Pakistan blocks Wikipedia over ‘blasphemous content’

A police officer stands guard as people take part in Friday prayers at a mosque, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday, Feb. 3, 2023. (AP)
A police officer stands guard as people take part in Friday prayers at a mosque, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday, Feb. 3, 2023. (AP)
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Updated 05 February 2023

Pakistan blocks Wikipedia over ‘blasphemous content’

A police officer stands guard as people take part in Friday prayers at a mosque, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday, Feb. 3, 2023.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation — the non-profit fund managing Wikipedia — said the block “denies the fifth most populous nation in the world access to the largest free knowledge repository”

ISLAMABAD: Wikipedia was blocked in Pakistan on Saturday after authorities censored the website for hosting “blasphemous content” in the latest blow to digital rights in the deeply conservative nation.
Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in Muslim-majority Pakistan, and social media giants Facebook and YouTube have previously been banned for publishing content deemed sacrilegious.
The online encyclopedia had been blocked across the country on Friday “after it failed to respond to our repeated correspondence over removal of the blasphemous content and meet the deadline,” Malahat Obaid, a spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, told AFP on Saturday.
The PTA had earlier in the week given Wikipedia a 48 hour ultimatum to remove material, without publically specifying its exact objections.
“They did remove some of the material but not all,” Obaid said. “It will remain blocked until they remove all the objectionable material.”
An AFP reporter in Pakistan was not able to access the site from a mobile phone on Saturday.
The Wikimedia Foundation — the non-profit fund managing Wikipedia — said the block “denies the fifth most populous nation in the world access to the largest free knowledge repository.”
“If it continues, it will also deprive everyone access to Pakistan’s knowledge, history, and culture,” a statement said.
Free speech campaigners have highlighted what they say is a pattern of rising government censorship of Pakistan’s printed and electronic media.
“There’s just been a concerted effort to exert greater control over content on the Internet,” said digital rights activist Usama Khilji.
“The main purpose is to silence any dissent,” he told AFP. “A lot of times blasphemy is weaponized for that purpose.”
Pakistan blocked YouTube from 2012 to 2016 after it carried a film about the Prophet Muhammad that led to violent protests across the Muslim world.
In recent years, the country has also blocked the wildly popular video-sharing app TikTok several times over “indecent” and “immoral” content.

 


Barcode turns 50 but its days might be numbered

Barcode turns 50 but its days might be numbered
Updated 02 April 2023

Barcode turns 50 but its days might be numbered

Barcode turns 50 but its days might be numbered
  • The trademark beep as a product is scanned is heard about six billion times per day across the world as around 70,000 items are sold each second.
  • Today, it faces it faces competition from the younger QR code, the information-filled squares used in smartphones

PARIS: The patch of irregular vertical lines that revolutionized checking out at the supermarket and facilitated the globalization of retail is turning 50.
But as the barcode celebrates its birthday on Monday, its days might be numbered as it faces competition from the younger QR code, the information-filled squares used in smartphones.
The trademark beep as a product is scanned is heard about six billion times per day across the world as around 70,000 items are sold each second.
It has become so integrated in the shopping experience that it is easy to forget how much the technology revolutionized retail by speeding up the checkout process and giving retailers the ability to trace products and better manage inventory.
The barcode not only identifies a product, but “gives professionals in stores access to other functionalities,” said Laurence Vallana, head of France de SES-Imagotag, a company that specializes in electronic tagging.

Barcodes were initially patented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in the United States in 1952.
But it wasn’t until nearly two decades later, in 1971, that US engineer George Laurer perfected the technology and moves toward its commercialization began.
On April 3, 1973 the standard to identify products was agreed by a number of large retailers and food companies. It later became known as EAN-13, which stands for European Article Number and the number of digits in the barcode.
The following year, on June 26 in the US state of Ohio, the first product was scanned: a pack of chewing gum that is now in the National Museum of American History in Washington.
Today, the non-governmental organization Global Standard 1 manages the barcode system and counts about two million firms as members.
It provides companies with a unique “global trade item number” for each product, which is then translated into the barcode. Each firm must pay an annual fee based on their sales, up to nearly $5,000 per year.

But the humble barcode will soon give way to another standard developed by the organization, said Renaud de Barbuat and Didier Veloso, the respective heads of GS1 Global and GS1 France.
The new standard, based on QR, or Quick Response code, will be introduced around 2027.
If barcodes have been compared to prison bars by critics of the over-commercialization of society, the Chinese game Go with its white and black pieces on a square board was the inspiration for the QR code’s Japanese creator, Masahiro Hara.
Developed in 1994, QR codes can hold much more information as they are read both horizontally, like barcodes, and vertically.
Instead of having to search a database for information to go along with a product, the QR code can integrate information directly, such as the composition of the product and recycling instructions.
GS1 believes moving to the QR code format allows the sharing of far more information about products as well as content, enabling new uses that will be accessible to consumers as well as retailers.
As smartphones can read QR codes, they are an easy way to send people to websites to get additional information, leading to their widespread adoption by companies, artists and even museums. They are even used by payment systems.
But barcodes are likely to remain in place for years to come as the world gradually transitions to QR codes.
 


