Internet News

A consortium of twelve of the Europe's leading academic institutions, NGOs and technology providers has been awarded EU funding to design, deliver and pilot a new Europe-wide system. This solution will allow service providers to verify the age of their users to protect them from harmful content, and will ensure that younger children have parental consent before they share personal data. The Age Verification Providers Association is a leading member of the team that will deliver this system.

euCONSENT is a European Commission project under the call:

Outline and trial an infrastructure dedicated to the implementation of child rights and protection mechanisms in the online domain based on the GDPR and other existing EU legislation relevant for the child within the online domain .

The objective of this project, initiated by the European Parliament, is to demonstrate an interoperable technical infrastructure dedicated to the implementation of child protection mechanisms (such as age verification) and parental consent mechanisms as required by relevant EU legislation (such as the Audio-Visual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)).

The euCONSENT solution will be designed with help from children and young people and under the guidance of the continent's leading academic experts, NGOs and other key stakeholders in child rights and online safety. EU Kids Online, Eurochild and COFACE -- FAMILIES EUROPE, amongst others, will provide regular input to the work of the project team, which will be advised by a panel, chaired by John Carr, one of the world's leading campaigners on children's and young people's use of the internet and digital technologies.

The new system will then be used during a pilot phase by over 1,500 children, young people and parents from at least three EU Member States. Users' experience will be independently evaluated to provide convincing evidence for this solution to be adopted across the EU, with hundreds of Europe's kids already positioned as its most enthusiastic advocates to their peers, their parents and EU policymakers.

Canadian Senate Bill S-203 , AKA the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, is another woefully misguided proposal aimed at regulating sexual content online. To say the least, this bill fails to understand how the internet functions and would be seriously damaging to online expression and privacy. It's bad in a variety of ways, but there are three specific problems that need to be laid out: 1) technical impracticality, 2) competition harms, and 3) privacy and security.

First, S-203 would make any person or company criminally liable for any time an underage user engages with sexual content through its service. The law applies even if the person or company believed the user to be an adult, unless the person or company implemented a prescribed age-verification method.

Second, the bill seemingly imposes this burden on a broad swath of the internet stack. S-203 would criminalize the acts of independent performers, artists, blogs, social media, message boards, email providers, and any other intermediary or service in the stack that is in some way for commercial purposes and makes available sexually explicit material on the Internet to a young person. The only meaningful defense against the financial penalties that a person or company could assert would be to verify the legal adult age of every user and then store that data.

The bill would likely force many companies to simply eliminate sexual content

The sheer amount of technical infrastructure it would take for such a vast portion of the internet to implement a prescribed age-verification method would be costly and overwhelmingly complicated. It would also introduce many security concerns that weren't previously there. Even if every platform had server side storage with robust security posture, processing high level personally identifiable information (PII) on the client side would be a treasure trove for anyone with a bit of app exploitation skills. And then if this did create a market space for third-party proprietary solutions to take care of a secure age verification system, the financial burden would only advantage the largest players online. Not only that, it's ahistorical to assume that younger teenagers wouldn't figure out ways to hack past whatever age verification system is propped up.

Then there's the privacy angle. It's ludicrous to expect all adult users to provide private personal information every time they log onto an app that might contain sexual content. The implementation of verification schemes in contexts like this may vary on how far privacy intrusions go, but it generally plays out as a cat and mouse game that brings surveillance and security threats instead of responding to initial concerns. The more that a verification system fails, the more privacy-invasive measures are taken to avoid criminal liability.

Because of the problems of implementing age verification, the bill would likely force many companies to simply eliminate sexual content instead of carrying the huge risk that an underage user will access it. But even a company that wanted to eliminate prohibited sexual content would face significant obstacles in doing so if they, like much of the internet, host user-generated content. It is difficult to detect and define the prohibited sexual content, and even more difficult when the bill recognizes that the law is not violated if such material has a legitimate purpose related to science, medicine, education or the arts. There is no automated tool that can make such distinctions; the inevitable result is that protected materials will be removed out of an abundance of caution. And history teaches us that the results are often sexist , misogynist , racist , LGBT-phobic, ableist , and so on. It is a feature, not a bug, that there is no one-size-fits-all way to neatly define what is and isn't sexual content.

