Censor Watch

Mystery Men is a 1999 USA action comedy fantasy by Kinka Usher.
Starring Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo and William H Macy.

Uncut and PG rated for 1999 cinema release but cut and PG rated for all UK home video releases until a12 rated uncut Blu-ray in 2020. Uncut and MPAA PG-13 rated in the US.

 

Cutting Edge Quick Trims

Quick Trims 21: Mystery Men on YouTube.
See more from Cutting Edge

Summary Notes

In order to generate more endorsement revenue, Champion City's resident superhero Captain Amazing arranges for the release of supervillain Casanova Frankenstein, only to be captured by him. The city's fate rests in the hands of seven loser superhero wannabes: the spoon-flinging Blue Rajah, the shovel-wielding Shoveler, the possessed bowling ball-hurling Bowler, the flatulent Spleen, the only-when-nobody's-looking Invisible Boy, the mysterious Sphinx, and the perpetually-angry Mr. Furious.

121:16s

UK: Passed 12 uncut for moderate violence, brief gore, sex references, implied strong language: 2020 88 Films Limited video

In an episode of the comedy programme Heresy , broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the comedian Jo Brand made comments about milkshakes being thrown at politicians, suggesting battery acid could be used instead.

The BBC assessed complaints it received under the BBC First process that the comments were highly offensive and likely to incite violence. The BBC upheld the complaints about offence, but not those about incitement.

Ofcom then received six complaints which had completed the BBC First process. We carefully assessed these complaints against the Broadcasting Code, taking into account the broadcaster’s and the audience’s rights to freedom of expression without undue interference.

We concluded that Ms Brand’s comments had clear potential to offend listeners. However, we considered a range of contextual factors, including the likely audience expectations of this well-known comedian, and long-running comedy programme, which aims to challenge generally accepted ideas through satire. We also took into account that Ms Brand immediately qualified her comments, making it clear they should not be taken seriously or acted on. For these and other reasons set out below, we have concluded that the complaints do not warrant further investigation by Ofcom.

Birds of Prey is a 2020 USA action crime adventure by Cathy Yan.
Starring Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ewan McGregor.

The upcoming cinema release was passed 15 uncut for strong violence, injury detail, language, sexual threat.

The BBFC noted that this was the first film rated using new technology at the BBFC, explaining:

The first film to be classified using the BBFC's brand new, world leading classification platform has officially received its age rating certificate.

Birds of Prey is the first cinema release to be submitted and classified using the BBFC's new client portal and tagging platform. The BBFC has been classifying content since 1912, and this is the biggest technology transformation the organisation has seen.

The transformation project, known as Project Horizon is cloud based, and has been developed by a group of cutting edge technology partners including Amazon Web Services, Vidispine, Guidesmiths, NMR Consultancy Ltd and 100 Shapes.

Dave Barrett, Deputy CEO of the BBFC, said:

This is a radical shift in the way that we work with our clients to classify content. Along with our consultants, Remodus, who worked with us on the development of the platform, we have been working in close partnership with the film and home entertainment industries and our technology partners to design and build a flexible system that makes our classification process even more efficient and much easier for everyone involved.

Everything submitted to the BBFC will still be seen by our highly trained team of compliance officers, it's simply the tools that we use as a business which are changing. This is a move towards greater transparency between regulator and client - and we're looking forward to migrating all our clients to the new system by summer 2020

The key differences between the old system and the new platform include; a flexible and intuitive client portal for all submissions; a content tagging and data enrichment platform where classification is carried out; and reduces risk.

The new client portal offers all clients choice over dates and price structure, and greater control over their account management.

Germany was a major force behind the EU's disgraceful copyright directive passed last year. It is perhaps no surprise that proposed implementation into German law is even more extreme than the directive.

In particular the link tax has been drafted so that it is nearly impossible to refer to a press article without an impossibly expensive licence to use the newspaper's content.

The former Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda has picked out the main bad ideas on Twitter.

