If there’s anything worse than being in a California state penitentiary, it’s not being able to check if you’ve been tagged in any photos lately. This dual fate of horror is now a reality for CA inmates, NBC reports. More »
The Saudi Arabian government has reportedly blocked access to Amnesty International’s website, days after the human rights organization locked horns with the government over a draft anti-terrorism law.
The law, posted online last Friday by Amnesty, would allow Saudi authorities to prosecute non-violent dissent as an act of terrorism. Amnesty claims that the law “allows for a minimum 10-year prison sentence for ‘questioning the integrity’ of the royal family” and claims the law is designed to suppress dissent rather than fight terrorism.
The Saudi government responded on Saturday by saying the claims were “completely without foundation,” according to the AP. The government also criticized Amnesty for not contacting the government for comment or clarification.
On Monday, Amnesty and several news publications reported that Amnesty International’s website was not accessible on Saudi-based Internet networks.
“Instead of attacking those raising concerns and attempting to block debate, the Saudi Arabian government should amend the draft law to ensure that it does not muzzle dissent and deny basic rights,” Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s director for Middle East operations, said in a statement.
While Amnesty’s site remains blocked in Saudi Arabia, some of its affiliate sites remain accessible. Amnesty has posted the full text of the Saudi law on its Protect the Human blog. Saudi Arabia has mostly avoided the unrest that swept Tunsinia and Egypt, but has recently been in the news for arresting five Saudi women for driving.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Khaled AlQubeli
More About: Amnesty International, human rights, internet, Saudi Arabia
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We’ve all been there; You’re at an outing or a dinner table with friends but itching to check your email or Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Google+ or Yammer or what ever digital hit of serotonin you prefer. Have you ever “gone to the bathroom” in order to check email or come up with a socially appropriate excuse to pull out your smartphone just so you can check your @ replies on Twitter?
Remember when the critical mass of smokers used to leave the table or meeting in groups to go indulge their habit? I straight up open my laptop at bars and parties, and then feel more guilty about that than drinking.
A new British study released today backs up what we otherwise know intuitively, that Internet usage is increasingly becoming an addiction. Out of 1000 people surveyed after being cut off from the Internet for 24 hours, 53% reported feeling “upset” about being deprived of online access and 40% said that they felt lonely after not being able to connect to the Internet. Participants described the digital detox akin to quitting drinking or smoking and one even said it was like having his hand chopped off (!).
This British survey comes after a University of Maryland study in April that came to pretty much the same conclusion — With one student saying that she was “itching like a crackhead” after abstaining from any form of media for 24 hours. Geez.
Add this insight to the yet un-proven concerns that smartphone usage leads to Cancer and the smoking analogy becomes more and more apt (see image left). But for the moment Googling the name of a movie you can’t remember is hands down a lot healthier than smoking an actual cigarette, at least physically. For the moment.
RackNine sends this excerpt from an editorial at the Guardian:
“The worldwide web has made critics of us all. But with commenters able to hide behind a cloak of anonymity, the blog and chatroom have become forums for hatred and bile. … The psychologists call it ‘deindividuation.’ It’s what happens when social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed. The classic deindividuation experiment concerned American children at Halloween. Trick-or-treaters were invited to take sweets left in the hall of a house on a table on which there was also a sum of money. When children arrived singly, and not wearing masks, only 8% of them stole any of the money. When they were in larger groups, with their identities concealed by fancy dress, that number rose to 80%. The combination of a faceless crowd and personal anonymity provoked individuals into breaking rules that under ‘normal’ circumstances they would not have considered. … One simple antidote to this seems to rest in the very old-fashioned idea of standing by your good name. Adopt a pseudonym and you are not putting much of yourself on the line. Put your name to something and your words are freighted with responsibility.”
New social coding tools are enabling a revolution in product development. Rick Freedman reveals what he sees as the key stumbling block for social development.