"Nothing in Zheng Yichun's upbringing foreshadowed his landing in a political prison...."

"Two new Internet bans may offer insight into the Chinese government's biggest fears. One bars Internet news services from inciting "illegal" assemblies, marches and demonstrations; the other prohibits activities on behalf of "illegal" civil groups."

"... The Moroccan regime is not ignorant of the power of the Internet and is attempting to stifle its effectiveness via legal constraints, such as the 2003 anti-terrorism law as well as technical methods such as filtering and blocking sites. But such methods ultimately are ineffective; even when a Web site is shut down, there are still e-mail list serves and blogs to take up the cause."

"China said Sunday it is imposing new regulations to control content on its news Web sites and will allow the posting of only "healthy and civilized" news."

"China's cyber police have intensified controls over the country's 100 million Internet users in the past few months but that hasn't stopped Western Web firms from pushing ever farther into the booming market."

"... she said the European Commission had the duty to protect shared European values.... She said there was a broad consensus that child protection and hate speech rules should also apply to "nonlinear" services, such as pay-TV or Internet broadcasts."

"... Under an authoritarian government determined to control information, China has grown a new version of the Internet. As former US President Bill Clinton noted recently, China's Internet is very unlike the cauldron of dissenting voices that is the hallmark of the Internet familiar to Americans. Instead, it's heavily filtered, monitored, censored, and most of all, focused on making money."

"... CleanFlicks is going from strength to strength, offering its services on a monthly subscription basis much like the wildly successful mainstream company Netflix. And a second, even more sophisticated, company called ClearPlay, also based in Utah, has sprung up."

"The culprits involved in censoring the Internet include not only the usual dictatorships but also Western countries that preach the virtues of democracy, an informed citizenry, freedom of speech, and the other platitudes we've been hearing lately from George Bush, Tony Blair, and their allies. Moreover, some of the world's biggest multinationals and high tech companies are complicit in this trend"

"The county's top librarian has proposed measures to keep children from inadvertently seeing Internet pornography while it is being viewed by adults in public libraries. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich said, however, that's not good enough - and the goal is to eliminate pornography completely from the Los Angeles County libraries."

"... Rule number 4 of the Authorized and Unauthorized Use section of the UNLV University Libraries Guidelines for Library Computer Use states that "Users are not permitted to use a computer with the intent to intimidate, harass, or display hostility toward others (e.g., sending offensive messages or prominently displaying material that others might find offensive such as vulgar language, explicit sexual material, or material from hate-groups).""

"... for media and net based companies setting up a business in China also means adhering to local rules, including tight state controls of the press and restrictions governing what websites can say. Reporters Without Borders accepts that Yahoo - and it is not currently known whether the firm volunteered or was forced to supply the e-mail details of Shi Tao - could have encountered legal problems with the Chinese authorities if it refused to comply. But, Reporters Without Borders said, it is about time that the powerful net firms such as Yahoo and Microsoft that have set up shop in China stood up and were counted, putting an ethical position before their legal obligations."

"The European Commission should be cautious about extending the Television Without Frontiers Directive (TVWF Directive) to cover the provision of online audiovisual content services, according to trade group the E-Business Regulatory Alliance."

"OPPOSITION Leader Kim Beazley has called for a subsidy on the cost of internet filtering so families can better protect their children from violent and pornographic websites."

"Parental control software is only partially effective and needs to be supplemented by parental supervision of their children's online activities, according to a study by Computing Which?, the consumer magazine."

"Finnish officials and companies plan to block access by Internet users in Finland to foreign web sites containing child pornography. Telecommunications service providers are to be given a list of web sites to be blocked."

"Level 3 Communications is denying German web surfers access to Ogrish, a website displaying graphic images that many consider distasteful... Level 3 blocks access to the site by filtering the internet protocol (IP) address on its routers in Germany. The blocking method makes that only customers of German internet providers that use Level 3's services are affected by the ban."

"The collection of bookstores, publishers and Internet service providers upset at new anti-porn legislation have missed the point, and 11 of the 14 are not even affected by the new law, according to legal briefs filed Tuesday by state attorneys."

