A human rights group has criticized Saudi Arabia for blocking its website inside the conservative Persian Gulf Arab kingdom. The [Persian] Gulf Center for Human Rights posted a message on its website (http://gc4hr.org) on Tuesday deploring the move “as a form of repression that is part of intimidation patterns that are being used persistently in the Kingdom these days.” Attempts inside the... 

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan leaves an official ceremony to mark Republic Day at the new Presidential Palace in Ankara October 29, 2014. A Turkish court has officially banned media coverage of a parliamentary investigation against four former ministers over corruption allegations. On Tuesday the Turkish court ruled that the ban was issued to “prevent damage to the individual rights”... 

During her Friday program on the Fox Business Network, Melissa Francis made a truly scandalous revelation: “When I was at CNBC, I pointed out to my viewers that the math of Obamacare simply didn’t work. Not the politics by the way; just the basic math. And when I did that, I was silenced.” Francis began her program with two of the recent Jonathan Gruber videos in which he admits that when he... 

The Australian Senate has passed new national security laws that could put journalists behind bars for up to 10 years for merely reporting on terrorism-related subjects, Press TV reports. The bill proposed by the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott was unanimously adopted by the Senate on Thursday and is to be sent to the House of Representatives for final approval. The legislation, dubbed the... 

A subversive website has been launched to keep track of news and other webpages Google has “censored” from the search engine’s index, following the European Court of Justice’s controversial Right to be Forgotten ruling. The tech giant has reportedly been inundated with 70,000 requests to remove sensitive information from its search results in the aftermath of the ECJ’s decision. While this... 

A survey conducted by the Swedish TV station, ‘Sifo‘ shows that an increasing number of Swedes think that Sweden accepts too many immigrants. According to the survey, 44% of Swedes think Sweden has too many immigrants, which rose from a survey last year, that found 37% agreed there were too many immigrants. This year’s survey found that 36% did not feel strongly about immigration, and only 10%... 

The Federal Communication Commission voted Thursday morning to move forward with proposed rules for net neutrality that may affect the concept of an open internet as it exists today. Led by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the committee agreed by way of a three-two vote during a hearing in Washington, DC early Thursday to open up recently proposed rules concerning the future of net neutrality for comment,... 

A new law will come into effect in Sweden after Christmas 2014, that will allow people to be prosecuted for criticizing immigration or politician’s unwillingness to tackle the issue. The Constitutional Committee’s report has been voted for in parliament, seen in a letter from the Parliamentary Offices. Member of Parliament Andrew Norlén, member of the Constitutional Committee, has been pushing... 

The United States Department of Justice and the White House Press Office are this year’s top winners of a dubious award extended to those considered to be “responsible for some of the more egregious or ridiculous affronts to First Amendment principles.” On Wednesday this week, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression announced that the US Justice Dept. had topped this... 

Twitter has filed lawsuits in several Turkish courts to challenge an access ban on its service recently pushed through by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. The move comes on the same day an Ankara administrative court moved to suspend the ban. “It’s now been six days since the Turkish government blocked access to Twitter. Throughout this time, we’ve been engaged in a discussion with Turkish authorities... 

Plans to impose a censorship and mass surveillance framework may now commence. On Friday the U.S. Commerce Department released its grasp on the internet. Oversight of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, will be passed on to the “global internet community” next year. ICANN, under a Commerce Department contract, has issued domain names since 2000. The United States has... 

The European Commission has slammed Turkey’s newly-adopted cyber law allowing the government to block websites without a court ruling. Commission spokesman Peter Stano said on Thursday that the law raised “serious concerns” as it “introduces several restrictions on freedom of expression.” The Turkish Parliament passed the law late on Wednesday, allowing the Telecommunications Communications... 

A protester stands with a placard during a rally at a free-speech park called Speakers’ Corner in Singapore on June 8, 2013 In Singapore, up to 2,000 activists lead by local bloggers staged a rally against recently introduced licensing rules for news websites, including breaches of “racial or religious harmony”, which protesters see as an attack on freedom of expression. A crowd with posters... 

Norway is taking steps to tackle websites like The Pirate Bay to eliminate online copyright infringement by amending the Copyright Act. The revisions are popular in parliament and if passed will grant authorities the right to block sites at the ISP level. The proposed amendments make it easier to locate both website owners and end-users of unauthorized material online. Thus, the new legislation would... 

A general view of the military base of Pierre sur Haute, located in the Monts du Forez. The company behind the world’s largest online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, claims a French intelligence agency summoned one of its volunteers, forcing him to delete content after the website turned down their request to remove ‘classified’ information. French Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (Direction...