Netflix is the first streaming service in the UK to carry a BBFC age rating on all TV seasons and feature films on the service, helping families choose content with confidence.
The innovative partnership between a streaming
service and the regulator, an industry first, has now reached the joint goal of 100% coverage of BBFC age ratings on the platform. This milestone has been welcomed by Caroline Dinenage, Minister of State for Digital and Culture.
Netflix applies BBFC Guidelines standards to content, with the BBFC setting those standards and auditing ratings to ensure consistency. Netflix have now populated their entire catalogue of original and acquired content with BBFC age ratings, giving families in the UK trusted age rating guidance and advice.
Families can now choose content safe in the knowledge that everything they press play on is rated to trusted, high BBFC standards. Netflix's parental controls are also powered by BBFC data. Netflix has also improved its parental
controls based on BBFC data and member feedback. Parents can now:
pin protect individual profiles to prevent kids using them;
tailor their kids Netflix experience by filtering out titles that are not appropriate for their age based on BBFC ratings;
remove individual series or films by title. When this filter is used, the blocked title(s) won't show up anywhere in that profile.
easily review each profile's setting using the "Profile and Parental
Controls" hub within account settings;
see what their kids have been watching within the profile created for them; and
turn off auto play of episodes in kids profiles.
Comment: Old cuts on Netflix
2nd December 2020. Thanks to Tim
It is an interesting article about Netflix using BBFC ratings, particularly as they have previously shown films without BBFC ratings and with
compulsory BBFC cuts reinstated. For example they showed The Mountain Men (1980) including the compulsory horse fall cuts and Walking Tall (1973) with the BBFC video cuts for violence reinstated even though the BBFC have never waived those
for DVD.
Presumably Netflix can now override BBFC ratings and award their own. Perhaps there is an agreement to consult with the BBFC over the more controversial cuts.
It would be interesting to note if Netflix are expected to
follow the BBFC's pedantic rules on horse trips and the like. Nominally UK law requirements only apply to cinema films and could legally be quietly forgotten about for online video.
The EU's anti-terrorist coordinator Gilles de Kerchove, is urging the censorship of internet game chat lest it could be used to propagate extremist ideologies and even prepare attacks.
The official commented ahead of a proposed Digital Services
Act that aims to address US dominance of the internet and to propose censorship measures targeting speech that the EU does not like. De Kerchove commented:
I'm not saying that all the gaming sector is a problem. There
are two billion people playing online, and that's all very well ...BUT... you have extreme-right groups in Germany that have come up with games where the aim is to shoot Arabs, or (George) Soros, or Mrs Merkel for her migration policy, etc.
That can be an alternative way to spread ideology, especially of the extreme right but not only them, a way to launder money -- there are currencies created in games that can be exchanged for legal tender
He also suggested the Digital Services Act include a provision forcing providers of encrypted communication to give police and prosecutors unencrypted versions of the messages sent on their services when ordered to do so by a judge.
The House of Lords approved a statutory instrument that adopts the EU's Audio Visual Media Services Directive into post-Brexit UK law. This law describes state censorship requirements for internet video sharing platforms.
The law change was debated on
27th November 2020 with the government introducing the law as follows:
Baroness Barran, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
My Lords, I am pleased to
introduce this instrument, laid in both Houses on 15 October, which is being made under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. These regulations remedy certain failures of retained EU law arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
This instrument seeks to maintain, but not expand, Ofcom's remit to regulate video-sharing platform services. This intervention is necessary to ensure the law remains operable beyond the end of the transition period.
The EU's
audiovisual media services directive, known as the AVMS directive, governs the co-ordination of national legislation on audio-visual media services. The AVMS directive was initially implemented into UK law in 2010, primarily by way of amendments to UK
broadcasting legislation. The directive was subsequently revised in 2018. The UK Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2020, which transposed the revised AVMS directive, were made and laid in Parliament on 30 September. Those regulations came into force
on 1 November and introduced, for the first time, rules for video-sharing platform services. The Government have appointed Ofcom as the regulator for these services. The new rules ensure that platforms falling within UK jurisdiction have appropriate
systems and processes to protect the public, including minors, from illegal and harmful material.
There were three key requirements placed on video-sharing platforms under the regulations. These were: to take appropriate measures
to protect minors under 18 from harmful content, to take appropriate measures to protect the general public from harmful and certain illegal content, and to introduce standards around advertising. I also draw the attention of the House to the report from
the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee considering this instrument, and I thank its members for their work.