Under the German proposals, now up for public consultation, only single words or very short extracts of a press article can be quoted without a license. Specifically, free quotation is limited to:

• the headline
• a small-format preview image with a resolution of 128-by-128 pixels
• a sequence of sounds, images or videos with a duration of up to three seconds

Techdirt explains:

The proposal states that the new ancillary copyright does not apply to hyperlinks, or to private or non-commercial use of press publishers' materials by a single user. However, as we know from the tortured history of the Creative Commons non-commercial license, it is by no means clear what non-commercial means in practice.

Press publishers are quite likely to insist that posting memes on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter -- all undoubtedly commercial in nature -- is not allowed in general under the EU Copyright Directive.

We won't know until top EU courts rule on the details, which will take years. In the meantime, online services will doubtless prefer to err on the side of caution, keen to avoid the risk of heavy fines. It is likely they will configure their automated filters to block any use of press publishers' material that goes beyond the extremely restrictive limits listed above. Moreover, this will probably apply across the EU, not just in Germany, since setting up country-by-country upload filters is more expensive. Far easier to roll out the most restrictive rules across the whole region.

Universities and Science Minister Chris Skidmore has said that the UK will not implement the EU Copyright Directive after the country leaves the EU.

Several companies have criticised the disgraceful EU law, which would hold them accountable for not removing copyrighted content uploaded by users.

EU member states have until 7 June 2021 to implement the new reforms, but the UK will have left the EU by then.

It was Article 13 which prompted fears over the future of memes and GIFs - stills, animated or short video clips that go viral - since they mainly rely on copyrighted scenes from TV and film. Critics noted that Article 13 would make it nearly impossible to upload even the tiniest part of a copyrighted work to Facebook, YouTube, or any other site.

Other articles give the news industry total copyright control of news material that people have previously been widely used in people's blogs and posts commenting on the news.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson criticised the law in March, claiming that it was terrible for the internet.

Google had campaigned fiercely against the changes, arguing they would harm Europe's creative and digital industries and change the web as we know it. YouTube boss Susan Wojcicki had also warned that users in the EU could be cut off from the video platform.

Actor Laurence Fox caused a bit of a stir when not going along with the progressive line that it is racist to criticise Meghan Markle.

The heated exchange result in 250 complaints to Ofcom but even the complaints had something extra to add to the debate. According to the Express the main issue of the complaints wasn't targeted at what Fox said. Instead the complaints were directed at the audience response which was generally supportive of Fox's line of debate, especially when Fox took issue with the audience members recourse to the clichéd claim of 'white privilege'.

Well the audience on meant to take the side of those opposing political correctness so the BBC was accused of selecting an audience that was not representative of the area (Liverpool) and so leading to a pro-Conservative bias in the discussion on racism.

It was pointed out in other articles that maybe the BBC bias in audience selection may have worked in the other direction. The audience member who accused Fox of 'white privilege' is well known to the BBC and has appeared on topical BBC shows eg discussing what the papers say.

Not the complaints will go anywhere. They will already be in Ofcom's waste paper bin already, who'd want to get involved arbitrating in such a debate anyway?

A silly joke on Tuesday's episode of ITV's Good Morning Britain has resulted in 1095 complaints to Ofcom.

Piers Morgan and co-host Susanna Reid were discussing the Queen's eldest grandson Peter Phillips appearing in a TV advert for state milk in China. Morgan said:

Oh Peter, for god's sake man! before accusing him of exploiting his royal status. At the next royal event, can you imagine Christmas at Sandringham is like - 'I'm sorry your majesty, but I only drink yang yank yong ying ming milk.

After a video of the advert Morgan added:

Ok then - ching chang chong, ok I got it.

Reid scolded her co-star:

For god's sake... taking the mick out of languages is rather 1970s

An Ofcom spokesperson confirmed that 1,095 complaints had been made and said in a statement:

We are assessing the complaints against our broadcasting rules, but are yet to decide whether or not to investigate.

Again this is Ofcom code for being in the waste paper bin already.

