Internet News

A sensationalistic report commissioned by a French government office released this week is urging immediate state censorship and broad criminalization of the adult industry in France and worldwide.

The report is titled Pornocriminality and was produced by France's High Council for the Equality Between Women and Men (HCE).

The report is being promoted in the press by feminist campaigner, Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, a former journalist and anti-sex work advocate, who served in the HCE between 2019 and 2021.

According to the HCE, 90% of pornographic content presents unsimulated acts of physical, sexual or verbal violence against women:

In these millions of videos, women -- caricatured with the worst sexist and racist stereotypes -- are humiliated, objectified, dehumanized, violated, tortured, undergoing treatment contrary to human dignity and... French law, the HCE proclaims, making no distinction between consensual and unconsensual sex, acting and not acting, or even fiction and reality. Indeed, some of these violent contents meet the legal definition of acts of torture and barbarism. The women are real, the sexual and violent acts are real, and the suffering is often perfectly visible and at the same time eroticized. Pornography is not cinema.

Pornography, the government report claims, is at the intersection of all hatreds and is part of the continuum of violence, including rape culture, dehumanization of women, apology for incest, racism, child crime and LGBTphobia.

The government writes:

Broadcast television in the UK is subject to a system of regulation overseen by the independent communications regulator Ofcom, which is key to ensuring protections for audiences. This regulation ensures that regulated television channels available in the UK abide by a common set of rules and standards in relation to the programmes they show.

Over the last century, the number of channels available in the UK has increased significantly 203 from a single channel in 1922 to several hundred today. This trend has been recently accelerated by the increasing availability of internet-delivered linear television, known as internet protocol (IP) delivered television. For example, Sky's newest product Sky Stream delivers content via the internet, compared to Sky Q that delivers its services via satellite.

Under the amended Communications Act 2003, in general only channels that appear on regulated electronic programme guides (EPGs) are subject to UK regulation. Which EPGs are regulated in the UK is described in legislation and under this description these currently are Freeview, Freesat, Sky, Virgin Media, and YouView. This list of regulated EPGs means that many of the newer EPGs and channels utilising IP technology are unregulated and can be easily accessed by audiences on their television sets. While millions of people still choose to watch television through the traditional regulated EPGs, there are increasingly significant numbers of UK viewers accessing linear television channels and content via television sets that can be connected to the internet. Data suggests that the UK has a high proportion of these kinds of televisions, with smart televisions already in as many as 74% of UK households.

This shift is transforming the way that audiences access television, with many new services now delivered via the internet. This evolution of distribution means that there is greater choice for consumers in how they access linear television content and that there is more competition within the market for delivering services, allowing for new and innovative services to emerge.

Many of the larger providers of unregulated EPGs have voluntarily put in place terms and procedures to protect audiences from harmful content, which may result in some comparable levels of protection as the regulated EPGs while incurring lower administrative costs for the providers.

However, the introduction of these newer unregulated and self-regulated guides has resulted in a clear regulatory gap within the existing statutory regime, which could result in inconsistent protections for audiences and limited options for independent complaints handling. This also means that guides do not have to ensure other benefits for audiences like prominence for public service channels and accessibility for people with disabilities.

The government is therefore concerned that the combination of the defined set of regulated EPGs and the growth of new, IP delivered services means that there is increasingly a lack of regulation. UK audiences being able to access unregulated EPGs means there is an increasing number of linear television channels and services that are not regulated by Ofcom and to the standards audiences in the UK expect. This has the potential to cause harm, especially for children and vulnerable audiences, with no statutory protections on these unregulated services.

The lack of protections in place for these unregulated services mean that there is a range of potentially harmful content that could be shown on television with no independent recourse for action to be taken. This includes content that would be unsuitable for younger audiences that are available during the day, that would need to be shown after the watershed if regulated, such as those that include swearing, violence, and sexual content.

Moreover, an inconsistent application of statutory regulation means that EPGs delivering similar -- and often competing -- services do not currently have to comply with the same statutory requirements. This means that there is not currently a fair competitive environment between providers.