Taliban close women-run Afghan station for playing music

Taliban close women-run Afghan station for playing music
Updated 01 April 2023

Taliban close women-run Afghan station for playing music

Taliban close women-run Afghan station for playing music
  • Sadai Banowan, which means women’s voice in Dari, is Afghanistan’s only women-run station and started 10 years ago
  • Moezuddin Ahmadi, the director for Information and Culture in Badakhshan province, said the station violated the “laws and regulations"

JALALABAD, Afghanistan: A women-run radio station in Afghanistan’s northeast has been shut down for playing music during the holy month of Ramadan, a Taliban official said Saturday.
Sadai Banowan, which means women’s voice in Dari, is Afghanistan’s only women-run station and started 10 years ago. It has eight staff, six of them female.
Moezuddin Ahmadi, the director for Information and Culture in Badakhshan province, said the station violated the “laws and regulations of the Islamic Emirate” several times by broadcasting songs and music during Ramadan and was shuttered because of the breach.
“If this radio station accepts the policy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and gives a guarantee that it will not repeat such a thing again, we will allow it to operate again,” said Ahmadi.
Station head Najia Sorosh denied there was any violation, saying there was no need for the closure and called it a conspiracy. The Taliban “told us that you have broadcast music. We have not broadcast any kind of music,” she said.
Sorosh said at 11:40 a.m. on Thursday representatives from the Ministry of Information and Culture and the Vice and Virtue Directorate arrived at the station and shut it down. She said station staff have contacted Vice and Virtue but officials there said they do not have any additional information about the closing.
Many journalists lost their jobs after the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Media outlets closed over lack of funds or because staff left the country, according to the Afghan Independent Journalists Association.
The Taliban have barred women from most forms of employment and education beyond the sixth grade, including university. There is no official ban on music. During their previous rule in the late 1990s, the Taliban barred most television, radio and newspapers in the country.


106-year-old Kalinga tattooist becomes Vogue’s oldest cover star

106-year-old Kalinga tattooist becomes Vogue’s oldest cover star
Updated 01 April 2023

106-year-old Kalinga tattooist becomes Vogue’s oldest cover star

106-year-old Kalinga tattooist becomes Vogue’s oldest cover star
  • Apo Whang-Od from the Philippines is the oldest person to appear on a Vogue Magazine cover

LONDON: A 106-year-old tattoo artist featured in the April issue of Vogue Philippines is the oldest person ever to appear on the magazine’s cover.

Apo Whang-Od is also believed to be the oldest traditional Kalinga tattooist, known as a mambabatok, in the Philippines, CNN reported.

“Heralded as the last mambabatok of her generation, she has imprinted the symbols of the Kalinga tribe — signifying strength, bravery, and beauty — on the skin of thousands of people who have made the pilgrimage to Buscalan,” wrote Vogue Philippines in an Instagram post revealing the new cover.

Once prized by indigenous warriors who protected local villages, the hand-tapped tattoos are created using a bamboo stick, a thorn from a pomelo tree, water and coal.

Whang-Od, who lives in the mountain village of Buscalan, north of Manila, learned the art of hand-tapping tattoos from her father during her teenage years.

Today, tourists seeking Whang-Od’s signature geometric designs make up much of her clientele.

The traditional art is passed down only to blood relatives, and Whang Od has been instructing her two grandnieces for years now.

“The tradition will continue as long as people keep coming to get tattoos,” she told CNN in 2017, adding that she would persevere until her vision gets blurry.

“We felt she represented our ideals of what is beautiful about our Filipino culture,” said Bea Valdes, Vogue Philippines editor-in-chief.

Staff at the publication were in complete agreement that Whang-Od should go on April’s cover, she added.

“We believe that the concept of beauty needs to evolve, and include diverse and inclusive faces and forms. What we hope to speak about is the beauty of humanity,” Valdes said.

The magazine’s previous oldest cover star was British actress Judi Dench, who featured in British Vogue in 2020 at the age of 85.


