Reporters Without Borders Unblocks Access To Censored Websites 37
Mark Wilson writes Online censorship is rife. In many countries, notably China, citizens are prevented from accessing certain websites at the behest of their government. To help provide access to information and unbiased news, freedom of information organization Reporters Without Borders has set up mirrors to nine censored websites so they can be accessed from 11 countries that blocked them. As part of Operation Collateral Freedom, Reporters Without Borders is mirroring the likes of The Tibet Post International which is blocked in China, and Gooya News which is blocked in Iran. Mirrored sites are hosted on Amazon, Microsoft and Google servers which are unlikely to be blocked by a censoring country.
Re:Reporters without borders? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because Reporters Without Borders is an organization of considerably more dubious repute than the similarly named Doctors Without Borders. For one thing Otto Reich was involved, and besides State Dept there are very persistent accusations of ties with Western intelligence outfits. They were active in propaganda campaigns all over South America, Cuba in particular.
Re:Reporters without borders? (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, it's not actually that clear in this case: the Saudi regime for instance, most evil theocracy on the planet and great friends of the U.S., do not get a pass from these guys, as your theory would predict.
And the U.S. themselves only rank around #30 on their Press Freedom Index, last time I checked. But that is compiled from reports by actual journalists in the field, IIRC, so might be more difficult for them to doctor.
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Looks like U.S. Now rank #46 out of 180... source [wikipedia.org].
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Why would a French organization help the US, when France has butted heads with the US on foreign policy for so long? And Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and UAE are on the list, contrary to your assertion. Maybe not enough? Certainly they block more than just 2 sites, and China blocks more than just 3. Maybe you'd like to add more?
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Reporters Without Borders is not a French group, it's mostly a creation of the US State Department. You're thinking of Doctors Without Borders, which actually does some worthwhile work.
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In fact I thought the great firewall of China already did deep packet inspection and MITM attacks, so selectively blocking anything based on content should be pretty straightforward.
Riiight... (Score:2)
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To help provide access to information and unbiased news, ...
Unbiased news - I am not familiar with that. Could someone suggests an actual unbiased news source?
Fox News, of course. They're "fair and balanced". Right?
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Fox News?
Oh you naive person you.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Mirrored sites are hosted on Amazon, Microsoft and Google servers which are unlikely to be blocked by a censoring country.
LOL ROTFLOL oh you poor naive person, you.
UK = No Moral High ground (Score:1)
"The professor drew an analogy between the Reporters Without Borders initiative and the news that websites listing proxies for the file-sharing site Pirate Bay had been blocked in the UK."