The Porn Trial That’s Captivating China’s Internet
Posted: January 13, 2016 Filed under: Censorship, China, Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Mediasphere | Tags: Air Pollution, Application programming interface, Arab Spring, Backpage, Beijing, Broadway theatre, Capital News, China Youth Daily, Christian Democratic Appeal, Communications Decency Act, Facebook, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act Leave a commentThe porn industry is known for driving innovation online. After the live-streamed trial on pornography charges of four Chinese Internet executives went viral over the weekend, it’s now driving an unusually vigorous debate in China over how the Internet should be managed.
“We believe there’s nothing shameful about technology.”
— Wang Xin, the CEO of Shenzhen Qvod Technology
At the center of the debate is Wang Xin, the CEO of Shenzhen Qvod Technology Co. Ltd., which is best known for running the widely used online video player called Kuaibo. Mr. Wang spirited self-defense in the face of allegations he helped disseminate thousands of sex videos has turned him into something of a Chinese Larry Flynt.
Similar to the Hustler publisher, who famously used his pornographic publishing empire to test the legal bounds of free speech in the U.S., Mr. Wang used the popularity of his company’s video platform to try to turn the tables on China’s Internet censorship regime.
[Read the full story here, at China Real Time Report – WSJ]
Prosecutors alleged in the two-day trial in Beijing late last week that Qvod executives knew their video platform, Kuaibo, was a popular tool for watching porn and did nothing to stop it. They said porn videos, which are illegal in China, made up 70% of the 30,000 files police had pulled from servers connected to Kuaibo. Mr. Wang’s argument, delivered in a spirited and well-prepared defense that drew applause online: The company was responsible for producing the platform, not policing what people did with it.
“We believe there’s nothing shameful about technology,” Mr. Wang told the Haidian District Court in Beijing.
Efforts by governments to hold the creators of online platforms responsible for the content their users post are hardly new. In early days of the Internet, U.S. companies like Google, Yahoo and America Online faced a slew of lawsuits — and a piece of legislation known as the Communications Decency Act — that attempted to hold them legally liable for hosting vulgar, misleading or illegal content. Generally, those efforts ended in failure.
In China, the outsourcing of censorship to the websites themselves is a central part of authorities’ strategy in trying to keep tight control over 650 million Internet users and the hundreds of news, video and social media sites they visit. Some technology companies consider the requirement a costly measure that stifles innovation.
Beijing has also increasingly tried to use criminal courts to regulate behavior online and quash rumors and criticisms of the government while also cracking down on porn and other illicit content. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Krauthammer: Former CIA Deputy’s Benghazi Comments Spell Trouble for Hillary
Posted: May 11, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: 2012 Benghazi attack, al Qaeda, Arab Spring, Benghazi, Central Intelligence Agency, Hillary Clinton, Michael Morell, Republican Party (United States), The New York Times, White House Leave a commentMichael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, told Bret Baier on Monday’s Special Report that the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attacks was “the most politicized national security issue” he had ever seen. It’s a “telling” statement, says Charles Krauthammer….(read more)
[PHOTO] Paris Massacre Victim Burial: Charlie Hebdo Cartoonist’s Custom Coffin
Posted: January 15, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Global, War Room | Tags: Anti-establishment, Arab Spring, Cartoons, Charlie Hebdo, France, French language, Funeral, Muslim, Paris, Paris Massacre, satire, Twitter 1 CommentThis was the coffin a Charlie Hebdo cartoonist was buried in http://t.co/OuNf7asQBs pic.twitter.com/h9fgF3y0gj
— i100 (@thei100) January 15, 2015
Reality Check: Spying Drop-Off in Iraq Preceded Fresh Insurgency
Posted: June 26, 2014 Filed under: U.S. News, War Room | Tags: Arab Spring, Baghdad, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Iraq, Iraqi Army, John Maguire, RUSSIA 1 CommentFor AP News , Ken Dilanian reports: CIA officers in Iraq have been largely hunkered down in their heavily fortified Baghdad compound since U.S. troops left the country in 2011, current and former officials say, allowing a once-rich network of intelligence sources to wither.