2018 Musk tweet unlawfully threatened workers’ union organizing efforts, court rules

2018 Musk tweet unlawfully threatened workers’ union organizing efforts, court rules
Updated 01 April 2023

2018 Musk tweet unlawfully threatened workers’ union organizing efforts, court rules

2018 Musk tweet unlawfully threatened workers’ union organizing efforts, court rules
  • Also upheld was the board’s order that Tesla reinstate and provide back pay to an employee who was fired for union-organizing activity

NEW ORLEANS: A 2018 Twitter post by Tesla CEO Elon Musk unlawfully threatened Tesla employees with the loss of stock options if they decided to be represented by a union, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a March 2021 order by the National Labor Relations Board, which ordered that the tweet be deleted. The case arose from United Auto Workers’ organizing efforts at a Tesla facility in Fremont, California.
Also upheld was the board’s order that Tesla reinstate and provide back pay to an employee who was fired for union-organizing activity.
Musk tweeted on May 20, 2018: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets health care.”
The ruling said that “because stock options are part of Tesla’s employees’ compensation, and nothing in the tweet suggested that Tesla would be forced to end stock options or that the UAW would be the cause of giving up stock options, substantial evidence supports the NLRB’s conclusion that the tweet is as an implied threat to end stock options as retaliation for unionization.”
The UAW, and Richard Ortiz, the worker whose reinstatement was ordered, praised the ruling. “I look forward to returning to work at Tesla and working with my co-workers to finish the job of forming a Union,” Ortiz said in a UAW email.
“This a great victory for workers who have the courage to stand up and organize in a system that is currently stacked heavily in favor of employers like Tesla who have no qualms about violating the law,” said UAW Region 6 Director Mike Miller.
Tesla had not responded to emailed requests for comment Friday afternoon.


‘Only journalism can save journalism,’ FII Priority panel told

Faisal Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News, talks to Justin Smith, co-founder and CEO of global news platform Semafor at the FII
Faisal Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News, talks to Justin Smith, co-founder and CEO of global news platform Semafor at the FII
Updated 01 April 2023

‘Only journalism can save journalism,’ FII Priority panel told

Faisal Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News, talks to Justin Smith, co-founder and CEO of global news platform Semafor at the FII
  • News subscriptions grew by nearly 58 percent between 2019 and 2020
  • Social media platforms have grown up and are now being held responsible by governments and regulators, panel discusses

MIAMI: Trust in news has fallen in almost half of 46 countries surveyed by the Reuters Institute. Other studies show that only 8 percent of people in the US trust what they read, see and hear.

These numbers do not surprise Faisal Abbas, the editor-in-chief of Arab News. Speaking at the FII Priority conference, he said: “We’re living in an era where we are bombarded by information left, right and center so for people to distrust the information that they are receiving is not unusual.”

Abbas said there was a silver lining in this situation, which is the increase in subscriptions.

“People, for the first time since the expansion of the internet, are willing to actually pay money for professional, quality journalism.”

There was a median increase of nearly 58 percent in active subscribers between 2019 and 2020, according to data from analytics firm Piano.

Given anyone now has the “ability to disseminate and receive information unfiltered instantly,” professional quality journalism is more important than ever.

Faisal Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News, and Justin Smith, co-founder and CEO of global news platform Semafor discuss falling trust in news media

Justin Smith, former CEO of Bloomberg Media and current CEO and co-founder of global news platform, Semafor, who moderated the panel, said that Semafor believes the best way of “attacking trust is to rethink the actual format”.

Semafor’s articles are therefore broken down into sections featuring the news, analysis, different perspectives on the topic, and other articles on the topic.

In the Middle East, unlike America, there isn’t a first amendment that protects the free speech of the press and people. However, and particularly in Saudi Arabia, “we’re living in a positive climate of reforms,” said Abbas.

While he acknowledged “we’re not there yet,” he added that since “the whole vision is focused on setting targets, KPIs, and transparency for government officials and bodies, it is unthinkable that we will not get there in the end.”

Arab News itself has seen 500 percent growth in traffic and audience and a large rise in newsletter subscriptions, so “we must be doing something right,” he added.

Moreover, when it comes to quality journalism, Saudi media continues to dominate the media scene, Abbas said.

This is, in part at least, due to the diligence and responsibility of media outlets to maintain editorial integrity, which “can’t be promised or pledged, it has to be proven with every story.

“Reputation arrives on foot and leaves on horseback, so it only takes one mistake. It’s not a responsibility we take lightly and neither does our management.”

Abbas pressed on how social media is impacting the truth and discussed the recent pressure social media companies are facing from governments and regulators.

He likened social media platforms to someone entering their teenage years — “whatever they did before was cute,” or “they were too young to know what they’re doing,” Abbas said.

But now, regulation is catching up and platforms are being held accountable, and treated as publishers who are liable for the content on their sites, he added.

Beyond news dissemination, Abbas drew attention to the problem of commercialization.

“We’re a victim of a situation whereby you are penalized to do professional journalism, and rewarded if you do lazy fake news.”

News media organizations incur multiple costs from commissioning a story, to legal reviews, to copyediting. They then end up sharing revenue with social platforms or Google, which is unfair, Abbas said.

Often, fake news stories go viral on social media platforms garnering millions of clicks, “and that is just a classic model of how easy it is and how social media will reward you if you are publishing fake news.”

It is important to remember that “big tech companies weren’t founded by journalists or publishers; they were founded by engineers who didn’t quite understand the impact that fake news has,” Abbas said.

Ultimately, he concluded, “it’s up to us, only journalism can save journalism.”