Tag Archives: Speech

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Amnesty accuses Azerbaijan of restricting freedom of expression online

May 16, 2013 10:36 am | Leave a Comment |

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Azerbaijan has adopted a controversial law that Amnesty International claims targets online freedom of speech. A new amendment to the country’s defamation law makes “slander” and “insults” on the internet punishable by fines, imprisonment or hard labour.

According to the state news agency APA, those found guilty of slander face a fine of up to the equivalent of €493, as well as one year corrective labour or jail time of up to six months. The punishments are even harsher if the slanderous comments are deemed to have been ‘insulting’.

The changes come shortly before the country’s presidential election in October, leaving human rights groups worried that authorities are trying to silence all critical voices and meaningful debate.

Amnesty International has condemned the move in a press release, calling it a “further attack of freedom of expression in Azerbaijan.”

David Daz-Jogeix, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Programme said, “The Azerbaijani authorities’ fear of critical voices has already led them to attempt to keep peaceful protesters off the streets and to muzzle the mainstream media. This new law aims to shut down one of the few last resorts of legitimate protest – the internet.”

Even before the legislative changes, President Ilham Aliev’s regime was regularly criticised by organisations defending human rights. They accuse the government of persecuting independent journalists, attacking political opposition candidates and detaining activists during anti-government protests.

In March 2012 two musicians were arrested and tortured for insulting the President’s late mother in a performance.

Despite the criticism, the President, who has been in power for the past decade – following a decade of his father’s rule – remains the favourite to succeed himself in October’s elections.

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Defiant Pirate Bay to continue hosting banned 3D printer gun designs

May 10, 2013 9:07 pm | Leave a Comment |

Designed by radical US libertarian Cody Wilson, the Liberator is the world’s first fully 3D printed firearm. When it was unveiled on Wilson’s DEFCAD website earlier this week, it was immediately downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people, with millions more getting the design off file-sharing websites.The US State Department then asked Wilson to take down his blueprints, citing a possible violation of arms export regulations pending review, which he has done.But The Pirate Bay (TPB), the Swedish-founded torrent website, which is currently operating through a domain name registered on the Caribbean island of Saint Maarten, does not plan to follow suit.“TPB has for close to 10 years been operating without taking down one single torrent due to pressure from the outside. And it will never start doing that,” a senior insider told TorrentFreak news portal.As well, as free speech, in justifying its decision TPB invoked a defense that echoed the National Rifle Association’s unofficial slogan (‘Guns don’t kill people. People kill people’).“The problem is not the object but what you do with it. Just as with a cooking knife.”Although Wilson has posted a video of himself successfully using the one-shot pistol that has garnered more than 3 million views on YouTube, it is not clear how practical or safe it would be to re-create the blueprints. Wilson used an $8,000 second-hand Stratasys Dimension SST printer, which makes three-dimensional objects by ‘printing’ a series of layers on top of each other with polymers.Similarly to Wilson himself, Pirate Bay believes the blueprints are not to be taken at face value (“We laugh at their gun love since it’s so obviously the wrong way to go.”) but are a starting point for a public debate on personal freedoms and state authority.“We think that the good thing about the discussion about 3D printers and their gun laws might bring more focus on the double standards that the US is having and hopefully – people will start printing signs to protest against the guns, the corruption and the threats against freedom of speech that the US is pushing on us,” said the Pirate Bay insider.Regardless of the file-sharing portal’s stance, and edicts from the US State Department, it is almost impossible to remove files from the internet once they have been shared, as long as there is demand. At the time of writing, the blueprints remain a popular download on most file-sharing websites based across the world, and even if they were all shut down simultaneously, the files could easily be re-uploaded from the millions of hard disks on which they are already stored. … Read More

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Nazi hunters call on Twitter to crack down on terrorists

May 9, 2013 3:16 am | Leave a Comment |

A Nazi-hunting group has urged Twitter and other social media to step up efforts to remove online “hate speech,” citing a surge in incitement to attacks like the recent Boston bombings. The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Twitter has spawned nearly 20,000 hashtags and handles this year…

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Alex Jones: Conspiracy Inc.

