14 Jan 2015

451 unavailable: Campaign for a new error message


Anyone who uses the World Wide Web will be familiar with the ‘404 Page Not Found’ message which appears when you visit a webpage that doesn’t exist. Many of us will also have seen the ‘403 Forbidden’ error message for denying access. One campaign group in the UK is lobbying for a new message to be used on the web. They want a ‘451 Unavailable’ message to be displayed every time a webpage is blocked by a government. Leading the campaign is the UK-based Open Rights Group , a free speech and digital consumer rights group. ‘451’ is a reference to the novel Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian novel by Ray
31 May 2013

Is Facebook censoring blog posts?


Facebook has recently been accused of censoring a political blog covering protests about the outsourcing of NHS contracts. Online censorship always sparks angry responses. One of the most cherished and greatest achievements of the Internet is the way it allows freedom of expression that bypasses traditional forms of media, something that can change society and have a profound effect, as seen in the events of the Arab Spring. The blog article in question covered a protest against NHS privatisation made by ‘The Artist Taxi Driver’, who pushed a toy pig five miles through London to Downing Street