I will now address the committee's concerns regarding jurisdiction. The AVMS directive sets out technical rules
governing when a platform falls within a country's jurisdiction. First, there must be a physical presence, or a group undertaking, of the platform in the country. Where there is a physical presence in more than one country, jurisdiction is decided on the
basis of factors such as whether the platform is established in that country, whether the platform's main economic activity is centred in that country, and the hierarchy of group undertakings as set out by the directive.
Under the
revised AVMS directive, each EU member state and the UK is responsible for regulating only the video-sharing platforms that fall within its jurisdiction. There will be only one country that has jurisdiction for each platform at any one time. However, if
a platform has no physical presence in any country covered by the AVMS directive, then no country will have jurisdiction over it, even if the platform provides services in those countries.
Through this instrument, we are seeking
to maintain the same position for Ofcom's remit beyond the end of the transition period. This position allows Ofcom to regulate video-sharing platforms established in the UK and additionally regulate platforms that have a physical presence in the UK but
not in any other country covered by the AVMS directive. Although Ofcom's remit will not be extended to include platforms established elsewhere in the EU, we believe UK users will indirectly benefit from the EU's regulation of platforms under the AVMS
directive. The regulation under this regime is systems regulation, not content regulation. We therefore expect that as platforms based outside of the UK will set up and invest in systems to comply with the AVMS regulations, it is probable that these same
systems will also be introduced for their UK subsidiaries.
In the absence of this instrument, Ofcom would no longer be able to regulate any video-sharing platforms. This would result in an unacceptable regulatory gap and a lack of
protection for UK users using these services. Our approach also mitigates the small risk that a video- sharing platform offering services to countries covered by the AVMS directive, but not the UK, would establish itself in the UK in order to circumvent
EU law.
While we recognise that most children have a positive experience online, the reality is that the impact of harmful content and activity online can be particularly damaging for children. Over three-quarters of UK adults
also express a deep concern about the internet. The UK is one of only three countries to have transposed the revised directive thus far, evidencing our commitment to protecting users online.
These regulations also pave the way for
the upcoming online harms regulatory regime. Given that the online harms regulatory framework shares broadly the same objectives as the video-sharing platform regime, it is the Government's intention that the regulation of video-sharing platforms in the
UK will be superseded by the online harms legislation, once the latter comes into force. Further details on the plans for online harms regulation will be set out in the full government response to the consultation on the Online Harms White Paper, which
is due to be published later this year, with draft legislation ready in early 2021. With that, I beg to move.
As with so much EU internet law, the new Copyright Directive was designed by lobbyists, passed by fools, and will prove predictably nonsensical to implement. Germany is now grappling with this impossible predicament
In view of the implementation deadline in summer 2021, it is becoming increasingly apparent what the transformation of the EU's disgraceful Copyright Directive in Germany could look like. The draft of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer
Protection is now available and is - just like the Directive on which it is based - highly controversial, in particular in terms of the possible implementation of upload filters.
The directive requires platforms to censor copyrighted material as a
user attempts to upload a post. It requires the platform to scan the post prior to publication and block it should it contain copyrighted material. However the directive also specifies some legally specified exemptions without the need for licensing,
e.g. parodies or so-called pastiches, i.e. remixes, memes, GIFs, mashups, fan art, fan fiction, covers or sampling. But can the automated upload filters detect that copyright material in a post is a pastiche or not?
Lexoligy describes a German
variation adding some metrics to this legally permitted fair use:
The draft German Act provides for a minor exception clause for non-commercial use in social media. According to this, reproductions for non-commercial purposes of a small
scale will be allowed, even if they have not been licensed (e.g. up to 20 seconds of a film or sound track, 1,000 characters of a text or photographs with a data volume of up to 250 kB).
If the public reproduction of a content is not permitted, the
service provider is obliged to immediately remove the corresponding content or block access to it upon notification of the rights holder. If the content is permitted the platform must pay the author an appropriate remuneration.
It
seems that the envisaged censorship process is for the platform to block the content automatically and then give an opportunity for the user to justify why the content should not be blocked. But this process doesn't sound very viable for an average
social media poster. And perhaps the only practical outcome is for all copyright material to be blocked from all user posts with just a few savvy 'influencers' able to work the system.