Digital Spy reports that the episode has been removed from the ITV Hub.

News websites will have to ask readers to verify their age or comply with a new 15-point code from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) designed to protect children's online data, ICO has confirmed.

Press campaign groups were hoping news websites would be exempt from the new Age Appropriate Design Code so protecting their vital digital advertising revenues which are currently enhanced by extensive profiled advertising.

Applying the code as standard will mean websites putting privacy settings to high and turning off default data profiling. If they want to continue enjoying revenues from behavioural advertising they will need to get adult readers to verify their age.

In its 2019 draft ICO had previously said such measures must be robust and that simply asking readers to declare their age would not be enough.But it has now confirmed to Press Gazette that for news websites that adhere to an editorial code, such self-declaration measures are likely to be sufficient.

This could mean news websites asking readers to enter their date of birth or tick a box confirming they are over 18. An ICO spokesperson said sites using these methods might also want to consider some low level technical measures to discourage false declarations of age, but anything more privacy intrusive is unlikely to be appropriate..

But Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray predicted the new demands may prove unpopular even at the simplest level. Asking visitors to confirm their age [and hence submit to snooping and profiling] -- even a simple yes or no tick box -- could be a barrier to readers.

The ICO has said it will work with the news media industry over a 12-month transition period to enable proportionate and practical measures to be put in place for either scenario.

In fact ICO produced a separate document alongside the code to explain how it could impact news media, which it said would be allowed to apply the code in a risk-based and proportionate way.

The Metropolitan Police has announced it will use live facial recognition cameras operationally for the first time on London streets.

Following earlier pilots in London and deployments by South Wales police, the cameras are due to be put into action within a month. Cameras will be clearly signposted, covering a small, targeted area, and police officers will hand out leaflets about the facial recognition scanning, the Met said.

Trials of the cameras have already taken place on 10 occasions in locations such as Stratford's Westfield shopping centre and the West End of London. The Met said in these trials, 70% of wanted suspects in the system who walked past the cameras were identified, while only one in 1,000 people generated a false alert. But an independent review of six of these deployments found that only eight out of 42 matches were verifiably correct.

Over the past four years, as the Met has trialled facial recognition, opposition to its use has intensified, led in the UK by campaign groups Liberty and Big Brother Watch.

The force also believes a recent High Court judgment, which said South Wales Police did not breach the rights of a man whose face had been scanned by a camera, gives it some legal cover. The case is heading for the Court of Appeal. But the Met is pressing on, convinced that the public at large will support its efforts to use facial recognition to track down serious offenders.

Last year, the Met admitted it supplied images for a database carrying out facial recognition scans on a privately owned estate in King's Cross, after initially denying involvement.

Update: Censored whilst claiming to be uncensored

24th January 2020. See article from ico.org.uk

It seems to the normal response from the Information Commissioner's Office to turn a blind eye to the actual serious exploitation of people's personal data whilst focusing heavily on generating excessive quantities of red tape rules requiring small players to be ultra protective of personal to point of strangling their businesses and livelihoods. And, just like for unconsented website tracking and profiling by the only advertising industry, the ICO will monitor and observe and comment again later in the year:

In October 2019 we concluded our investigation into how police use live facial recognition technology (LFR) in public places. Our investigation found there was public support for police use of LFR but also that there needed to be improvements in how police authorised and deployed the technology if it was to retain public confidence and address privacy concerns. We set out our views in a formal Opinion for police forces.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has incorporated the advice from our Opinion into its planning and preparation for future LFR use. Our Opinion acknowledges that an appropriately governed, targeted and intelligence- led deployment of LFR may meet the threshold of strict necessity for law enforcement purposes. We have received assurances from the MPS that it is considering the impact of this technology and is taking steps to reduce intrusion and comply with the requirements of data protection legislation. We expect to receive further information from the MPS regarding this matter in forthcoming days. The MPS has committed to us that it will review each deployment, and the ICO will continue to observe and monitor the arrangements for, and effectiveness of, its use.

