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Albanian journalists and cameramen reporting about COVID-19 Pandemics in Tirana, on 30 March 2020. Photo: LSA

Singling out Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic as especially worrying examples, ten human rights organisations including Index on Censorship and Reporters Without Borders have written to the Council of Europe and other official bodies, urging them to address the danger of governments misusing the coronavirus crisis to pursue authoritarian policies.

Several governments across Europe are already using the pandemic to claim extraordinary powers that can undermine democratic institutions, including the free press, the organisations said. We believe that some Council of Europe Member States are at risk of derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights, they noted.

Among the concerns expressed in the letter is an emergency law that aims to tackle false information by penalties of up to five years in jail, limits to press conferences introduced in several countries and an outright ban on them in Slovenia and the Czech Republic. Such measures must not be allowed to restrict media scrutiny of governments, the ten organisations say.

They say governments across the world have pushed the boundaries of what they are allowed to do during the COVID-19 crisis, adopting measures including the almost unchecked use of private data collected by mobile phone networks and, in some cases, use of facial recognition surveillance systems that were allegedly conceived before the crisis to tackle dissident activity.

Our organisations are concerned about the effects of enhanced surveillance measures introduced to monitor the spread of the virus, the letter said.

While we recognise the potential benefits in terms of combating the spread of the virus, the use of surveillance must have proper oversight and be clearly limited to tackling the pandemic, it added.

The letter has been signed by ARTICLE 19, the Association of European Journalists, AEJ, the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, the Free Press Unlimited, FPU, Index on Censorship, the International Federation of Journalists, IFJ, International Press Institute, IPI and Reporters Without Borders, RSF.

The letter was published on the Council of Europe website.

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CoE Urged to Stop Countries Abusing Pandemic to Curb Freedoms - Balkan Insight

The producer of John Wick has been ordered to pay $2.4 million to Huayi Bros. in connection with a failed attempt to release the violent action film in China.

Huayi Bros. agreed in 2013 to pay the producer a $1.5 million minimum guarantee to distribute the film in China, provided the movie made it past the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the Chinese censorship body.

After the film was produced, in late 2014, state-run distributor China Film Group reported that the film was simply too violent to get a China release. Huayi Bros. asked the producer, a subsidiary of Basil Iwanyks Thunder Road Pictures, for the return of the $1.5 million.

That was the beginning of a conflict which is still ongoing five years later over whether the Chinese censorship agency had rejected the film, or if Huayi Bros. was merely refusing to exercise its considerable clout in China to push for a release because it feared the film would bomb.

Thunder Road refused the request to return the $1.5 million to Huayi Bros. In response, Huayi Bros. took the film back to China Film Group, which agreed to submit the film without edits to SARFT. In August 2015, SARFT screened the film and rejected it. Huayi Bros. then went back to Thunder Road to again insist on the return of the $1.5 million.

Thunder Road continued to refuse, which prompted Huayi Bros. to file an arbitration claim with the Independent Film and Television Alliance. After an unusually protracted arbitration hearing, which was held on 22 dates over the course of 18 months, arbitrator Michael R. Diliberto ruled in favor of Huayi Bros.

Considering the totality of the evidence, especially the fact that after Huayis efforts to obtain censorship approval for the theatrical release of the Picture in China, the Picture was ultimately rejected by SARFT for censorship purposes, the arbitrator finds that (Thunder Road) breached the (agreement) by failing to pay Huayi, Diliberto ruled.

Diliberto ordered Thunder Road to pay $1.5 million to Huayi Bros., plus more than $800,000 in attorneys fees.

On Friday, Thunder Roads attorneys filed a petition to vacate the award in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Thunder Roads attorney, Sonia Lee, contends that Huayi Bros. gave up on John Wick after the poor performance of two other Keanu Reeves films, Ronin 47 and Man of Tai Chi. They allege that Huayi Bros. tried to use the censorship provision as a pretext to wriggle out of the distribution deal.

The evidence in this case makes clear that Huayi has sufficient clout and influence to have the bigger boss at CFG issue a quota slot and to have SARFT do what Huayi wishes, Lee wrote in a filing last year. The same evidence makes clear that Huayi easily could have had CFG issue a quota slot in 2014 and have SARFT approve John Wick for release in China, albeit with some edits Had Huayi done what was supposed to have done in the first instance, Huayi along with (Thunder Road) would have made a tremendous amount of money, as did the distributors in all the other territories that released the movie and its sequel.

Neither John Wick nor its two sequels have been released in China.

More:
John Wick Producer Ordered to Pay Huayi Bros. Over Axed China Release - Variety

Apart from the devastating crash that Bitcoin is currently facing, another potential threat to the pioneer cryptocurrency and the entire crypto industry at large is censorship from giant tech companies like YouTube.