Independent Quebec Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne is calling for censorship of online porn through new legislation that would force porn sites to verify the ages of all users.
Miville-Dechêne has introduced a bill, S-203, that would make porn sites
like the Canadian-owned PornHub criminally liable for failing to check a user's age before they browse.
Miville-Dechêne, who was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2018, spouted anti porn rhetoric saying that children and teenagers must
be protected against graphic material that she said can pollute their minds. She continued:
I'm not on a crusade against porn. I just want to protect kids from porn that is shown widely on these websites that is not at
all the soft kind of stuff. It's hardcore, it's tough and it's violent.
Her bill would make it a Criminal Code offence to make sexually explicit material available to a minor on the internet. A first offence would be punishable by a
fine of not more than $10,000 for an individual and $250,000 for a corporation. Fines for subsequent offences would be more substantial.
Fox News returns to UK on streaming app and won't be subject to Ofcom impartiality rules. The Fox News International app allows UK audience to stream the politically incorrect right leaning channel.
Fox News left the Sky News package three years ago
after widespread unease about biased news reporting. Sky claimed that the departure was for commercial reasons due to the station's low audience figures in the UK.
Fox News will not be seeking a broadcasting licence this time around.
GB
News, a channel chaired by Andrew Neil, offering a similar opinionated slant on current events, is set to launch next year, while Murdoch's News UK is preparing to unveil its own TV news service.
The French government has blocked access to the website of the popular hentai outlet Nhentai, with a new government redirect page warning that the site contain images of child porn.
News of this ban was first reported on November 19th , when multiple
French citizens took to social media to report that their attempts to access the page were being denied.
According to the generic block page, users were being redirected to this page by the Ministry of the Interior because you have attempted to
connect to a site containing image of child pornography, an act which was being done in order to protect the dignity of the [cartoon] victims of abuse seen in the images and protect the internet users and especially the very young, who did not want to
find these images.
The French government also noted that access to the website was banned so that the person who is trying to view this images can be made aware of the gravity of his attraction, in order to fight against the sites that produce these
images.
US internet companies Facebook, Google and Twitter and others have banded together and threatened to leave Pakistan after the country granted blanket censorship powers to censor content the government doesn't like.
Earlier this week, Pakistan Prime
Minister Imran Khan granted the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority the power to remove and block digital content that pose harms, intimidates or excites disaffection toward the government or in other ways hurt the integrity, security, and defence of
Pakistan.
Through a group called the Asia Internet Coalition Asia (AIC), the tech firms said that they were alarmed by the scope of Pakistan's new law. In addition to Facebook, Google, and Twitter, AIC represents Apple, Amazon, LinkedIn, SAP,
Expedia Group, Yahoo, Airbnb, Grab, Rakuten, Booking.com, Line, and Cloudflare.
The draconian data localization requirements will damage the ability of people to access a free and open internet and shut Pakistan's digital economy off from the rest of
the world.
Under the new law, tech companies that fail to remove or block the unlawful content from their platforms within 24 hours of notice from Pakistan authorities also face a fine of up to $3.14 million.
Russian lawmakers have announced plans to block any internet services deemed to censor local media. The move seems targeted at US social media companies that have been blocking content from Russian internet sources.
The US internet internet companies
have been labelling Russian content as fake news and propaganda. In particular the move came a day after state media regulator Roskomnadzor demanded YouTube remove restrictions supposedly placed on programmes produced by the prominent state TV
propagandist Vladimir Solovyev.
The legislation would grant authorities conditional powers to block access to sites such as Youtube , Twitter and Facebook -- either fully or partially.
The bill seems almost certain to pass after attracting the
public support of the Kremlin.
As social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook crack down more forcefully on comments that they do not like, conservative users are flocking to a new platform: Parler.
The social network, which resembles Twitter, takes its name from the French
verb meaning to talk but is often pronounced like the English word parlor. And it's fast becoming the hottest new app on the right, with high-profile proponents like Senator Ted Cruz recruiting new users.
Parler's popularity has exploded amid
mounting frustration over Twitter's anti-conservative bias. It shot to the top of Apple's trending apps list in the wake of the US election, with downloads soaring by 2,000% between 7 November and 9 November, from 172,000 a day to 428,700 a day. On 9
November alone the number of downloads surpassed 500,000.
A Parler user can post text or images, which other users can then comment on, give a vote of approval, or echo, which appears to be the Parler version of a retweet. Unlike Twitter, it appears
to not offer a discover page or trending topics -- instead you have to seek out and search for the accounts you want to follow.
