Category: Free Speech

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Weibo vs Leica Camera AG: Social Networks and the loss of control over corporate brands

An advertising video titled “The Hunt” and aimed at promoting the “Leica experience” raised controversy in China because of a frame showing a lens that mirrors the Tank Man picture portraying the activist that in Tien An Men Square blocked a PRC Tank just refusing to give way.

As a result for what has been perceived as an infringement of the chinese social networking platfrom Weibo terms and conditions, the word “Leica” (both in English and Chinese) is banned from the platform.

Furthermore, the partnership between Leica and HwaWei to establish a Chinese presence of the German camera manufacturer seems to having being jeopardized, at least for now. Continue reading “Weibo vs Leica Camera AG: Social Networks and the loss of control over corporate brands”

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That’s None of Your Business or “The Apple’s Sense toward Privacy”

That’s none of your business, ? is the rather crude concept Apple has chosen for an iPhone advertising campaign. The video is all about a “stay away” attitude and portrays signs of banning, shredding documents and – in the end – a padlock that turns into a bitten apple, the company’s trademark.

From a subject whose only (legitimate) objective is to sell as many products as possible, one cannot expect him to take into account the complex debate on the nature – and even before that on the very existence – of the right to privacy, and therefore one cannot complain that he has used a concept that is obsolete and unsuitable in our times. Continue reading “That’s None of Your Business or “The Apple’s Sense toward Privacy””

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There ain’t no such thing as a Russiagate

At the time of the events, Linkedin and the general media were flooded with comments on what was only a hypothesis (Russia’s involvement in conditioning the outcome of the American elections), with the plethora of implications on armies of trolls remotely controlled ? to manipulate consciences etc. etc.. It was a fake, but the damage caused by that news is more than real.

I refer, in particular, to the embarrassing institutional declarations on the gravity of a non-existent fact, not at all mitigated by the inevitable “if confirmed, the news would be serious”.

Fortunately, international diplomacy is still sufficiently keen to avoid the consequences of the “social media frenzy” that has also infected the institutions and that pushes its representatives to speak too quickly. Continue reading “There ain’t no such thing as a Russiagate”

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“Problematic” or “inappropriate” content: a Rose by Other Name

Self and pre-emptive censorship against non-illegal contents. This is the “other name” of the politically correct wording chosen by Facebook and Instagram to support their content removal policies.

Mind, as private companies Facebook and Instagram have the right to do whatever they want with their own services. And if they decide that perfectly legal contents have not to be accepted that’s absolutely fine.

One would expect, though, that they would have called the Rose with its own name: Censorship.