- Please login to blogger with your ID.
- Click Layout
- Click Page Element tab
- Click Add a Gadget (next to facebook icon)
- After a new window appears, click the sign Plus ( + ) for HTML/JavaScript
- Copy and paste the code below in the appeared area:
- Click SAVE
- Done
-
Zoom Magazine is one of magazine Blogger template. Simple elegant with dropdown menu, image slide show and more...
-
Zoom Magazine adalah salah satu template blogger bergaya majalah. Silahkan ketik judul dan keterangan gambar anda disini...
Saturday, January 9, 2010 | 11:10 PM | 0 Comments
How to create the running text / marquee
Comment Blog Send to @mail
- Login to blogger with your ID.
- Click Settings.
- Click Comments.
- Scroll to underside and you will find a box near the article Comment Notification Address, write your email address inside the box. for example : jalupapang2000@yahoo.com
- Click
- Finish.
How to change the template
To change the template, of course you must had a new template to uploaded. If still not yet had, you can download for free template at Download Template or at other sites. Have ready for changing your old template with newly template? Please follow the steps below :
Now you have had the new face. However of course your template is still empty, So next step is inserting your widgets manually through page element menu.
Enjoy your new blog fac
e.
- Login to blogger with your ID
- After entering the dasboard page , click Layout. Please saw the picture :
- Then click edit HTML tab. Please saw the picture :
- Click the Download full template link. Save your template:
- Click browse... button. Choose your new template. and then click Upload button.
- Usually go out commemoration that your data in your widgets will be delete forever (so don't forget to backup your widgets). For example, the image will show like this :
- Click at Convirm & Save button.
- Finish. Please look he result.
Now you have had the new face. However of course your template is still empty, So next step is inserting your widgets manually through page element menu.
Enjoy your new blog fac
e.
How to backup the template
If you were interested to replace new template or want to redesign your template, It is best to backup your template before you changing any code. this step was as prevented to reduce the fatal risk if the mistake happening in redesign or changing your template. For you that did not yet know how to backup your template, please followed steps below :
Now you had back up the template, if next time you needed him, you could use this came back. But must be known, backing up the template like steps above could not back up the data inside widget. How to back up the data widget? This would in discussed in next post.
- Login to blogger with your ID
- After entering the dasboard page , click Layout. Please saw the picture :
- Then click edit HTML tab. Please saw the picture :
- Click the Download full template link. Please saw the picture :
- After you click Download full template link, then will emerge new window just to download. Click the Save button. Saw the picture :
- You could choose this data would in kept where and with what file name what, Afterwards ended with click of the Save button. Please saw the picture :
- Finish.
Now you had back up the template, if next time you needed him, you could use this came back. But must be known, backing up the template like steps above could not back up the data inside widget. How to back up the data widget? This would in discussed in next post.
Making a Blog at Blogspot
1. Blog, What it is?
Blog (abbreviation from Web log) is sites which more dominant in private characteristic. This means, most of the content will be affected (realize or not) by the characteristic of the Blogger (Blog user) himself.
Blog was made by the designers of the blog provider in order to work automatically and easily to be operated on, so for we that still was confused with the programming language to make one website still not the problem.If you could have made an email account in the internet, then in made blog then I was convinced you could.
In this chance, I’m going to review about make a blog in http://www.blogger.com Click the picture below to register.
Blog (abbreviation from Web log) is sites which more dominant in private characteristic. This means, most of the content will be affected (realize or not) by the characteristic of the Blogger (Blog user) himself.
Blog was made by the designers of the blog provider in order to work automatically and easily to be operated on, so for we that still was confused with the programming language to make one website still not the problem.If you could have made an email account in the internet, then in made blog then I was convinced you could.
2. How to make a blog?
As if when we start to make an ordinary e-mail, we’ll need an account first, to make a blog. Because of that reason, feel please to register yourself in free blog provider. We can find a lot of free blog provider in internet, and some blog provider which really famous nowadays, are http://www.blogger.com, http://www.wordpress.com or http://www.blogsome.com. In this chance, I’m going to review about make a blog in http://www.blogger.com Click the picture below to register.
Saw the picture below: 
- Click an arrow sign, inscribed with “CREATE YOUR BLOG NOW”
- Complete the ‘e-mail address’ form, with your own e-mail address (of course with the valid one).