This is an important new technology with potentially significant privacy implications for UK citizens. We reiterate our call for Government to introduce a statutory and binding code of practice for LFR as a matter of priority. The code will ensure consistency in how police forces use this technology and to improve clarity and foreseeability in its use for the public and police officers alike. We believe it's important for government to work with regulators, law enforcement, technology providers and communities to support the code.

Facial recognition remains a high priority for the ICO and the public. We have several ongoing investigations. We will be publishing more about its use by the private sector later this year.

Update: Big Brother Watch  Petition

24th January 2020. Sign the petition from you.38degrees.org.uk

To: Priti Patel, Home Secretary and Cressida Dick, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police

Urgently stop the Metropolitan Police using live facial recognition surveillance.

Why is this important?

The Metropolitan Police has announced it will use live facial recognition across London, despite an independent review finding its previous trials likely unlawful and over 80% inaccurate. The Met is the largest police force in the democratic world to roll out this dangerously authoritarian surveillance. This represents an enormous expansion of the surveillance state and a serious threat to civil liberties in the UK - and it sets a dangerous precedent worldwide. We urge the Home Secretary and Met Commissioner to stop it now.

The EU is a bizarre institution. It tries to resolve fairness issues, social ills and international competition rules, all by dreaming up reams of red tape without any consideration of where it will lead.

Well red tape ALWAYS works to the advantage of the largest players who have the scale and wealth to take the onerous and expensive rules in their stride. The smaller players end up being pushed out of the market.

And in the case of the internet the largest players are American (or more latterly Chinese) and indeed they have proven to best able to take advantage of European rules. And of course the smaller players are European and are indeed being pushed out of the market.

Axel Voss is one of the worst examples of European politicians dreaming up red tape that advantages the USA. His latest effort was to push through an upcoming European law that will require social media companies to pre-censor up loaded content for copyright infringement. Of course the only way this can be done practically is to have some mega artificial intelligence effort to try and automatically scan all content for video, text and audio that may be copyrighted. And guess who are the only companies in the world that have the technology to perform such a feat...well the US and Chinese internet giants of course.

Now out of supreme irony Voss himself has had a whinge about the American and Chinese domination of the internet.

In a long whinge about the lack of European presence in the internet industry he commented on Europe's dependence on US companies. If Google decides to switch off all its services tomorrow, I would like to know what will be left in Europe, said Voss, painting a gloomy picture in which there are no search engines, no browsers and no Google Maps.

.. Read the full article from euractiv.com

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has just published its Age Appropriate Design Code:

The draft was published last year and was opened to a public consultation which came down heavily against ICO's demands that website users should be age verified so that the websites could tailor data protection to the age of the user.

Well in this final release ICO has backed off from requiring age verification for everything, and instead suggested something less onerous called age 'assurance'. The idea seems to be that age can be ascertained from behaviour, eg if a YouTube user watches Peppa Pig all day then one can assume that they are of primary school age.

However this does seem lead to a loads of contradictions, eg age can be assessed by profiling users behaviour on the site, but the site isn't allowed to profile people until they are old enough to agree to this. The ICO recognises this contradiction but doesn't really help much with a solution in practice.

The ICO defines the code as only applying to sites likely to be accessed by children (ie websites appealing to all ages are considered caught up by the code even though they are not specifically for children.

On a wider point the code will be very challenging to monetisation methods for general websites. The code requires website to default to no profiling, no geo-location, no in-game sales etc. It assumes that adults will identify themselves and so enable all these things to happen. However it may well be that adults will quite like this default setting and end up not opting for more, leaving the websites without income.

Note that these rules are in the UK interpretation of GDPR law and are not actually in the European directive. So they are covered by statute, but only in the UK. European competitors have no equivalent requirements.

The ICO press release reads:

Today the Information Commissioner's Office has published its final Age Appropriate Design Code -- a set of 15 standards that online services should meet to protect children's privacy.

The code sets out the standards expected of those responsible for designing, developing or providing online services like apps, connected toys, social media platforms, online games, educational websites and streaming services. It covers services likely to be accessed by children and which process their data.