"THE Tasmanian Government will review controls being used by libraries to restrict access to internet pornography. Education Minister Paula Wriedt called for the review in response to claims in the Sunday Tasmanian last week that people were accessing pornography on computers in the State Library."

"... when her cult status began to sweep the whole country, Beijing stepped in. "They've cracked down on me," Sister Furong, a 28-year-old girl next door whose real name is Shi Hengxia, told Reuters. In late July, authorities told the country's top blog host to move Furong-related content to low-profile parts of the site. Her pictures can still be found online, but links to them and chatrooms about her have disappeared from the front pages of major Web portals."

"Floozie or role model, attention monger or free spirit? For months, China has been debating what to make of its latest internet-born star, a young woman known nationwide as Furong Jiejie, aka Sister Furong. She is seen as a pioneer pushing the boundaries of traditional media controls but in the process has become a target of government censors in the tightly controlled country."

"Reporters Without Borders today condemned the raids carried out on 16 August by the Belarusian secret police, the KGB, on three apartments in Minsk and the western city of Grodno allegedly belonging to young members of the Third Way opposition movement who create satirical, animated cartoons (in Flash format) for Internet distribution."

"In an attempt to "safeguard national culture," China said Wednesday that it will refuse to allow any new foreign-owned television satellite channels into the country and that it would tighten controls on the 31 international broadcasters already operating in China. In a statement announced by the state news agency Xinhua, China's Culture Ministry said the country "will not again allow a foreign satellite TV station to have landing rights in the country.""

"A Labour MP has proposed a bill to force ISPs to declare whether they have taken steps to prevent access to paedophilic Web sites. Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton South, has introduced the bill under the 'Ten Minute Rule', which allows a brief discussion on the issue, but is unlikely to lead to an immediate change in the law."

"In 1949, when George Orwell wrote his dystopian novel "1984," he gave its hero, Winston, a job at the Ministry of Truth. All day long, Winston clips politically unacceptable facts, stuffs them into little pneumatic tubes, and then pushes the tubes down a chute. Beside him sits a woman in charge of finding and erasing the names of people who have been "vaporized." And their office, Orwell wrote, "with its fifty workers or thereabouts, was only one sub-section, a single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records Department.""

"International free expression groups have launched a new website detailing the state of free expression in Tunisia and challenged the government to end Internet blocking in the lead-up to the November 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)."

"To get an inkling of how China controls and sanitizes the Internet experience, it helps to step into any Internet cafe in Shanghai. Each incoming user must give a name and address, then hand over identification to a clerk. Closed-circuit TV cameras monitor from overhead. Every computer terminal is loaded with software to track all activity. If a user heads toward a prohibited Web site, cafe employees know right away."

"Have U.S. high-tech giants helped China bring the Internet to heel? Several human rights and free-speech groups believe so. They charge that companies such as Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Google and Yahoo have assisted China in building and maintaining the most sophisticated Internet filtering system on Earth."

"Action video games are renowned for serving up simulated gore and violence, but an intriguing mystery surfaced last week in which politics, business and simulated sex feature prominently as well. With some code written by Patrick Wildenborg, a 36-year-old Dutch techie, and a few friends, some scenes in the best-selling video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas become sexually explicit."

"... A recent study by the Open Net Initiative (ONI) in conjunction with Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society reveals an increasingly sophisticated set of mechanisms through which Chinese Internet users are prevented from accessing material deemed off-limits by the Chinese government (www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china). Though Chinese government statements emphasize antipornography crackdowns, ONI found that the primary focus of China's filtering system was on political content."

"Japan said it will tackle the spread of "illegal and harmful" websites in the wake of a series of Internet-based incidents involving suicide pacts and homemade bombs. "The government has worked out plans to combat illegal and harmful content on the Internet after discussing the issue and considering freedom of expression and privacy of communications," it said Friday."

"It is fashionable to appease China. Over the past few weeks we have had the unedifying spectacle of the Australian Government turning its back on a defecting Chinese diplomat, and last week we saw Microsoft agreeing to censor blogs on its new Chinese MSN Spaces network that contain words such as freedom and democracy... Appeasing Beijing is not only morally reprehensible, it places those who do so on the wrong side of history."