- Rewrite your e-mail address in form ‘retype e-mail address’
- Type the password as you wanted to. Type it in form, ‘enter a password’
- Retype your password in form ‘type password again’
- Type the password as you wanted to. Type it in form, ‘enter a password’
- Retype your password in form ‘type password again’
- Type the word which has shown, in form ‘word verification’. Click the white little square beside the sentence, ‘I accept the Terms of Service’.
- Click an arrow sign inscribed with “CONTINUE”
- Write the title of your blog that you desire (you can change it later) in form ‘Blog Title’
- Type the name of your site in form ‘Blog Address (URL)’ .
- Type verification word which shown in form ‘word verification’. After that, click an arrow image inscribed with word, ‘CONTINUE’.
- Choose one template that you wanted to (You can change it later, if you want), then click again an arrow sign inscribed with word ‘CONTINUE’.
- Wait a moment. After you meet a sentence ‘Your blog has been created’. Click an arrow sign (again) which inscribed with “BEGIN POSTING’. Feel please to fill up your blog with everything you want to. After you finish with your first posting, just click the sentence, ‘PUBLISH YOUR POSTING’, Please write What you want, if being finished then click of the publish button.
- It's Done.
Top 10 Countries Censoring the Web
When the World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee (not to be confused with the Internet itself, which is the core network developed many years earlier), its main objective was to enable the free exchange of information via interlinked hypertext documents.
Almost 20 years later, that objective has been accomplished on most parts of the world, but not in all of them. Some countries are trying hard to keep an iron hand over the flow of information that takes place on the Web. Below you will find the most controversial ones.
Pakistan started censoring the web in 2000, when the main target was anti-Islamic content. Over the time, it seems, they liked the possibility to control the Internet traffic, and have been increasing the scope of their censorship system ever since.
How does the censorship work?
There are only three international gateways on the country, and all of them are controlled by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company. The government, therefore, is able to monitor and block most unwanted traffic using filtering software (although their technical apparatus is not sophisticated).
Internet service providers are also required by law to monitor the activity of their clients to make sure that they are not accessing prohibited websites.
What kind of content is blocked?
In the first years of the web censorship in Pakistan, the main target was anti-Islamic content and websites that were related to political autonomy movements (e.g., the Balochi one). In 2003, however, the Pakistan Telecommunication Company declared that they would also officially block all pornographic websites.
In 2006 mainstream western websites, including Wikipedia and several newspapers, got blocked as well. The intensification of the censorship was propelled by the episode of the Danish cartoons that contained images of the Prophet Muhammad.
Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is a country characterized by severe human rights problems, so it would be hard to expect an open and reliable Internet adoption. It is estimated that less than 1% of its population has access to the web, and this happens via a handful of cybercafes, and always under tight surveillance.
How does the censorship work?
Burma relies on a heavy regulatory framework to control the access to the Internet. Computers that want to access the web need to be registered with the Myanmar Posts and Telecom company, and a fee must be paid as well.
The price of the Internet connections is also prohibitive for the largest part of the population, and broadband connections are almost nonexistent among the general public.
Additionally, they also have a filtering system at the ISP level, targeting mainly independent media websites.
What kind of content is blocked?
Myanmar has an official Intranet, which is the only content available for many of its Internet users (the ones using dial-up connections). Only a small number of pre-approved websites are present there.
Free email services are also blocked, so people must use the state-owned service which is always monitored for keywords and sensitive content.
The main target of the censorship is political content that might go against the current government ideology.
The Yemen government is very hostile to the freedom of the media in general, and the Internet is no exception. Political and social issues are always under their radar, although the digital infrastructure for the censorship here is not as advanced as in some of the other countries on our list.
How does the censorship work?
The underdeveloped telecom infrastructure on the country acts as a natural obstacle to the free flow of information over the Internet. Just like Burma, less than 1% of Yemen’s popular can access the Internet.
The ones who are able to pay for an Internet subscription face severe limitations nevertheless. Service providers often prohibit the access to audio and video content, for example, because it would put an excessive load on their network.
The largest ISP on the country, controlled by the government, also makes use of content filtering software to block specific types of websites. It is interesting to note that they only have a limited number of user licenses for the software, and if many people connect at the same time, some will get an unfiltered version of the web!
