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Brazilian blogger murdered. 36-year-old Brazilian blogger Ednaldo Figueira was shot down in the streets of his home town, Serra do Mel.

After receiving death threats, Figueira was shot six times on June 15 by gunmen on motorcycles outside his workplace. In addition to being a blogger, he was a newspaper editor and an official in a trade union. This is the second time a blogger has been murdered by his government or, in Figueira's case most likely organized crime figures attached to the government.

China's best known artist, Ai Weiwei, has been stuck away in a Chinese jail since his arrest in early April. He was released today.

"I'm out. I'm fine," the Los Angeles Times quotes the artist as texting on his release.

We're delighted when anyone unjustly imprisoned for the sake of politics is released, but ReadWriteWeb has a particular connection to Ai.

It's now over a month since influential Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained by China's government. In what New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg called a "bittersweet honor," Ai Weiwei's latest art exhibition opened today in NYC. The 12-piece outdoor public sculpture, entitled Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, is supplemented by a special Tumblr blog, Twitter account, Facebook Page and official website.

Nobody has heard from Ai Weiwei since his detention on April 3rd, also the date of his most recent tweet (Weiwei is a prolific Twitter user). We hope this brave artist is safe and will be released as soon as possible.

Chinese Hackers Bring Down Change.org in Response to Ai Weiwei Campaign. Chinese government-sponsored hackers took down Change.org with a DDoS campaign after the site registered over 100,000 signatories on a petition in favor of the imprisoned Chinese artist.

Ai Weiwei had been known for his role in the construction of the Beijing Olympic stadium and as China's leading digital activist and a pioneer in the use of blogging and Twitter in China.

Love the future.

Earlier this month, Chinese activist and artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at the Beijing airport on his way to Hong Kong. Since his arrest, nearly 100,000 people had signed a petition for his release on social action platform Change.org.

Today, the site announced that it had been temporarily taken down by Chinese hackers in response to the petition.

On April 5th, two days after the arrest of artist and architect Ai Weiwei, 250,000 Facebook users disappeared, according to Shanghaist. Citing data from SocialBakers, a Facebook metrics site, they discovered not a tapering off, as of loss of interest, but a sudden, instantaneous drop-off.

Two things are contemporary with this unexplained decline: the arrest of Ai Weiwei amid an overall crackdown on dissidence and dissidents, and Facebook's negotiations to create a Chinese social network with search giant Baidu.

Poet arrested by Bahrain security. After reciting a satirical poem during the Bahraini protests, Ayat Al-Qormezi was arrested. Her parents were tortured by gunmen, who told them their four sons, who had been forced face-down onto the floor, would be murdered before their eyes if they were not told where their daughter, the poet Ayat, was.

Mahmood Al-Yousif, the Bahraini "blogfather" who was arrested last week, was freed shortly thereafter due in part to pressure from the U.S. government.

Will the U.S. exert equal pressure to free a young lady whose fame is mostly as a poet? Will Bahrainis agitate for her release?

There's increasing concern in China and worldwide about the detention of leading Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. Reports first surfaced on Sunday U.S. that Weiwei had been detained by China authorities, while at the Beijing Airport on his way to Hong Kong. Weiwei is a prolific Twitter user, but his account hasn't been updated since Sunday (it's also translated into english). CNN reported today that China's ruling Communist party "unleashed a blistering attack" on both Weiwei and the West for criticizing the apparent arrest.

Many of China's own citizens are voicing their concern on China's leading Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo. To do this, users must creatively route around active censorship on Weibo.

Ai Weiwei was arrested yesterday at the Beijing Airport on his way to Hong Kong, the New Yorker reported. Ai, China's best known artist, a global star and designer of the Beijing Olympics stadium, the Bird's Nest, had plans to possibly leave China to live in Germany, where he had set up a studio, according to Deutsche Welle.

We cover threats to free speech here, especially when those threats intersects the Web. Sometimes we know the people involved, as is the case with Ai. Our founder, Richard MacManus, took part in an historic conversation a year ago in New York with Ai.

Earlier tonight, the Paley Center hosted a discussion about social media and digital activism with celebrated artist, architectural designer, activist and blogger Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and ReadWriteWeb's editor and founder Richard MacManus. The discussion touched upon a large variety of topics related to social media and digital activism in China, including translating Twitter into Chinese and Google's exit from the Chinese market.