Thursday, 9 April 2015, ISTANBUL, TURKEY and VIENNA, AUSTRIA - In what appears to be shaping up as a challenging week overseas for social media behemoths of United States origin first Facebook and then Google both reportedly unlike Twitter (at least early on) caved to Turkish recurring censorship pressure in order to avoid Internet bans and removed links and images and photographs as well as other visual and audio content related to leftist hostage takers last week at an Istanbul courthouse putting a gun to the head of Prosecutor Memhet Siram Kuraz whom they later killed.
Twitter in any case is easily accessed even when "banned" by Turkish authorities by social media users using services which do not reveal their actual Internet access points and reportedly was restored to service Monday night without mention of whether it acceded to reportedly frequent Turkish censorship practices. YouTube later also was restored although Burcak Unsal, described as "an expert in digital law", in the New York Times distinguished Google from "hosting providers like Twitter or YouTube". To the extent YouTube "held out" it in any case now is owned by Google which early on caved to censorship pressure.
Readers interested in more information on the above as well as Turkey's apparently growing Internet censorship practices extending to news organizations in that country can go to the first link provided below to the New York Times article filed from Istanbul, Turkey.
Meanwhile BBC Technology news today reports that Facebook European Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland which registers all users outside of the United States and Canada faces in Vienna, Austria a 25,000 user class action filed lawsuit including 900 United Kingdom site users which alleges violations of European privacy laws. The claim led by Austrian "data protection campaigner" Max Schrems reportedly focuses on the way Facebook collects and forwards data as well as alleging Facebook further violates European privacy laws by its monitoring the use of the site's "Like" button.
The suit is intended to stop "mass surveillance" by Facebook and further claims moreover that the social media giant has co-operated with the unconstitutional "PRISM" National Security Agency (NSA) mass domestic and foreign spying bulk data collection operation launched in 2007 under the claimed authority of the equally unconstitutional and reprehensible midnight garbage legislation the so-called "Patriot Act" which even its its alleged author has said under no reading can support such activities by the NSA nor any other United States government entity. Facebook is expected to argue the Vienna court lacks jurisdiction to hear the suit.
Key provisions of the disingenuously titled Patriot Act hatched from the rank exploitation of fears following the "9/11" disaster by the disgraced Bush-Cheney administration including the widely condemned Section 215 (including by both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association) are set to expire under "sunset" provisions unless they are again extended by 1 June 2015. Despite sham lawsuits by social media giants against the NSA these technology behemoths' complicity in NSA mass surveillance is well documented including without limitation all of the above-mentioned social media monsters as well as Yahoo! and several others. This was perhaps most recently confirmed by exiled American NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden from his first-hand knowledge in a recent Moscow interview with John Oliver host of "Last Week Tonight" shown on Home Box Office (HBO) and available, of course, on YouTube. Mr. Snowden incidentally in this year's Academy Award winning documentary "CitizenFour" names the NSA British partner in crime GCHQ as even more prone to privacy and other abuse if imaginable than the NSA.
Readers interested in more information regarding the European class action lawsuit being brought in Vienna against Facebook European Dublin headquarters can go to the second link below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/world/europe/google-turkey-kiraz-prosecutor.html?ref=todayspaper
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32229285
Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved
Twitter in any case is easily accessed even when "banned" by Turkish authorities by social media users using services which do not reveal their actual Internet access points and reportedly was restored to service Monday night without mention of whether it acceded to reportedly frequent Turkish censorship practices. YouTube later also was restored although Burcak Unsal, described as "an expert in digital law", in the New York Times distinguished Google from "hosting providers like Twitter or YouTube". To the extent YouTube "held out" it in any case now is owned by Google which early on caved to censorship pressure.
Readers interested in more information on the above as well as Turkey's apparently growing Internet censorship practices extending to news organizations in that country can go to the first link provided below to the New York Times article filed from Istanbul, Turkey.
Meanwhile BBC Technology news today reports that Facebook European Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland which registers all users outside of the United States and Canada faces in Vienna, Austria a 25,000 user class action filed lawsuit including 900 United Kingdom site users which alleges violations of European privacy laws. The claim led by Austrian "data protection campaigner" Max Schrems reportedly focuses on the way Facebook collects and forwards data as well as alleging Facebook further violates European privacy laws by its monitoring the use of the site's "Like" button.
The suit is intended to stop "mass surveillance" by Facebook and further claims moreover that the social media giant has co-operated with the unconstitutional "PRISM" National Security Agency (NSA) mass domestic and foreign spying bulk data collection operation launched in 2007 under the claimed authority of the equally unconstitutional and reprehensible midnight garbage legislation the so-called "Patriot Act" which even its its alleged author has said under no reading can support such activities by the NSA nor any other United States government entity. Facebook is expected to argue the Vienna court lacks jurisdiction to hear the suit.
Key provisions of the disingenuously titled Patriot Act hatched from the rank exploitation of fears following the "9/11" disaster by the disgraced Bush-Cheney administration including the widely condemned Section 215 (including by both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association) are set to expire under "sunset" provisions unless they are again extended by 1 June 2015. Despite sham lawsuits by social media giants against the NSA these technology behemoths' complicity in NSA mass surveillance is well documented including without limitation all of the above-mentioned social media monsters as well as Yahoo! and several others. This was perhaps most recently confirmed by exiled American NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden from his first-hand knowledge in a recent Moscow interview with John Oliver host of "Last Week Tonight" shown on Home Box Office (HBO) and available, of course, on YouTube. Mr. Snowden incidentally in this year's Academy Award winning documentary "CitizenFour" names the NSA British partner in crime GCHQ as even more prone to privacy and other abuse if imaginable than the NSA.
Readers interested in more information regarding the European class action lawsuit being brought in Vienna against Facebook European Dublin headquarters can go to the second link below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/world/europe/google-turkey-kiraz-prosecutor.html?ref=todayspaper
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32229285
Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved
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