Ultimately, Canadian Senate Bill S-203 is another in a long line of morally patronizing legislation that doesn't understand how the internet works. Even if there were a way to keep minors away from sexual content, there is no way without vast collateral damage. Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne, who introduced the bill, stated it makes no sense that the commercial porn platforms don't verify age. I think it's time to legislate. We gently recommend that next time her first thought be to consult with experts.

Twitter has censored more than 50 tweets critical of the Indian government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and did so at the request of the Indian government.

The 52 banned tweets are detailed in a disclosure notice on the Lumen database . The censored accounts include a sitting member of India's Parliament, two filmmakers, an actor, and a West Bengal state minister.

A Twitter spokesperson told The Verge that the company may make certain tweets unable to be viewed by people within India if the tweets violate local law. Twitter says it notified account holders before it withheld content to make them aware that the action was taken in response to a legal request from the government of India.

Indian law restricts the publication of material that the government considers defamatory, or which could incite violence.

And in case you don't think that the Indian government deserves a little criticism:

As soon as BJP government comes to power in West Bengal, COVID-19 vaccine will be provided free of cost to everyone. pic.twitter.com/gzxCOUMjpr

— BJP Bengal (@BJP4Bengal) April 23, 2021

Incorporating More Feedback Into News Feed Ranking

Our goal with News Feed is to arrange the posts from friends, Groups and Pages you follow to show you what matters most to you at the top of your feed. Our algorithm uses thousands of signals to rank posts for your News Feed with this goal in mind. This spring, we're expanding on our work to use direct feedback from people who use Facebook to understand the content people find most valuable. And we'll continue to incorporate this feedback into our News Feed ranking process.

Over the next few months, we'll test new ways to get more specific feedback from people about the posts they're seeing, and we'll use that feedback to make News Feed better. Here are some of the new approaches we're exploring:

Whether people find a post inspirational: People have told us they want to see more inspiring and uplifting content in News Feed because it motivates them and can be useful to them outside of Facebook. For example, a post featuring a quote about community can inspire someone to spend more time volunteering, or a photo of a national park can inspire someone to spend more time in nature. To this end, we're running a series of global tests that will survey people to understand which posts they find inspirational. We'll incorporate their responses as a signal in News Feed ranking, with the goal of showing people more inspirational posts closer to the top of their News Feed.

Gauging interest in certain topics: Even though your News Feed contains posts from the friends, Groups and Pages you've chosen to follow, we know sometimes even your closest friends and family share posts about topics that aren't really interesting to you, or that you don't want to see. To address this, we'll ask people whether they want to see more or fewer posts about a certain topic, such as Cooking, Sports or Politics, and based on their collective feedback, we'll aim to show people more content about the topics they're more interested in, and show them fewer posts about topics they don't want to see.

Better understanding content people want to see less of: Increasingly, we're hearing feedback from people that they're seeing too much content about politics and too many other kinds of posts and comments that detract from their News Feed experience. This is a sensitive area, so over the next few months, we'll work to better understand what kinds of content are linked with these negative experiences. For example, we'll look at posts with lots of angry reactions and ask people what kinds of posts they may want to see less of.

Making it easier to give feedback directly on a post: We've long given people the ability to hide a particular post they encounter in News Feed, and we'll soon test a new post design to make this option even more prominent. If you come across something that you find irrelevant, problematic or irritating, you can tap the X in the upper right corner of the post to hide it from your News Feed and see fewer posts like it in the future.

Overall, we hope to show people more content they want to see and find valuable, and less of what they don't. While engagement will continue to be one of many types of signals we use to rank posts in News Feed, we believe these additional insights can provide a more complete picture of the content people find valuable, and we'll share more as we learn from these tests.

Last year Turkey refused permission to film a locally adapted version of the Netflix series If Only. The licence was refused after discovering that one of the lead characters was gay.

Netflix decided not to write out the gay character and have now decided to film the series in Spain. The adaptation will now be titled Si lo hubiera sabido (If I Had Known), and will be scripted by Irma Correa with Yörenç acting as consultant.