"Internet censorship in Iran is amongst the most restrictive and sophisticated in the world, a technical study has revealed. And much of the filtering technology in use was developed by western companies."

"The Iranian government has tightened its control over the Internet, increasingly blocking content in its national language of Farsi and restricting what citizens can publish through Web journals, Western researchers say. Iran shows a sophistication in filtering seen only in China and a few other countries, adapting its techniques as use of the Internet evolves, said John Palfrey, a Harvard University researcher who studied censorship in Iran for the OpenNet Initiative."

"A US Web security firm cited in a report on Iran's Internet censorship said that any use in Iran of its software is "illegal and unauthorized." John McNulty, chairman and chief executive of Secure Computing Corporation said in a statement that his company "has sold no licenses to any entity in Iran." The company was cited in a report Tuesday by the OpenNet Initiative, a partnership of researchers that called Iran's Internet censorship among the worst in the world and called the US firm "complicit.""

"Twenty-eight floors above the traffic-choked streets of China's most wired city, blogger and tech entrepreneur Isaac Mao sums up his opinion of Microsoft and its treatment of the Chinese bloggers with one word. "Evil," says Mao. "Internet users know what's evil and what's not evil, and MSN Spaces is an evil thing to Chinese bloggers." Mao, 33, knows something about the topic. In 2002, he was one of China's first bloggers, and since then his ideas on harnessing blogs, peer-to-peer and grass-roots technologies to empower the Chinese people have made him a respected voice in the global blogosphere."

"The university-based OpenNet Initiative (ONI) released "Internet Filtering in Iran," a report that documents the degree and extent to which the Iranian government controls the information environment in which its citizens live, including websites, blogs, email, and online discussion forums... ONI's research shows that Iran is among several countries in the Middle East that focuses its censorship efforts on expression through local language, like Farsi. Iran is also one of a growing number of countries, particularly in the Middle East region, that rely upon commercial software developed by for-profit United States companies to carry out its filtering regime."

"Should American companies help China filter the Internet? That's a question that came up twice in my life over the past week. In one case, I think a small Utah company is doing the right thing, while in the other I think Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Cisco are putting profits over human rights."

"Malaysia has ordered Internet cafes to install anti-porn filters, and Internet service providers to provide customers with the software, in a campaign to curb access to pornography, reports said. Telephone companies and Internet Service Providers "have been ordered to do it fast. There should not be any excuses," Science , Technology and Innovation Minister Jamaluddin Jarjis was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times."

"Dig out your security and filtering manuals, because a VP will soon knock on the door. He or she will demand action to deal with the new Top Level Domain, .xxx, just approved by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Of all the domains to authorize, why Triple X? Homage to the action movies? Why not encourage better use of geographic tags? Businesses need ways to attract local users, and using the proper state and country tag would provide excellent filter fodder. Nope, we get a supposedly easy way to isolate adult content, so the Powers That Be can say they've done something when in fact they've done nothing of value."

"The Chinese government should stop its harassment of AIDS activists and remove restrictions on civil society groups working to fight the country's burgeoning HIV/AIDS epidemic, Human Rights Watch said in a 57-page report released today."

"Chinese bloggers posting their thoughts via Microsoft's net service face restrictions on what they can write. Weblog entries on some parts of Microsoft's MSN site in China using words such as "freedom", "democracy" and "demonstration" are being blocked."

"A red-light district tentatively cleared for construction on the Internet -- the ".xxx" domain -- is being billed by backers as giving the $12 billion online porn industry a great opportunity to clean up its act. A distinct online sector for the salacious, one with rules aimed at forbidding trickery, will reduce the chances of Internet users accidentally stumbling on porn sites, they argue. If only it were so simple..."

"FORMER Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has called for the installation of special computer software to block access to pornographic websites. Since 1991 Dr Mahathir said he had taken up the issue of pornographic websites and the need to curb them."

"Eleven years after its initial connection to the World Wide Web, China's access to the Internet is still guarded by firewalls, embedded in its proxy servers, which have proven to be more practical and impenetrable than the Berlin Wall. Moreover, an increase in the demand for broadband connections has triggered the launch of a US$800 million "Golden Shield Project," an automatic digital system of public policing that will help prolong Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule by denying China's people the right to information."

