March of the censors: France, Turkey and China clamp down on freedom of speech

(From GlobalVoices)

Two weeks ago, the French blog AgoraVox, one of the leading European citizen media blogs, warned against what it termed the gradual “berlusconisation” of the French media and the threat posed by the rise of Nicolas Sarkozy, French Minister of the Interior and conservative party head, to freedom of speech in the country.

Yesterday, France’s Constitutional Council passed the Sarkozy law [Fr] ( Loi sur la prévention de la délinquance - Law on the prevention of criminality), which criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. During the parliamentary debate, government representatives said the law is meant to target a practice known as “happy slapping”, defined in Wikipedia as “a fad in which an unsuspecting victim is attacked while an accomplice records the assault (commonly with a camera phone or a smartphone).”

In France, therefore, the filming and broadcasting of acts of violence such as the riots which took place in the Paris suburbs during the month of October and November, 2005, will henceforth be the prerogative of accredited journalists only. Under this new law, any other eyewitness who records acts of violence, or anyone who makes the content available online (the operator of a web site, for instance) could face up to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of nearly US$100,000.

In an ironic twist, the law was announced on March 3, 2007, exactly 16 years after amateur videographer George Holliday filmed African-American Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles police officers (see the video on YouTube). The officers’ eventual acquittal in 1992 sparked off riots in the city.

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Arte veut rajeunir son audience en 2007

Dotée d'un nouveau slogan - "Vivons curieux" -, Arte veut rajeunir son audience, en ciblant, notamment, en 2007, les jeunes actifs.

Outre la programmation de 130 films par an, en première partie de soirée (le double des autres chaînes hertziennes), la chaîne franco-allemande prévoit un rendez-vous hebdomadaire dévolu au cinéma trash, chaque jeudi après minuit.

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Arte veut rajeunir son audience en 2007
LE MONDE 30.11.06

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YouTube moves to the small screen

A deal between YouTube and US mobile firm Verizon Wireless will see the popular video-sharing website extended to mobile phones.

Users who subscribe to Verizon's Vcast service will be able to view content on the YouTube website via their mobiles.

The trial, which wil begin in December, will also allow users to post video clips from their phones more easily.

It is likely that similar tie-ups will follow as mobile operators look for a slice of the social-networking pie.

More than 100 million video clips are viewed every day on the YouTube website.

Read the whole story on BBC News

Online video 'eroding TV viewing'

The online video boom is starting to eat into TV viewing time, an ICM survey of 2,070 people for the BBC suggests.

Some 43% of Britons who watch video from the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less normal TV as a result.

And online and mobile viewing is rising - three quarters of users said they now watched more than they did a year ago.

But online video viewers are still in the minority, with just 9% of the population saying they do it regularly.

Another 13% said they watched occasionally, while a further 10% said they expected to start in the coming year.

Read the rest of the article on BBC News