Starring HBO series 30 coins actress Megan Montaner, If I Had Known will tell the story of Emma, who is entering her thirties with the feeling that life has become dull after 10 years of marriage. A supernatural twist allows her to inhabit her younger body and, ironically, rewrite the script.

Yörenç told Variety magazine:

Turkey's Ministry of Culture has the power to cancel a series depending on the image it gives of the country. Although it hadn't used this power before, it applied it to my series though it didn't give any explicit reason. But we know that it's because the series has a gay character. They hoped we'd change the screenplay, adapting to the moral norms they expected. But I, along with Netflix didn't agree to making any change to the original screenplay and we finally decided to cancel the series. But I really want now to focus on the project, which is very exciting. I want to forget the past.

An Australian Federal Court has found that Google misled consumers about personal location data collected through Android mobile devices between January 2017 and December 2018.

The complaint was brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The Court ruled that when consumers created a new Google Account during the initial set-up process of their Android device, Google misrepresented that the Location History setting was the only Google Account setting that affected whether Google collected, kept or used personally identifiable data about their location. In fact, another Google Account setting titled Web & App Activity also enabled Google to collect, store and use personally identifiable location data when it was turned on, and that setting was turned on by default.

The Court also found that when consumers later accessed the Location History setting on their Android device during the same time period to turn that setting off, they were also misled because Google did not inform them that by leaving the Web & App Activity setting switched on, Google would continue to collect, store and use their personally identifiable location data.

The Court also found that Google's conduct was liable to mislead the public.

The ACCC is now seeking declarations, pecuniary penalties, publications orders, and compliance orders. This will be determined at a later date. In addition to penalties, the ACCC is seeking an order for Google to publish a notice to Australian consumers to better explain Google's location data settings in the future.

An upcoming European law pretexts fighting terrorism to silence the whole Internet

In September 2018, under French and German influence, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online .

The text was adopted in December 2018 by the EU Council and adopted (with some changes) by the EU Parliament in April 2019. After negotiations in trilogue (between the three institutions), this text is now back in the Parliament for a final vote .

This new regulation will force every actor of the Web's ecosystem (video or blog platforms, online media, small forums or large social networks) to block in under an hour any content reported as "terrorist" by the police (without a judge's prior authorisation), and therefore to be on call 24/7.

If some "exceptions" have been provided in the text, they are purely hypothetical and will not protect our freedoms in practice :

• The one hour deadline is unrealistic and only big economic platforms will be capable of complying with such strict obligations. With the threat of heavy fines and because most of them will not be able to comply whithin the removal orders, it will force Web actors to censor proactively any potentially illegal content upstream, using automated tools of mass surveillance developed by Google and Facebook.

• Such a power given to the police can easily lead to the censorship of political opponents and social movements.

• The text allows an authority from any Member State to order removal in another Member State. Such cross-border removal orders are not only unrealistic but can only worsen the danger of mass political censorship.

The European Parliament must reject this text

Mastercard has taken another step along the path to a dystopian world where moralists and US corporate monsters can dictate how people can spend their money. Mastercard explains:

Enhancing requirements for adult content, preventing anonymous content

This month, we are extending our existing Specialty Merchant Registration requirements. The banks that connect merchants to our network will need to certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content.

You might ask, "Why now?" In the past few years, the ability to upload content to the internet has become easier than ever. All someone needs is a smartphone and a Wi-Fi connection.

Now, our requirements address the risks associated with this activity. And that starts with strong content control measures and clear, unambiguous and documented consent.

Other updated requirements include:

• Documented age and identity verification for all people depicted and those uploading the content

• Content review process prior to publication

• Complaint resolution process that addresses illegal or nonconsensual content within seven business days

• Appeals process allowing for any person depicted to request their content be removed

The leader of the Metropolitan Police Federation has called for the government and force leaders to tackle social media firms that enable footage of officers dealing with incidents to be shared.

Ken Marsh claimed it was time to end trial by social media:

It's time to step in. We want something done. Officers shouldn't be subjected to this while simply doing their job.

