Just in time for my own censorship troubles, Juan Cole links to this report on Boing Boing.
This is the first example I've heard of a Western newspaper censoring its reporters' Internet feeds. The companies that sell censorware services deliver a notoriously biased and Orwellian system. For example, sites like Peacefire and Boing Boing, which report on the bad judgement in these services and expose their technical failings, are classed as "proxy avoidance."
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Some of these companies also provide censorship services to repressive governments, like those in China and Syria.
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A reader writes:"[...]To top it off, the censorware is stupid! Just last night I was looking up some info on praying mantids and one of the sites was blocked. It happens all the time for totally innocuous things."
4 comments:
There's a terminology disconnect in Cole's article. It begins by saying that the internet feeds - which are automated delivery of articles to the LA Times - have been cut off, but then goes on to say that the reporters cannot access the sites at all. Both may be correct, but Cole's incorrect(?) usage makes me wonder.
There were stories a few days back about the Kentucky state government using its filtering software to block its employees from accessing stories which were critical of indicted governor Ernie Fletcher. The filtering was apparently impressive. Some sites were completely blocked, while others had only those articles related to Fletcher blocked.
I think employers have the right to install and use such software, but the application of it to newsrooms seems silly, not to mention dangerous. And I'm surprised that left-leaning sites like peacefire are getting blocked at a left-leaning newspaper like the LA Times. What's not clear in the article is who's doing the censoring. Are these sites being censored by the news organizations, or by the software providers, by both, or does it vary from outfit to outfit?
Hi Indy,
My impression is that they're only talking about the normal Internet connections for the reporters, not the automated delivery of articles. The article is credited to a "Cory Doctorow" - just got the link from Cole's site.
The way it works in general is that some control freak at a company decides that they should restrict employees from surfing. They purchase the censorship service from a third-party, specifying general rules like "no porn", "busines sites only", etc. The third-parties control the details of what actually gets blocked.
Peacefire would presumably be blocked by the third parties because they oppose censorship. My block would also be potentially blocked, since I provided information about how to circumvent censorship.
... Ami
It wouldn't surprise me if that's how it's actually happening, but that's a really lazy approach by the Times and other news outlets if true. Giving a third party control over what your company can do voluntarily is a bad idea, worse imo than the $$ expense that the companies were earlier incurring because employees were surfing the net for personal use on the company's dime.
It really disappoints me how often otherwise sane and rational people are willing to accept the promise of a "magic bullet" solution for a problem which turns out to create far greater problems down the line. Internet censorship by companies is one such area; the rush to mandate electronic voting machines after the 2000 election is another.
Indy: I'd go further and say that control freakery, in general, is a sign of poor management.
No worker will spend every moment of an eight hour day focused completely on work. It's just not possible. But it is possible (although not easy) to motivate workers so that get a reasonable amount of work done during their periods of focus, and so that they can set their priorities such that they don't goof off more than is necessary in order preserve sanity.
Any manager who decides that the way to get more work out of me is to look over my shoulder all day (either in person or using electronic tools) is just going to annoy me and sap my motivation. It's not going to get me to work any harder.
... Ami.
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