There are only two rules on Parler:
no posting anything unlawful
no spam.
Parler does not remove content based on politics or ideology, the company said in a statement, and is dedicated to free speech.
Update: And Rumble as a free speech replacement for YouTube
Rumble, a video-sharing site similar to YouTube, has been attracting voices that are ditching YouTube because of censorship and has started to trend on the Google Play store.
Notable figures from the US who have shifted to Rumble include political
commentators and comedy duo Diamond and Silk, Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D'Souza, and John Solomon.
Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski told Buzzfeed:
We're the clean YouTube competitor, the place they can feel safe.
On the question of the latest influx of conservative figures, Pavlovski said the platform is not one-sided and is open to everybody.
Users have raised Rumble's unique visitors to 60 million in October, up from 45 million in September.
youtube-dl is a popular free software tool for downloading videos from YouTube and other user-uploaded video platforms. GitHub recently took down youtube-dl's code repository at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America,
potentially stopping many thousands of users, and other programs and services, that rely on it.
On its face, this might seem like an ordinary copyright takedown of the type that happens every day. Under the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA), a copyright holder can ask a platform to take down an allegedly infringing post and the platform must comply. (The platform must also allow the alleged infringer to file a counter-notice, requiring the copyright holder to file a
lawsuit if she wants the allegedly infringing work kept offline.) But there's a huge difference here with some frightening ramifications: youtube-dl doesn't infringe on any RIAA copyrights.
RIAA's argument relies on a different
section of the DMCA, Section 1201. DMCA 1201 says that it's illegal to bypass a digital lock in order to access or modify a copyrighted work. Copyright holders have argued that it's a violation of DMCA 1201 to bypass DRM even if you're doing it for
completely lawful purposes; for example, if you're downloading a video on YouTube for the purpose of using it in a way that's protected by fair use. (And thanks to the way that copyright law has been globalized via trade agreements, similar laws exist in
many other jurisdictions too.) RIAA argues that since youtube-dl could be used to download music owned by RIAA-member labels, no one should be able to use the tool, even for completely lawful purposes.
This is an egregious abuse
of the notice-and-takedown system, which is intended to resolve disputes over allegedly infringing material online. Again, youtube-dl doesn't use RIAA-member labels' music in any way. The makers of youtube-dl simply shared information with the public
about how to perform a certain task204one with many completely lawful applications.
GitHub has reinstated the youtube-dl open-source project, a Python library that lets users download the source audio and video files behind YouTube videos.
In a blog post today, GitHub said the library did not actually break Section 1201 of the DMCA,
citing a letter it received from Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyers , who decided to take up the youtube-dl project's case.
In the letter, the EFF team explained that Google does not have any technical measures in place to prevent the download
of its videos -- all of which need to be made freely available to all kinds of apps, browsers, smart TVs, and more.
Hence, EFF lawyers argued that the library could never be taken down under Section 1201 of the DMCA since the library doesn't actually
circumvent any sort of copyright protection system in the first place.
Senior Labour MPs have called on the government to step up censorship of the internet and to censor non-supportive comments about coronavirus vaccines.
The shadow culture secretary, Jo Stevens, and the shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, have
written to the government warning that our historic strength in vaccine uptake must not be taken for granted as the prospect of a treatment for the virus looms.
The Labour ministers are calling for financial and criminal penalties for social media
companies that fail to censor posts promoting anti-vaccination content. The opposition ministers claim that anti-vaccination groups with almost 100,000 users can be found within seconds of logging on to Facebook.
Stevens claimed that the
government has a pitiful track record on taking action against online platforms that are facilitating the spread of disinformation/
EU ministers are discussing a new censorship law this year obliging internet firms to remove what is deemed to be extremist propaganda within an hour of it being reported.
The EU has been discussing such a regulation for more than a year, but the
recent terror attacks in France and Austria have given it new urgency.
Interior ministers said the text must be agreed soon with the EU Commission and European Parliament.
Both German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and EU Home Affairs
Commissioner Ylva Johansson called for an agreement by Christmas on the new regulation on terrorist content online (TCO).
On November 3rd 2020, during #SikhGenocide awareness week, Facebook mass censored Sikh posts across the world.
