censorship
VPN makers report having received a notification from Apple that their apps have been removed from the App Store in Russia.
Featured Article
Anti-censorship tools are quietly disappearing into thin air in China
China — the biggest internet market globally with more than 1 billion users — is no stranger to online censorship. For years, authorities in the country have built out a series of techno-policy restraints, commonly referred to as The Great Firewall, to restrict open access to the internet. But those…
Threads, Meta’s new social networking platform, is quickly gaining ground in China, where Western social apps from Instagram to Facebook are banned. As of Thursday morning Pacific Time, the Twitter…
Damus, one of the fastest-growing Twitter alternatives, has been pulled from China’s App Store just two days after the app was approved by Apple. The app, which runs atop the…
The Russian government has blocked another encrypted email provider, according to a Russian digital rights organization and the email provider. Last Wednesday, Roskomsvoboda, which describes itself as “the first Russian…
Twitter saw a surge in downloads in China as protests against the country’s stringent COVID restrictions erupted nationwide over the last few days. The social media app ranked 9th amongst…
A change in the iOS 16.1.1 update for Chinese users is turning some heads. Apple is restricting the “Everyone” option in AirDrop to 10 minutes on iPhones purchased in mainland…
Tools helping China’s netizens to bypass the Great Firewall appear to be facing a fresh round of crackdowns in the run-up to the country’s quinquennial party congress that will see…
Update September 30, 2022, 6:48 PM ET: A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch via email that the company has discontinued Google Translate in mainland China “due to low usage.” Perhaps there…
Oracle now monitoring TikTok’s algorithms and moderation system for manipulation by China’s government
Oracle has begun auditing TikTok’s algorithms and content moderation models, according to a new report from Axios out this morning. Those reviews began last week, and follow TikTok’s June announcement…
Jailed Kremlin critic, Alexey Navalny, has hit out at adtech giants Meta and Google for shutting off advertising inside Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine which he argues has…
While the world continues to wonder what ‘free speech absolutist‘ and gadfly billionaire Elon Musk might mean for the future of Twitter, the European Union has chalked up an early…
On Friday afternoon, former Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey turned to the platform that he co-created to speak about its future, days after the company was bought for $44 billion…
Featured Article
Will Elon Musk put Twitter on a collision course with global speech regulators?
Elon Musk joked earlier this month that he hoped buying Twitter won’t be too painful for him. But the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” may indeed be inviting a world of pain for himself (and his wallet) if he sets the platform on a collision course with the growing mass of…
Spotify will discontinue access to its streaming services in Russia in light of the country’s dramatic new restrictions on free speech. In early March, the Russian parliament enacted a new…
In the latest move by Russia to censor Western internet services since it started a war by invading Ukraine, Google has confirmed that Russians are having problems accessing its news…
Russia’s internet giant Yandex has told investors it’s exploring “strategic options” for its media products — including a potential sale of its news aggregator, Yandex News, and a user-generated content…
In Russia’s latest swipe at foreign social media giants since it started a land war in Europe by invading Ukraine late last month, the country’s internet censor has fired a…
The U.K. is speeding up the application of powers that could see tech CEOs sent to prison if their businesses fail to comply with incoming safety-focused internet content legislation, the…
Twitter’s service continues to be partially accessible in Russia, although the social networking platform confirmed today that it is aware of reports of users in the country having “increasing difficulty”…
Twitter has claimed it’s complying with an EU-wide ban on Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik which came into force yesterday as part of the package of sanctions imposed by the…
Nigeria’s broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission, has ordered all broadcasting stations in the country to suspend their use of Twitter. The directive was issued Monday morning, and the broadcasting…
Chinese users of the instant messenger Signal knew that the good times wouldn’t last long. The app, which is used for encrypted conversations, is unavailable in mainland China as of…
In its latest strike against online content it doesn’t control Russia is throttling Twitter. State agency Roskomnadzor said today it was taking the action in response to the social media…
The Facebook Oversight Board (FOB) is already feeling frustrated by the binary choices it’s expected to make as it reviews Facebook’s content moderation decisions, according to one of its members…
Facebook applies overly broad content block in flex against Australia’s planned news reuse law
Outrage fast-followed Facebook’s announcement yesterday that it was making good on its threat to block Australian users’ ability to share news on its platform. The tech giant’s intentionally broad-brush — call…
On Friday just past midnight, I stumbled across a Clubhouse room hosted by a well-known figure in the Chinese startup community, Feng Dahui. At half-past midnight, the room still had…
Despite China’s history of stringent media control, an industry of uninstitutionalized, individual publishers has managed to flourish on social media platforms like Tencent’s WeChat and ByteDance’s Toutiao. These self-publishers are…
Featured Article
The far right’s favorite registrar is building ‘censorship-resistant’ servers
Almost half the global population currently has no internet access, and many who do cannot freely access all information sources.
The idea for Capsule started with a tweet about reinventing social media. A day later cryptography researcher, Nadim Kobeissi — best known for authoring the open-source E2E-encrypted desktop chat app…
