The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Jailed journalists write for freedom in Turkey Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:10 AM PDT  A copy of Tutuklu Gazete, published as a free supplement in leftist Turkish newspapers on Sunday July 24, 2011, is seen in this photo illustration taken in Istanbul July 25, 2011. The dozens of Turkish journalists writing for the Tutuklu Gazete newspaper have very personal reasons to be concerned about media freedom in their EU-candidate country. They are all in jail. The headline of the newspaper reads "Resistance against censorship." – Reuters pic From prison cells across Turkey, they contributed articles to a special edition protesting against restrictions on freedom of expression which have drawn criticism from the United States and Europe. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced concern about the issue on a visit to Istanbul this month, saying it was not in Turkey's interest to be "cracking down". A report by the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental pan-European human rights body, has called for urgent measures to address a "particularly worrying" situation for media freedom. Writing from jail in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Kurdish newspaper editor Vedat Kursun says it is particularly tough for journalists who write about a 27-year-old Kurdish separatist insurgency in which more 40,000 people have died. "Journalists in this country have been put in a situation where they virtually can't practice their profession. They always feel the cold breath of the authorities on their neck," he wrote in Tutuklu Gazete, published as a free supplement in leftist Turkish newspapers on Sunday. Kursun was sentenced to 166 years in jail for membership of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), viewed by the US and EU as a terrorist group. He, like other journalists, says he was only convicted for articles in his newspaper. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan rejects such an argument, saying journalists are not in jail because of what they wrote. They are generally prosecuted under widely implemented laws against membership of terrorist groups or spreading their propaganda. Since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan's government has earned praised internationally for political reforms aimed at bringing Turkey in line with European Union political norms, and for liberalising an economy that now ranks among the fastest-growing in the world. However, the ruling AK Party, which polled 50 per cent of the vote to win a third term in power in parliamentary elections in June, also faces accusations of trying to tame the media and smother opposition to its power. Turkey has fallen to 138th out of 178 countries reviewed for the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters without Borders, a media freedom pressure group, from 101st in 2007 due to the proliferation of lawsuits. Tutuklu Gazete's publication date of July 24 was symbolic. It marked the anniversary of the official abolition of censorship in the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Abdul Hamid II at the time of the Young Turks revolution in 1908. "Resistance to Censorship," the newspaper proclaimed in a front-page headline above a picture of people protesting against media restrictions at a demonstration attended by thousands in Istanbul earlier this year. The Turkish Journalists Union (TGS), which organised the project, says the paper is part of a year-old campaign to secure the release of 70 jailed journalists and prompt changes in the anti-terrorism laws. "If journalists are prosecuted on charges of being terrorists due to their professional activities, it means there must be a mistake in those laws and they must be changed," TGS Chairman Ercan Ipekci told Reuters. "We hope public opinion will be influenced by these articles and that this wave of public opinion will hit parliament and that it will make the necessary changes in the laws," he said. The organisers wrote to all the jailed journalists about the project and published articles from 39 of them. For now, there are no plans for further editions of the paper. While charges of links to the PKK predominate in the prosecution of reporters, some of the journalists in jail are among hundreds of people detained over a series of alleged coup plots against Erdogan's government. Among them is the Kanalturk television channel founder Tuncay Ozkan, who has been in jail since September 2008 charged with seeking to overthrow the government in a trial which is still continuing. He says his opposition to the ruling AK Party is the reason for his prosecution. "I was jailed for conducting my profession without compromise, for exercising my right to freedom of thought and dissidence," Ozkan said in an article written from Silivri prison, near Istanbul in northwest Turkey. TGS says journalists are the subject of some 4,000 investigations. Many of those are for articles about the alleged anti-government plots of the shadowy "Ergenekon" network since the investigation was launched four years ago. Some 2,000 cases have been opened against reporters. Well known journalist Ahmet Slk was detained earlier this year. The co-author of a book about Ergenekon, Slk faces a jail sentence of up to four years on a charge of "violating the secrecy of an investigation". Turkey has long faced criticism from campaigners over its human rights record. Writers including Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk and slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink were prosecuted under laws restricting freedom of expression. A Reporters Without Borders report in June called on Turkish authorities to boost the status of journalistic principles in the law to counterbalance the protection of legal confidentiality, state security and personal privacy. "A legislative straitjacket continues to stifle journalists," the report said. "Reporting of some topics is still routinely punished by the courts. Journalists are arrested and tried for doing their job or expressing an opinion," it said. – Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Facebook tackles face-recognition privacy concern Posted: 28 Jul 2011 01:31 AM PDT
The deployment of "Tag Suggestions" technology — designed to speed up the process of labelling friends in photos — had renewed concerns about how the world's largest social network with 750 million members handles privacy. The technology scans newly uploaded photos, compares faces in those snapshots with previous pictures, then tries to match faces and suggest name tags. When a match is found, Facebook alerts the person uploading the photos and invites them to "tag", or identify, the person in the photo. Connecticut Attorney-General George Jepsen said in a letter to Facebook last month that it compromised consumers' rights to privacy by analysing faces in photographs posted on the website, then cataloguing them. Facebook has since met with Jepsen, and this month began running ads on users' home pages telling them about the feature and allowing them to count themselves out of its use entirely. Should users opt out, any facial recognition data that had been collected will be deleted. "Facebook has made significant changes that will provide better service and greater privacy protection to its users, not only in Connecticut, but across the country," Jepsen said in a statement. "The company has been cooperative and diligent in its response." Facebook, which verified that those ads have run, has said the feature is available in most countries. Automated photo-tagging suggestions are made only when new photos are added, only friends are suggested, and users can disable the feature in their privacy settings, the company has said. "People across the country using Facebook will be more aware of our personalised privacy settings, and how they can be used to benefit their experience on the site," said Tim Sparapani, director of public policy at Facebook. "We hope that people on Facebook will find the results to be helpful and useful." You in or out? While other photo software and online services such as Google Inc's Picasa and Apple Inc's iPhoto use facial recognition technology, the use of the technique on an Internet network such as Facebook raises thorny issues. For instance, iPhoto gives users control over facial recognition by letting them elect whether or not to use the technology with personal photo collections. Facebook's, in contrast, operated independently and was automatically enabled, analysing faces across a swathe of newly uploaded pictures. The lack of notifications about the wider roll-out of the feature had spurred concerns among privacy advocates, who argue it should be up to users to allow it. A group of organisations had filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission requesting an investigation. Such a system also raised questions about which personally identifiable information — such as email addresses — could become associated with photos in Facebook's database. Addressing other concerns, the social network has also streamlined the process for reporting fake accounts or imposters, after Connecticut Representative Kim Rose complained to Jepsen about the difficulty of removing an account that had been falsely labelled as hers and that asked for money. In response, Facebook had set up a "roadblock" system that froze accounts reported until they were verified, had made changes to the reporting system, and had speeded up response times, Jepsen said in his statement. Facebook also has instituted direct links to user contact forms and an automatic email response to help direct users to the correct mechanism when trying to report an imposter or fake profile. "Although this measure won't totally stop fraudulent pages from being created, it will have a significant impact on reducing the amount of time they are active," the attorney-general said. — Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
LOS ANGELES, July 28 — Facebook has made it easier for users to opt out of its controversial facial-recognition technology for photographs, an effort to address concerns that it had violated consumers' privacy.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Features To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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