The censorship largely focused on posts
related to the Sikh struggle for Khalistan, but also impacted posts on Sikh history, activism against sexual grooming that targets Sikhs, and posts relating to Kirtan (Sikh devotional singing). This mass censorship targeted a large number of accounts
from individuals to Sikh organisations and Gurdwareh, with posts being deleted as far back as 2010.
This was the second time this year that Sikh social media posts were censored en masse, following the blocking of the hashtag
#Sikh on Instagram in June this year, also during a period of Sikh genocide remembrance.
From analysis of posts targeted for removal a clear pattern is visible which shows most posts were targeted based on use of the following key
words: Khalistan, Sukhdev Singh Babbar, Gurbachan Singh Manochal, Avtar Singh Brahma, Jagraj Singh Toofan, and Jujaroo Jathebandia (Sikh military units) such as the Babbar Khalsa, Khalistan Liberation Force, and the Khalistan Commando Force.
From the simultaneous, widespread, and targeted removal of content it is clear that this recent wave of censorship has come from the Indian state which has long opposed any form of revolutionary Sikh self-expression centred on Sikh
sovereignty, adopting policies of genocide to violently annihilate any Sikh resistance. Khalistan, as a term and as a movement, has been demonised in Indian public discourse to the extent that in India Khalistan has become synonymous with terrorism. This
image is the product of decades of fascist Indian rhetoric and propaganda that has been used to justify the state's torture, enforced disappearances, mass rapes, arbitrary detention and genocide of Sikhs.
The November 3rd wave of
censorship coincided with the Indian foreign minister's arrival in the UK, which was preceded by news coverage in Indian media that highlighted the Indian State's suppressive laws targeting online speech. Under Article 69A of the Information Technology
Act, Indian agencies have been empowered to monitor, intercept, and decrypt any information generated, received transmitted or stored in any computer. This law has been used to stifle dissent and block online content that challenges the sovereignty and
integrity of India. These new laws are a modern rendering of the oppressive colonial era logic that makes sedition and political dissent a crime.
India today maintains that Sikhs are the aggressors and that only a small minority
of Sikhs demand Khalistan. Yet Indian laws, and the public discourse that was used to justify them, targets all Sikhs and expressions of Sikhi itself.
The censorship carried out by Facebook is an attack on Sikh memory and Sikh
being. It is an attack on Sikh struggle in the past, present, and future.
The signatories to this letter stand in solidarity against any censorship targeting the Sikh community and urge Facebook to become part of the conversation
-- specifically on Khalistan -- that is being censored. We expect immediate response detailing steps towards addressing this censorship.
We urge Sikhs and allies reading this letter to share it widely and connect with the Sikh
grassroots to build solidarity that exists outside frameworks of censorship.
Signed: World Sikh Parliament, Sikh Federation UK, Guru Nanak Darbar Gravesend, Saving Punjab, Federation of Sikh Orgs, Kaurs Legal, National Sikh Youth
Federation, Sikh Assembly, Everythings 13, Sikh Doctors Association, Sikhs For Justice, Lions MMA, Sikh 2 Inspire, Khalistan Center, Babbar Akali Lehar, Sikh Relief, Baba Deep Singh Gurdwara, Khalsa Jatha Central Gurdwara, United Sikhs, Khalsa Akhara Gym
Derby, Khalsa Foundation, Khalsa Akhara Boxing Coventry, Shere Punjab, Singh Sabha Committee Coventry, SHARE Charity, Calgary Sikhs, Birmingham Sikh Council of Gurdwaras, Naujawani, Khalistan Activist Federation, Kent Sikh Organisation.
The US Commerce Department has halted a ban on TikTok that was due to come into effect on Thursday night. The order would have prevented the app from being downloaded in the US.
The Commerce Department delayed the ban pending further legal
developments, citing a Philadelphia court ruling from September where three prominent TikTokers had argued the app should be allowed to operate in America.
In September, TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance announced a deal with Walmart and Oracle to
shift TikTok's US assets into a new entity called TikTok Global.
Donald Trump tentatively supported the deal. However on Tuesday TikTok said it had had no feedback from the US government in two months. Both Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
have repeatedly said that the data of US users could be passed on to the Chinese government,
In the months leading up to Election Day, we announced a set of policy , enforcement and product changes to add context, encourage thoughtful consideration, and reduce the potential for misleading
information to spread on Twitter.
