Attention Saudi Dawn & Drew Fans: this Book is for you

My September paper copy of Wired has a spread on "countries that censor Web content  -- and what really offends them (oddly, the article does not appear in the online edition).

The list of offenders isn't surprising, but what scares them can be. Saudi Arabia blocks 100% of porn, for example, but also takes a hard line on humor, making it doubly hard for Saudi fans of Dawn & Drew, I suppose. Uzbekistan doesn't like porn either, and bans gmail. China is soft on porn, but bans Wikipedia. The criminals that run Burma really hate email -- and don't even think about eBay.

With so much thuggish cybercopping out there, it's a relief to see that Reporters sans Frontières has published the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents (free pdf download, 1.6MB) to help citizen journalists in benighted countries to get around Big Brother.

"Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.

Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation."

It's available in English, French, Chinese, Arabic, and Persian.

Posted by Allan Jenkins on September 22, 2005 at 04:42 PM in Books, Citizen Journalism, Civil Liberty, Journalism, Law, Online Media, Society | Permalink

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