Tag Archives: censorship

It goes without saying that it is not an easy skill and one has to be gifted to draw – political – cartoons. The Levant News’ own Joon W. (45) is a gifted cartoonist with a cynical sense of humor and has the talent of producing drawings that bring out …

Kuwaiti authorities arrested a political activist and prominent poet over tweets criticising the government, his family said on Wednesday, as a political crisis between the government and opposition weighs on the wealthy Gulf state. Jamal Al-Sayer, also a businessman, has been charged with “insulting the emir, spreading fake news that …

Facebook was slammed on Sunday with a coordinated social media campaign launched by pro-Palestine activists in an attempt to push down the Facebook app’s ranking on Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play. The campaign was launched in solidarity with Palestinians and in response to Facebook’s censorship of content supporting …

Hundreds of Kuwaitis demonstrated on Wednesday in support of Palestinians and burned an Israeli flag to protest at the bombardment of Gaza after authorities allowed the rally to proceed despite coronavirus restrictions. Protesters, who were only granted access to a main square on foot to limit numbers, chanted “Death to …

Lebanese pop star Nawal Al-Zoghbi has resigned from the Syndicate of Professional Artists after the body told members they could not criticize politicians. Al-Zoghbi posted a two-page resignation letter on her Twitter account on Wednesday slamming the country’s ruling elite.  She said there was a “negative influence” from all Lebanese …

Bahrain’s Cabinet amended its Press, Printing and Publishing Law on Monday that included the abolition of jailing journalists, and the addition of a major section regarding digital media, Bahraini daily Al-Ayyam reported. The Cabinet also approved a memorandum of the Ministerial Committee for Legal and Legislative Affairs regarding the amendments …

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is notorious for using his Twitter accounts to incite hate, violence and disinformation. Yet his many accounts in multiple languages still exist on the platform. These accounts, in languages including Persian, English, and Spanish, regularly post content that would – and should – violate …

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowed on Friday to press ahead with laws to force Facebook Inc to pay news outlets for content, saying he had received support from world leaders after the social media giant blacked out all media. Facebook stripped the pages of domestic and foreign news outlets …

Australia will introduce landmark legislation to force Alphabet’s Google and Facebook to pay publishers and broadcasters for content next week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Friday. Australia is on course to become the first country to require Facebook and Google to pay for news content, legislation that is being closely …

Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday it would temporarily reduce political content appearing on New Feeds for some users in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia this week and in the United States within the coming weeks. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in January that he wanted to “turn down the temperature” …

Private social audio app Clubhouse is attracting masses of new users from mainland China, where the US app remains uncensored by authorities despite flourishing discussions on rights, national identity and other sensitive topics. Western social media apps including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are banned in China, where the local Internet …

Egyptian authorities on Saturday released a journalist working for Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network who was held in pre-trial detention for more than four years, his brother and a lawyer told Reuters. Mahmoud Hussein, an Egyptian detained in December 2016‮‮ ‬‬after arriving in Cairo from Doha on vacation, was held …

The United States expects Saudi Arabia to improve its human rights record, including releasing women’s rights activists and other political prisoners, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Friday. Pskai’s comments underscored U.S. President Joe Biden’s intention to make human right a key issue in U.S.-Saudi relations, which he pledged …

Last week, Victoria Coates was fired from her job as head of the US State Department-funded Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN) by the administration of US President Joe Biden, a role she had barely held two months. Coates’ firing brings the long-troubled network to its third president in just over …

Italian police on Thursday accused a Sicilian woman of “inciting suicide” for an asphyxiation video she posted on TikTok, a week after a child accidentally died in a so-called blackout challenge. Police said the video, posted without restrictions on the social media platform by the 48-year-old Sicilian “influencer,” was “extremely …

Turkey’s advertising ban for social media platforms with more than 1 million daily users that have failed to establish a local representative office in the country came into force on Tuesday. As of Jan. 19, nobody will be allowed to advertise on Twitter, its live-streaming app Periscope and image-sharing app …

Israeli media have lashed out at BBC for airing a program on Jesus in which it claimed he was a Palestinian. The BBC World Service radio program Heart and Soul aired a program on December 18 in which presenter Robert Beckford noted that artistic depictions of Jesus as blonde and …

YouTube has decided to appoint a local representative to Turkey in a move designed to comply with the country’s new social media law, the company said on Wednesday. According to state media, Turkey fined YouTube, Facebook and Twitter some 40 million lira each in the last two months for not …

An Iranian dissident who fled his country fearing arrest has fallen foul of politics and COVID-19 restrictions in ethnically split Cyprus. Since mid-September, Omid Tootian has been living in a small tent in Cyprus’s buffer zone, a United Nations-controlled slice of territory carved out after a war split Cyprus in …

Britain’s media regulator fined Russia’s RT 200,000 pounds ($248,740) for breaching broadcasting impartiality rules in its coverage of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal, the policies of Ukraine and the conflict in Syria. Relations between London and Moscow sank to a post-Cold War low over the 2018 poisoning of …

The National Media Council, NMC, has accredited five entities in its “Content Self-Monitoring Programme” in an effort to assist operations at bookshops and publishing houses and to promote writing, publishing and reading in the UAE. The programme allows publishers, distributors and bookshops to evaluate the content of books by themselves, …

The double-Oscar winning filmmaker who opened the Cannes Film Festival has made a last-minute plea to Iran to let a fellow Iranian director — who is officially banned from working and travelling — come to the premiere of his own film. Seated alongside Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, the stars …

Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who in recent months have covered the military crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma, were recently invited to meet two police officers over dinner in the country’s largest city, Rangoon. Their driver dropped them off at Battalion 8’s compound around 8 …

The actress, who has emerged as a Hollywood voice in the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault scandal, revealed that Twitter had locked her account on Wednesday night. Rose McGowan had a hold placed on her Twitter account Wednesday night, an act that quickly sparked outrage among the many users who have …

BRITAIN’S BROADCASTING REGULATOR on Monday concluded that Al Jazeera did not violate any rules in its controversial undercover investigation exposing the Israeli embassy’s campaign to target British citizens critical of Israel, a campaign that included attempts to destroy the careers of pro-Palestinian British politicians. The move by the communications regulator, known as …

Al-Jazeera has denounced Israel’s decision to close the Jerusalem bureau of Qatar’s flagship satellite network, saying that the measure is “undemocratic” and that it will take legal action. Israel’s move follows in the footsteps of four Arab countries that are aligned against Qatar as part of a months-long political dispute …

Canadian courts can force internet search leader Google to remove results worldwide, the country’s top court ruled on Wednesday, drawing criticism from civil liberties groups arguing such a move sets a precedent for censorship on the internet. In its 7-2 decision, Canada’s Supreme Court found that a court in the …

THE LEVANT – The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Bahrain High Court of Appeals to overturn the baseless conviction of freelance photojournalist Ahmed Humaidan. The court is expected to rule on Humaidan’s appeal on August 25, according to news reports. On March 26, a Bahraini court sentenced Humaidan to 10 years …