Given the landscape of changing technology and the increasing risk to audiences of unregulated content appearing on television, the government believes that legislation is required to update the EPGs that are regulated in the UK. The government is therefore consulting on whether and how to use existing powers that allow it to update which EPGs are regulated in the UK.

This 8-week consultation seeks views on whether and how the Secretary of State should exercise this power, and seeks views on a proposed approach.

In summary, the government is consulting on:

• The impact of regulating EPGs.

• The proposed approach for defining which EPGs should be regulated.

Responses from all individuals or organisations on the specific consultation questions and content of the consultation document are welcome.

Last week, The Times and Channel 4's Dispatches covered serious allegations of assault against Russell Brand. While the comedian has yet to be convicted of any wrongdoing and whether the anonymous accusers are victims is yet to be determined, several major platforms, including YouTube, Netflix, and BBC iPlayer, took swift action, either demonetizing or removing Brand's content.

A senior Tory politician has taken it onboard to take the lynch mob position of declaring that the accuser is always right, and that without needing to bother with due process, police investigation or judicial trial, she has demanded the standard PC punishment of loss of career.

Caroline Dinenage, the chair of chair of Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee has written to bully the free speech friendly social media website Rumble into banning or demonetising Brand's video content which seems to have about 1.5 million followers. Dineage wrote that she is concerned that Brand may be able to profit from his work online:

We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr Brand is able to monetise his content, including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him. If so, we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr Brand's ability to earn money on the platform.

We would also like to know what Rumble is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behaviour.

Rumble, however, has chosen a different route from the other platforms. In response to an inquiry by the UK's Culture, Media and Sport Committee regarding Brand's monetization on the platform, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski issued a statement emphasizing the company's commitment to a free internet. In a clear stance against cancel culture and rushes to judgement, Pavlovski responded, stressing that allegations against Brand have no connection with his content on Rumble. He pointed out the importance of a free internet, where no one arbitrarily dictates which ideas can or cannot be heard.

From Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski:

Today we received an extremely disturbing letter from a committee chair in the UK Parliament. While Rumble obviously deplores sexual assault, rape, and all serious crimes, and believes that both alleged victims and the accused are entitled to a full and serious investigation, it is vital to note that recent allegations against Russell Brand have nothing to do with content on Rumble's platform. Just yesterday, YouTube announced that, based solely on these media accusations, it was barring Mr. Brand from monetizing his video content. Rumble stands for very different values. We have devoted ourselves to the vital cause of defending a free internet -- meaning an internet where no one arbitrarily dictates which ideas can or cannot be heard, or which citizens may or may not be entitled to a platform.

We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so. Singling out an individual and demanding his ban is even more disturbing given the absence of any connection between the allegations and his content on Rumble. We don't agree with the behavior of many Rumble creators, but we refuse to penalize them for actions that have nothing to do with our platform.

Although it may be politically and socially easier for Rumble to join a cancel culture mob, doing so would be a violation of our company's values and mission. We emphatically reject the UK Parliament's demands.
 

Offsite Comment: The casual authoritarianism of Caroline Dinenage

21st September 2023. See article from spiked-online.com by Laurie Wastell

Why is the head of parliament's culture committee calling on tech firms to unperson Russell Brand?

Update: Politicians and Media Heap Pressure on Rumble After it Defends Principle of Neutrality

26th September 2023.See article from reclaimthenet.org

Rumble has stood up to censorship pressure and rejected the UK Parliament's request to cut off Brand's monetization, with CEO Chris Pavlovski noting that the allegations against Brand have nothing to do with content on Rumble's platform.

Now several media outlets have joined the lynch mob and are targeting Rumble's stance.

Lord Allan of Hallam, a former Facebook executive who advised on the Online Safety Bill, branded Rumble a crazy American platform and expressed disdain at Rumble's philosophy of allowing free expression.

He and internet academic  Professor Lorna Woods also complained about Rumble's refusal to bow down to pressure from UK officials and framed it as grandstand[ing] before the press.

