Wired: Turkish ISP Blocks Social Media Sites Near Syrian Border. “Turkey restricted access to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp in at least three cities in the southern part of the country for about 48 hours earlier this week as it launched an attack on northern Syria, according to data collected by civil society group NetBlocks and reviewed by WIRED.”
internet access
Quartz: Zimbabwe is clamping down on social media use with a cyber crime bill set to become law
Quartz: Zimbabwe is clamping down on social media use with a cyber crime bill set to become law. “Zimbabwe has inched closer to clamping down on citizens’ use of social media platforms and will likely fish out and penalize citizens who create and share what is deemed offensive or pornographic material over outlets including WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter.”
Make Tech Easier: 4 of the Best Internet Speed Test Sites
Make Tech Easier: 4 of the Best Internet Speed Test Sites. “If you’ve swapped ISPs, or you suspect your current one isn’t giving you the speeds they promised, you can use an Internet speed test to see how fast everything is running. But which websites are the best, and why should you use them? Here are the best Internet speed tests and how to use them.”
Ars Technica: 50% of US homes still won’t have fiber broadband by 2025, study says
Ars Technica: 50% of US homes still won’t have fiber broadband by 2025, study says. “Fiber broadband is now available to more than 30% of households across the US, and fiber networks should reach 50% of homes by 2025, a new study says. But 50% coverage would obviously leave another 50% of homes without access to the fastest wireline broadband technology.”
Life in an Internet Shutdown: Crossing Borders for Email and Contraband SIM Cards (New York Times)
New York Times: Life in an Internet Shutdown: Crossing Borders for Email and Contraband SIM Cards. “The shutdowns do more than stunt the democratic process. They can batter whole economies and individual businesses, as well as drastically disrupt the daily life of ordinary citizens, turning the search for mobile service into a game of cat and mouse with the police and driving people across borders just to send emails for work.”
Poynter: Indonesia faces two waves of misinformation and an internet shutdown at the same time
Poynter: Indonesia faces two waves of misinformation and an internet shutdown at the same time. “Borneo is internationally known for palm oil plantations, coal mining, dense jungles and orangutans. Building a big city to become the country’s capital there could mean the end of all that, or at least part of it. So discussions around this topic took over the country in the last days, fueled by memes and unreliable data shared on WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter. At the same time, in the province of Papua, another huge wave of misinformation started to take place, so fact-checkers had to divide their attention.”
TechCrunch: The Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association warns that restricting online access would be ruinous for the region
TechCrunch: The Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association warns that restricting online access would be ruinous for the region. “After Hong Kong’s leader suggested she may invoke emergency powers that could potentially include limiting internet access, one of the city’s biggest industry groups warned that ‘any such restrictions, however slight originally, would start the end of the open Internet of Hong Kong.'”
