The authorities of the country advise citizens to refuse using Facebook so that not to become an American intelligence service’ informants

Moscow. July 11. INTERFAX.RU - Venezuelans citizens are urged to refuse using Facebook, the social network. According to the Minister of the country's prisons Mary Iris Varela’s words, using the world's largest social network one can become a foreign spy.

"Venezuelans! Turn off your Facebook accounts so that not to become unwilling US informants. Please pay attention to the Snowden’ case" - wrote the minister in his Twitter.

A former agent of CIA the U.S. National Security Agency, Edward Snowden revealed the secret data about the PRISM system, with the help of which the U.S. intelligence agencies have access to the correspondence and personal data of the Facebook, Google, Apple and other large Internet company’s users in the U.S.

Snowden also revealed some details about U.S. intelligence spying on foreign partners from Japan, the EU and other countries. U.S. intelligence agencies, in particular, intercepted telephone calls and messages from the EU Delegation in New York and Washington, and were even able to get access to communication systems of the administration buildings of the European Union in Brussels.

The information leakage organized by Snowden has caused a major international scandal. The U.S. authorities accused the former intelligence officer of theft of government property, unauthorized disclosure of the information about the national security and the deliberate transmission of the intelligence service’ security data to outsiders.

Location of Snowden, who left the country in May and came to Hong Kong, is not known. In June, Snowden flew to Moscow, and now according to some information, he is still in the transit area of ​​the airport "Sheremetyevo".

Facebook - the world's largest social network - regularly suffers from attempts to censor it. The access to Facebook is limited by Syria, for several times, it became the victim of Internet censorship in China, the social network also is blocked in Iran and Egypt. Also Facebook was repeatedly blocked in Tajikistan.



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There is scandalous photo in the Internet

Chinese bloggers decided to show their fantasy and made a provocative collage.

They compose a photo of the US president Barack Obama and the President Xi Jinping with a picture of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, according to foreign Internet sources.

The photo of Jinping and Obama had been made on the meeting in California. And the picture they found in the famous Disney cartoon.

The collage quickly spreaded in the Internet. Bloggers pointed out that there are a lot of things in common between the photo and the picture. First of all, the landscape of the photo coincides with the background of the picture. And secondly, cartoon characters are look like the representatives of the two states.

In China there is a censorship over the Internet, that is why some time later after the publication of the collage has been removed.

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Such politically dangerous words as “today”, “tomorrow”, “big yellow duck” were prohibited in Chinese Internet.

Chinese authorities have increased censorship over the Internet on the eve of the anniversary of the tragic events at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where in 1989 a peaceful demonstration of students was brutally suppressed. Hundreds of them were dead.

 

Starting on Monday in popular micro blogging service - Sina Weibo ( Chinese analog of Twitter) search requests that include such words as “today”, “tomorrow”, “this year”, “special day” and also different combinations of numbers that can mean June 4, 1989, for example 6 - 4, 64, 63 + 1, 65 – 1, writes The Guardian.

Instead of the search results users got a message like this “the results of the current request cannot be shown concerning a law”.

However users were trying to circumvent the ban using indirect links for the tragedy. One of such way was using pictures. One of them is the famous photograph made at Tiananmen Square in 1989 - three green tanks and a man standing in front of them. To deceive the censors, users have restored the scene, using parts Lego Kit.

The other picture shows the tank instead of a big yellow inflatable duck - art installation created by the Dutch sculptor Florentino Hoffman as a symbol of the lack of boundaries between people and countries.

However, most of these images were also removed by censors later. The words "big yellow duck" have been blocked in the second half of the day on Tuesday.






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The authorities of China promise a freedom of speech and eliminate anonymity in the Internet

The government appointed to citizens the right “to be heard and to know”. It was stated in one of the chapters of the White Papers “The Progress of Human Rights in 2012”.

According to a document 97 government bodies of the central government published a budget data, 98 provided a data of their invoices and also the same quantity of them told publicly about how much they spent on different kind of receptions, foreign business trips of workers, cars for them and other “things”. In addition, a number of government agencies respond to requests of citizens, demanding an explanation for some cost. Meanwhile, the officials were not going to disclose information about their income, assets, etc. Moreover, it is already several years when China speaks about necessity to legalize the official annual report, but so far nothing is fixed by law.

As for the "right to be heard", the Paper pays special attention to the Internet, which the population consider as the "most important source" of information. At the end of last year, there were 309 million users of micro blogging. According to statistics, every day in social networks appears no less than 200 million messages. It is noteworthy that it became popular in China to spread dirt about the heads of different spheres in network. For example, suspiciously expensive watches on the officer’s hand, endless parties of ranking officials in restaurants or other. All these with the help of the Internet started to be acceptable for watching and knowing for millions of people.

It is stated in the White Papers that due to the great amount of the information that appears in the Internet every day, the last year there was accepted a Plan to strengthen the online information security. This steps lead to the total elimination of anonymity on different Internet sources. To participate in the discussions one need to register using his passport data.