What kind of content is blocked?
The censorship in Yemen is concerned mainly with blocking websites and material attacking the Yemeni revolution and it is political regimen.
Additionally, any website publishing anti-Islamic and pornographic content is also blocked on most Internet connections.
North Korea has managed to accomplish a really tough task given our time: they kept the Internet outside of the country borders! For a country that has no independent media at all, however, it makes sense.
How does the censorship work?
Basically there is no Internet in North Korea. No servers. No service providers. Nothing. Zip.
Only a handful elite members of the government have an Internet connection, and they have it via a satellite link that is connected with German servers.
Part of the population is trying to escape this iron curtain by using 3G mobile phones and Chinese connections. This is not an effective solution, though, and even when it works the users would be subject to the Chinese censorship on the other end….
What kind of content is blocked?
Everything. North Korea didn’t even have a top level domain extension until a while ago. Now they do, and there are two websites registered on it. Both governmental….
Truth be told, they do have an Intranet which is accessible to a tiny part of the population. Those amount to 50 or so web pages, however, and they are filled with content proclaiming the wonders of Kim Jung Il and his political ideals.
The Syrian government admits that it automatically blocks websites with pornographic content and with politically sensitive information. In reality the situation is much worse, and many journalists from around the world consider Syria to be one of the most repressive countries as far as the Internet is concerned.
How does the censorship work?
Syria’s first barrier to the information coming via the web are the social-economic problems of the country. It is estimated that less than 2% of the whole population subscribe to Internet services.
On top of that, they also exert a strong control over all the Internet Service Provides. Crazy as it sounds, Internet users there are only allowed to use the the port 80 (i.e., the one used by your browser).
If you want to use other types of connections you need to have an authorization and pay a fee. Want to setup a website and upload your files via FTP? Perhaps use Skype for VoIP? Forget it!
What kind of content is blocked?
Any topic criticizing the current political ideology is heavily targeted by the censors. Additionally, religious and pornographic content gets blocked at ISP level.
Syrya also blocks some mainstream websites like Hotmail, and there are reports that many blogs hosted on free services like Blogger were blocked in the past.
The Reporters Without Borders organization considers Cuba “one of the world’s 10 most repressive countries” when it comes to online content.
The local access to the Internet is so controlled, and the punishment to dissent so severe, that they managed to create a state of self-censorship, where people don’t even try to access prohibited material out of fear.
How does the censorship work?
The Cuban government owns all the Internet Service Providers in the country, so they have access to all the traffic that goes around. By employing a filtering software, they are able to block sensitive information.
Both websites and email messages get controlled before people can have access to them.
If that was not enough, the economic and social problems on the country make it generally difficult for anyone to have access to the Internet in the first place. The sales of personal computers used to be illegal on the country until some months ago for example.
What kind of content is blocked?
The main target of the Cuban censorship is political content that is against its socialist ideology.
In 1996 they already had a law banning from the Internet any material “in violation of Cuban society’s moral principles or the country’s laws.”
The United Arab Emirates is one of the most connected countries in the Middle East. Despite that fact, the country tries to control heavily the flow of information on the web. Virtually any website containing ideas or information that goes against the political, moral or religious values of the country is blocked.
How does the censorship work?
All the telephone and Internet services used to be provided by the state-owned company Etisalat. In 2006 The United Arab Emirates started liberalizing the telecommunications market, but they still have a strong hand on it.
They are therefore able to control and filter most of the Internet traffic. Curiously enough, in 2002 a survey found out that 60% of the Internet subscribers approved the filtering of online content at ISP level.
What kind of content is blocked?
The United Arab Emirates is concerned with protecting the moral and religious values of the country mainly.
As such, they extensively filter websites that contain pornography, that are related to alcohol and drug use, gay and lesbian issues, online dating and gambling.
Saudi Arabia introduced the Internet on its country many years after other Arab countries, exactly because they didn’t know how they would be able to control the content. Today they have a complex censorship system in place, and they even have laws criminalizing the access to websites that violate Saudi laws or Islamic values.
How does the censorship work?
The censorship is carried by the Internet Service Unit (ISU), which controls all the gateways of the Internet Service Providers on the country.