May 2, 2013 11:45 am | Leave a Comment |

It’s good to be Alex Jones. Matt Drudge, the conservative Web entrepreneur and news aggregator, proved prophetic when he predicted that 2013 would be “the year of Alex Jones.” The longtime conspiracy broadcaster is finally breaking into the mainstream consciousness after a buzzy interview with Piers Morgan and his Boston bombing conspiracy, and traffic to his websites has never been higher. The conspiracy business is booming.And make no mistake, it is a business. That’s not to say that Jones isn’t a believer — there are easier ways to make money — but Jones has built a multi-platform new media empire in his Austin, Texas, Free Speech Systems LLC that reaches millions of believers and promises advertisers that it will “direct lucrative buyers to you from our daily audience of active enthusiasts.” And all told, Jones is very likely raking in millions.Continue Reading… … Read More

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Bush weeps while talking about Hurricane Katrina and dead soldiers

April 25, 2013 4:40 pm | Leave a Comment |

Former President George W. Bush openly wept while talking about some of the biggest disasters of his tenure at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on Thursday. At the conclusion of his speech, Bush mentioned “the people of New Orleans who made homemade boats…

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Must-see morning clip: Jon Stewart interviews Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef

April 25, 2013 1:30 pm | Leave a Comment |

Honored this week as an attendee the Time 100 gala, Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef stopped by “The Daily Show” to discuss the Egyptian government’s attempts to censor his comedy. “They’re insecure, they are locked up into their teenage years. They still have pimples and have to deal with their body hair,” he said.Youssef, who was arrested for “denigrating Islam,” “spreading false news” and “diminishing the president’s stature,” was released on bail earlier this month. His case attracted international attention, however, as activists cited the arrest as one of the greatest free speech infringements by the Mohamed Morsi’s government since he came to power.Continue Reading… … Read More

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Pirate Bay Finds Safe Haven in Iceland, Switches to .IS Domain

April 25, 2013 8:17 am | Leave a Comment |

It has been a busy month for The Pirate Bay’s IT department thus far, with the site skipping from domain to domain.
Two weeks ago the notorious BitTorrent site traded in its .SE domain for the Greenland-based .GL TLD. The Pirate Bay took this decision because they feared that Swedish authorities were about to take over their domain names.
However, TPB did not receive a warm welcome in Greenland.
Within two days of the move The Pirate Bay lost both its .GL domain names. Tele-Post, the private company responsible for .GL registrations, did not wait for a court order and said it would not allow the domains to be put to “illegal” use.
Resilient as always, TPB aren’t about to give up that easily and have already lined up yet another domain name. This time they’re going for Iceland’s .IS TLD, which will be a little harder to take offline.

Ahoy Iceland

Thepiratebay.is was registered after the Greenland debacle and traffic was redirected to the new domain a few minutes ago. Iceland is an interesting choice as the country previously positioned itself as a safe haven for freedom of speech.
Whether The Pirate Bay’s activities are considered protected under this definition remains to be seen, but ISNIC, the company responsible for .IS domains, informs TorrentFreak that they have no plans to treat thepiratebay.is any differently to their other domains.
When we asked whether ISMIC would follow Greenland’s lead and move for a proactive suspension, we got a clear answer.
“The short answer is no. Such an action would require a formal order from an Icelandic court. ISNIC is not responsible for a registrant’s usage of their domains,” ISNIC’s Marius Olafsson told TorrentFreak.
This is not the first time that Iceland’s registry has been asked about possible actions against a controversial domain. In 2010, when Wikileaks was hosted under an .IS TLD, the company gave the same response.
“This policy applies equally to any .is domain,” Olafsson says, adding that it’s the domain owner’s responsibility to abide by the law, not theirs.
“There is an article in our registration rules which states that ‘the registrant is responsible for ensuring that the use of the domain is within the limits of Icelandic law as current at any time’,” he explains.
ISNIC’s position means that The Pirate Bay will probably be operating from the .IS domain for a while. Technically copyright holders could file a complaint, but without a prior ruling against the site in Iceland this will probably turn out to be a time-consuming and expensive endeavor.
Even if the domain was taken away, The Pirate Bay would probably move on to the next one as if nothing happened. Until they run out of domains.
Source: Pirate Bay Finds Safe Haven in Iceland, Switches to .IS Domain

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