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
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.
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 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 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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 