Google: Government Censorship Attempts Increasing

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2013-04-25 17:38:49 UTC

Google released its traditional six-month Transparency Report Thursday, the seventh since the company started releasing this type of data in 2010. And, according to the report, which covers July to December of 2012, attempts by governments around the world to censor political content on the Internet are increasing.

"From July to December 2012, we received 2,285 government requests to remove 24,179 pieces of content—an increase from the 1,811 requests to remove 18,070 pieces of content that we received during the first half of 2012," Google's Legal Director Susan Infantino wrote in a blog post.

These types of requests have doubled since the second half of 2011, when governments made 1,054 requests to remove 12,071 items.

In the blog post, Infantino points out the dramatic increase in government censorship attempts. "It’s become increasingly clear that the scope of government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown," she wrote. "In more places than ever, we’ve been asked by governments to remove political content that people post on our services."

For Google, Brazil is a particularly striking example. The country's total requests (counting both court orders and "other requests") in the first half of last year were 191, in the second half they grew to 697. The Brazilian municipal elections are the main reason behind it. Infantino adds that half of the total requests were alleging violations of the Brazilian Electoral Code, which forbids defamation against candidates.

Infantino reveals that Google is appealing many of those requests, "on the basis that the content is protected by freedom of expression under the Brazilian Constitution," she wrote.

Another example of a country with sharp increases in these attempts is Russia. After the approval of a new Internet blacklist law last fall — which YouTube legally challenged in February — Russian government requests grew from just six in the first half of the year to 114.

Finally, Google refers to the controversial YouTube video "Innocence of Muslims," which in September spurred violent protests around the Middle East. Google reveals 20 countries made inquiries about the video. And "after receiving formal legal complaints," the company restricted access to the video in "several countries in accordance with local law," Infantino wrote.

As for the United States, the number of requests has slightly increased from 273 in the first half of 2012 to 321 in the second half of the year.

Take a look at Google's full Transparency Report here.

Mashable composite, images via iStockphoto, MHJ; chart courtesy of Google.

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Pinterest Brings Back Beloved Design Features

Lauren Indvik2013-04-25 21:33:37 UTC

In March, Pinterest rolled out a new site design with larger images, a cleaner layout, and several new discovery and navigation features. Since that time, users have praised and criticized various aspects of the design — and Pinterest has listened.

On Thursday, Pinterest announced it's brought back a host of features from the older version of the site, including the ability to discover the users you follow pins from and the ability to mention your friends by typing "@" before their name. You can also find out which of your Facebook or Twitter friends are on Pinterest once again.

In addition to reinstating several older features, Pinterest has also rolled out better search and widened the range of user activity notifications. Soon, users will be alerted when their newsfeed has been updated with new pins.

For a full run-down of the changes, check out Pinterest's corporate blog.

Images courtesy of Pinterest.

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ABC Wants Your Instant TV Feedback — With Emoticons

Sam Laird2013-04-26 01:08:28 UTC

So you sit down for some important programming, whether a Barack Obama speech or your favorite sitcom. You've got all the fixings: Comfy chair, tasty snacks and, of course, your second screen device of choice to keep up with online chatter.

Now would you add one more thing to the mix by spending the next thirty minutes continuously clicking a range of emoticons to register the ebbs and flows of your viewing emotions?

That's the idea behind Social Sountracker, an iPhone app from ABC that's currently in beta form. The app lets users schedule reminders for shows and other programming, then sign in to give instant feedback via a set of five emoticons. There's a laughing emoticon, a booing emoticon, an "aww" emoticon, a clapping emoticon and a surprised emoticon.

When you click each emoticon, you'll also hear a corresponding sound effect. You'll hear sound effects from your Facebook friends whenever they register a reaction as well.

Joe Ruffalo, senior vice president for ABC News Digital, sees the app as a way for the network to register feedback on programming while allowing its audience to add a social element to their viewing habits.

“We hope viewers find Social Soundtracker to be a personal and interactive way to engage with their friends while watching their favorite video online or on TV,” Ruffolo said in a press release. “It is a completely new way to watch video and engage with content, and we’re excited to learn more about how people use it.

