James Rhodes, a pianist, performed a Bach composition for his Youtube channel, but it didn't stay up -- Youtube's Content ID system pulled it down and accused him of copyright infringement because Sony Music Global had claimed that they owned 47 seconds' worth of his personal performance of a song whose composer has been dead for 300 years.

A censored student journalist speaks out. By Ben Norton.

In most cases, often for legal reasons and fear of reprisals from unions, industry officials denied the existence of a formal blacklist. Instead, the entertainment industries relied on lists compiled by such private citizen groups as… By Richard A. Schwartz.

Google CEO misleading staff on China censorship search engine: Google withdrew from 8 years back to protest the country’s censorship and online hacking. Now, again the internet giant is working on a censored search engine for China. The only motive for creating this censored search engine is that it will filter the websites and search terms that are blacklisted by the Chinese government – according to two people with knowledge of the plans.

Anyone who tells you the recent escalation of censorship by U.S. tech giants is merely a reflection of private companies making independent decisions is either lying or dangerously ignorant. By Michael Krieger.

Alex Jones says getting banned by YouTube and Facebook will only make him stronger. The research says that's not true. By Jason Koebler.

How America learned to stop worrying and put Mark Zuckerberg in charge of everything. By Matt Taibbi.

The fact that they started with a widely reviled speaker shouldn’t matter, the argument goes, because sooner or later the powerful people who are able to censor will begin censoring in the interests of power. By Caitlin Johnstone.

Less than three months after it was released, Nigeria’s broadcast regulator has banned This Is Nigeria, an adaptation of Childish Gambino’s This Is America hit track. The track and video by Falz, a Nigerian rapper, tackled Nigeria’s many ills ranging from corruption to nepotism and insecurity with several witty lines and references, just like Childish Gambino’s original.

A browser extension that acted as an anti-censorship tool for 185,000 people has been kicked out of the Chrome store by Google. The open source Ahoy! tool facilitated access to more than 1,700 blocked sites but is now under threat. Despite several requests, Google has provided no reason for its decision.

I became persona non grata after a heated exchange over the media's complicity with the government. The mob won. By Peter Van Buren.

Once you’re assisting with the construction of the US military’s drone program, receiving grants from the CIA and NSA for mass surveillance, or having your site’s content regulated by NATO’s propaganda arm, you don’t get to pretend you’re a private, independent corporation that is separate from government power. By Caitlin Johnstone.

If you're asking yourself "how does Mastodon work?" this post will help. By Kev Quirk.

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Wei Dilong, 18, who lives in the southern Chinese city of Liuzhou, likes basketball, hip-hop music and Hollywood superhero movies. He plans to study chemistry in Canada when he goes to college in 2020. Mr. Wei is typical of Chinese teenagers in another way, too: He has never heard of Google or Twitter. He once heard of Facebook, though. It is “maybe like Baidu?” he asked one recent afternoon, referring to China’s dominant search engine.

Google is launching a censored version of its search engine in China that will block access to sites including the BBC. The internet giant will block access to sites banned by the country's ruling communist party, including Wikipedia and BBC News, according to leaked internal documents seen by The Intercept.

Google is planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China that will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest, The Intercept can reveal. The project – code-named Dragonfly – has been underway since spring of last year, and accelerated following a December 2017 meeting between Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Chinese government official, according to internal Google documents and people familiar with the plans.

I am leaving China. By Steven Balding.

G.J. Meyer, author of The World Remade, joins Signature to discuss a time in American history, during WWI, when censorship was the rule of the land.

China plans to lift some internet censorship on the southern tropical island of Hainan to promote tourism. Visitors to select areas of Hainan will be able to access Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, according to a new plan authorities have put together to turn the province into a free trade port by 2020. It’s not clear if other banned platforms will be uncensored. The three-year action plan was published on Thursday, but removed from the local government website by Friday, as spotted by the South China Morning Post.