There is basically no Internet specific law on Saudi Arabia, so it falls under the press law, which states that the all publications need to have a governmental approval before publishing anything (i.e., they can shut pretty much anything down at will).
The technical part of the censorship is handled with the SmartFilter software.
What kind of content is blocked?
The Saudi Arabia government states that is blocks around 400,000 websites from around the world. Their main target anti-Islamic content, although pornography, gambling and women rights are also usually restricted
The censorship of the web in Iran started several years ago, and today they are one of the most efficient countries on this respect. The target? All non-Islamic websites, making Iran probably the country with the most extensive web censorship in the world.
How does the censorship work?
Iran has an advanced semantic filtering system in place that identifies specific keywords and terms. Working parallel with this system they have an official committee that is responsible for identifying and reporting any website that violates the Iranian laws and regulations.
The government is also trying to slow down, and sometimes even to ban the spread of broadband Internet connections on the country.
The objective is to “protect” its citizens from western cultural influences (e.g. music, video and movies).
What kind of content is blocked?
In 2006 the Iranian government was already blocking the access to several popular western websites, including YouTube, Amazon and Wikipedia.
Today, anything that contains sex, politics and religion is not allowed. The number of blocked websites is estimated at over 10 million.
There are actual laws that require the media and online content providers to produce material goes promotes the state objectives and the Islamic culture as a whole.
Over 100 print and online publications have been shut down in the past for not complying with those laws.
If you think that The Great Wall of China was already an incredible thing, you should take a look at what critics from around the world call “The Great Firewall of China.” China has undoubtedly the most sophisticated censorship system in the world.
In the past they have been able to block all sorts of unfriendly websites, and even to silence movements like the pro-Tibet protest as if they never existed.
And don’t think that only small bloggers are subject to China’s power. Even the almighty Google was forced to cooperate by creating a censored version of its search engine to be used by the Chinese.
How does the censorship work?
The Great Firewall of China, contrary to other censorship systems, is decentralized and flexible. They don’t target whole domain extensions (i.e. .com or .us) or specific types of websites (i.e. pornographic websites), but rather keywords.
In order to accomplish the herculean task of monitoring what the 220 million Chinese Internet users are doing, they have one of the biggest network of servers in the world, and a human task force that is estimated at over 30,000 heads.
The government also monitors closely the activity of Internet service provides and Internet cafes. Over the last couple of years over 2,000 Internet cafes were indeed closed, and very few of them were able to re-open.
What kind of content is blocked?
Politically sensitive content is the main target of the censorship in China. Hot topics include Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen. Many western content portals like BBC and Voice of America, for instance, are blocked by Chinese ISPs.
Pornography and terrorism related websites are also blocked.
Apart from blocking websites and restricting the access to specific types of websites, however, the Chinese government also invests a lot of money to promote the state-owned websites and to use the Internet as a propaganda vehicle.
Discovering that countries like Iran or Yemen are censoring the web is not a big surprise. Most forms of independent media are already restricted there, and their levels of human rights are among the lowest in the world.
But what if we told you that Australia, one of the richest countries in the world, is also trying to censor websites inside its borders? Now that is scary!
How does the censorship work?
In 2007 a bill passed giving the federal police the power to block the access to any website. They already had a filtering system is place, but it was very limited in scope.
Many privacy groups and critics from the around the world claimed that this decision will directly threaten the freedom of speech on the Australian web.
What kind of content is blocked?
The government claimed that the police will be blocking mainly phishing and terrorism related websites. The problem is that the law brings a much broader definition for the potential targets: basically they can block any content that encourages, incites or facilitates criminal activity.
Some of the facts provided on this article come from the Internet Enemies section of the Reporters Without Borders site, and from the Access Denied report from the OpenNet Initiative. We recommend that you visit them for more information on web censorship in general.
Almost 20 years later, that objective has been accomplished on most parts of the world, but not in all of them. Some countries are trying hard to keep an iron hand over the flow of information that takes place on the Web. Below you will find the most controversial ones.
10. Pakistan
The rundownPakistan started censoring the web in 2000, when the main target was anti-Islamic content. Over the time, it seems, they liked the possibility to control the Internet traffic, and have been increasing the scope of their censorship system ever since.
How does the censorship work?
