censorship

Internet access for reporters covering the Summer Olympics in China suffers the usual blocking instead of the open surfing the press expected to find; they can thank Olympic Committee members for this.

The International Olympic Committee will look into the censorship of the Internet that the media is using to cover the Beijing Olympics.China has pledged to the media that there would be no censorship of the Internet during the Games and rolled back regulations in January that put restrictions on the foreign press.

A—which adjective goes with this group…radical? Extremist? Keystone-Koppish?—12 Monkeys-esque environmental group called The Greenwash Guerillas have accused YouTube of censoring a video of them throwing pies at Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman. If you haven't heard of New York Times columnist Friedman via his lengthy journalism career, you may have heard of him because of his book The World Is Flat, which got a lot of attention last year.

After blowing away ads aimed at criticizing MoveOn.org by name, Google's public policy wonks fired back and asserted that trademarks, not politics, played a role.

Charles Hope of Blip.tv posted an email exchange he had with a site visitor who complained about some controversial videos hosted on the site.

What has become the Net Neutrality proof of concept AT&T hoped wouldn't come about – the censoring of a band with a cult following – is now no longer an isolated incident.

Yahoo's Flickr is the latest target of criticism after restricting access to erotic art photos in Hong Kong. Though Internet companies self-censoring in certain countries is not a new dilemma, this incident coincides with a blogger that faces fines for just linking to offending material.

There's something about this topic that is unsettling – the deal seems nearly devilish, beneficial and somewhat horrifying at the same time. Google's latest plea to the US and EU governments to help fight censorship centers on the economics, not the political morality, of censorship.