Here's what we've learned about the impact of those changes so far, and how we plan to adapt based on those findings:
Labels, warnings, and prebunks
Below are some key statistics about the labels, warnings, and additional restrictions we applied to Tweets that included potentially misleading information about the US Election from October 27 to November 11:
Approximately 300,000 Tweets have been labeled under our Civic Integrity Policy for content that was disputed
and potentially misleading. These represent 0.2% of all US election-related Tweets sent during this time period.
456 of those Tweets were also covered by a warning message and had engagement features limited (Tweets could be
Quote Tweeted but not Retweeted, replied to or liked).
Approximately 74% of the people who viewed those Tweets saw them after we applied a label or warning message.
We saw an estimated 29%
decrease in Quote Tweets of these labeled Tweets due in part to a prompt that warned people prior to sharing.
We also got ahead of potentially misleading information by showing everyone on Twitter in the US a series of pre-bunk prompts .
These prompts, which were seen 389 million times, appeared in people's home timelines and in Search, and reminded people that election results were likely to be delayed, and that voting by mail is safe and legitimate.
Product
changes
In the weeks leading up to and during election week, we implemented significant product changes
intended to increase context and encourage more thoughtful consideration before Tweets are amplified. Starting today, we are reverting some of these changes and providing more detail on the impact they had.
Encouraging
Quote Tweets
We encouraged people to add their own commentary when amplifying content by prompting Quote Tweets instead of Retweets. This change introduced some friction, and gave people an extra moment to consider why and
what they were adding to the conversation. Since making this change, we observed a 23% decrease in Retweets and a 26% increase in Quote Tweets, but on a net basis the overall number of Retweets and Quote Tweets combined decreased by 20%. In short, this
change slowed the spread of misleading information by virtue of an overall reduction in the amount of sharing on the service. We are taking more time to study and fully understand the impact of this change and are leaving it in-place for now.
Removing Tweet recommendations in Home Timeline & Notifications
We stopped providing "liked by" and "followed by" Tweet recommendations from accounts you don't follow in the Home
Timeline and through notifications. While we had initially hoped that this would help reduce the potential for misleading information to spread on our service, we did not observe a statistically significant difference in misinformation prevalence as a
result of this change (nor any meaningful reduction in abuse reports). Instead, we found that pausing these recommendations prevented many people from discovering new conversations and accounts to follow. As of today, we are reverting this change.
Our goal is to eventually replace these "liked by" and "followed by" recommendations with ones that are based on the Topics you follow or Topics we think you might like. We believe this will provide you greater
control to tell us what you are and aren't interested in, which will make our recommendations more relevant to you. Also, we don't believe the "Like" button provides sufficient, thoughtful consideration prior to amplifying Tweets.
Required context before showing Trends in "For You"
We only showed Trends in "For You" that had added context, meaning our team added a description, representative Tweet, or article
to help people more quickly gain an informed understanding of high volume public conversation.
While we saw a significant reduction in reports (on Trends, and Tweets within Trends result pages) as a result of this change, we also
recognized that it placed a significant limitation on the number and breadth of Trends that we could show people, making "For You" less relevant for many people's interests.
Moving forward, we'll continue to prioritize
reviewing and adding context to as many Trends as possible, but won't make this a requirement before a Trend can appear in "For You." Our goal is to help people see what's happening, while ensuring that potentially misleading trends are
presented with context.
The Austrian Supreme Court has decided that any censorship demands it places on Facebook must be implemented globally.
The ruling signifies defeat for Facebook in its final appeal in a case that has been running for years. Eva Glawischnig is former
Austrian politician who didn't like it when some random Facebook user described her as a traitor and corrupt. She apparently decided it would be easier to censor those accusations than challenge them and has been trying to force Facebook to remove the
posts ever since.
A year ago, the EU Court of Justice ruled in her favour, adding that anything that even comes close hurting the claimants feelings should be censored too. This created the absurd situation of making the global Facebook platform
beholden to the whims of every country in which it operates.
Facebook took the matter to the Austrian Supreme Court, has just published its ruling. A summary, as reported by Der Standard, is that Facebook must now censor those posts globally or
face the legal consequences in Austria and possibly the whole EU.
The precedent this sets is chilling. Not only is it absurd for one country to be able to dictate what is visible in all others, but the ruling effectively says it's no longer permissible to accuse politicians of corruption. Are you
still allowed to accuse other people of corruption? Does this protection only apply to people who can afford to litigate for years? What else can Austria now compel Facebook and other internet companies to do?