His intervention followed the Independent Office for Police Conduct's latest verdict on a complaint about a stop and search at the height of lockdown which was shared on social media. Their investigation followed incident in May last year when a driver was stopped in Tottenham by officers from the MPS Territorial Support Group (TSG).

The Independent Office for Police Conduct Regional Director Sal Naseem said:

We know that these types of incidents can have a detrimental impact on public confidence in policing, when there is only a partial picture available of what happened.

A moralist campaign group called the Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood wants Facebook to scrap its plans to launch a version of Instagram for children.

A letter from the group, signed by 99 individuals and groups including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Global Action Plan and Kidscape, claims that the image-obsessed platform is dangerous for children's health and privacy.

In the letter, the signatories point out that those under the age of 13 already on Instagram are unlikely to abandon it for a new site that seems babyish. The real target of Instagram for kids will be much younger children. Josh Golin, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood executive director, said:

Instagram's business model relies on extensive data collection, maximising time on devices, promoting a culture of over-sharing and idolising influencers, as well as a relentless focus on often altered physical appearance. It is certainly not appropriate for seven-year olds.

Plans for an Instagram for under-13s have been mooted in recent weeks. Facebook, which owns Instagram, said it would be managed by parents. It is a response to state censors who want under 13's to be banned from social media. Facbeook explained:

Kids are already online, and want to connect with their family and friends, have fun, and learn. We want to help them do that in a safe and age-appropriate way, and find practical solutions to the ongoing industry problem of kids lying about their age to access apps.

We're working on new age verification methods to keep under-13s off Instagram, and have just started exploring an Instagram experience for kids that is age-appropriate and managed by parents.

We agree that any experience we develop must prioritise their safety and privacy, and we will consult with experts in child development, child safety and mental health, and privacy advocates to inform it. We also won't show ads in any Instagram experience we develop for people under the age of 13.

Facebook's Oversight Board has announced that it is widening out the rules about who can appeal about Facebook censorship.

Since March, decisions by the company's Oversight Board regarding another user's content could only be appealed if the user was in Germany, where antitrust and privacy laws are significantly stricter than in the US. But from October on, users who wanted someone else's content removed were unable to reach the Oversight Board, as the content in question was not their own.

However, going forward, users may appeal in an effort to save posts written by others from being taken down. Facebook constantly attempts to reassure users that the Oversight Board is different from Facebook at a corporate level and is not accountable to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's company to deliver the corporate-desired response. Indeed, it has already handed down seven rulings so far, involving hate speech, misinformation, and nudity.

Facebook's vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, praised the initial rollout of the Oversight Board in May and expressed hope that the latest development would take the site even higher. In the post, he reassured readers the feature would be usable within the coming weeks .

The Oversight Board has had the capacity to reinstate removed content since October 2020, when the Oversight Board went live. At that point, though, only an involved user could submit it for review. The individual trying to get the content restored has to answer several questions regarding Facebook's takedown policies and how they feel Facebook has run afoul of them.

A Canadian politician has proposed the banning of 'hurtful' language against politicians online. The provision is going to be included in the upcoming internet censorship bill, to be discussed in parliament in the next few weeks.

Steven Guilbeault, a 'Liberal' member of parliament has oftenn been the subject of controversy for favoring internet censorship. He said in a recent podcast:

We have seen too many examples of public officials retreating from public service due to the hateful online content targeted towards themselves.

If the bill passes social media companies will have to remove posts containing hurtful words targeted at Canadian politicians. The provision is a danger to free speech not only in Canada but also the rest of the world as other governments will surely try to get away with similar censorship laws.

The Texas Senate has passed a measure that would prohibit large social media companies like Facebook and Twitter from censoring political and religious viewpoints of Texas citizens. The bill now awaits a vote in the Texas House.

Senate Bill 12 was introduced by State Senator Bryan Hughes. Titled Relating to the censorship of users' expressions by an interactive computer service , the bill would not only prohibit censorship, but would require social media companies to disclose their moderation policies, publish reports about any blocked content, and create a legal route for people to appeal any censoring or deplatforming decisions.