“This is a glaring example of the erosion of our street craft and our tradecraft and our capability to operate in a hard place…The U.S. taxpayer is not getting their money’s worth.”
— John Maguire, CIA

In this May 19, 2007, file photo, a portion of the new U.S. embassy under construction is seen from across the Tigris river in Baghdad. In 2014, by contrast, CIA officers have been largely hunkered down in their heavily fortified Baghdad compound since U.S. troops left the country in 2011, current and former officials say, allowing a once-rich network of intelligence sources to wither. (AP Photo)
That’s a big reason, they say, the U.S. was caught flat-footed by the recent offensive by a Sunni-backed al-Qaida-inspired group that has seized a large swath of Iraq.
“Anyone who has had access to and actually read the full extent of CIA intelligence products on ISIL and Iraq should not have been surprised by the current situation.”
“This is a glaring example of the erosion of our street craft and our tradecraft and our capability to operate in a hard place,” said John Maguire, who helped run CIA operations in Iraq in 2004. “The U.S. taxpayer is not getting their money’s worth.”
Maguire was a CIA officer in Beirut in the late 1980s during that country’s bloody civil war. He spent weeks living in safe houses far from the U.S. Embassy, dodging militants who wanted to kidnap and kill Americans. In Iraq, where Maguire also served, the CIA’s Baghdad station remains one of the world’s largest. But the agency has been unwilling to risk sending Americans out regularly to recruit and meet informants.
Iraq is emblematic of how a security-conscious CIA is finding it difficult to spy aggressively in dangerous environments without military protection, Maguire and other current and former U.S. officials say. Intelligence blind spots have left the U.S. behind the curve on fast-moving world events, they say, whether it’s disintegration in Iraq, Russia’s move into Crimea or the collapse of several governments during the Arab Spring. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s up with Obama administration’s lack of intel? Continual surprise by global events, discovering things by watching the news?
Posted: June 17, 2014 Filed under: History, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, War Room, White House | Tags: al Qaeda, Arab Spring, Iraq, Iraqi Army, Juan Williams, Maliki, Mary Katharine Ham, Middle East, Obama Leave a commentEditor’s note: I watched Mary Katherine Ham‘s appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor” and was disheartened to see Ham interrupted mid-sentence, “listen, listen”, O’Reilly repeated. Once he had the floor, it was only to return to flogging the same rhetorical question, to guests M.K. Ham and Juan Williams, punching the theme of that segment of the show (hammering Ham in the process) Essentially: “What’s up with Obama administration’s lack of intel? Continual surprise by global events, discovering things by watching the news?” A good question with no reliable answer.
I’d like to have heard M.K. Ham’s commentary, she’d just hit her stride when she was cut off. Perhaps some of Ham’s unsaid remarks ends up in this article, “9 Quotes from Obama’s 2011 ‘Remarks on the End of the War in Iraq’ That Show His Total Lack of Foresight” written after the broadcast. Read the whole thing here.
For Hot Air, Mary Katharine Ham writes:
I had occasion to rewatch this speech today before I went on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Given Dec. 14, 2011 at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, its contents are gut-wrenching.
1. This one, in which Obama concedes that you’d take post-surge 2011 Iraq over pretty much any other major country in the Middle East post Arab Spring and Obama presidency
“It’s harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq -– all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering -– all of it has led to this moment of success. Now, Iraq is not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people. We’re building a new partnership between our nations.”
2. This one where Obama describes just how much we’ve lost.
“This is an extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years in the making.”
3. Then, he enumerated our victories, which our withdrawal swiftly turned into losses, one by one, starting with the insurgency.
