Fear and self-censorship on the Uzbek Internet

Uzbekistan has the most severe restrictions on Internet use in Central Asia, according to a recent report on the state of Internet and politics in the country. Read More »

CNN gets flack for Kazakhstan profiles

Last week, CNN’s “Eye On” series began running short spots on the country that looked more like infomercials than news coverage, according to EurasiaNet.org. The stories cover a host of not-so-hard-hitting topics, ranging from the country’s growing economy and bright energy future to its drive to become a ski mecca.

Read More »

Polish media go Piano

In September, 42 Polish news websites will begin charging for their best online content in an attempt to gain revenue despite decreases in readership, according to The Associated Press. Read More »

Bulgarian PM Boyko invites “Boykometer” creators for a chat

A few days ago, the web site Politikat.net (The Politician; bg), created by prominent Bulgarian bloggers Komitata(Konstantin Pavlov) and Asen Genov, became the subject of the government’s attention. Komitata wrote about it here [bg]. Read More »

ElectBy returns for elections in Belarus

ElectBy.org, an Ushahidi-based platform for monitoring electoral violations, has returned to Belarus after a 16-month absence. The platform, created on the eve of the 2010 elections, collected nearly 650 reports of irregularities by December 19. On election day, the website received more than 8,000 visitors. Read More »

Opening a multimedia window on Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan remains one of the most closed societies in the world, ranked by U.S. based pro-democracy group Freedom House in their 2012 survey as low as countries such as Iran, Belarus, North Korea, and Uzbekistan. Authors of the report say that, in Turkmenistan, “independent media are either nonexistent or barely able to operate, the press acts as a mouthpiece for the regime, citizens’ access to unbiased information is severely limited, and dissent is crushed through imprisonment, torture, and other forms of repression”. Read More »

Georgian police seize satellites in vote-bribing investigation

Georgian police have seized the satellite dishes of Global TV, a cable network whose largest shareowner is the the brother of opposition leader and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, according to The New York Times. Read More »

Tajikistan restores access to blocked news website

The authorities have removed a restriction on Internet access to Tajikistan’s main independent news agency Asia-Plus on Thursday, according to its website. Read More »

Moldovan online site broadcasts 10,000th event

Privesc.eu, the first online TV channel in Moldova, has been transmitting live for almost three years and has now broadcast more than 10,000 events.

Read More »

Update: Piano Media gets $2.6M in new funding

Last week, we ran a post on Piano Media’s recent success in Slovenia and future plans to expand to new markets. Now it seems the company, which specializes in providing media companies with nation-wide paywalls for content, has found the resources to speed up that expansion.  Piano announced 17 April that it has secured $2.6 million in new funding from the 3TS Cisco Growth Fund. Read More »

Understanding disabilities in Kazakhstan with ‘more than a blog’

Of all the ideas and trends which cyberspace offers in Central Asia, health and social problems still lack representation on the web. Read More »

Serbian journalists, activists develop online presence

Serbian journalists, human rights activists, and media specialists met in Belgrade this month to help develop their online presence.

Read More »

Belarus named as new ‘Enemy of the Internet’

Following a year of increasing Internet repression in Belarus, Reporters without Borders has added the country to its 2012 “Enemies of the Internet” list. Read More »

Moldovan bloggers get audience with the prime minister

Sometime bloggers complain of being voices in the wilderness; with so many other sources it can be hard to tell if anyone out there is actually paying attention to what they write.  This wasn’t the case in Moldova last week when a group of local bloggers got a case to meet with one of the country’s biggest political leaders.
Read More »