The government consults on banning all advertising for food that tastes good enforced by onerous new censorship and red tape requirements that will strangle British companies whilst advantaging US corporate giants
We want your views on our proposal for a total online advertising restriction for HFSS (high in fat, salt or suger) products to reduce the amount of HFSS advertising children are exposed to online.
This consultation closes at
Consultation description
We're asking questions on:
what types of advertising will be restricted
who will be liable for compliance
enforcement of the restrictions
In 2019 the government consulted on restricting advertising of HFSS for TV and online . It asked for views on whether to extend current advertising restrictions on broadcast TV and online media, including consulting on watershed
restrictions. In July 2020 the government confirmed its intention to introduce a 9pm watershed on TV .
This new consultation goes further and looks at how a total HFSS advertising restriction could be implemented online. It should
be read with the 2019 consultation.
The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern after the Council of the European Union proposed a draft resolution last week calling for national authorities across the EU to have access to encrypted messages as part of criminal investigations
into terrorism and organized crime. Journalists rely on encryption to evade surveillance and protect their sources, CPJ has found .
End-to-end encryption prevents authorities, company employees, and hackers from viewing the
content of private digital messages, but the resolution proposes unspecified technical solutions to undermine those protections, according to rights groups European Digital Rights and Access Now. The groups said the resolution was drafted without input
from privacy experts or journalists.
EU institutions must immediately retract all plans to undermine encryption, which is vital to press freedom and the free flow of information, said Tom Gibson, EU Representative for the
Committee to Protect Journalists. Encryption offers essential protection for journalists who routinely communicate and share files electronically. If journalists cannot communicate safely with colleagues and sources, they cannot protect the anonymity of
their sources.
The resolution was proposed by Germany, which holds the current presidency of the Council of the European Union, and could serve as a basis for further negotiations with other EU institutions in 2021.
The upcoming social media website Tiktok will allow UK politicians to review its algorithm, after MPs challenged the firm over censorship concerns and ties to the Chinese government.
Tiktok's UK director of government relations and public policy
Elizabeth Kanter said members of the Business Select Committee were welcome to visit its transparency centre, to review its algorithm and the way it moderates content.
Of course the very idea of algorithms has evolved into some sort of
assumption that they are a sinister means of corrupting the weak minds of social media users. In reality they are probably closer to something simple like:
Give 'em more of what they like and don't bother wasting their
time with 'worthy' content that they 'should' like, because they'll only skim over it anyway.
Kanter claimed that the app no longer moderates content based on political sensitivities or affiliation. She said:
We do not censor content, I would encourage you to open the app and search for Tiananmen square, search for Uygher, search for Tibet -- you will find that content on Tik Tok.
Kanter reiterated the
company's claim that it would not share any data with its Chinese parent company Bytedance or with the Chinese authorities.
TikTok has also announced that it is upping its censorship of political content. In a blog post, the app said it was expanding
its policy to take into account coded language and symbols used to spread hateful ideologies:
Tiktok already removes content related to neo-Nazism and white supremacy, but will now also ban similar ideologies such as
white nationalism, white genocide theory, Identitarianism and male supremacy.
Update: And on the subject of the repression of Uyghur muslims
A TikTok executive admitted to UK lawmakers that the platform censors anti-Chinese content. The statement was made during a hearing held by the UK's Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy Committee. Elizabeth Kanter, TikTok's Director of Government
Relations and Public Policy, made the damning comments.
The UK hearing was held to determine whether businesses in the UK are exploiting forced labor in those Xinjiang camps. Kanter initially told the committee that TikTok does not censor content .
But when pressed about those previous incidents of censorship on the platform, Kanter admitted something different. She said those videos were removed in the early days of TikTok when content was governed by different guidelines. She said:
The people who wrote the content guidelines took a decision to not allow conflict on the platform, and so there were some incidents where content was not allowed on the platform, specifically with regard to the Uyghur
situation.
Kanter later backtracked on her comments claiming that she had misspoken.
Facebook has developed a new censorship process requiring administrators of public and private groups to manually pre-censor posts to the group prior to publication.
Facebook will restrict any groups-- both public and private ones-- with multiple
posts violating its censorship rules. Moderators for the groups will have to approve any posts manually for 60 days, and there's no appeal available for groups on probationary status.