"Social Soundtracker will evolve to best suit viewers’ needs — the possibilities are truly limitless. It’s clear people want to be connected to their social networks while watching the video they love.”

Does Social Soundtracker sound like something you would use? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy Flickr, Salmando

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Instapaper Bought By Betaworks — Why the Big Fuss?

Chris Taylor2013-04-25 23:51:05 UTC

Do you use Instapaper? No, me neither. But the $3.99 app, which lets you save stuff to read later when outside a wifi or 3G zone, has a small and highly devoted following. Which is why a small segment of Twitter went nuts at the news Thursday that Instapaper was being bought by Betaworks, the burgeoning media tech company that bought the assets of Digg last year.

Instapaper "has simply grown far beyond what one person can do," its creator Marco Arment wrote in a blog post explaining the sale (actually, Betaworks will only take a majority stake, not buy the thing outright).

"To really shine, it needs a full-time staff of at least a few people," Arment added. "But I wouldn’t be very good at hiring and leading a staff, and after more than five years, I’d like an opportunity to try other apps and creative projects."

Arment assured his followers that he would continue indefinitely as an advisor, and that "I didn’t want to give it to a big company that would probably just shut it down in six months."

Arment has been spending an increasing amount of time on another project. He's founder and editorial director of an online paid magazine devoted to mid-length features, brashly titled The Magazine. His enthusiasm for Instapaper appears to have been waning for some time. Reviews of the lastest version in the iTunes store suggest it got buggy and crashed a lot.

"I never thought I would have to change my 5 star review of Instapaper to 1 star," wrote one user, in a typical complaint.

Two years ago, Apple stepped onto Instapaper's turf in a major way by adding a "reading list" feature to its Safari app on iPhone and iPad. The reading list allowed users to save pages to read them later, rendering the paid iPhone app Instapaper largely irrelevant.

When reading lists were announced at WWDC in 2011 as part of iOS6 (in what turned out to be Steve Jobs' last keynote), Arment tweeted an infamous one-word response: "shit."

But Betaworks is building a reputation for turning around aggregation products thought to be lost causes, judging by the reception for the new Digg.

Can they make more of us want to purchase a $4 iPhone app (an Android version was added last year, costing $3) that performs a service we can get for free elsewhere? (Aside from Safari, there's the completely free Pocket, formerly known as Read It Later, which is also available as a browser extension.)

What should Betaworks do with Instapaper? Give us your reaction to the sale in the comments below.

Image via iStockphoto, Peepo

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George Lucas Museum Wants Your Facebook Likes

Chris Taylor2013-04-26 02:08:09 UTC

Not so long ago, in a city near, near the Bay, a certain retired filmmaker decided to build a place he could hang his Death Star-sized art collection and share it with a public eager for inspiration. Now he needs you, loyal citizens of the Lucas Empire, to show your support for the project.

The George Lucas Cultural Arts Museum is currently just a dream. But on Friday, the dreamer par excellence will personally present his plans to the Presidio Trust in San Francisco, along with five other projects vying for the same space (currently occupied by a Sports Basement). The Presidio, a former military base, is already home to Lucasfilm itself, as well as the Walt Disney Family Museum. So you can see the urge to complete a Disney-Lucas trifecta there.

With an eye to the Trust's decision, a campaign has now been launched to garner support via social media. The Lucas Museum, largely unknown outside the Bay Area, currently has less than 500 Likes on Facebook. (It also has a newborn Twitter account, @Lucasmuseum.) On Thursday night, the Museum's team launches its first on-screen Facebook appeal at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

"Building community awareness is key to the success of the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum," says spokesman David Perry. "You're faceless without Facebook, and we want to put a community face on our efforts. To paraphrase Carly Rae Jepsen, so Like me maybe."

So what do you get for your hard-earned Like? Well, the collection is a testament to Lucas' lifelong love of illustration. Since he started out as a preteen comics nerd with a yen for Carl Banks' Scrooge McDuck — which yielded the first page he ever bought — there are plans for plenty of unabashed geeking out over the golden age of comics.

But that's just the beginning. Once he became wealthy, Lucas started voraciously collecting fine art that told whole stories in single images — such as the works of Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and the less well-known (but just as prolific) N.C. Wyeth.