There are only three international gateways on the country, and all of them are controlled by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company. The government, therefore, is able to monitor and block most unwanted traffic using filtering software (although their technical apparatus is not sophisticated).
Internet service providers are also required by law to monitor the activity of their clients to make sure that they are not accessing prohibited websites.
What kind of content is blocked?
In the first years of the web censorship in Pakistan, the main target was anti-Islamic content and websites that were related to political autonomy movements (e.g., the Balochi one). In 2003, however, the Pakistan Telecommunication Company declared that they would also officially block all pornographic websites.
In 2006 mainstream western websites, including Wikipedia and several newspapers, got blocked as well. The intensification of the censorship was propelled by the episode of the Danish cartoons that contained images of the Prophet Muhammad.
9. Burma
The rundownBurma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is a country characterized by severe human rights problems, so it would be hard to expect an open and reliable Internet adoption. It is estimated that less than 1% of its population has access to the web, and this happens via a handful of cybercafes, and always under tight surveillance.
How does the censorship work?
Burma relies on a heavy regulatory framework to control the access to the Internet. Computers that want to access the web need to be registered with the Myanmar Posts and Telecom company, and a fee must be paid as well.
The price of the Internet connections is also prohibitive for the largest part of the population, and broadband connections are almost nonexistent among the general public.
Additionally, they also have a filtering system at the ISP level, targeting mainly independent media websites.
What kind of content is blocked?
Myanmar has an official Intranet, which is the only content available for many of its Internet users (the ones using dial-up connections). Only a small number of pre-approved websites are present there.
Free email services are also blocked, so people must use the state-owned service which is always monitored for keywords and sensitive content.
The main target of the censorship is political content that might go against the current government ideology.
8. Yemen
The rundownThe Yemen government is very hostile to the freedom of the media in general, and the Internet is no exception. Political and social issues are always under their radar, although the digital infrastructure for the censorship here is not as advanced as in some of the other countries on our list.
How does the censorship work?
The underdeveloped telecom infrastructure on the country acts as a natural obstacle to the free flow of information over the Internet. Just like Burma, less than 1% of Yemen’s popular can access the Internet.
The ones who are able to pay for an Internet subscription face severe limitations nevertheless. Service providers often prohibit the access to audio and video content, for example, because it would put an excessive load on their network.
The largest ISP on the country, controlled by the government, also makes use of content filtering software to block specific types of websites. It is interesting to note that they only have a limited number of user licenses for the software, and if many people connect at the same time, some will get an unfiltered version of the web!
What kind of content is blocked?
The censorship in Yemen is concerned mainly with blocking websites and material attacking the Yemeni revolution and it is political regimen.
Additionally, any website publishing anti-Islamic and pornographic content is also blocked on most Internet connections.
7. North Korea
The rundownNorth Korea has managed to accomplish a really tough task given our time: they kept the Internet outside of the country borders! For a country that has no independent media at all, however, it makes sense.
How does the censorship work?
Basically there is no Internet in North Korea. No servers. No service providers. Nothing. Zip.
Only a handful elite members of the government have an Internet connection, and they have it via a satellite link that is connected with German servers.
Part of the population is trying to escape this iron curtain by using 3G mobile phones and Chinese connections. This is not an effective solution, though, and even when it works the users would be subject to the Chinese censorship on the other end….
What kind of content is blocked?
Everything. North Korea didn’t even have a top level domain extension until a while ago. Now they do, and there are two websites registered on it. Both governmental….
Truth be told, they do have an Intranet which is accessible to a tiny part of the population. Those amount to 50 or so web pages, however, and they are filled with content proclaiming the wonders of Kim Jung Il and his political ideals.
6. Syria
The rundownThe Syrian government admits that it automatically blocks websites with pornographic content and with politically sensitive information. In reality the situation is much worse, and many journalists from around the world consider Syria to be one of the most repressive countries as far as the Internet is concerned.
How does the censorship work?
Syria’s first barrier to the information coming via the web are the social-economic problems of the country. It is estimated that less than 2% of the whole population subscribe to Internet services.
On top of that, they also exert a strong control over all the Internet Service Provides. Crazy as it sounds, Internet users there are only allowed to use the the port 80 (i.e., the one used by your browser).
If you want to use other types of connections you need to have an authorization and pay a fee. Want to setup a website and upload your files via FTP? Perhaps use Skype for VoIP? Forget it!