The code will require digital services to automatically provide children with a built-in baseline of data protection whenever they download a new app, game or visit a website.

That means privacy settings should be set to high by default and nudge techniques should not be used to encourage children to weaken their settings. Location settings that allow the world to see where a child is, should also be switched off by default. Data collection and sharing should be minimised and profiling that can allow children to be served up targeted content should be switched off by default too.

Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, said:

"Personal data often drives the content that our children are exposed to -- what they like, what they search for, when they log on and off and even how they are feeling.

"In an age when children learn how to use an iPad before they ride a bike, it is right that organisations designing and developing online services do so with the best interests of children in mind. Children's privacy must not be traded in the chase for profit."

The code says that the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration when designing and developing online services. And it gives practical guidance on data protection safeguards that ensure online services are appropriate for use by children.

Denham said:

"One in five internet users in the UK is a child, but they are using an internet that was not designed for them.

"There are laws to protect children in the real world -- film ratings, car seats, age restrictions on drinking and smoking. We need our laws to protect children in the digital world too.

"In a generation from now, we will look back and find it astonishing that online services weren't always designed with children in mind."

The standards of the code are rooted in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the code was introduced by the Data Protection Act 2018. The ICO submitted the code to the Secretary of State in November and it must complete a statutory process before it is laid in Parliament for approval. After that, organisations will have 12 months to update their practices before the code comes into full effect. The ICO expects this to be by autumn 2021.

This version of the code is the result of wide-ranging consultation and engagement.

The ICO received 450 responses to its initial consultation in April 2019 and followed up with dozens of meetings with individual organisations, trade bodies, industry and sector representatives, and campaigners.

As a result, and in addition to the code itself, the ICO is preparing a significant package of support for organisations.

The code is the first of its kind, but it reflects the global direction of travel with similar reform being considered in the USA, Europe and globally by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Update: The legals

23rd January 2020. See article from techcrunch.com

Schedule

The code now has to be laid before parliament for approval for a period of 40 sitting days -- with the ICO saying it will come into force 21 days after that, assuming no objections. Then there's a further 12 month transition period after it comes into force.

Obligation or codes of practice?

Neil Brown, an Internet, telecoms and tech lawyer at Decoded Legal explained:

This is not, and will not be, 'law'. It is just a code of practice. It shows the direction of the ICO's thinking, and its expectations, and the ICO has to have regard to it when it takes enforcement action but it's not something with which an organisation needs to comply as such. They need to comply with the law, which is the GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] and the DPA [Data Protection Act] 2018.

Right now, online services should be working out how to comply with the GDPR, the ePrivacy rules, and any other applicable laws. The obligation to comply with those laws does not change because of today's code of practice. Rather, the code of practice shows the ICO's thinking on what compliance might look like (and, possibly, goldplates some of the requirements of the law too).

Comment: ICO pushes ahead with age gates

23rd January 2020. See article from openrightsgroup.org

The ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code released today includes changes which lessen the risk of widespread age gates, but retains strong incentives towards greater age gating of content.

Over 280 ORG supporters wrote to the ICO about the previous draft code, to express concerns with compulsory age checks for websites, which could lead to restrictions on content.

Under the code, companies must establish the age of users, or restrict their use of data. ORG is concerned that this will mean that adults only access websites when age verified creating severe restrictions on access to information.

The ICO's changes to the Code in response to ORG's concerns suggest that different strategies to establish age may be used, attempting to reduce the risk of forcing compulsory age verification of users.

However, the ICO has not published any assessment to understand whether these strategies are practical or what their actual impact would be.

The Code could easily lead to Age Verification through the backdoor as it creates the threat of fines if sites have not established the age of their users.

While the Code has many useful ideas and important protections for children, this should not come at the cost of pushing all websites to undergo age verification of users. Age Verification could extend through social media, games and news publications.

Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group said:

The ICO has made some useful changes to their code, which make it clear that age verification is not the only method to determine age.

