Internet News

There has been significant commentary on the flaws of the Online Safety Bill, particularly the harmful impact on freedom of expression from the concept of the duty of care over adult internet users and the problematic legal but harmful category for online speech. Index on Censorship has identified another area of the Bill, far less examined, that now deserves our attention. The provisions in the Online Safety Bill that would enable state-backed surveillance of private communications contain some of the broadest and powerful surveillance powers ever proposed in any Western democracy. It is our opinion that the powers conceived in the Bill would not be lawful under our common law and existing human rights legal framework.

The legal opinion shows how the powers conceived go beyond even the controversial powers contained within the Investigatory Powers Act (2016) but critically, without the safeguards that Parliament inserted into the Act in order to ensure it protected the privacy and the fundamental rights of UK citizens. The powers in the Online Safety Bill have no such safeguards as of yet.

The Bill as currently drafted gives Ofcom the powers to impose Section 104 notices on the operators of private messaging apps and other online services. These notices give Ofcom the power to impose specific technologies (e.g. algorithmic content detection) that provide for the surveillance of the private correspondence of UK citizens. The powers allow the technology to be imposed with limited legal safeguards. It means the UK would be one of the first democracies to place a de facto ban on end-to-end encryption for private messaging apps. No communications in the UK -- whether between MPs, between whistleblowers and journalists, or between a victim and a victims support charity -- would be secure or private. In an era where Russia and China continue to work to undermine UK cybersecurity, we believe this could pose a critical threat to UK national security.

See full article from indexoncensorship.org

The Times is reporting that the government's Online Censorship Bill will return to the House of Commons on December 5th with a few amendments re 'harmful but legal' content.

Rishi Sunak is to introduce a compromise over the Online Safety Bill that will involve users being able to filter out legal but harmful content without it being removed by tech platforms.

The bill  has been paused while the government takes out provisions that alarmed free speech advocates. Of particular concern were sections that would have led to tech platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Google removing content that was deemed to be legal, but harmful to adults.

The government will also detail a new offence about sharing deep fake porm. Those who share pornographic deepfakes,explicit images or videos that have been manipulated to look like someone without their consent, could be jailed under the proposed changes. It is not clear how the government will take on the international porn websites where faked porn of celebrities is commonplace. Perhaps the government will have to block them all.

Meanwhile the censorship bill is causing further criticisms over governments powers to degrade encryption. This is used to keep British people safe from hackers, blackmailers  and thieves, not to mention snooping by malicious governments most notably China and Russia.

The Open Rights Group explains in an article from openrightsgroup.org :

The Online Safety Bill requires ALL online speech to be monitored for harmful content, including the private conversations you have on your phone with friends and family. Companies like Whatsapp and Signal will be required by law to break end-to-end encryption, so the Government can automatically scan your messages.

They say encryption is dangerous, but the opposite is true. Encryption keeps your information and transactions safe from criminals. It ensures your private messages stay private. If the UK Government can break encryption to read your messages, that means scammers, hackers and foreign governments can too. Save encryption, Protect the security of your phone

If they get their way, your phone will be turned into a spy in your pocket. Billions of personal messages will be ready to be hacked, sold and exploited. The Government's plan to access your private messages will help criminals and make us less safe.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and Ofcom have set out how we will work together to ensure coherence between the data protection and the new online safety regimes.

Our joint statement builds on our existing cooperative approach to regulation - and on our close working relationship established as co-founders of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum.

In anticipation of Ofcom taking on new duties in 2023 under the Online Safety Bill, the statement sets out our shared regulatory aims. We want:

• people who use online services to have confidence that their safety and privacy will be upheld and that we will take prompt and effective action when providers fail in their obligations; and

• providers of online services of all sizes to comply with their obligations and to continue to innovate and grow, supported by regulatory clarity and free from undue burden.

To achieve this, the ICO and Ofcom will work closely together to achieve maximum alignment and consistency between the data protection and online safety regimes. We will:

• maximise coherence by ensuring our policies are consistent with each other's regulatory requirements -- and consult closely when preparing codes and guidance. We will seek solutions that enhance users' safety and preserve their privacy. Where there are tensions between privacy and safety objectives, we will provide clarity on how compliance can be achieved with both regimes; and

• promote compliance by setting clear expectations for industry on what they must do to meet both their online safety and data protection requirements. That includes particular support through the transition for small and emerging firms to help them thrive and grow. We will take action against services that don't meet their obligations, sharing information and intelligence as appropriate and coordinating approaches to enforcement.

New Twitter owner Elon Musk has said President Donald Trump's account has been reinstated after running a poll in which users backed the decision.