What kind of content is blocked?
Any topic criticizing the current political ideology is heavily targeted by the censors. Additionally, religious and pornographic content gets blocked at ISP level.
Syrya also blocks some mainstream websites like Hotmail, and there are reports that many blogs hosted on free services like Blogger were blocked in the past.
5. Cuba
The rundownThe Reporters Without Borders organization considers Cuba “one of the world’s 10 most repressive countries” when it comes to online content.
The local access to the Internet is so controlled, and the punishment to dissent so severe, that they managed to create a state of self-censorship, where people don’t even try to access prohibited material out of fear.
How does the censorship work?
The Cuban government owns all the Internet Service Providers in the country, so they have access to all the traffic that goes around. By employing a filtering software, they are able to block sensitive information.
Both websites and email messages get controlled before people can have access to them.
If that was not enough, the economic and social problems on the country make it generally difficult for anyone to have access to the Internet in the first place. The sales of personal computers used to be illegal on the country until some months ago for example.
What kind of content is blocked?
The main target of the Cuban censorship is political content that is against its socialist ideology.
In 1996 they already had a law banning from the Internet any material “in violation of Cuban society’s moral principles or the country’s laws.”
4. United Arab Emirates
The rundownThe United Arab Emirates is one of the most connected countries in the Middle East. Despite that fact, the country tries to control heavily the flow of information on the web. Virtually any website containing ideas or information that goes against the political, moral or religious values of the country is blocked.
How does the censorship work?
All the telephone and Internet services used to be provided by the state-owned company Etisalat. In 2006 The United Arab Emirates started liberalizing the telecommunications market, but they still have a strong hand on it.
They are therefore able to control and filter most of the Internet traffic. Curiously enough, in 2002 a survey found out that 60% of the Internet subscribers approved the filtering of online content at ISP level.
What kind of content is blocked?
The United Arab Emirates is concerned with protecting the moral and religious values of the country mainly.
As such, they extensively filter websites that contain pornography, that are related to alcohol and drug use, gay and lesbian issues, online dating and gambling.
3. Saudi Arabia
The rundownSaudi Arabia introduced the Internet on its country many years after other Arab countries, exactly because they didn’t know how they would be able to control the content. Today they have a complex censorship system in place, and they even have laws criminalizing the access to websites that violate Saudi laws or Islamic values.
How does the censorship work?
The censorship is carried by the Internet Service Unit (ISU), which controls all the gateways of the Internet Service Providers on the country.
There is basically no Internet specific law on Saudi Arabia, so it falls under the press law, which states that the all publications need to have a governmental approval before publishing anything (i.e., they can shut pretty much anything down at will).
The technical part of the censorship is handled with the SmartFilter software.
What kind of content is blocked?
The Saudi Arabia government states that is blocks around 400,000 websites from around the world. Their main target anti-Islamic content, although pornography, gambling and women rights are also usually restricted
2. Iran
The rundownThe censorship of the web in Iran started several years ago, and today they are one of the most efficient countries on this respect. The target? All non-Islamic websites, making Iran probably the country with the most extensive web censorship in the world.
How does the censorship work?
Iran has an advanced semantic filtering system in place that identifies specific keywords and terms. Working parallel with this system they have an official committee that is responsible for identifying and reporting any website that violates the Iranian laws and regulations.
The government is also trying to slow down, and sometimes even to ban the spread of broadband Internet connections on the country.
The objective is to “protect” its citizens from western cultural influences (e.g. music, video and movies).
What kind of content is blocked?
In 2006 the Iranian government was already blocking the access to several popular western websites, including YouTube, Amazon and Wikipedia.
Today, anything that contains sex, politics and religion is not allowed. The number of blocked websites is estimated at over 10 million.
There are actual laws that require the media and online content providers to produce material goes promotes the state objectives and the Islamic culture as a whole.
Over 100 print and online publications have been shut down in the past for not complying with those laws.
1. China
The rundownIf you think that The Great Wall of China was already an incredible thing, you should take a look at what critics from around the world call “The Great Firewall of China.” China has undoubtedly the most sophisticated censorship system in the world.
In the past they have been able to block all sorts of unfriendly websites, and even to silence movements like the pro-Tibet protest as if they never existed.