“We remember the grind of the insurgency -– the roadside bombs, the sniper fire, the suicide attacks. From the ‘triangle of death’ to the fight for Ramadi; from Mosul in the north to Basra in the south -– your will proved stronger than the terror of those who tried to break it.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Saudi Women to Defy Driving Ban
Posted: October 25, 2013 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Global, Law & Justice | Tags: Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Arab Spring, Buraidah, Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Saudi Arabia), Manal al-Sharif, Middle East, Saudi, Saudi Arabia, YouTube Leave a comment
Saudi activist Manal Al Sharif, who lives in Dubai, flashes the victory sign as she drives her car in the Gulf Emirate city this week in solidarity with Saudi women preparing to take the wheel on Saturday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
BURAIDAH, Saudi Arabia—Ellen Knickmeyer writes: Saudi women’s plans to defy their nation’s harsh restrictions on them driving is reigniting a fundamental conflict between conservatives and moderates on the kingdom’s future.
“It is my belief and my faith that it is my right to drive my own car.”
Even in the country’s most conservative town, Buraidah, some traditional women will challenge the de facto ban on driving on Saturday. In the northern desert town where few women are seen in public, let alone behind the wheel, protesters say they have the support of families and friends.
“It is because we are very conservative that I am part of this” campaign, one 50-year-old government worker said Wednesday in Buraidah. “It is my belief and my faith that it is my right to drive my own car.”
Although no law explicitly prohibits women from driving in Saudi Arabia, the government refuses to give them licenses.
A week earlier, the woman started up the family SUV shortly after dawn to drive through Buraidah. Her son, riding shotgun, proudly filmed his veiled mother driving and then posted it on YouTube.
Buraidah is home to some of the country’s most conservative clerics and is seen as a bastion of opposition to social change in Saudi Arabia. Many here say the monarchy is moving too quickly on civil liberties.
WEB POLICE: China pays 2 million to monitor Internet
Posted: October 5, 2013 Filed under: Censorship, China | Tags: Arab Spring, Beijing, Beijing News, China, Internet police, New York Times, Sina Weibo, Wen Jiabao 3 Comments
People look at laptop computers in a cafe in Beijing on May 29, 2013
AFP – China is employing two million people to keep tabs on people’s Internet use, according to state media, in a rare glimpse into the secret world of Beijing’s vast online surveillance operation.
Many of the employees are simply performing keyword searches to monitor the tens of millions of messages being posted daily on popular social media and microblogging sites, the Beijing News said.
The exact number of people employed to trawl through the Internet in a bid to prevent social unrest and limit criticism of the ruling Community party has long been the subject of speculation. Read the rest of this entry »
The Fall of Tunisia’s Islamists
Posted: October 4, 2013 Filed under: Global, War Room | Tags: Arab Spring, Arab world, Egypt, Ennahda, Ennahda Movement, Islamism, Tunis, Tunisia 1 CommentEnnahda, the Tunisian Islamist party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, has been forced from power by an overwhelming secular opposition.
Michael J. Totten writes: I didn’t know this was going to happen, but I had a pretty strong sense that it would. Tunisia is a modern, pluralistic, civilized place. It’s striking liberal compared with most Arab countries. A person couldn’t possibly show up in Tunis from Cairo and think the two are remotely alike. Egypt is at one extreme of the Arab world’s political spectrum, and Tunisia is at the other.
The Islamists won less than half the vote two years ago, and the only reason they did even that well is because Ennahda ran on an extremely moderate platform. They sold themselves to voters as Tunisia’s version of Germany’s Christian Democrats.
It was a lie, of course, and once Tunisians figured that out, support for Ennahda cratered. Read the rest of this entry »
Watching the Middle East Implode
Posted: September 11, 2013 Filed under: History, Reading Room, Think Tank | Tags: al Qaeda, Arab Spring, Egypt, George W. Bush, Iraq, Islam, Islamism, Middle East, Osama bin Laden, Syria, United States Leave a commentby Bruce Thornton (Research Fellow; W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow, 2009–10, 2010–11; and member, military history working group)
Only when we recognize the fundamental role Islam plays in the region can we begin to craft sensible policies that put U.S. interests first.