However, the ICO don't know how their code will change adults access to content in practice. The new code published today does not include an Impact Assessment. Parliament must produce one and assess implications for free expression before agreeing to the code.

Age Verification demands could become a barrier to adults reaching legal content, including news, opinion and social media. This would severely impact free expression.

The public and Parliament deserve a thorough discussion of the implications, rather than sneaking in a change via parliamentary rubber stamping with potentially huge implications for the way we access Internet content.

An anti-jewish book of historical interest has caused a bit of a stir in Australia after it was found to be available for sale on Amazon.

New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff wrote to Amazon Australia last week after seeing a number of controversial titles for sale, including one titled Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Alhadeff wrote:

By providing a platform for individuals to buy and sell such flawed and racist texts, Amazon is in fact contributing to the deeply concerning global increase in antisemitic incidents which we are currently witnessing.

Amazon has posted an explanation of why the book is for sale on the website:

Amazon does not endorse The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. This book is one of the most infamous, and tragically influential, examples of racist propaganda ever written. It may be useful to some as a tool in the teaching of the history of anti-Semitism, but it's unquestionably propaganda.

Does Amazon sell this book? We do, along with millions of other titles. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is classified under controversial knowledge in our store, along with books about UFOs, demonic possession, and all manner of conspiracy theories. You can also find books in other sections of Amazon's online bookstore that analyze The Protocols' fraudulent origins and its tragic historical role in promoting anti-Semitism and Jewish persecution, including A Lie and a Libel: The History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As a bookseller, Amazon strongly believes that providing open access to written speech, no matter how hateful or ugly, is one of the most important things we do. And because we think the best remedy for offensive speech is more speech, we also make available to readers the ability to make their own voices heard and express their views about this and all our titles in reviews and ratings.

Update: Fine words from Amazon...but...

6th February 2020. See article from thejc.com

Amazon has removed two two books from sale by an author whose works accuse Jews of having played an exceptionally active role in promoting and inciting war and Hitler.

The latest book by Thomas Dalton PhD -- Eternal Strangers: Critical Views of Jews and Judaism Through the Ages -- was released last week and follows The Jewish Hand in the World Wars.

Both were available to buy through the online retailer, listed as dispatched from and sold by Amazon, until antisemitism campaigners complained.

Blatant abuse of people's private data has become firmly entrenched in the economic model of the free internet ever since Google recognised the value of analysing what people are searching for.

Now vast swathes of the internet are handsomely funded by the exploitation of people's personal data. But that deep entrenchment clearly makes the issue a bit difficult to put right without bankrupting half of the internet that has come to rely on the process.

The EU hasn't helped with its ludicrous idea of focusing its laws on companies having to obtain people's consent to have their data exploited. A more practical lawmaker would have simply banned the abuse of personal data without bothering with the silly consent games. But the EU seems prone to being lobbied and does not often come up with the most obvious solution.

Anyway enforcement of the EU's law is certainly causing issues for the internet censors at the UK's ICO.

The ICO warned the adtech industry 6 months ago that its approach is illegal  and has now announced that it would not be taking any action against the data abuse yet, as the industry has made a few noises about improving a bit over the coming months.

Simon McDougall, ICO Executive Director of Technology and Innovation has written:

The adtech real time bidding (RTB) industry is complex, involving thousands of companies in the UK alone. Many different actors and service providers sit between the advertisers buying online advertising space, and the publishers selling it.

There is a significant lack of transparency due to the nature of the supply chain and the role different actors play. Our June 2019 report identified a range of issues. We are confident that any organisation that has not properly addressed these issues risks operating in breach of data protection law.

This is a systemic problem that requires organisations to take ownership for their own data processing, and for industry to collectively reform RTB. We gave industry six months to work on the points we raised, and offered to continue to engage with stakeholders. Two key organisations in the industry are starting to make the changes needed.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK has agreed a range of principles that align with our concerns, and is developing its own guidance for organisations on security, data minimisation, and data retention, as well as UK-focused guidance on the content taxonomy. It will also educate the industry on special category data and cookie requirements, and continue work on some specific areas of detail. We will continue to engage with IAB UK to ensure these proposals are executed in a timely manner.