In a recent bout of censorship, two separate crypto YouTube channels had videos deleted temporarily.

The two YouTubers who had their videos deleted include Ivan on Tech (a crypto programmer) and The Moon (a crypto reporter and technical analyst).

Both responded to the matter via twitter saying that they had received several strikes from YouTube about Bitcoin being harmful content.

YouTube has a long history of censoring crypto content.

At the tail end of 2019, many crypto YouTubers including seasoned content creators like Nicholas Merten received content strikes from YouTube despite not uploading videos for days.

In a tweet, Merten said,

In response, The MoonCarl also replied in a tweet that acknowledged a similar move by YouTube on his channel.

Other channels like Nugget News received up to two content strikes in a single day with 50 videos being removed from the channel.

Saunders, the owner of Nugget News, expressed fears of the channel getting deleted from YouTube in a tweet that read,

Also affected was a Canadian Bitcoin educator with a channel called BTCSessions and Chriss Dunn a crypto and finance reporter.

Following the crypto purge of 2019 on YouTube, an outrage emerged on twitter to which YouTube replied saying that the decision to ban Bitcoin and cryptocurrency videos from its site was an error and the removed videos would be reinstated.

It might be argued that the move was meant to protect consumers from scams.

However, for most onlookers as well as the entire crypto community, the move does not make any sense especially since Google and Facebook already lifted the crypto advertising ban in 2018.

Invezz asked Mati Greenspan, the founder of Quantum Economics, about his opinion on whether the current bout of crypto censorship is as a result of the companys hidden agenda or the result of an internal error.

In his reply, Greenspan said that it is difficult to know for sure but many in the community feel that the censorship is international.

He adds,

We could only speculate on why they might want to censor crypto content, perhaps it threatens their current future business model in some way.

While speaking to Decrypt, a YouTube spokesman said,

With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call.When its brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.

However, with recent reports indicating a continuation of the crypto ban on YouTube, the reasons for deletion crypto-related videos remains to be anyones guess.

While YouTube hasnt responded to the recent bout of censorship and why its still affecting crypto-related channels, some on twitter have suggested moving crypto content to decentralized platforms that are censorship-resistant.

In reaction to last years crypto purge on YouTube, Greenspan together with several crypto YouTubers moved to boycott YouTube.

This time around, when asked whether there are any other viable decentralized alternatives for crypto YouTubers, Greenspan replied,

Im not sure there are any viable decentralized options at this point. For myself though, Ive preferred not to stream on YouTube for the time being and instead am hosting live streams on Periscope and Twitter.

Weighing in on the matter, Chris Burniske, a renowned crypto influencer, tweeted that such violations by companies like YouTube, will push suppliers and consumers away from platforms and towards protocols.

Burniske also added that since platforms like YouTube are owned by shareholders and give no governance rights to suppliers and consumers and further centralize economic resources over time, the violations crypto YouTubers are facing currently are bound to repeatedly occur.

Censorship on platforms like YouTube has existed for a long time. While there are many theories on twitter explaining the reasons for the latest censorship bout, it is clear to most like Burniske that this will not be the end of it. Platforms like YouTube face pressure from different governments, advertisers, and organizations to remove a wide range of content. Perhaps its time for the crypto community to create their decentralized alternatives much like how Everipedia is disrupting the Wikipedia formula without the use of advertisement.

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YouTube continues to ban crypto content; None knows the reason - iNVEZZ

With a population of 1.435 Billion (as of November 2019), China is looked upon as apotential new superpower; a rapid economic growth, strong military, and increased international influence are among the main reasons for such future predictions. Although, there is something which might cause a hindrance to the progressing global footprints.

Strict Censorship Over Online Activity The Great Firewall of China

China as a country has deep-rooted ancient cultural beliefs and ways of living. Undoubtedly, China is one of the worlds most technologically advanced nations, but it still resists modern, so-called western influences. And censoring the internet content and its access is one way to do it.

The Peoples Republic of China enforced a combination of legislative actions and technologies called The Great Firewall of China (GFW), to regulate the Internet throughout the country. Fang Binxing, known as the Father of Chinas Great Firewall has made a substantial contribution by providing a base infrastructure for Internet censorship in China.

In this respect, National Peoples Congress (NPC) passed CL97, a law that criminalizes cybercrimes and is enforced under following broad categories

The Great Firewall is justified under the category crimes carried out over computer networks. Under the pretext, the Chinese government can block any ISP, gateway connections, any access to applications on the internet, distribution of information which is considered harmful to national security, public order, social stability, and Chinese morality.

