When social media posts spur real-life arrests
Around the world, governments are struggling to pin down the repercussions of boundary-pushing online speech, whether it's a Facebook post mocking a repressive regime or a racist Tweet. As it becomes easier to share opinions online, it's also easier and easier to get caught saying the wrong thing.
Venezuelan government raids home over Twitter rumors regarding president's health
On Sunday night, the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service raided the home of a Venezuelan suspected of spreading rumors about president Hugo Chávez's health on Twitter. The intelligence service suspects that the cousin of a prominent Venezuelan opposition member, Federico Medina Ravell, runs the @LucioQuincioC Twitter account. To the government's chagrin, @LucioQuincioC has claimed that the president, who was flown to Cuba for emergency cancer surgery about a month ago, will not recover...
Court jails activist for two years for insulting Kuwaiti leader on Twitter
Much has been said about social media's role in the Arab Spring and other protests around the world. But in many places, 140 characters of dissent is still all it takes to land you in prison.
Rashid Saleh al-Anzi, an online activist in Kuwait with 5,700 Twitter followers, was sentenced to two years on Sunday for writing a tweet in October that a Kuwaiti court claims "stabbed the rights and powers" of the country's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah. The comments came in close proximity to d...
UK to go easy on prosecuting offensive Twitter users who show remorse
The UK has announced new guidelines that could see less social media users prosecuted under the country's abusive speech laws. Director of public prosecutions Kier Starmer, in comments reported by the Guardian, said that authorities should take "considerable caution" not to impact free speech by bringing unnecessary charges. While the Crown Prosecution Service is keeping the door open in cases that could be seen as serious harassment or credible threats of violence, situations where the...
Google complies with Brazilian court order to pull political video from YouTube
Reuters is reporting that Google has complied with the requests of Brazilian authorities to pull a political attack video from YouTube. Earlier this week Judge Flavio Peren ordered the company to pull the clip on the grounds that it slandered mayoral candidate Alcides Bernal. Google refused, leading to the arrest yesterday of Fabio José Silva Coelho, Google's president of operations in Brazil. Coelho was released after questioning.
In an emailed statement to Reuters, the executive said that...
Brazilian judge orders arrest of local Google president over negative election videos on YouTube
A Brazilian judge has ordered the arrest of Google's president of operations in Brazil over a pair of YouTube videos that the court says slander mayoral candidate Alcides Bernal. According to the Associated Press, Judge Flavio Peren ordered Google to remove the offending videos last week, but Google refused, leading Peren to issue a warrant for the arrest of local president Fabio Jose Silva Coelho and order YouTube and other Google services blocked for 24 hours. Google is reportedly appealing...
Culture
Student's satirical Facebook posts land his Iranian father in jail
An Iranian man is being detained by the country's security services after his son posted on a Facebook page mocking a sacred religious leader, according to a report from CNN. Yashar Khameneh was studying in the Netherlands when he began posting on the page, featuring a jokey image of Ali al-Naqi al-Hadi, one of Iran's 12 "infallible" imams. Traffic to the page spiked when Iranian-German rapper Shahin Najafi was issued with a fatwa for mocking the same imam, bringing it to the attention of the...
Policy & Law
South Korean man indicted over North Korea retweet, facing seven years in jail
A South Korean man could be facing up to seven years in jail for retweeting messages from North Korea. Park Jeong-Geun, 24, broadcast the message "Long Live Kim Jong-il," which originated from @uriminzok, an account that the North Korean government has been using since 2010. Mr Park, however, is a member of the Socialist Party of South Korea, known for its anti-North views, and claims he was acting in satire. Amnesty International is calling for his release, accusing the South Korean...