Then there are galleries on special effects digital film and animation. There are plans to showcase costumes, props and a droid or two from the Lucas archive. Some little company you might have heard of, Industrial Light and Magic, should be well represented.

Check out the full proposal here [PDF link]. Is this something you'll support? Let us know in the comments.

Thumbnail photo by David Livingston/Getty Images for AFI

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WWDC Sells Out in Less Than 2 Minutes

Christina Warren2013-04-25 17:52:25 UTC

Want to go to Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, often referred to as WWDC? Hopefully you got in early because the event sold out in just two minutes.

Cult of Mac reports tickets were gone in just 120 seconds and that many would-be ticket buyers were unable to even reach the purchase page, instead getting stuck with error messages (probably due to the increased load on the servers).

Demand for WWDC tickets has grown substantially in the past five years, thanks to the influx of iOS developers and the broader app ecosystem. Last year, the event sold out in less than two hours. Apple pre-announced WWDC's ticket date this year, giving developers a chance to wake up and prepare to fight the online crowds, but that may have just intensified the early demand even more.

WWDC tickets cost $1,599 and are non-transferable. So unlike concert tickets — where greedy buyers frequently try to resell tickets at a higher price later — the black market for WWDC tickets is quite small (unless you're willing to legally change your name to appear as someone else).

Seeing as demand is so high, maybe its time for Apple to consider either a larger venue or multiple developer events around the world. WWDC is historically where Apple unveils its latest software efforts — and hardware sometimes makes an appearance too.

If you didn't get a ticket to WWDC, it might still be worth the trip to San Francisco in June anyway. While you won't be able to attend the official sessions and parties, there are tons of developer meet-ups and networking opportunities.

Were you able to snag a ticket to WWDC? Let us know in the comments.

Image via Apple

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CISPA Probably Won't Be Introduced In the Senate

Alex Fitzpatrick2013-04-26 02:27:19 UTC

The House of Representative's version of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, probably won't be taken up in its entirety by the Senate, according to a new report. CISPA passed the House last week with bipartisan support despite a veto threat from the White House.

"We're not taking [CISPA] up," an anonymous representative of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation told U.S. News and World Report. "Staff and senators are divvying up the issues and the key provisions everyone agrees would need to be handled if we're going to strengthen cybersecurity. They'll be drafting separate bills."

When reached for comment, commerce committee spokesperson Kevin McAlister emailed Mashable a previously issued statement from Chairman John D. Rockefeller (D-W.V.) saying he prefers an all-encompassing cybersecurity bill:

“Today’s action in the House is important, even if CISPA’s privacy protections are insufficient. We need action on all the elements that will strengthen our cybersecurity, not just one, and that's what the Senate will achieve. I plan to work with Senator Thune, as well as the Chairmen and Ranking Members on other Committees of jurisdiction, to go through regular order. I believe we can gain bipartisan agreement on bills that we can report out of our Committees and allow Leader Reid to bring them to the Senate floor as early as possible. There is too much at stake – our economic and national security – for Congress to fail to act.”

CISPA, which is designed to allow businesses and federal agencies to share cybersecurity threat information, certainly deals with commerce. However, the bill was actually referred to the Senate Intelligence Committee. When reached for comment by Mashable, Tom Mentzer, Press Secretary for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), offered a Feinstein quote saying the committee is working on its own version of an information-sharing bill, corroborating what the anonymous source suggested.

"We are currently drafting a bipartisan information sharing bill and will proceed as soon as we come to an agreement," said Feinstein.

CISPA was long expected to stall in the Senate as it did last year, which is debating other approaches to cybersecurity. However, as the anonymous quote and various committee spokespersons indicate, some elements of CISPA may yet find new life in the Senate in other bills. Thus, it's not entirely fair to say CISPA as a whole is "dead" based on this report — but the odds that CISPA as passed by the House will make it through the Senate are near-zero.

Advocates for CISPA, mostly business interests, argue such sharing is necessary to deflect hackers in real time. Opponents of the bill argue it would compromise online privacy and afford undue liability protection to companies which share data with the government.

Is CISPA the right approach to cybersecurity legislation? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Image via iStockphoto, uschools

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