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Deutsch: Aserbaidschan: Oppositioneller Blogger verhaftet

A new arrest made by the Azeri authorities raise concerns over the freedom of speech in Azerbaijan ahead of the next year's general elections.

The well-known blogger and opposition activist Zaur Gurbanli was arrested from his home on 29 September 2012 by several people who identified themselves as members of the Interior Ministry’s organized crime department.

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Deutsch: Mazedonien: Neues Gesetz könnte zu Internetzensur führen

A draft law on civil liability for insult and defamation related to communication over the Internet, which has passed the first reading in the Macedonian Parliament, may lead to strong censorship of the Internet.

According to the draft law, online service providers are liable for penalties, along with the author, for any damage resulting from offensive or defamatory information the provider has allowed access to, unless it can prove the author of the respective information “was not acting under direct or indirect con

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Deutsch: CleanIT – Pläne zur Überwachung des Internets im großen Stil

A leaked document from the CleanIT project shows just how far internal discussions in that initiative have drifted away from its publicly stated aims, as well as the most fundamental legal rules that underpin European democracy and the rule of law.

The European Commission-funded CleanIT project claims that it wants to fight terrorism through voluntary self-regulatory measures that defends the rule of law.

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Deutsch: Russland: Altes und Neues in Sachen Internet-Zensur

A new Russian law intended to protect minors from “harmful” content entered into force on 1 September 2012 bringing forth confusion and, at the same time, hilarious and even dangerous results.

"The law’s vagueness and inconsistencies render its repressive provisions even more threatening and are encouraging journalists to censor themselves. The vague definition of ’harmful content’ leaves too much room for interpretation and increases the probability of overblocking.

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Deutsch: Weißrussische Behörden drangsalieren Oppositionsgruppen im Internet

As elections in Belarus approach, independent or pro-opposition journalists and Internet users are harassed by the Belarusian authorities, pressured and even put to jail.

"The call for an election boycott by some opposition figures has joined the long list of subjects that are off limits. Those who mention the boycott, such as opposition groups on social networks, are immediately sanctioned.

Google announced on 10 August 2012 that it would change the searching algorithms so as to lower the search rankings of websites that receive a high number of DMCA, European (Directive 2000/31/EC) or other similar local legislation takedown requests.

“Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results,” Google’s Amit Singhal wrote in a blog post.

The company has given in to the extensive and strong lobbying efforts of the entertainment industry groups thus “punishing” websites such as filestube.com, extratorrent.com, torrenthound.com, The Pirate Bay, FilesTube, and even YouTube.

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Deutsch: Reporter ohne Grenzen treten in die Fußstapfen von WikiLeaks

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) is looking to take the Wikileaks path and will start accepting the publication of censured documents in October 2012 on a new dedicated platform.

Called “We Fight Censorship”, the RSF platform will distribute censored documents received from journalists, bloggers or political dissidents in order to offer a “digital shelter” for those who, by revealing such documents, might be persecuted, condemned, imprisoned or even assassinated.

“Thanks to a digital ultra-s

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Deutsch: Den Haag: Piratenpartei muss ihre Website zensurieren

On 10 May 2012, the district court of The Hague gave its verdict in the case of BREIN against the Dutch Pirate Party.