Tag: Social media

Today, Access submitted a letter to UN and African Union experts requesting their urgent intervention on the internet shutdown in Burundi, where social media services have been cut off in the face of public unrest. The letter underscores the importance of the internet to realizing human rights, and explains how shutdowns often enable egregious human rights violations.

New social media site promises more privacy, but can it follow through?

Activists involved in the organization of the first Gezi park protests in Turkey are currently standing trial, which Amnesty International describes as “a vindictive, politically motivated show trial without a shred of evidence of actual crimes.”

According to recently leaked documents, the Egyptian government is planning on developing a new social media monitoring system to match the capabilities of the NSA PRISM program.

Russia’s largest homegrown social network, Vkontakte, with its more than 100 million users, is now under new management.

Venezuela has become the first South American government to take credit for shutting down nationwide access to the servers of massive online social networks to stifle political demonstrations.

The Russian government has blocked access to a blog-hosting site that publishes reports from at least two prominent independent journalists often critical of the Kremlin. The site has been added to the country’s recently established official “internet blacklist.”