Photo credit: Gwenaël Piaser
The revolutions against dictators in the Middle East dubbed the Arab Spring have degenerated into a complex, bloody mélange of coups and counter-coups, as have happened in Egypt; vicious civil wars, like the current conflict in Syria; a resurgence of jihadists gaining footholds in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Sinai; and a shifting and fracturing of alliances and enmities of the sort throwing Lebanon and Jordan into turmoil. Meanwhile, American foreign policy has been confused, incompetent, and feckless in insuring that the security and interests of the United States and its allies are protected.
A major reason for our foreign policy failures in the region is our inability to take into account the intricate diversity of ideological, political, and especially theological motives driving events. Just within the Islamist outfits, Sunni and Shia groups are at odds—and this isn’t to mention the many bitter divisions within Sunni and Shia groups. Add the other players in the Middle East––military dictators, secular democrats, leftover communists, and nationalists of various stripes––and the whole region seems embroiled in endlessly complex divisions and issues. Read the rest of this entry »
The Sequester and the Arab Spring
Posted: March 2, 2013 Filed under: Reading Room, War Room | Tags: Abd al-Karīm ibn Hawāzin Qushayri, Arab Spring, Government spending, Islam, Middle East, Tunisia, Washington, West Leave a comment‘Sequester” may be your word for the week, but it’s not mine. I’ve been diverted from the Beltway theater by an enterprise equally fraudulent, the “Arab Spring.” No, the plot line does not feature an Armageddon of budget slashing after which, somehow, Leviathan manages to land on his drunken feet and binge up an even higher tab this year than last. The Arab Spring, instead, is the tyranny of Islamic supremacism cruelly masqueraded as the forward march of “freedom.”
On Tuesday, the dead-tree version of Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, my book on the subject, finally hit the bookstores after previously being available only as an e-book. Despite the digital age, people still love their paperbacks, so I’ve had the good fortune to spend this week talking about it.
Though seemingly unrelated, the sequester contretemps have provided a useful context. In the tortured argot of Washington, “sequestration” connotes “a reduction in government spending.” It is thus an exquisite weasel word, the kind that fraud-construction thrives on. Of course, the disease sequestration is meant to treat is only too real — our metastasizing cancer of debt. But the political class that lives today’s high life on tomorrow’s stolen prosperity naturally prefers the illusion of action to the pain that must accompany any real, surgical remedy. So it peddles placebos that have the ring of earnestness and effectiveness: “cuts,” “balanced approach,” and the like.
On examination, these words are seen for the nonsense that they are. In Washington a “cut” is not what your family does when it becomes over-extended — a spending slash, a commitment to live within one’s means. It is a nominal decrease in the rate at which government plans, despite our straits, to increase spending. So a “cut” lards debt on debt . . . just not quite as quickly.
And a “balanced approach”? It sounds so admirably Greek — as in the ancients, not the contemporary Athenians we sadly prefer to emulate. Balance, “moderation in all things,” is great . . . as long as you have a multifaceted problem. But what if your problem, very simply, is that you spend goo-gobs more money than you earn? That does not call for a “balanced” approach. If you think it does, try explaining to the waiter that you’ve decided to pay only half the check for the meal you just devoured because, after all, there should be more “balance.”
Like the sequester molesters, “Arab Spring” devotees have their own fantasy vocabulary. The whoppers are “freedom” and “democracy,” the ideals, we’re told, that have swept the Middle East, even as it sinks into repression, social unrest, and the persecution of religious minorities. Islam and the West use the same words, but we are not conveying the same concepts — just as a “cut” in your budget means something very different from a “cut” in Washington’s.
Freedom? “Let it be known to you that the real meaning of freedom lies in the perfection of slavery,” explained al-Qushayri, a celebrated eleventh-century scholar of Islam…