The Times also took aim at Rumble by noting that under the Online Safety Bill, Rumble will have to prevent children from seeing pornography...material that promotes self-harm, suicide or eating disorders...violent content...material harmful to health, such as vaccine misinformation and take down material that is illegal, such as videos that incite violence or race hate.

However, Bryn Harris, the Chief Legal Council for The Free Speech Union, pointed out that The Times' article doesn't actually provide examples of any of the alleged illegal or harmful to kids content on Rumble.

Additionally, the Associated Press piled in on Rumble after it stood up to the demands of UK officials by claiming that Rumble is a haven for disinformation and extremism.

The US morality campaign, Parents TV Council, writes:

The Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) calls on HBO to immediately remove Naked Attraction from its streaming platform, Max . The UK-originated program is a game show that features uncensored fully naked contestants who are evaluated from the bottom up and eventually chosen for a date solely based on physical attributes by a single contestant. It was reported that Max added all six seasons of Naked Attraction .

Melissa Henson, vice president of the Parents Television and Media Council said:

Naked Attraction should not exist on the Max streaming platform, and HBO should immediately remove this exploitative, pornographic program. Our research has found that Max has mediocre parental controls, enabling children to access some of the most explicit streaming content on the market. There is no doubt children will be able to easily access Naked Attraction , the purpose of which is to shock and titillate the audience with uncensored and explicit nudity. And in a new low for HBO, the show fully exploits its own participants, somehow convincing them that their exploitation for the purpose of dating is right and good

The fact that HBO quietly added Naked Attraction tells us everything we need to know: HBO is duplicitous. It gives the appearance of a trusted family brand by hosting Harry Potter and Sesame Street , but HBO has now lifted its own veil, revealing that it is and always was a pornography channel.

The board of Warner Bros. Discovery is hereby put on notice: the fact that pornographic Naked Attraction is on the Max platform with parental controls that are weak and inefficient is a major corporate liability. We urgently call on the board to course-correct by removing Naked Attraction and instituting the strongest parental controls by default.

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an administrative stay on the preliminary injunction blocking Texas House Bill 1181 from entering into force. This means that the law requiring age verification for internet porn is now in effect, at least until a full hearing challenging the internet censorship law as unconstitutional.

House Bill (HB) 1181 is a controversial law requiring an age verification regimen for all adult websites that have users from Texas IP addresses. The law was challenged in a federal district court last month due to a measure in the bill that would require adult websites to additionally post health warning labels at the top and bottom of web pages and on marketing collateral.

The Free Speech Coalition, the parent companies of the largest adult tube sites in the world, and pay-sites affiliated with these platforms sued the state of Texas , arguing that HB 1181 is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment.

They argued that a government cannot require a privately owned website to issue a public health warning when the claims in the warnings are not accepted by mainstream medicine, psychology and neuroscience.

Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra agreed with the plaintiffs and issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking Texas from enforcing the law. but it was this decision that was overturned in this appeal.

The North Carolina Senate has voted unanimously to mandate age verification on adult websites, after a Republican senator snuck a copycat amendment mirroring other states' requirements into an unrelated bill.

Senator Amy Galey added the requirement to House Bill 8, a previously unrelated measure that would add a computer science class to the state's high school graduation requirements.

Galey justified her amendment by saying the measure was needed to protect children, citing the seven other states that have passed similar laws and noting with satisfaction that overall traffic to adult websites in Louisiana dropped 80% after that state's age verification law passed.

North Carolina's HB 8 is now headed back to the state's House of Representatives for further debate.

The UK's disgraceful Online Safety Bill has passed through Parliament and will soon become law. The wide-ranging legislation, which is likely to affect every internet user in the UK and any service they access, and generate mountains of onerous red tape for any internet business stupid enough to be based in Britain. Potential impacts are still unclear and some of the new regulations are technologically impossible to comply with.

A key sticking point is what the legislation means for end-to-end encryption, a security technique used by services like WhatsApp that mathematically guarantees that no one, not even the service provider, can read messages sent between two users. The new law gives regulator Ofcom the power to intercept and check this encrypted data for illegal or harmful content.