The idea of the authorities was to establish control over the irresponsible dissemination of rumors and other unreliable information. But in reality, it turned out that, for example, bloggers, who spread the dirt on the officer could potentially suffer from the corruptionists’ vengeance.

In addition, many foreign servers that offer to avoid censorship and open blocked sites in the country, found themselves unavailable.

By the way, such a White Paper, the PRC government has been published recently, in response to a sharp and sustained criticism from the West, accusing Beijing of numerous violations in this area.






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Seizure of Internet by repressive government must be prevented

A global seizure of Internet by repressive governments must be prevented, writes John Kampfner for The Financial Times. According to his point of view the democracy should secure the most important freedom.



The author of the note refers to a recent study by the U.S. NGO Freedom House, according to which freedom of speech around the world is going through a serious crisis during last ten years.

The Freedom House list included such countries as Mali, Russia, China, Venezuela, Ukraine, South Africa, Ecuador and Thailand. “The economic crisis instead of leading to greater transparency, brought the rich and powerful people to a censorship ", - said Kampfner and stated Greece as an example, where journalist was arrested for publishing information about the higher ranks, hiding from taxes.

Concerning the observer’s words, censorship can be introduced for different aims – for example to force those who do not agree to keep silent or to stop investigations of corruption. Authorities consider Internet as the most dangerous tool. “The more technology gives us a possibility to speak –the more governments are afraid”, - said Kampfner. “"Democracies play a key role in the prevention of global Internet seizure by such authorities", - he added.



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Victims of censorship in South Korea

Liberal especially if to compare with its Northern neighbor, South Korea has shown a musical giant, a rapper PSY who wins the tops of videos in YouTube with his new song «Gentleman».

Millions of people around the world love so much his frivolous dancing movements. However, as it turned out, not all Koreans appreciate his work. We are going to tell you about popular South Korean music videos that are prohibited for the strangest reasons.

South Korea took 44th place of 179 on the freedom of the press and the Internet for the year 2012. State regulation within reasonable limits ever-present in the lives of Koreans. When trying to visit prohibited for gambling or pornography sites Korean see a note "this site is blocked by the state law." Korean authorities are especially attentive to extremism and promotion of alcohol and sexual violence among young people.

As it is known the previous Pak Jae-Sana known as PSY song, , «Right Now» was banned for the promotion of alcohol among Koreans under 19 years. In particular, the rejection of the guardians of morality has caused the words "life is toxic as alcohol." As stated, this line of the song encourages crime and drinking of alcoholic beverages to minors.

However the logic of Korean censors in this case is more or less clear for Western viewer. However, not all the rules by which acts Korean censorship, are transparent to the Europeans. Thus, five of the strangest cases when popular music videos of Korean pop stars have been banned or have age restrictions:

1) «Love Song» by Rain. The reason for the ban is simple. The main hero ran along the middle of the road violating traffic rules.

2) «How Dare You» by «Sistar». The group consists of four good looking girls. In the video, they dance on stage with stripper poles (pylons). That was the cause of the ban.

3) «Chitty Chitty Bang Bang» by Lee Hyori. To make the video better, it was decided to involve the choreography: a group of girls to dance in the bus. During the whole video they are moving along the cabin and do not use seat belts, which also violates rules of the road.

4) «Knock Out» by G.D ft. T.O.P was banned because of the slang words. The song was banned twice because of incorrect, according to the Korean moralists’ phrases in the text: "Send all your friends back home" and "I'm waiting for you right here."

5) And finally, one of the most controversial cases - a composition «Freeze» hip-hop group «Block B. 

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Putin signed the “Kabaeva’s law” that introduces the new bans in the Internet

Vladimir Putin proved Kabaeva’s amendment to act that prohibits leaks about children in the Internet.




The president of Russian Federation signed the law that prohibits publications in Media of any personal information about under-aged victims of crimes. Earlier this law was going to concerne only victims of pedophiles. The law was initiated by deputies Alina Kabaeva, Valentina Tereshlova and Marina Mukabenova. Internet-community took it as one more attempt to sensor the Internet.

The amendment to law “About Media” had been accepted by the government on March 22 and approved by the Federation Council on March 27. Law prohibits the spread of information bout under aged victims of crimes, including surnames, names, middle names, photos and videos of the child and his parents, date and place of birth and study or work or another information that can help to determine their personality.

If the publication of such information can occur as a protection of victim’s interest then journalists have to get the permission from parents or even a child (if he/she is 14) to public personal data. Without their permission journalists can act only when "it is impossible to obtain their permission, or if the legal representative of the minor is suspected or accused of committing these illegal acts."

Initially it was planned that the law would only create "a serious obstacle to the unwitting" promotion "through the media of pedophilia and other crimes committed against the sexual integrity of minors", but in the final version the law sounds more extensively and for the "victims of the unlawful action (or inaction).

"It made lawyers criticize Kabaeva and other members of the legal illiteracy, and the online community has suggested the bill about another taboo subject, censorship and expanding the "registry of banned sites."




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