Pakistan Press Foundation expresses concern on blogging platform Medium’s blocking | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Pakistan Press Foundation expresses concern on blogging platform Medium’s blocking

Pakistan Press Foundation

Pakistan Press Foundation PPF in a letter to Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak expressed concern on blogging platform Medium’s blocking apparently in an effort to censor Sarawak Report, an investigative news outlet critical of the government.

PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali in a letter to Prime Minister urged Malaysian government to take remedial measures in order to protect press freedom, reader privacy and check censorship.

The Sarawak report mirrored its articles on Medium at least since its site was blocked in mid-2015 when it published allegations of corruption.

Medium’s legal team has done admirable job keeping relevant post online in the face of government demands. It published an account saying the company “stands by investigative journalists” and that the post will stay up until it “receive(s) an order from a court of competent jurisdiction.”

But this story also demonstrates censorship– resistant properties of online encryption like HTTPS, which Medium has enabled across its entire site. That’s because HTTPS conceals information both about what particular page readers are viewing as well as the contents of that page from people snooping on their connection. That’s important; because unencrypted connections can face wide range of eavesdroppers.

Medium and the Sarawak Report have made a good choice in using infrastructure that is harder for would-be censors to subvert.

Sarawak Report

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