Separately, Google will remove content categories, and improve its process for auditing counterparties. It has also recently proposed improvements to its Chrome browser, including phasing out support for third party cookies within the next two years. We are encouraged by this, and will continue to look at the changes Google has proposed.

Finally, we have also received commitments from other UK advertising trade bodies to produce guidance for their members

If these measures are fully implemented they will result in real improvements to the handling of personal data within the adtech industry. We will continue to engage with industry where we think engagement will deliver the most effective outcome for data subjects.

Comment: Data regulator ICO fails to enforce the law

18th January 2020. See article from openrightsgroup.org

Responding to ICO's announcement today that the regulator is taking minimal steps to enforce the law against massive data breaches taking place in the online ad industry through Real-Time Bidding, complainants Jim Killock and Michael Veale have called on the regulator to enforce the law.

The complainants are considering taking legal action against the regulator. Legal action could be taken against the ICO for failure to enforce, or against the companies themselves for their breaches of Data Protection law.

The Real-Time Bidding data breach at the heart of RTB market exposes every person in the UK to mass profiling, and the attendant risks of manipulation and discrimination.

As the evidence submitted by the complainants notes, the real-time bidding systems designed by Google and the IAB broadcast what virtually all Internet users read, watch, and listen to online to thousands of companies, without protection of the data once broadcast. Now, sixteen months after the initial complaint, the ICO has failed to act.

Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group said:

The ICO is a regulator, so needs to enforce the law. It appears to be accepting that unlawful and dangerous sharing of personal data can continue, so long as 'improvements' are gradually made, with no actual date for compliance.

Last year the ICO gave a deadline for an industry response to our complaints. Now the ICO is falling into the trap set by industry, of accepting incremental but minimal changes that fail to deliver individuals the control of their personal data that they are legally entitled to.

The ICO must take enforcement action against IAB members.

We are considering our position, including whether to take legal action against the regulator for failing to act, or individual companies for their breach of data protection law.

Dr Michael Veale said:

When an industry is premised and profiting from clear and entrenched illegality that breach individuals' fundamental rights, engagement is not a suitable remedy. The ICO cannot continue to look back at its past precedents for enforcement action, because it is exactly that timid approach that has led us to where we are now.

Ravi Naik, solicitor acting for the complainants, said:

There is no dispute about the underlying illiegality at the heart of RTB that our clients have complained about. The ICO have agreed with those concerns yet the companies have not taken adequate steps to address those conerns. Nevertheless, the ICO has failed to take direct enforcement action needed to remedy these breaches.

Regulatory ambivalence cannot continue. The ICO is not a silo but is subject to judicial oversight. Indeed, the ICO's failure to act raises a question about the adequacy of the UK Data Protection Act. Is there proper judicial oversight of the ICO? This is a critical question after Brexit, when the UK needs to agree data transfer arrangements with the EU that cover all industries.

Dr. Johnny Ryan of Brave said:

The RTB system broadcasts what everyone is reading and watching online, hundreds of billions of times a day, to thousands of companies. It is by far the largest data breach ever recorded. The risks are profound. Brave will support ORG to ensure that the ICO discharges its responsibilities.

Jim Killock and Michael Veale complained about the Adtech industry and Real Time Bidding to the UK's ICO in September 2018. Johnny Ryan of Brave submitted a parallel complaint against Google about their Adtech system to the Irish Data Protection Authority.

Update: Advertising industry will introduce a 'gold standard 2.0' for privacy towards the end of 2020

23rd January 2020. See article from campaignlive.co.uk

The Internet Advertising Bureau UK has launched a new version of what it calls its Gold Standard certification process that will be independently audited by a third party.

In a move to address ongoing privacy concerns with the digital supply chain, the IAB's Gold Standard 2.0 will incorporate the Transparency and Consent Framework, a widely promoted industry standard for online advertising.