The people have spoken, Musk tweeted, after the results of a poll showed Twitter users' narrow support for Trump to be reinstated.

Over 15 million users participated in the poll, with 52% voting in favor of bringing Trump back to the platform.

While the account is now active, it's not known if President Trump will return to the platform, as he has previously said: I don't see any reason for it, and has since launched his own social media platform, Truth Social.

The Telegraph is reporting on significant changes being considered by the government to its Online Censorship Bill.

The government is considering backing off from the government defined censorship of 'legal but harmful' content on most websites available in the UK. The government has rightfully been taking stick for these free speech curtailing measures, particularly as the censorship is expected to be implemented mostly by mostly woke US internet giants who clearly don't care about free speech, and will over censor to ensure that they don't get caught up in the expense of getting it wrong by under censoring.

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan is said to be considering the option for adults to be able to self censor 'legal but harmful' content by clicking a filter button that will order websites to block such content. Of course children will not be able to opt out of that choice. And of course this will men that age and identity verification has to be in place to esnsure that only adults can opt out.

A Culture Department spokesman said:

The Secretary of State has committed to strengthen protections for free speech and children in the Online Safety Bill and bring the bill back to the Commons as soon as possible. It remains the Government's intention to pass the bill this session.

The French government has announced a global initiative for online child safety.

The purpose of the Children Online Protection Laboratory is to incentivize researchers, campaigners, and tech giants to come up with measures to best protect children online.

Tech giants Google , Amazon, Meta, and TikTok , as well as Dailymotion said they will sign a charter.

In the first year, the participants of the Child Protection Laboratory will focus on developing systems for detecting sexual predators posing as minors and a shared database to detect and remove explicit images shared non-consensually. However, the other aspects of the proposal include looking into online age verification, a move that could restrict online privacy for all users.

In the past few years, Macron's government has pushed for reforms in online child safety. However, some of the efforts have not been successful. For instance, the legislation requiring adult websites to verify age has not been enforced, yet it was passed over two years ago. The highest court in the country, the Cour de Cassation has until January to rule on whether the Constitutional Council should review if the age verification rules violate the Constitution and if they are a major threat to privacy in the country.

Iraq's Minister for Communications, Hiyam al-Yasiri, has decided to block all pornographic websites in the country, Iraq's State News Agency (INA) reported citing a statement by the ministry. A committee tasked by the minister has blocked 400 websites.

A similar bill was passed in 2015 by the Iraqi parliament but never implemented.

While the decision was widely welcomed, several others have argued that it is insufficient since the bill does not include social media platforms.

Many Iraqi social media users wrote that many could still open porn websites by downloading a free VPN application.

The Online Censorship Bill is due to be brought back to Parliament later this month when  Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan will present an amended version of the Online Safety Bill to MPs.

It is reported that controversial 'legal but harmful rules' are set to be watered down. She is scrapping sweeping legal but harmful rules which required social media companies to address content that is not illegal but is deemed dangerous.

The rules would have meant social media sites, such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, were responsible for dealing with this content for both adults and children. But, amid criticism that it would have led to a widespread attack on freedom of speech by companies hoping to avoid hefty fines, it seems that the new laws will only apply to material targeted at children.

Elon Musk is looking for ways to make Twitter profitable after paying $44 billion for the site.

The Washington Post reports that Twitter is working on a new feature dubbed Paywalled Video, which would allow users to charge money for access to videos.

Gizmodo adds that:

It's for porn. People on Twitter are going to charge for porn.

When a creator composes a tweet with a video, the creator can enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet. The prices are preset, with creators allowed to charge $1, $2, $5, or $10 for access to the video, with Twitter taking a cut of the payment using Stripe.

Tumblr's death knell sounded back in 2018, when the site infamously banned its popular adult content.

The site's popularity quickly tanked: in the three months following the platform lost 30% of its page views. In 2019, the site was sold to WordPress owner Automattic for less than $3 million, a seismic drop compared to the $1.1 billion Yahoo paid for it in 2013.

Now, it appears that Tumblr is hoping to turn back the clock. The platform first announced a new community labels feature back in September which allowed users to tag their own posts that feature depictions of drug and alcohol addiction, violence and sexual content.

Then a staff member reblogged the community labels announcement, writing

 OK, didn't everyone want 'females presenting nipples' back on Tumblr? Here you are. This is it.

The Tumblr blog post reads:

We recently introduced Community Labels to give everyone more control over their dashboard experience. With this new feature, you can adjust your feed to your preferred comfort level by setting the types of content you want to see. It was our first step toward a more open Tumblr.