And don’t think that only small bloggers are subject to China’s power. Even the almighty Google was forced to cooperate by creating a censored version of its search engine to be used by the Chinese.
How does the censorship work?
The Great Firewall of China, contrary to other censorship systems, is decentralized and flexible. They don’t target whole domain extensions (i.e. .com or .us) or specific types of websites (i.e. pornographic websites), but rather keywords.
In order to accomplish the herculean task of monitoring what the 220 million Chinese Internet users are doing, they have one of the biggest network of servers in the world, and a human task force that is estimated at over 30,000 heads.
The government also monitors closely the activity of Internet service provides and Internet cafes. Over the last couple of years over 2,000 Internet cafes were indeed closed, and very few of them were able to re-open.
What kind of content is blocked?
Politically sensitive content is the main target of the censorship in China. Hot topics include Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen. Many western content portals like BBC and Voice of America, for instance, are blocked by Chinese ISPs.
Pornography and terrorism related websites are also blocked.
Apart from blocking websites and restricting the access to specific types of websites, however, the Chinese government also invests a lot of money to promote the state-owned websites and to use the Internet as a propaganda vehicle.
Bonus: Australia
The rundownDiscovering that countries like Iran or Yemen are censoring the web is not a big surprise. Most forms of independent media are already restricted there, and their levels of human rights are among the lowest in the world.
But what if we told you that Australia, one of the richest countries in the world, is also trying to censor websites inside its borders? Now that is scary!
How does the censorship work?
In 2007 a bill passed giving the federal police the power to block the access to any website. They already had a filtering system is place, but it was very limited in scope.
Many privacy groups and critics from the around the world claimed that this decision will directly threaten the freedom of speech on the Australian web.
What kind of content is blocked?
The government claimed that the police will be blocking mainly phishing and terrorism related websites. The problem is that the law brings a much broader definition for the potential targets: basically they can block any content that encourages, incites or facilitates criminal activity.
Some of the facts provided on this article come from the Internet Enemies section of the Reporters Without Borders site, and from the Access Denied report from the OpenNet Initiative. We recommend that you visit them for more information on web censorship in general.
Top 10 Places to Get Movie, Music and Game Reviews Online
We’ve all done it: paid hard-earned money for something in the hope it would be good, only to find out that it wasn’t worth the risk. Think of all the shopper’s remorse we could avoid if we read a few reviews before we bought something!
Thankfully, web users are spoiled for choice when it comes to quality music, movie and game reviews online.
This post is an introduction to the top 10 online review websites, each striking a delicate balance between quality and respect in the field.
1. Metacritic.com is the one-stop shop for many, providing scores out of 100 for newly released games, movies, DVDs and TV shows. Rather than providing unique reviews, Metacritic aggregates all available reviews for a particular product and produces a score averaged across all critics. It’s a quick way to get an overview of how the critical community as a whole has received a certain product, particularly if you’re concerned about the biases of individual critics. Highly recommended.
2. Rotten Tomatoes is perhaps the best known source of online movie reviews from critics. It aggregates reviews from the critical community and calculates a total score for the film, deeming it either ‘fresh’ or ‘rotten’. The home page for each movie features quotes from each critic, summing up the general tone of their review. It’s a useful way get an idea of how good/bad a movie is while also using the quotes to gauge what aspects of the film stood out.
3. IMDb is a movie information and reviews site for those who’re more interested than the opinion of the masses than the opinions of paid critics. The emphasis is on votes rather than reviews, but the sheer amount of users who participate — in the tens of thousands — leads to a very democratic result.
4. Pitchfork Media is the hipster’s music review site of choice (you can tell by the banner ads for American Apparel). The emphasis here is on less mainstream music, but the reviews are well-written and generally well-respected in the online community.
5. Rolling Stone the magazine publishes its CD reviews online. The focus is on popular music and widely known alternative acts. In other words, those searching for the obscure should look elsewhere. Despite this, the reviews tend to be well-written. After all, if Rolling Stone can’t find any decent music journalists, who can?
6. SPIN is Rolling Stone’s slightly trendier, slightly less mainstream counterpart. The online reviews are also plucked straight out of the magazine. Each review is short and to the point, though the editorial standard is hampered by an annoying tendency to give almost everything three and a half stars.
