Service on Google Inc.'s YouTube Web site was disrupted around the world for several hours Sunday after a botched effort by the Pakistani government to block access to a video clip critical of Islam.
The story began unfolding Friday when the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, the nation's telecom regulator, ordered Pakistan's Internet-service providers to immediately block access to a specific YouTube video, which it said was so incendiary it could trigger riots. A senior official at the authority said it also contacted YouTube, requesting that the site remove the video. The authority argued the clip was a violation of YouTube's terms of service, which ban hate speech. YouTube has since removed the clip but says it doesn't comment on reasons for removing specific videos.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120395109205290503.html
Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
China's Alternative Reality
China will soon boast more internet users than any other country. But usage patterns inside China are different from those elsewhere
ONE of the more striking end-of-year statistics pumped out recently by the Chinese government was an update on the number of internet users in the country, which had reached 210m. It is a staggering figure, up by more than 50% on the previous year and more than three times the number for India, the emerging Asian giant with which China is most often compared. Within a few months, according to Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, China will have more internet users than America, the current leader. And because the proportion of the population using the internet is so low, at just 16%, rapid growth is likely to continue for some time.
That such a big, increasingly wealthy and technologically adept country has embraced the internet is no surprise, but it has done so in a very different way from other countries. That is in large part the result of the government's historically repressive approach towards information and entertainment. News is censored, television is controlled by the state, and bookshops and cinemas, shuttered during the Cultural Revolution, are still scarce.
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10608655
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