Using this power would require service providers to create a backdoor in their software, allowing Ofcom to bypass the mathematically secure encryption. But this same backdoor would be abused by hackers, thieves, scammers and malicious states to snoop, steal and hack.

Beyond encryption, the bill also brings in mandatory age checks on pornography websites and requires that websites have policies in place to protect people from harmful or illegal content. What counts as illegal and exactly which websites will fall under the scope of the bill is unclear, however.

Neil Brown at law firm decoded.legal says Ofcom still has a huge amount of work to do. The new law could plausibly affect any company that allows comments on its website, publishes user-generated content, transmits encrypted data or hosts anything that the government deems may be harmful to children, says Brown:

What I'm fearful of is that there are going to be an awful lot of people, small organisations - not these big tech giants -- who are going to face pretty chunky legal bills trying to work out if they are in scope and, if so, what they need to do.

A federal judge has granted a request to block the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA), a law that requires special data safeguards for underage users online.

The law is based upon a bizarre UK censorship policy seemingly intended to age gate much of the internet. The idea is to verify that users are old enough to understand the consequences of sharing personal data. But of course users are expected to hand over loads of personal date to prove that they are old enough to understand the dangers of handing over loads of personal data.

In a ruling, Judge Beth Freeman granted a preliminary injunction for tech industry group NetChoice, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment. It's the latest of several state-level internet regulations to be blocked while a lawsuit against them proceeds, including some that are likely bound for the Supreme Court .

The CAADCA is meant to expand on existing laws -- like the federal COPPA framework -- that govern how sites can collect data from children. But Judge Freeman objected to several of its provisions, saying they would unlawfully target legal speech. Although the stated purpose of the Act -- protecting children when they are online -- clearly is important, NetChoice has shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its argument that the provisions of the CAADCA intended to achieve that purpose do not pass constitutional muster, wrote Freeman.

This week Ofcom hosted the first annual meeting of the Global Online 'Safety Regulators' Network (GOSRN), which brings together censors from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific to discuss solutions to 'global online safety challenges'.

GOSRN is a collaboration between the first movers in internet censorship, including the eSafety Commissioner (Australia); Coimisiún na Meán (Ireland); the Film and Publication Board (South Africa); the Korea Communications Standards Commission (Republic of Korea); the Online Safety Commission (Fiji); and Ofcom (UK).

Members reflected on progress made in the first year of the network's existence and discussed ways in which internet censors can further enhance collaboration in the year to come.

Network members agreed to appoint Ofcom as Chair of the Network for 2024.

The Kerala High Court has recently passed a significant judgment declaring that watching pornography in private without sharing or exhibiting it to others is not an offence under Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which pertains to the sale, distribution, and display of obscene material.

Justice PV Kunhikrishnan, while delivering the judgment in the case of Aneesh v State of Kerala, asserted that an individual's private choice to view explicit content in their personal space should not be subject to legal interference, as it would violate their right to privacy.

This ruling clarifies that watching explicit content privately, whether in the form of photos or videos on a mobile device, does not fall within the purview of Section 292 IPC. The court made it clear that this provision only applies when someone attempts to circulate, distribute, or publicly exhibit such material.

In a specific case where an individual was charged under Section 292 for watching explicit videos on his mobile phone in a public place, the court quashed the case, emphasizing the necessity of concrete evidence to establish the offense.

The U.K.'s Online Safety Bill has passed a critical final stage in the House of Lords, and envisions a potentially vast scheme to surveil internet users.

The bill would empower the U.K. government, in certain situations, to demand that online platforms use government-approved software to search through all users' photos, files, and messages, scanning for illegal content. Online services that don't comply can be subject to extreme penalties, including criminal penalties.

Such a backdoor scanning system can and will be exploited by bad actors. It will also produce false positives, leading to false accusations of child abuse that will have to be resolved. That's why the bill is incompatible with end-to-end encryption--and human rights. EFF has strongly opposed this bill from the start.