Facebook spokesperson Leonard Lam said in a statement emailed
to The Verge:
We are temporarily requiring admins and moderators of some political and social groups in the US to approve all posts, if their group has a number of Community Standards violations from members, a measure
we're taking in order to protect people during this unprecedented time.
Admins will be notified of their group's status and told when the restrictions will be lifted. During the probationary period, Facebook will keep tabs on how the
moderators of restricted groups deal with posts; if they continue to allow posts that break its rules, Facebook may shut down the groups entirely.
Thai media is reporting that many users of the porn video sharing website Pornhub were unable to access the site since Monday.
The Thai authorities have banned 191 URLs of porn websites and have instructed Thai ISPs to block users from accessing the
censored websites. The news service Manager reported that this was the action of the Digital Economy and Society Ministry. Manager said that the DE would soon be banning many gambling websites too.
The censorship seems to be implemented by
compromising the negotiation of HTTPS encryption certificates leading to the illustrated error message which will vary from browser to browser.
Thai internet users will will surely now be researching methods to evade the ban, such as by using the
TOR browser or installing a VPN. However it must be said that ISPs can still throttle the bandwidth for unrecognised video even when they don't see where the video is coming from. (I spotted this when using VPNs on a 3BB connection).
Thailand's internet users are revolting over their government's recent censorship of major porn tubes websites.
On Twitter, the hastag #SavePornhub trended in Thailand with the majority of post speaking out against the censorship.
An activist
group called Anonymous Party said:
We want to reclaim Pornhub. People are entitled to choices.
A few dozen brave activists protested outside Thailand's digital ministry, holding banners saying free Pornhub
and reclaim Pornhub.
Internet research firm Top10VPN said it saw a spike in searches from Thailand for Virtual Private Networks (VPN), which help circumvent censorship.
Thailand's government has faced months of youth and student-led protests
demanding the removal of military ruler/Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, as well as reforms to reduce King Maha Vajiralongkorn's powers.
A Thailand language hashtag that translates as #HornyPower is trending on Thai Twitter with comments that the
censorship will only add to the number of people angry with the current elite. eg tweeting:
If someone doesn't hate the current military government, now they probably do.
Emilie Pradichit, director
of the Manushya Foundation, which campaigns for digital rights, said the decision showed Thailand was a land of digital dictatorship, with conservatives in power trying to control what young people can watch, can say and can do online.
A pornban that has taken effect in
Thailand is driving a massive surge in VPN usage as citizens seek out ways to continue to access their favorite services.
According to Atlas VPN data, VPN installs in the country surged by 644% following the confirmation that 191 adult websites -
including popular platform Pornhub - will no longer be available to citizens.
Despite the meteoric growth of the VPN industry in recent years, the privacy service was not particularly popular in Thailand prior to the ban, with only 1.17% of the
population downloading a VPN in the first half of 2020.
The Government of Turkey has fined Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram 10 million lira ($1.2 million) each for not complying with a new social media censorship law that took effect last month. The law places penalties on any refusal by social media
companies to take down posts that the government deems offensive.
According to the law, social media sites with more than one million Turkish daily users must appoint a fall guy accountable to Turkish courts, abide by governmental orders to remove
offensive content within 48 hours, and store user data inside Turkey.
Beginning with fines, the law gives the government the ability to increase penalties up to the cutting of sites' bandwidth by 90%, essentially blocking access to the social media
platform altogether.
It will be interesting to see if Turkey is willing to block social media, surely local businesses would not be very impressed by such a move.
US Representative Greg Steube has just introduced yet another legislative proposal aimed at internet censorship via ending Section 230 protections, and his CASE-IT Act has the distinction of attempting to define adult content in explicit and broad terms.
This adds to a long list of censorship proposals:
The House version of the EARN IT Act, introduced by Representative Sylvia Garcia and notorious anti-sex work crusader Ann Wagner, one of the intellectual authors of FOSTA-SESTA
The "Don't Push My Buttons" Act, introduced by Senator
John Kennedy
The "See Something Say Something" Act, introduced by Senators Joe Manchin and John Cornyn
A highly unusual "draft legislation recommendation" by William Barr's Department of Justice
The
"Online Content Policy Modernization" Act (S.4632) introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham
The "Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity" Act, introduced by Senators Roger Wicker, Graham and Marsha Blackburn
The PACT Act,
introduced by Senators John Thune and Brian Schatz
Trump's unprecedented "Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship"