Senator Hughes announced the passage on Twitter:

I think we all have to acknowledge that social media companies are the new town square and a small group of people in San Francisco can't dictate free speech for the rest of us.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign the bill if it passes the House. Abbott gave his hearty approval of the bill from the beginning, appearing alongside Senator Hughes at a press conference in March to announce the legislation.

The BBFC arbitrates on contested decisions on decisions that mobile phone companies make on blocking websites to customers who have not verified themselves as over 18.

One such decision shows that the BBFC are imposing their woke morality on such decisions. A notable case is the website is Christian Voice. This group has long features on Melon Farmers for being a pretty standard christian group with a pet peeve about gay people, considered something of a biblical abomination, citing a famous verse from the Bible in the book Leviticus.

The BBFC writes about two christian websites:

Christian Voice - christianvoice.org.uk

The BBFC viewed the website on 29 March 2021. The URL leads to the UK-based campaign group which advocates for legal and political reform through a literal interpretation of the Bible. Numerous articles on the site make negative generalisations about particular groups of people (for example, transgender people) which could be interpreted as having the potential to encourage discriminatory and harmful views.

As a result, we would classify the site at least 18.

The Good News About God - goodnewsaboutgod.com

The BBFC viewed the website on 15 January 2021. We noted that the site presents as a religious blog discussing faith and health. Numerous articles on the site make negative generalisations about particular groups of people (for example, Jewish people) which could be interpreted as having the potential to encourage discriminatory and harmful views.

As such, we did not consider the website to be suitable for people under the age of 18 and would classify it at least 18.

The BBFC have also pronounced that two rather political websites that are very critical of islam and judaism should also be banned to under 18s:

The Religion of Peace - thereligionofpeace.com

The BBFC viewed the website on 17 February 2021. We noted that the site presents as a current affairs website discussing news concerning Muslims and Islam. Numerous articles on the site make negative generalisations about particular groups of people (for example, Muslims) which could be interpreted as having the potential to encourage discriminatory and harmful views.

 As such, we did not consider the website to be suitable for people under the age of 18 and would classify it at least 18.

Jihad Watch - jihadwatch.com

The BBFC viewed the website on 17 February 2021. We noted that the site presents as a current affairs website discussing news concerning Muslims and Islam. Numerous articles on the site make negative generalisations about particular groups of people (for example, Muslims) which could be interpreted as having the potential to encourage discriminatory and harmful views.

As such, we did not consider the website to be suitable for people under the age of 18 and would classify it at least 18.

Heritage and Destiny - heritageanddestiny.com

The BBFC viewed the website on 22 March 2021. The URL leads to a political site with articles and reviews expressing an ethno-nationalist perspective. During our sampling of the site we noted uncritical examples of Holocaust scepticism, anti-Semitism and discrimination, all of which could be interpreted as encouraging harmful attitudes towards particular groups (for example, Jewish people).

As such we would classify this site at least 18.

Russian internet censors have issued three fines to Twitter totaling 8.9 million rubles (about $117,000) for the website's refusal to remove content that encouraged people to join unauthorized protests.

Twitter has 60 days to pay.

Russian authorities last month made content on Twitter slower to load, accusing the service of failing to take down posts related to drug use, pornography and other banned topics. On March 16, Russia's internet censor threatened to fully block the service within a month if it doesn't delete flagged content.

Update: TikTok too

7th April 2021. See article from meduza.io

A Russian court has fined the video sharing platform TikTok for failing to remove content that allegedly incited minors to participate in unsanctioned protests in Moscow, reports the Russian state news agency TASS.

The 2.5-million ruble ($32,375) fine was handed down by a magistrate on charges of violating the procedure for restricting access to information that is prohibited under Russian law.

In late January, representatives of the social networks TikTok, Facebook, Telegram, and VKontakte were summoned to Russia's federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, over content calling for participation in the demonstrations in support of jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny that took place across Russia on January 23. Roskomnadzor initially reported that the social networks were actively removing this content. However, the censorship agency later announced that not all of the prohibited information had been blocked, and as such, the social networkers were facing fines ranging from 800,000 to four million rubles ($10,360 to $51,800).