"Anti-porn software developed for schools by a company with links to fundamentalist Christians has been criticised for blocking students' access to leftist political forums and websites on sexuality and health. Education Minister Trevor Mallard approved the Watchdog Corporation's CampusNet filtering software last year, as part of a $9.5 million package to help schools screen out hackers and objectionable material such as pornography."

"Following Google's announcement that it is to open an office in China, Reporters Without Borders has written to the company's two founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, asking them for a clear response to the following question : "Will you agree to censor your search engine if asked to by Beijing ?""

"China has blocked a popular website devoted to providing information and support to the nation's large but closeted homosexual population, even as the nation fights an exploding AIDS epidemic, the site's manager said on Wednesday. The site which sees 50,000 to 65,000 visits a day mainly from mainland Chinese, had been blocked since April 11, manager Damien Lu said."

"The Internet has allowed for unparalleled freedom of expression. But many countries are working hard to limit what their citizens can say and read in cyberspace. Nowhere has a government worked harder to corral the Internet than China, where the consequences of breaking the rules can lead to prison or even death. Ronald Deibert has travelled extensively in China and other countries where the Internet is controlled. Deibert is associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, and a researcher with the OpenNet Initiative, a group that studies Internet censorship around the globe."

"China has blocked several anti-Japanese websites during the week-long May Day holidays in an apparent move to quash another wave of demonstrations, activists have said. Internet websites and chatrooms last month called for massive, nationwide demonstrations against Japan on May 4, following a series of large protests in several cities in April."

"Warning to kids: Big Brother and Big Nanny are watching you. Two decades after Tipper Gore knocked rock lyrics, lawmakers, parents and software designers are still thinking up new ways to protect kids from sex-and-violence entertainment... Last week President Bush signed a law that will make it easier for parents to have DVD players equipped with a filter that can skip over inappropriate scenes. In the Senate, Alaska Republican Ted Stevens is warning cable TV operators to clean up their act -- and provide family-friendly channels -- or watch Congress do it for them."

"As public and legislative support grows for a crackdown on indecent TV programming, broadcasters are working to develop tough voluntary guidelines they hope will stall eventual government regulation, industry officials said yesterday. A task force of broadcasters is set to deliver a report this summer that will include a series of measures to reduce profanity, "wardrobe malfunctions" and other indecent content from making it to the airwaves."

"Tough-minded conservatives and Hollywood-friendly liberals have markedly different opinions about sex, violence and indecency on television, a Pew Research Center poll shows."

"It will soon become legal to alter a motion picture so long as all the sex, profanity, and violence have been edited out, thanks to a bill called the Family Movie Act, an attachment to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act approved Tuesday by the House. The Senate has already passed its own version, and the President is expected to sign it."

"Fledgling technology that helps parents prevent children from watching movie scenes depicting sex, violence or foul language won new legal protections Tuesday under a bill Congress is sending to U.S. President George W. Bush. The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act would assure manufacturers of DVD players and other devices using such technology they would not be violating copyrights of the Hollywood producers of movies."

"A bill that would allow parents to use technology to shield their children from offensive movie content will go to the full House of Representatives for approval today, Rep. Lamar Smith said. The Family Movie Act would permit the use of a device, incorporated in a DVD player, that would enable parents to skip or silence objectionable material without violating copyright law."

"The Chinese government has become increasingly sophisticated at controlling the Internet, taking a multilayered approach that contributes to precision in blocking political dissent, a report released Thursday finds. The precision means that China's filters can block just specific references to Tibetan independence without blocking all references to Tibet. Likewise, the government is effective at limiting discussions about Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square and other topics deemed sensitive, the study from the OpenNet Initiative finds."

"The Chinese government is succeeding in broadly censoring what its citizens can read on the Internet, surprising many experts and denting U.S. government hopes that online access would be a quick catalyst for democratic political reform."

"For 14 years, Channel 7 in Buffalo, N.Y., provided an invaluable service for its audience. The station allowed volunteers for the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service for the Blind to read periodicals and books for the blind over its secondary audio feed. That was until earlier this year when one listener complained about a word heard during the reading of Tom Wolfe's new novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons."