Internet News

New internet laws will be published today in the draft Online Safety Bill to protect children online and tackle some of the worst abuses on social media, including racist hate crimes.

Ministers have added landmark new measures to the Bill to safeguard freedom of expression and democracy, ensuring necessary online protections do not lead to unnecessary censorship.

The draft Bill marks a milestone in the Government's fight to make the internet safe. Despite the fact that we are now using the internet more than ever, over three quarters of UK adults are concerned about going online, and fewer parents feel the benefits outweigh the risks of their children being online -- falling from 65 per cent in 2015 to 50 per cent in 2019.

The draft Bill includes changes to put an end to harmful practices, while ushering in a new era of accountability and protections for democratic debate, including:

• New additions to strengthen people's rights to express themselves freely online, while protecting journalism and democratic political debate in the UK.

• Further provisions to tackle prolific online scams such as romance fraud, which have seen people manipulated into sending money to fake identities on dating apps.

• Social media sites, websites, apps and other services hosting user-generated content or allowing people to talk to others online must remove and limit the spread of illegal and harmful content such as child sexual abuse, terrorist material and suicide content.

• Ofcom will be given the power to fine companies failing in a new duty of care up to £18 million or ten per cent of annual global turnover, whichever is higher, and have the power to block access to sites.

• A new criminal offence for senior managers has been included as a deferred power. This could be introduced at a later date if tech firms don't step up their efforts to improve safety.

The draft Bill will be scrutinised by a joint committee of MPs before a final version is formally introduced to Parliament.

The following elements of the Bill aim to create the most progressive, fair and accountable system in the world. This comes only weeks after a boycott of social media by sports professionals and governing bodies in protest at the racist abuse of footballers online, while at the same time concerns continue to be raised at social media platforms arbitrarily removing content and blocking users.

Duty of care

In line with the government's response to the Online Harms White Paper , all companies in scope will have a duty of care towards their users so that what is unacceptable offline will also be unacceptable online.

They will need to consider the risks their sites may pose to the youngest and most vulnerable people and act to protect children from inappropriate content and harmful activity.

They will need to take robust action to tackle illegal abuse, including swift and effective action against hate crimes, harassment and threats directed at individuals and keep their promises to users about their standards.

The largest and most popular social media sites (Category 1 services) will need to act on content that is lawful but still harmful such as abuse that falls below the threshold of a criminal offence, encouragement of self-harm and mis/disinformation. Category 1 platforms will need to state explicitly in their terms and conditions how they will address these legal harms and Ofcom will hold them to account.

The draft Bill contains reserved powers for Ofcom to pursue criminal action against named senior managers whose companies do not comply with Ofcom's requests for information. These will be introduced if tech companies fail to live up to their new responsibilities. A review will take place at least two years after the new regulatory regime is fully operational.

The final legislation, when introduced to Parliament, will contain provisions that require companies to report child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) content identified on their services. This will ensure companies provide law enforcement with the high-quality information they need to safeguard victims and investigate offenders.

Freedom of expression

The Bill will ensure people in the UK can express themselves freely online and participate in pluralistic and robust debate.

All in-scope companies will need to consider and put in place safeguards for freedom of expression when fulfilling their duties. These safeguards will be set out by Ofcom in codes of practice but, for example, might include having human moderators take decisions in complex cases where context is important.

People using their services will need to have access to effective routes of appeal for content removed without good reason and companies must reinstate that content if it has been removed unfairly. Users will also be able to appeal to Ofcom and these complaints will form an essential part of Ofcom's horizon-scanning, research and enforcement activity.

Category 1 services will have additional duties. They will need to conduct and publish up-to-date assessments of their impact on freedom of expression and demonstrate they have taken steps to mitigate any adverse effects.

These measures remove the risk that online companies adopt restrictive measures or over-remove content in their efforts to meet their new online safety duties. An example of this could be AI moderation technologies falsely flagging innocuous content as harmful, such as satire.

Democratic content

Ministers have added new and specific duties to the Bill for Category 1 services to protect content defined as 'democratically important'. This will include content promoting or opposing government policy or a political party ahead of a vote in Parliament, election or referendum, or campaigning on a live political issue.

Companies will also be forbidden from discriminating against particular political viewpoints and will need to apply protections equally to a range of political opinions, no matter their affiliation. Policies to protect such content will need to be set out in clear and accessible terms and conditions and firms will need to stick to them or face enforcement action from Ofcom.

When moderating content, companies will need to take into account the political context around why the content is being shared and give it a high level of protection if it is democratically important.

For example, a major social media company may choose to prohibit all deadly or graphic violence. A campaign group could release violent footage to raise awareness about violence against a specific group. Given its importance to democratic debate, the company might choose to keep that content up, subject to warnings, but it would need to be upfront about the policy and ensure it is applied consistently.

Journalistic content

Content on news publishers' websites is not in scope. This includes both their own articles and user comments on these articles.

Articles by recognised news publishers shared on in-scope services will be exempted and Category 1 companies will now have a statutory duty to safeguard UK users' access to journalistic content shared on their platforms.

This means they will have to consider the importance of journalism when undertaking content moderation, have a fast-track appeals process for journalists' removed content, and will be held to account by Ofcom for the arbitrary removal of journalistic content. Citizen journalists' content will have the same protections as professional journalists' content.

Online fraud

Measures to tackle user-generated fraud will be included in the Bill. It will mean online companies will, for the first time, have to take responsibility for tackling fraudulent user-generated content, such as posts on social media, on their platforms. This includes romance scams and fake investment opportunities posted by users on Facebook groups or sent via Snapchat.

Romance fraud occurs when a victim is tricked into thinking that they are striking up a relationship with someone, often through an online dating website or app, when in fact this is a fraudster who will seek money or personal information.

Analysis by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau found in 2019/20 there were 5,727 instances of romance fraud in the UK (up 18 per cent year on year). Losses totalled more than £60 million.

Fraud via advertising, emails or cloned websites will not be in scope because the Bill focuses on harm committed through user-generated content.

The Government is working closely with industry, regulators and consumer groups to consider additional legislative and non-legislative solutions. The Home Office will publish a Fraud Action Plan after the 2021 spending review and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will consult on online advertising, including the role it can play in enabling online fraud, later this year.

Comment: Disasterous

11th May 2021. See article from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

Mark Johnson, Legal and Policy Officer at Big Brother Watch said:

The Online Safety Bill introduces state-backed censorship and monitoring on a scale never seen before in a liberal democracy.

This Bill is disastrous for privacy rights and free expression online. The Government is clamping down on vague categories of lawful speech. This could easily result in the silencing of marginalised voices and unpopular views.

Parliament should remove lawful content from the scope of this Bill altogether and refocus on real policing rather than speech-policing.

Proposed rules which would protect users from material likely to incite hatred on video sharing platforms (VSPs) risk unduly encroaching on freedom of expression, the National Secular Society has said.

The internet censor Ofcom is currently consulting on draft guidance for VSP providers, which is designed to protect consumers from viewing harmful content.

The NSS has responded to the consultation to express concern that Ofcom has not ensured adequate protection for freedom of expression.

The guidance says providers must ensure appropriate measures are in place to protect children from material that might impair their development; and to protect the public from criminal content and material likely to incite hatred.

The NSS said it was reasonable for Ofcom to require VSPs to moderate restricted material, but warned that rules around material likely to incite hatred were too vague.

The guidance requires moderation of material likely to incite hatred on various grounds, including religion or belief and political or any other opinion. It only defines incitement to hatred by saying it should be understood as having its usual meaning in everyday language.

The NSS said hatred was a largely subjective term and different individuals would have different interpretations of its meaning. The society raised concerns that the guidance would enable religious censorship, and highlighted examples of religious groups attempting to use claims of inciting hatred to censor critical or satirical material .

The NSS also said platforms would be incentivised to err on the side of censorship. The guidance includes significant penalties for permitting content that violates the rules, while there are no equivalent penalties for failing to uphold freedom of expression.

The NSS also said the guidance could unreasonably curb religious groups' freedom of expression.

The society said the guidance should include clearer instruction on VSPs' duty to have due regard for freedom of speech and freedom of religion or belief. It added that it should include more comprehensive explanations about what does not constitute material that is considered likely to incite hatred with regard to religion or belief.

The BBC published a report advocating government censorship of adult material in the name of preventing access by under 18s.

The BBC highlighted criticism of the government's failed age verification law by a concerned father and a student. The BBC misleadingly failed to mention that the concerned father was also a campaigning clergyman.

The BBC chose to foreground two people for their slanted reporting, one of them a man named Ioannis Dekas, only described as a father of four sons who allegedly became concerned after he found one of his boys had accessed pornography.

The report however, completely neglected to mention the fact that Dekas is a clergyman, which seems material to his participation in her piece. Dekas is listed online as Campus Pastor of Doxa Deo Community Church in London. His Twitter biography reads, Passionate about God, my family, the local Church, worship, music and Chelsea FC.

The BBC reporter also quoted another supposed authority who turns out to be the mouthpiece for a religiously-inspired nonprofit. Vanessa Morse is only identified as the head of the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation. The group is not further characterized by the BBC in any manner that would be relevant to their opinions on the subject. In fact CEASE UK is a religiously-inspired sex work abolitionist group with an avowed mission to eradicate all pornography.

The BBC has admitted flagging several Twitter accounts posting President Trump's statements. Some would say it is rather weird for a supposedly politically neutral global media house to take it upon itself to flag Twitter accounts for merely sharing what Trump said instead of just reporting the news.

In a recent report, covering the removal of the @DJTDesk account, which claimed to have been posting Trump's statement on behalf of his office, the BBC said that a spokesperson for Twitter said that the account was banned for posting content affiliated with a banned account. However, as noted in BBC's report, Trump adviser Jason Miller told NBC News that the @DJTDesk account was not set up by, or with permission of, anyone affiliated with the former president, meaning that it was just Trump supporters wanting to share what the former President said.

The report further claimed that the BBC had flagged four other accounts posting similar content.

Turkey's internet censor has warned online audio streaming giant Spotify to censor its content in line with Turkish legislation or risk critical items being removed or cut.

The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) said that it will consider removing or cutting all content found inappropriate.

Spotify has gained a wide audience recently as one of the last remaining outlets for free speech in Turkey, especially with its podcasts providing critical reporting and commentary on Turkish domestic politics.

Cathryn Grothe, research associate at Freedom House, commented that the move is part of a long decline in internet freedom, characterized by restrictive regulations such as the social media law, blocked websites, and heavy-handed crackdowns on independent media and journalists. She said:

Streaming services such as Spotify create a unique space where people can express themselves, relate to loved ones and friends over shared music or podcasts, and engage on a range of important issues, including human rights and politics.

When Apple released iOS 14.5 late last month, it began enforcing a policy called App Tracking Transparency. iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV apps are now required to request users' permission to use techniques like IDFA (ID for Advertisers) to track those users' activity across multiple apps for data collection and ad targeting purposes.

The change met fierce resistance from companies like Facebook, whose revenue streams are built on leveraging users' data to target advertising. Facebook went so far as to take out full-page newspaper ads claiming that the change would not just hurt Facebook but would destroy small businesses around the world.

Nonetheless, Facebook and others have complied with Apple's new rule to avoid being rejected from the iPhone's App Store.

A company called Flurry Analytics, which claims to be used in more than one million mobile apps, has reported that US Apple users agree to be tracked only 4% of the time. The global number is significantly higher at 12%, but that's well below the hopes of advertising companies who were rather hoping that 40% of users would allow snooping.

A few years ago African countries dreamt up a new, and quite onerous, tax on viewing blogs and social media.  The government considered it a good way to raise money -- and to muzzle inconvenient voices.

A year later, Techdirt was reporting on a sudden boom in VPN use among Ugandans keen to avoid the tax. The authorities turned to pressuring ISPs to ban the use of VPNs.

Inevitably after three years, the tax has failed. It has neither helped the government raise significant revenue nor curtailed lively online discussions by young Ugandans.

So the Ugandan government has come up with a pan B. On April 29, the government replaced the social media tax with a 12% excise duty on internet data that will likely hike the cost of internet access in the landlocked country that already has some of the highest and most unaffordable internet costs in the region.

Facebook's ban of Donald Trump has been upheld by Facebook's Oversight Board.

Though the board did criticise the permanent nature of the ban as beyond the scope of Facebook's normal penalties.  The board said the initial decision to permanently suspend Trump was indeterminate and standardless, and that the correct response should be consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform. Facebook must respond within six months, it said.

The former president was banned from both sites in January following the Capitol Hill riots.

Meanwhile Trump has launched a new website to update supporters with his thoughts. In a post published following the Facebook ruling, he claimed there had been fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election, and encouraged his supporters to never give up. What did the Board say?

The Oversight Board criticised Facebook for offloading the question of political censorship to the board. The Board argued that Facebook had essentially issued a vague, standardless penalty and then [referred] this case to the Board to resolve. It said doing so meant Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities - and sent the decision back to Facebook.

The EU Commission has welcomed a political agreement between the European Parliament and the Council on the proposed interim legislation regarding the detection of child sexual abuse online by communications services. This legal adjustment was urgently needed to give certain online communications services such as webmail and messaging services legal certainty in their voluntary measures to detect and report child sexual abuse online and to remove child sexual abuse material, as such services fell under the e-Privacy Directive as of 21 December 2020. The new Regulation will provide guarantees to safeguard privacy and protection of personal data. The voluntary measures play an important role in enabling the identification and rescue of victims and reducing the further dissemination of child sexual abuse material, and contribute to the identification and investigation of offenders as well as the prevention of offences.

The rules agreed today have a narrow scope: they will create a temporary and strictly limited derogation concerning the voluntary detection activities of the online communication services. The main elements of today's agreement include:

• A definition of child sexual abuse online in line with the existing EU rules on child sexual abuse , including content constituting child sexual abuse material and solicitation of children.

• Complaint mechanisms so that content that has been removed erroneously can be reinstated as soon as possible.

• Human oversight for any processing of personal data including, where necessary, human confirmation before reporting to law enforcement authorities or organisations acting in the public interest.

• Guarantees to protect privacy : Service providers will have to ensure that the technologies they use to detect child sexual abuse online are the least privacy-intrusive.

• Data protection safeguards: Service providers will have to consult with data protection authorities on their processing to detect and report child sexual abuse online and remove child sexual abuse material. The European Data Protection Board will also be asked to publish guidelines to assist the relevant authorities in assessing compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation of the processing in scope of the agreed Regulation.

• The Commission will have to establish a public register of organisations acting in the public interest against child sexual abuse, with which providers of online communications services can share personal data resulting from the voluntary measures.

• Transparency and accountability to be supported by annual transparency reports.

• A 3-year limit on the application of the Regulation, allowing time for the adoption of long-term legislation in this area.

The Regulation must now be formally adopted by the European Parliament and the Council.

This interim Regulation will cease to apply at the latest 3 years from its application. As announced in the EU Strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse and in the Commission Work Programme for 2021 , the Commission will propose later this year new comprehensive legislation with detailed safeguards to fight child sexual abuse online and offline. These long-term rules will be intended to replace the interim legislation agreed today.

The music streaming service Spotify has files a disgraceful patent to use artificial intelligence for emotional surveillance and manipulation, spying on our conversations and using the sound of our voices to target you with ads and music to keep you on the platform.

Imagine telling a friend that you're feeling depressed and having Spotify hear that and algorithmically recommend music that matches your mood to keep you depressed and listening to the music they want you to hear.

Digital rights organization Access Now sent a letter to Spotify explaining that such a practice would be deeply invasive and could expose Spotify users to security threats from stalkers or government surveillance. It could also disproportionately harm trans people and be used to emotionally manipulate all of us. Emotion recognition software is largely seen as racist pseudoscience , it's disgusting that Spotify is even considering using such a technology to extract data and profit from music listeners. And it's horrifying to think about what kind of impact this could have on independent artists and creators, when music is promoted based on surveillance rather than artistry.