Today, we're taking the next step: We now welcome a broader range of expression, creativity, and art on Tumblr, including content depicting the human form (yes, that includes the naked human form).

So, even if your creations contain nudity, mature subject matter, or sexual themes, you can now share them on Tumblr using the appropriate Community Label so that everyone remains in control of the types of content they see on their dash.

We have updated our Community Guidelines to reflect these changes; the rest of our content policies remain the same: We still don't allow hate, spam, violent threats, or anything illegal, and visual depictions of sexually explicit acts remain off-limits on Tumblr.

We hope this shift creates more room for artistic expression to flourish on Tumblr while empowering each of you to craft your own experience and safely explore and discover the things you love.

PoliticsHome spotted the change to the House of Commons schedule last night, reporting that the Online Censorship Bill had been dropped from the Commons business next week.

A source in the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) told TechCrunch that the latest delay to the bill's parliamentary timetable is to allow time for MPs to read new amendments -- which they also confirmed are yet to be laid.

But they suggested the delay will not affect the passage of the bill, saying it will progress within the next few weeks.

The change of PM may not mean major differences in policy approach in the arena of online regulation as Rishi Sunak has expressed similar concerns about the Online Safety Bill's impact on free speech -- also seemingly centred on clauses pertaining to restrictions on the legal but harmful speech of adults.

France has passed laws requiring age verification for porn websites and moralist campaign groups are clamouring for the implementation and enforcement of said age verification.

However the law does not specify how age verification should work. The country's data protection authorities have proposed a privacy preserving solution that seems way too complex to be practical.

Now MPs are getting frustrated by the impasse leading to a suggestion that using a bank payment card could be a pragmatic solution to the dilemma.

France's Secretary of State for Children Charlotte Caubel has been speaking in the National Assembly and has suggested that the use of a bank card to watch porn online could act as a filter to guarantee the prohibition of access to pornography for minors.

We are going to make things happen quite seriously , assured Charlotte Caubel before the Delegation for the Rights of the Child. She notably mentioned the use of a bank card as a filter, for zero or one euro in order to allow access to pornographic sites. She added that

It would not be a perfect filter, but already if we can protect 30 or 40% (of minors), let's be pragmatic. My child, when he uses his credit card, I have an alert, I'll see if it's on Youporn or on McDonald s,

Since launching Hidden Words last year, more than one in five people with large followings have turned on the feature, giving them a powerful tool to automatically filter harmful content from their comments and message requests. We've seen that Hidden Words has been really effective at keeping people safe. When people turn on Hidden Words for comments, on average, they see 40% fewer comments that might be offensive.

We want to help more creators benefit from this protection, so we're starting to test automatically turning on Hidden Words for Creator accounts . Everyone will continue to be able to turn these settings on or off at any time and build a custom list with additional words, phrases, and emojis they may want to hide.

We're also continuing to improve Hidden Words to offer more protections, including:

• Expanding Hidden Words to cover Story replies, so offensive replies from people you don't follow will be sent to your Hidden Requests folder and you never have to see them.

• Supporting new languages, including Farsi, Turkish, Russian, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil.

• Improving our filtering to spot and hide more intentional misspellings of offensive terms, for instance, if someone uses a "1" instead of an "i".

• Adding new terms to filter message requests that might contain scams or spam. We'll start doing this in English in certain countries, with more languages and countries coming soon.

Germany has fined the messaging app Telegram $5 million for refusing to comply with German censorship orders.

The Federal Office of Justice claimed that the messaging platform has refused to create a way for users to report illegal content or established a physical office where complaints can be filed, as required by German laws governing social media platforms.

German authorities added that their attempts to contact Telegram executives in the United Arab Emirates have failed.

Telegram can appeal the fine.

UK adult sites not doing enough to protect children

Smaller adult video-sharing sites based in the UK do not have sufficiently robust access control measures in place to stop children accessing pornography, Ofcom has found in a new report.

Ahead of our future duties in the Online Safety Bill, Ofcom already has some powers to regulate video-sharing platforms (VSPs) established in the UK, which are required by law to take measures to protect people using their sites and apps from harmful videos.

Nineteen companies have notified us that they fall within our jurisdiction. They include TikTok, Snapchat, Twitch, Vimeo, OnlyFans and BitChute; as well as several smaller platforms, including adult sites.

Ofcom is concerned that smaller UK-based adult sites do not have robust measures in place to prevent children accessing pornography. They all have age verification measures in place when users sign up to post content. However, users can generally access adult content just by self-declaring that they are over 18.

One smaller adult platform told us that it had considered implementing age verification, but had decided not to as it would reduce the profitability of the business.

However, the largest UK-based site with adult content, OnlyFans, has responded to regulation by adopting age verification for all new UK subscribers, using third-party tools provided by Yoti and Ondato.

According to new research we have published today, most people (81%) do not mind proving their age online in general, with a majority (78%) expecting to have to do so for certain online activities. A similar proportion (80%) feel internet users should be required to verify their age when accessing pornography online, especially on dedicated adult sites.

Over the next year, adult sites that we already regulate must have in place a clear roadmap to implementing robust age verification measures. If they don't, they could face enforcement action. Under future online safety laws, Ofcom will have broader powers to ensure that many more services are protecting children from adult content. Some progress protecting users, but more to be done

We have seen some companies make positive changes more broadly to protect users from harmful content online, including as a direct result of being regulated under the existing laws. For example:

TikTok now categorises content that may be unsuitable for younger users, to prevent them from viewing it. It has also established an Online Safety Oversight Committee, which provides executive oversight of content and safety compliance specifically within the UK and EU.

Snapchat recently launched a parental control feature, Family Center, which allows parents and guardians to view a list of their child's conversations without seeing the content of the message.

Vimeo now allows only material rated all audiences to be visible to users without an account. Content rated mature or unrated is now automatically put behind the login screen.

BitChute has updated its terms and conditions and increased the number of people overseeing and -- if necessary -- removing content.

However, it is clear that many platforms are not sufficiently equipped, prepared and resourced for regulation. We have recently opened a formal investigation into one firm, Tapnet Ltd -- which operates adult site RevealMe -- in relation to its response to our information request.

We also found that companies are not prioritising risk assessments of their platforms, which we consider fundamental to proactively identifying and mitigating risks to users. This will be a requirement on all regulated services under future online safety laws.

Over the next twelve months, we expect companies to set and enforce effective terms and conditions for their users, and quickly remove or restrict harmful content when they become aware of it. We will review the tools provided by platforms to their users for controlling their experience, and expect them to set out clear plans for protecting children from the most harmful online content, including pornography.

We're making additional changes and improvements to help our community have the best experience possible when they use LIVE.

Currently, people must be aged 16 or over to host a LIVE. From November 23, the minimum age will increase from 16 to 18. As we consider the breadth of our global audience, we already take a graduated approach to the features that our community can access based on their age; younger teens need to be aged 16 or older to access Direct Messaging and 18 or older to send virtual gifts or access monetization features.

In addition, in the coming weeks, we plan to introduce a new way for creators to choose if they'd prefer to only reach an adult audience in their LIVE. For instance, perhaps a comedy routine is better suited for people over age 18. Or, a host may plan to talk about a difficult life experience and they would feel more comfortable knowing the conversation is limited to adults. We want our community to make the most of the opportunities LIVE can bring without compromising on safety. We believe these industry-leading updates can further protect the younger members of our community as they start and build their online presence.

An episode of the popular kids' show Bluey is not, and probably never will be shown on Disney+ or Disney Junior.

The Bluey Season 2 episode Dad Baby , is as of this writing, banned from the US, and it doesn't look like that will change any time soon.

Airing on March 29, 2020, on CBeebies in the UK and Australia, Dad Baby, is the 13th episode of Bluey Season 2. In it, the dad, Bandit, pretends to give birth to Bingo, hence the title Dad Baby. Like all of Bluey, this episode is a whimsical take on explaining something in the grownup world, to children.

There are a variety of theories as to why this episode was maybe not allowed on Disney channels and streamers in the US. But there has been no statement from Disney.

The assumption most pundits and fans have made is simple: Disney has deemed it inappropriate for children. Most fans have accused Disney of strange censorship, which is either sexist, prudish, or both.

According to Vietnam online publication VnExpress, Vietnam's Department of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information removed the Korean series Little Women from Netflix in Vietnam claiming that it presented misleading information about Vietnam and the Vietnam War.All 12 episodes will not shown in Vietnam.

Studio Dragon which produced Little Women said that it will pay greater attention to foreign cultures and history.

The series mentions Vietnam when the lead character explains about a mysterious orchid, known as the Ghost of Vietnam. Little Women also presents a story about a Korean soldier, who took part in a secret operation during the Vietnam War in 1967, killing 100 Viet Cong on his mission.

PayPal's clause about taking users' funds for a violation of its rules has long been established. But, as published on September 26th and to be effective on November 3rd, 2022, PayPal will add restrictions to its acceptable use policy that go beyond illegal activities and fraud and into the realm of policing speech.

The updated policy prohibits users from using PayPal for activities that:

Involve the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal's sole discretion,

(a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable ...

(e) depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) ...

(g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation ... or

(i) are otherwise unfit for publication.