7. NME is the UK’s premiere music mag. Often a taste-maker, the magazine has frequently been criticized by ’serious’ music aficionados for its tendency to give names to things that didn’t previously exist (the New Rave genre, for example). Still, the reviews are meatier than other alternatives. NME also has a disturbing tendency to pick out the UK’s ‘next big thing’ — often going on to become the ‘next big thing’ everywhere else, as well.
8. Drowned in Sound threatens to topple Pitchfork Media from its mantle of ‘hippest music review site’. For every band you’ve heard of there’s bound to be one you haven’t. Pretentious, maybe, but you’re almost guaranteed to happen upon some undiscovered gems you’d never have heard about otherwise.
9. Game Rankings is a review aggregating site build especially for gamers. The home page for each game links out to a number of critics reviews while also aggregating a total average score for the game. The site is also highly interactive, awarding points based on user contributions to the community.
10. GameSpot is one of the oldest and most well-known video game sites. While the competition is fierce between the major players (IGN, 1UP and GameSpy), GameSpot is arguably at the fore when it comes to the quality of the reviews it publishes. Each review comes with a neat summary of pros and cons to help you quickly decide if a game is worth laying down cash for.
Thankfully, web users are spoiled for choice when it comes to quality music, movie and game reviews online.
This post is an introduction to the top 10 online review websites, each striking a delicate balance between quality and respect in the field.
All-purpose
1. Metacritic.com is the one-stop shop for many, providing scores out of 100 for newly released games, movies, DVDs and TV shows. Rather than providing unique reviews, Metacritic aggregates all available reviews for a particular product and produces a score averaged across all critics. It’s a quick way to get an overview of how the critical community as a whole has received a certain product, particularly if you’re concerned about the biases of individual critics. Highly recommended.Movies
2. Rotten Tomatoes is perhaps the best known source of online movie reviews from critics. It aggregates reviews from the critical community and calculates a total score for the film, deeming it either ‘fresh’ or ‘rotten’. The home page for each movie features quotes from each critic, summing up the general tone of their review. It’s a useful way get an idea of how good/bad a movie is while also using the quotes to gauge what aspects of the film stood out.3. IMDb is a movie information and reviews site for those who’re more interested than the opinion of the masses than the opinions of paid critics. The emphasis is on votes rather than reviews, but the sheer amount of users who participate — in the tens of thousands — leads to a very democratic result.Music
4. Pitchfork Media is the hipster’s music review site of choice (you can tell by the banner ads for American Apparel). The emphasis here is on less mainstream music, but the reviews are well-written and generally well-respected in the online community.5. Rolling Stone the magazine publishes its CD reviews online. The focus is on popular music and widely known alternative acts. In other words, those searching for the obscure should look elsewhere. Despite this, the reviews tend to be well-written. After all, if Rolling Stone can’t find any decent music journalists, who can?6. SPIN is Rolling Stone’s slightly trendier, slightly less mainstream counterpart. The online reviews are also plucked straight out of the magazine. Each review is short and to the point, though the editorial standard is hampered by an annoying tendency to give almost everything three and a half stars.7. NME is the UK’s premiere music mag. Often a taste-maker, the magazine has frequently been criticized by ’serious’ music aficionados for its tendency to give names to things that didn’t previously exist (the New Rave genre, for example). Still, the reviews are meatier than other alternatives. NME also has a disturbing tendency to pick out the UK’s ‘next big thing’ — often going on to become the ‘next big thing’ everywhere else, as well.8. Drowned in Sound threatens to topple Pitchfork Media from its mantle of ‘hippest music review site’. For every band you’ve heard of there’s bound to be one you haven’t. Pretentious, maybe, but you’re almost guaranteed to happen upon some undiscovered gems you’d never have heard about otherwise.Games
9. Game Rankings is a review aggregating site build especially for gamers. The home page for each game links out to a number of critics reviews while also aggregating a total average score for the game. The site is also highly interactive, awarding points based on user contributions to the community.10. GameSpot is one of the oldest and most well-known video game sites. While the competition is fierce between the major players (IGN, 1UP and GameSpy), GameSpot is arguably at the fore when it comes to the quality of the reviews it publishes. Each review comes with a neat summary of pros and cons to help you quickly decide if a game is worth laying down cash for.
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