In Context: 5 Web Perspectives On A Story In The News

Censorship and the Canadian campus connection

(The Link) James Lucas, a organizer for the Campus for Christ at Concordia University, was prevented from hanging posters around campus that promoted a talk from Kim Phuc called "The Girl in the Photograph".  Phuc is the famous subject of a photo, taken when she was young, of Vietnamese billagers fleeing an American napalm attack.  Phuc's image in the photo, taken as she runs from the chemical attack naked, was deemed by the Concordia Student Union to be graphic and possibly offensive to some.  The posters were removed from the campus even after they had been approved prior to being put up.  The VP communications for the student union said that by allowing the photograph to stay up "we're opening the door to photos of aborted babies and the Holocaust."

1.

CBC's guide to Canadian censorship 1967 and onwards

Artists Busted: Censorship in Canada
Beginning with Concordia and stretching back to the late Sixties, the CBC has digital files on the various kind of censorship that has taken place at universities and elsewhere, with a particular focus on the censorship of artwork.

2.

University's band together to battle Internet censorship

OpenNet Initiative
The OpenNet Initiative is a joint project between the University of Toronto, Harvard University, and Oxford and Cambridge in Britain.  They describe their aim as being "to investigate, expose and analyze Internet filtering and surveillance practices in a credible and non-partisan fashion."  Here you'll find up-to-date news about censorship cases from around the world and comprehensive research pages.

3.

Waterloo professor pens angry report against library censorship

Censorship: The Libraries, The Internet, and The University
An interesting case study from 1993, when the Internet was still in its infancy and material from other countries were becoming more widely available.  The University of Waterloo ordered all materials relating to the Karla Homolka case that could have potentially been in violation of a court-ordered publican ban removed from the library.  This professor at Waterloo wonders if the ban was justified.

4.

Canadian campuses investigate security, censorship

"Universities probe security and censorship in shadowy Web world"
An article from the Globe and Mail the efforts of U of T's Citizen Lab, Dalhousie University's agreement to monitor online activity for criminal intent on behaf of U.S. Homeland Security, and more.  A good, in-depth look at just how much involvement university's have in monitoring the Internet of those around them.

5.

Spreading the Free Word

Censorship drives Malaysians to blogs
Students at the University of Western Ontario worked with the Centre for Independant Journalism (a non-governmental organization) for four months in Malaysia.  The goal of the trip was to spread awareness about press censorship, and the student action included lobby efforts, and holding workshops to help citizens learn how to spread their own version of the news through the Internet and blogs.