Committee to Protect Journalists
CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
Did a migrant document his journey to Europe on Instagram? Did a young Syrian boy save a friend from danger under a hail of bullets? Did a pair of magicians pull off the ultimate photobomb by performing a trick in the background of a news report outside the Houses of Parliament?
The answer to all of these questions is — as great as the stories are — an unequivocal no. Did large, revered news organisations fall for the hoaxes? Unfortunately, yes.
I frequently encounter Eritreans living safely in the West, with political asylum, who feel they can’t even “like” social-media posts that are critical of the regime back home. Instead they prefer privately writing or calling the individual whose post they wanted to react to. They fear the regime is tapping everyone’s social media account.
News of the alleged Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computers has riveted the world. But for many, this kind of behavior is a daily reality.
Evan Mawarire posted a video on Facebook after he struggled to raise the school fees for his children, he held the Zimbabwean flag and felt let down by his country and the government. The promise that this flag stood for and the reality on the ground could not be reconciled. His video resonated with many Zimbabweans who adopted the flag as a symbol of protest flooding social media with images of the Zimbabwean flag. The video inspired many Zimbabweans and has quickly grown to become Zimbabwe’s biggest form of protest in over a decade.
Except for blacklisted nations like Syria and North Korea, there is little to stop governments that routinely violate basic rights from obtaining the same so-called “lawful intercept” tools that have been sold to Western police and spy agencies. People tracked by the technology have been beaten, jailed and tortured, according to human rights groups.
TONIGHT 6:30-9PM
New Documents Opening ReceptionFrom the early 1900s to the advent of Facebook Live, the exhibition New Documents highlights the ways in which eyewitnesses have created and shared evidence to expose injustice and abuses of power, setting the agenda for social discourse.
Free and open to the public.
Bakırköy 3rd Penal Court of Peace has issued a gag order soon after the attack, suspected to be organized by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) militants, on demand of the Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım. The gag order included not only printed and mass media but also online news portals and social media.
The gag order is expected to last until the investigation launched into the attack was completed.
Soon after the gag order, social media users said Twitter and Facebook was too slow. Some users said they cannot access Twitter or Facebook without using a VPN program.
Militants develop smartphone app, slick videos to promote insurgency.
Days after a U.S. airstrike in May killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, a group of Taliban fighters gathered at a mosque in western Afghanistan to pledge allegiance to their new commander, Maulavi Haibatullah Akhondzada. Then they posted a video of the ceremony on Facebook.
Threats and harassment have driven journalists into exile, leaving social media to fill the void for those wanting to reach the world and connect disparate groups
Burundi’s year-long crisis has not gone away. It started with President Pierre Nkurunziza’s determination to claim a third term, trampling over the constitutional arrangements that ended a decade-long civil war.
Press freedom is a major casualty of the new strife; but the turmoil has also transformed the way in which Burundians get information. For better or worse, social media has filled the vacuum left by the shutting down of the most popular radio stations and forcing out of many of the country’s professional journalists.