johninnit

Having the attention span of a gnat, my head is getting proper done in by watching and reading the impenetrable stuff coming out of WCIT in Dubai – and we’re only 3 days in. Luckily persons smarter than I are making more sense of it online for me to read on blogs & Twitter – Thank heavens for a vibrant and pluralistic and open Web, eh?

So I thought the best contribution I could make for others like myself would be to present these complex and high level debates as a series of tired old memes. It’s my way of honouring Russia’s proposals to the ITU that countries should be able to restrict the Net to just “rational” uses.

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A Russian court yesterday ruled that websites which don’t remove Pussy Riot videos from their pages may be blocked. Judge Marina Musimovich (using a vaguely worded law originally aimed at curbing nazi and terrorist material) ruled that videos including the band’s controversial ‘punk prayer’ asking the virgin Mary to kick out Putin, had “elements of extremism” and called for “mass disorder”.

It’s a timely reminder of why Russia are so keen on some of the proposals they’re bringing to the International Telecommunication Union’s WCIT conference in Dubai over the next fortnight. If they pass, this sort of thing will get vastly easier for autocratic states to curb freedom of speech at home and abroad. (more…)