Privacy in the UK
Surveillance is usually associated with authoritarian regimes. Now with the UK?
'Extreme surveillance' becomes UK law with barely a whimper
A bill giving the UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world has passed into law with barely a whimper…
The Investigatory Powers Act, passed on Thursday, legalises a whole range of tools for snooping and hacking by the security services unmatched by any other country in western Europe or even the US…
US whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted: “The UK has just legalised the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies.”…
One of the negative aspects of the legislation is that it fails to provide adequate protection for journalists’ sources, which could discourage whistleblowing…
It [the law] legalises hacking by the security agencies into computers and mobile phones and allows them access to masses of stored personal data, even if the person under scrutiny is not suspected of any wrongdoing…
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Labels: civil rights, privacy, UK
Catching up with technology
Decentralized technology makes it more and more difficult to exercise control over people's behavior. China's ruling CPC keeps trying.
China demands stricter rules for live streaming
China's internet regulator has demanded stricter controls over the popular practice of live streaming, as part of a range of new requirements for sites.
As well as asking sites to step up control of live broadcasts, the Cyberspace Administration of China wants the content monitored full-time…
There are an an estimated 80 platforms in use around the country, with some gaining notoriety for hosting live broadcasts of stunts that have gone viral.
The People's Daily reported that the CAC statement asked sites to "strengthen security evaluation of new products like live broadcast". It also said the the new requirements would apply to "bullet-screens" - where online user comments pop-up on top of live videos.
It is just one of a range of new requirements placed on websites to better regulate themselves, including putting the onus on them to set up 24-hour monitoring of their online content…
In April… one of China's biggest internet stars, comedian and vlogger, Papi Jiang promised to "correct" herself, after warnings from government officials over her foul language…
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| Xia Keke |
The content is monetized by allowing viewers to purchase virtual gifts for real money and send them to the host of any stream they particularly like. The revenue coming in from those gifts is then shared between the host and the streaming site.
One of China's biggest live streaming stars is Xia Keke, a 22-year old woman, who by chatting, singing and dancing has reportedly managed to earn more than $700,000 last year…
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6,
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Labels: China, civil rights, Internet, politics
Children and Twitter
China has given urban citizens a bit more freedom by
allowing them to have a second child if they wish to, but the country comes in dead last in a survey of Internet Freedom.
China Ranks Last of 65 Nations in Internet Freedom
The report, “Freedom on the Net 2015,” the latest such annual study by the group, Freedom House, lists the many ways in which China is restricting free access to the Internet, from strengthening its Great Firewall system of website censorship to criminalizing some kinds of Internet speech. China had the worst score of 65 nations…
Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported Wednesday that, through a new criminal law, Chinese officials will be able to impose a prison sentence of up to seven years on a person convicted of creating and spreading “false information” online. The law is the latest in an array of legal regulations that Chinese officials have used in recent years to silence political dissent and quash the spread of information and rumors.
The new law, which will take effect Sunday, significantly increases the punishment for those judged to be spreading rumors or politically delicate information…
The new law says people who “fabricate false information about hazards, diseases, disasters or crimes and spread it on information networks or other media, or deliberately spread it on information networks or other media while knowing it is false information, seriously disrupting social orders, will be sentenced to a prison term up to three years, placed under detention or face enforcement measures.”…
This summer, China released a draft law on cybersecurity that, if passed, would further formalize broad powers that the government already wields in clamping down on Internet activity. That includes shutting down the wider Internet in large regions, as the government did in 2009 during rioting involving ethnic Uighurs in the capital of the Xinjiang region. For a year, the government allowed access to only a few official websites across all of Xinjiang, which is one-sixth of the territory of China…
China now emphasizes the importance of “cyberspace sovereignty.” The official in charge of the Cyberspace Administration of China, Lu Wei, has stressed that idea in recent meetings with executives of foreign Internet and media companies that want greater access to the Chinese market…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
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What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
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Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: China, civil rights, rule of law
Voting without franchise
A bit of common sense wisdom asserts that democracy and capitalism are practically conjoined twins. Could it be that the Communist Party in China has given up too much power in their economic reforms?
Consumer Anxiety in China Undermines Government’s Economic Plans
Many young middle-class Chinese who grew up during the nation’s glittering boom years, when double-digit growth was the norm, are suddenly confronting the shadow of an economic slowdown, and even hints of austerity.
They are canceling vacations and delaying weddings and even selling recently purchased apartments to have cash on hand. Those who have lost money in the ongoing stock market crash are especially anxious.
Their angst poses dual problems for China’s leadership. The ruling party bases its legitimacy on delivering high rates of growth and employment. It also hopes to encourage consumer spending as a new engine of growth as the manufacturing sector slows and to nudge the economy away from an investment-driven model. Eroding confidence threatens both goals.
These days, Chinese are using the social media app WeChat to look for news and advice on the economy rather than the state news media, which, at the orders of the Communist Party’s propaganda department, have only had bare-bones reporting on the stock market crisis and the broader concerns over slowing economic growth…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
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Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is available NOW!. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: China, civil rights, economics, politics