The Biden administration is considering using outside firms to track social media chatter by Americans online, an effort that would expand the government's ability to gather intelligence but could draw criticism over surveillance of US citizens.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is legally limited in how it can monitor citizens online without justification and is banned from activities like assuming false identities to gain access to private messaging apps used by extremist groups. Instead, federal authorities can only browse through unprotected information on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and other open online platforms. A source familiar with the effort said it is not about decrypting data but rather using outside entities who can legally access these private groups to gather large amounts of information that could help DHS identify key narratives as they emerge.

The plan being discussed inside DHS, according to multiple sources, would, in effect, allow the department to circumvent those limits. The DHS has denied the claim saying it is not partnering with private firms to surveil suspected domestic terrorists online and it is blatantly false to suggest that the department is using outside firms to circumvent its legal limits.

However the DHS statement  said that the department has considered partnering with research firms who have more visibility in this space, though it has not done so to this point. If that ultimately happens, DHS could produce information that would likely be beneficial to both it and the FBI, which can't monitor US citizens in this way without first getting a warrant or having the pretext of an ongoing investigation.

The EU has dreamed up another impossible to comply with piece of internet legislation that places onerous, if not impossible, requirements on small internet businesses that will have to relocate user forums and the likes onto the platforms of the US internet giants that are able to deal with the ludicrously short timescales demanded by the EU.

The EU describes its latest attack on business in a press release:

A new law to address the dissemination of terrorist content online was approved by the EU Parliament:

The new regulation will target content such as texts, images, sound recordings or videos, including live transmissions, that incite, solicit or contribute to terrorist offences, provide instructions for such offences or solicit people to participate in a terrorist group. In line with the definitions of offences included in the Directive on combating terrorism , it will also cover material that provides guidance on how to make and use explosives, firearms and other weapons for terrorist purposes.

Terrorist content must be removed within one hour

Hosting service providers will have to remove or disable access to flagged terrorist content in all member states within one hour of receiving a removal order from the competent authority. Member states will adopt rules on penalties, the degree of which will take into account the nature of the breach and the size of company responsible.

Protection of educational, artistic, research and journalistic material

Content uploaded for educational, journalistic, artistic or research purposes, or used for awareness-raising purposes, will not be considered terrorist content under these new rules.

No general obligation to monitor or filter content

Internet platforms will not have a general obligation to monitor or filter content. However, when competent national authorities have established a hosting service provider is exposed to terrorist content, the company will have to take specific measures to prevent its propagation. It will then be up to the service provider to decide what specific measures to take to prevent this from happening, and there will be no obligation to use automated tools. Companies should publish annual transparency reports on what action they have taken to stop the dissemination of terrorist content.

Next steps

The Regulation will enter into force on the twentieth day following publication in the Official Journal. It will start applying 12 months after its entry into force.

US Senator Bill Hagerty proposes bill to make platforms with over 100 million users common carriers and so end their powers to censor speech on grounds of wrong think political opinion.

Hagerty's bill draws from a recommendation by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas , who said the censorship on Big Tech platforms could be ended if they were treated as common carriers.

In an article published by the Wall Street Journal, Hagerty argued that, like phone networks and trains, online platforms are essential to everyday goings-on, therefore, should be treated as common carriers, which are subject to special regulations, including a general requirement to serve all comers without discrimination.

The bill, called the 21st Century Free Speech Act , will apply to online platforms that have more than 100 million monthly active users. It would remove the protections online platforms enjoy under Section 230, which allows platforms to avoid liability for the content of their users.

For platforms to continue being family-friendly, some content moderation would be allowed. Online platforms would also have to make public their content moderation techniques. Additionally, users would have a private right action against tech corporations, so that they would be able to sue if they feel a company has unfairly censored them.

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

euCONSENT is a European Commission project under the call:

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

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

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

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