Now, with the bill on the verge of becoming U.K. law, the U.K. government has sheepishly acknowledged that it may not be able to make use of some aspects of this law. During a final debate over the bill, a representative of the government said that orders to scan user files can be issued only where technically feasible, as determined by Ofcom, the U.K.'s telecom regulatory agency. He also said any such order must be compatible with U.K. and European human rights law.

That's a notable step back, since previously the same representative, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, said in a letter to the House of Lords that the technology that would magically make invasive scanning co-exist with end-to-end encryption already existed . We have seen companies develop such solutions for platforms with end-to-end encryption before, wrote Lord Parkinson in that letter.

Now, Parkinson has come quite close to admitting that such technology does not, in fact, exist. On Tuesday, he said :

There is no intention by the Government to weaken the encryption technology used by platforms, and we have built strong safeguards into the Bill to ensure that users' privacy is protected.

If appropriate technology which meets these requirements does not exist, Ofcom cannot require its use. That is why the powers include the ability for Ofcom to require companies to make best endeavors to develop or source a new solution.

The same day that these public statements were made, news outlets reported that the U.K. government privately acknowledged that there is no technology that could examine end-to-end encrypted messages while respecting user privacy.

 

People Need Privacy, Not Weak Promises

Let's be clear: weak statements by government ministers, such as the hedging from Lord Parkinson during this week's debate, are no substitute for real privacy rights.

Nothing in the law's text has changed. The bill gives the U.K. government the right to order message and photo-scanning, and that will harm the privacy and security of internet users worldwide. These powers, enshrined in Clause 122 of the bill, are now set to become law. After that, the regulator in charge of enforcing the law, Ofcom, will have to devise and publish a set of regulations regarding how the law will be enforced.

Several companies that provide end-to-end encrypted services have said they will withdraw from the U.K. if Ofcom actually takes the extreme choice of requiring examination of currently encrypted messages. Those companies include Meta-owned WhatsApp, Signal, and U.K.-based Element, among others.

While it's the last minute, Members of Parliament still could introduce an amendment with real protections for user privacy, including an explicit protection for real end-to-end encryption.

Failing that, Ofcom should publish regulations that make clear that there is no available technology that can allow for scanning of user data to co-exist with strong encryption and privacy.

Finally, lawmakers in other jurisdictions, including the United States, should take heed of the embarrassing result of passing a law that is not just deceptive, but unhinged from computational reality. The U.K. government has insisted that through software magic, a system in which they can examine or scan everything will also somehow be a privacy-protecting system. Faced with the reality of this contradiction, the government has turned to an 11th hour campaign to assure people that the powers it has demanded simply won't be used.

Hours before controversial internet censorship laws were set to take effect in Texas and Arkansas, two federal judges granted preliminary injunctions temporarily blocking them.

The more narrow Texas law sought to restrict minors from accessing content that is meant for adults. The law in particular required age/ID verification to access porn websites. It was opposed by free speech groups and adult performer industry groups.

The Arkansas law, known as the Social Media Safety Act, is broader and would prevent minors from creating accounts without parental permission on platforms earning more than $100 million a year. The tech industry trade group NetChoice, which represents Google, Meta and TikTok, among others, sued in June to block the law on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and would place an onerous burden on digital platforms.

In Arkansas, U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks sided with NetChoice , saying that the law is not targeted to address the harms it has identified, and further research is necessary before the State may begin to construct a regulation that is narrowly tailored to address the harms that minors face due to prolonged use of certain social media. Brooks added that age--gating social media platforms does not seem to be an effective approach when, in reality, it is the content on particular platforms that is driving the State's true concerns.

The more narrow Texas law seeking to stop minors from accessing adult content online was temporarily blocked Thursday by District Judge David Alan Ezra in a move that the Free Speech Coalition said in a press release will protect citizens from facing a chilling effect on legally-protected speech.

The temporary injunctions block the laws from taking effect until further adjudication. It is unclear whether both Arkansas and Texas intend to appeal.