Venezuela cyber crackdown ensnares Web's Bitly.
Source: AP
Venezuelans have been scrambling for dollars for weeks, taking refuge in the greenback as their own currency is in free fall. Rather than address the economic imbalances behind the bolivar's plunge, the government is going after the bearers of the bad news it's blocking websites people use to track exchange rates on the black market.
Cyber-activists say the crackdown goes to absurd lengths, even targeting Bitly, the popular site for shortening Web addresses to make it easier to send them as links via Twitter and other social media. For more than two weeks, access to the service has been partially censored by several Internet service providers in Venezuela, apparently because Bitly was being used to evade blocks put on currency-tracking websites.
The New York company says such restrictions have only previously been seen in China, which has one of the worst records for Internet freedom, and even then not for such an extended period. Opponents of Venezuela's socialist government say the controls are designed to obscure reporting of the nation's mounting economic woes.
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Bitly got caught in the crossfire of Venezuela's polarized politics a month ago, shortly after President Nicolas Maduro decided to block access to sites such as www.dolartoday.com that publish the black market rate for the bolivar, which is now 10 times the official rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollar.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-cyber-crackdown-ensnares-39-bitly-050456017.html
Archae
(46,327 posts)Maduro will roll out the tanks next.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Is that where you are free to go around the internet under the watchful eyes of government agencies.
Whats worse, keeping you from reading something the government doesn't approve, or letting you read something the government doesn't approve, and tracking you for it and knowing that you read it. At least the former can't tell what your really into, while the latter can mirror your interests and mirror your thoughts as expressed through your browser.
The data of who is visiting a "subversive site", and what they are reading, is much more interesting then knowing the data of just another person blocked from a site.
What is internet freedom.
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)One can factor that the government or web entity may be tracking visits to internet sites into their website choices if they want.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)I agree given the lesser of two evils, with being able to go everywhere. This was more a sense of what freedom is and means.
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)even if the US or Ven government is watching me. here in the US anyway. Its my decision. If the government blocks the site then I am not free to even make a decision.
Gman
(24,780 posts)Things worked well under Chavez. Now this guy wants to rule by fiat. He won't be around much longer.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Which isn't good news for him because he's going to go out the hard way, in a coffin.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Tarheel_Dem
(31,234 posts)ain't "the devil"? Maduro's days are numbered, I forecast an all-out revolt!
penultimate
(1,110 posts)but I also think NSA spying is grand.