there is a large portion of their population that wants freedom of speech and to be able to speak out. What China’s learning now is that in the digital age, that’s going to be much harder than ever to control.
Flickr Seems to be Caught in Lie Over Obama Joker Image
The more that comes out of the flap over Flickr’s move to delete the Obama-as-Joker parody image, the more it appears that the photo site may not be telling the truth. A report on Tuesday by Photo District News shows that nobody contacted Flickr about the image as far as a copyright claim goes.
Time? Said it never made a request for the image to be taken down. DC Comics, owner of the Joker character? No, they didn’t ask either. How about the photographer who took the picture? They didn’t even know there was any controversy surrounding the image.
So who asked for the image to be taken down, as the site gave in a response a week ago? Apparently nobody with a legal right to. With PDN’s reporting, it is now almost completely clear the site acted on its own to remove the imagery.
What makes it bad here is now the site looks like it has lied. Add to this folks like Thomas Hawk have jumped on it like a hawk (no pun intended), and it is quickly becoming a public relations nightmare for the company.
As Hawk writes:
I will say though that if Flickr staff knows that the DMCA takedown request is bogus and is now using it to deflect criticism against them over their censorship act that this would actually not be an open and honest way to communicate with their users at all, that this would in fact be a disingenuous and dishonest way to communicate with them.
It’s time for Flickr to speak. Allowing this to degenerate further into a morass of speculation only feeds the idea that Flickr may be in the Adminstration’s back pocket cause of it’s use of the site’s services.
By the way, PDN points out that at least three copies of the original image have now surfaced on Flickr since the controversy began over the deletion of the image. Why aren’t these coming down?
Flickr Removes Obama Joker Pic Citing “Copyright Concerns”
The now-iconic photo of Obama as Joker can no longer be found on Flickr, as the site has removed it citing “copyright infringement concerns.” Originally created by 20-year-old Chicago college student Firas Alkhateeb, the image has sat on the site for several months, amassing some 20,000 hits by the time it was pulled.
Ironically, Alkhateeb never intended for the picture to become political. Instead, it was merely a experiment with PhotoShop that he later uploaded to his Flickr account, based on a tutorial on how to “jokerize” photos. While on Flickr someone found the photo, revised it and added it to posters that began to appear around Los Angeles earlier this summer.
The original version (pictured above) was modeled off of an actual Time magazine cover. The version which has made it on to the now-infamous “Socialism” posters has obviously been doctored to remove Time’s branding.
Flickr is being rather tight-lipped about why it deleted the image, citing policies that prevent it from discussing actions taken against individual users. But it isn’t the first time anti-Obama commentary has been flushed by the site.
The account of a man named Shepherd Johnson was deleted in June after he had made several critical comments on the photostream of the President. Again, no real explanation from the site.
Critics are quick to point out that a good deal of anti-Bush media remains on the site. That’s a fair criticism. Why is that allowed to stay while anti-Obama material is apparently taboo?
While I can see Flickr’s possible argument that Alkhateeb had no rights to the image as it is a copyrighted work, there is some argument to be made that this is “fair use” under the parody clause. While you or I may not agree with the portrayal of our President in this manner, in the end the guy has a right to exercise his creative license.
Flickr should explain itself, and not lean on its policies as a crutch. Staying quiet only adds to the argument that the site is in the Administration’s pocket since the government itself is making heavy use of Flickr as of late.
Best thing about this whole deal? Alkhateeb says he is surprised his image is being used on the socialism posters, calling it “immature.”
(Hat tip: Top of the Ticket, others)
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