The major aim is to block the access to selected foreign websites which, according to the Chinese government, may prove detrimental to the countrys sovereignty. More than 50,000 people are designated by the government for the purpose to enforce censorship, block websites that the state disapproves of, and compel search engines to filter content that deems harmful.

There is a plausibleexplanation behind the Internet censorship in China:

Simply put, GFW of China is limiting access to most of the websites and internet services, which are revolutionizing the world. To name a few, Gmail, Dropbox, Google Apps (Drive, Docs, Calendar, Maps, etc.), Microsoft OneDrive, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify and more popular names that can cross your mind.

Certain internet censoring events in the past have led tons of questions in the wandering minds. The character Winnie-the Pooh was blocked on Chinese social media sites after a meme showing photographs of Xi modified as Poohbear was put up. The government modified the search results to suppress the criticism when in February 2018 Xi, to allow himself to become the ruler for life, appeared to set in motion a process to scrap term limits. The censors banned internet users from using phrases such as Disagree, Shameless, Lifelong.

It is admissible that the content over the Internet can sometimes be overwhelming, bias and ambiguous. But at the same time, it helps in broadening the perspective over millions of important topics around the world. Since China has opened its gates for international collaborations and the global market, the people who are turning in the country would need to have access to the uncensored internet. This is when methods tobypass China Firewallhold more importance than ever.

The Great Firewall blocks destination IP addresses and domain names. It also inspects the data being sent or received. For such type of censorship, the use of proxy nodes and data encryption is the circumvention strategy that is followed.

The Chinese government posts more than millions of pro-state content every year, with the help of social media influencers. The media companies are made responsible for all content they broadcast, including user-generated content. The world respects their ideology and intent to preserve their cultural values.

However, the world seems a better place when one comes out of his shell. With no offense to the rules, the VPNs and other methods of bypassing the China firewall help in understanding what the outside world is up to. Furthermore, the future generation of China could use tools likeGoogle Scholar, which would provide a gateway to share work between professors and students from all over the world. This encourages innovation and idea exchange, in and out of China.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to ourTwitterorFacebook.

Just another guy who likes to write about tech and gadgets.

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Bypassing the China firewall needs & ways to do it - KnowTechie

Tuesday, March 31st 2020 - 09:20 UTC Speaking to Rede TV, Bolsonaro criticized self-isolation and other measures imposed by local authorities to limit the spread of the virus

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro said on Monday that there can be no more quarantine measures imposed on the country than those already in place to combat coronavirus because jobs are being destroyed and the poor are suffering disproportionately.

Speaking to Rede TV, Bolsonaro criticized self-isolation and other measures imposed by local authorities to limit the spread of the virus, a view that again appeared to put him at odds with Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mendetta.

Mendetta on Monday urged Brazilians to maintain maximum social distancing to ease the strain on the fragile health system and said that 200 million personal protective equipment (PPEs) items would be arriving from China next month.

You can't impose any more quarantine than there already is, Bolsonaro said, adding that the question people ask him most is when can they return to work.

Brazil's Senate passed a bill on Monday evening guaranteeing some of the country's poorest citizens income of 600 reais (US$117) a month for three months, a package that could cost almost 50 billion reais.

According to Bolsonaro, all measures to combat the crisis could cost 800 billion reais, and the economy, which is expected to contract this year, could rebound and be back on track within a year.

Earlier on Monday, Bolsonaro had stepped up his stand-off with state governments, branding governors in the hardest-hit states job-killers and suggesting that democracy could be at risk if the coronavirus crisis leads to social chaos.

When the situation is heading toward chaos, with mass unemployment and hunger, it's fertile ground for some to exploit, seeking a way to reach power and never leave it, Bolsonaro told reporters outside the presidential palace.

Bolsonaro last week warned that Brazil could break with democratic normalcy, citing the risk of rioting and suggesting the left could capitalize on any chaos, without elaborating.

The right-wing populist, elected in 2018 on a pledge to break with a corrupt political establishment, has long defended Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship as necessary to keep communists out of power.

The coronavirus outbreak, which has now resulted in 4,579 confirmed cases and 159 deaths in Brazil, has led governments around the world to call for emergency powers, raising concerns among human rights advocates.

So far Brazil's political leaders have been eager to negotiate emergency measures such as a war budget exempt from fiscal rules, but many have criticized the president, who lacks a solid alliance in Congress, for downplaying health risks.

Facebook on Monday followed Twitter and removed a video of Bolsonaro speaking to street vendors, explaining that it violated their standards on misinformation.

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Bolsonaro insists with his campaign to get the economy moving; Facebook censors the Brazilian president - MercoPress