The new process will be introduced in the fourth quarter after an industry consultation to agree on the compliance criteria for incorporating the TCF.

The Age Verification for porn requirements inlcuded in the 2017 Digital Economy Acts were formally cancelled in October 2019. The 2017 was deeply flawed in omission of any effective requirements to keep porn users identity and browsing data safe. In addition the regime of enforcing the rules through BBFC censorship and ISP blocking were proving troublesome and expensive.

It is also interesting to note that the upcoming Online Harms bill has also been stripped of its ISP blocking enforcement options. I suspect that the police and security forces would rather not see half the population hidng their internet usage behind Tor and VPNs just so they can continue accessing porn.

For whatever reasons the government quite rightly considered that it would be a whole lot easier just to fine companies when they get it wrong and leave all the expensive technical details of how to to do this to the websites themselves. (This approach has worked well for gambling websites, where AV has been achieved without having to employ censors to make them toe the line).

So I don't tink the government will be interested in supporting the virtue signal lords and the bill will not be given time to get anywhere.

Elspeth Howe's short bill was introduced in the House of Lords on 21st January 2020 and reads:

Digital Economy Act 2017 (Commencement of Part 3) Bill

A bill to bring into force the remaining sections of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017.

1 The Secretary of State must make regulations under section 118(6) (commencement) of the Digital Economy Act 2017 to ensure that all provisions under Part 3 (online pornography) of that Act have come into force before 4 January 2021.

2 Extent, commencement and short title:

1. This Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

2. This Act comes into force on the day on which it is passed.

3. This Act may be cited as the Digital Economy Act 2017 (Commencement of Part 3) Act 2020.

Monty Python star Terry Jones has died at the age of 77, after having lived with dementia, his agent has said. A statement from his family said:

We have all lost a kind, funny, warm, creative and truly loving man.

Fellow Python Sir Michael Palin described Jones as one of the funniest writer-performers of his generation. John Cleese said:

It feels strange that a man of so many talents and such endless enthusiasm, should have faded so gently away. of his many achievements, for me the greatest gift he gave us all was his direction of Life of Brian. Perfection.

Both Monty Python's Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail had tussles with censors and the establishment in general.

Eleven countries have banned an episode of a new Apple TV Plus series, Little America , that focuses on a gay immigrant from Syria.

The episode released Friday internationally but 10 Arabic nations and Russia are preventing it from being screened in their countries.

The episode, The Son, centers on Rafiq (Haaz Sleiman) as he applies for asylum in the United States after facing violence and family rejection for his sexuality.

The episode was filmed in Canada rather than the US due to the casting of Syrian actors.

In response to the news of Little America s censorship, writer Amrou Al-Kadhi, a drag performer from Iraq, expressed a renewed commitment toward telling stories that reflect these experiences. "We will prevail," he told Pink News.

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani amended Article 136 of the country's penal code to make the publication or sharing of 'false news' punishable by up to five years in prison or a 100,000 Qatari riyal fine (US$27,500)

 CPJ Senior Middle East and North Africa Researcher Justin Shilad said:

Instead of standing up for press freedom in the Gulf region, where the free flow of information is under threat, Qatari authorities have jumped on the 'false news' bandwagon. Qatar should rescind this repressive law and focus instead on legislation that enshrines press freedom in line with its international human rights law commitments.

The New Zealand has been debating how to censor internet TV in the country, and it seems to have resulted in the likes of Netflix being able to self-classify their content.

The initial thought was that New Zealand's film censors at the Office of Film and Literature Classification should be given the job, but the likely expense seems to have swayed opinions.

Internal Affairs Tracey Martin has a bill in select committee which will make New Zealand classification labels like R16 mandatory for commercial on-demand video content such as Netflix, Lightbox, and the iTunes movie store. Mandatory classification will require some sort of fee for the providers which is yet to be established. The current fee is more than $1100 for an unrated film.

Officials from the Department of Internal Affairs in a regulatory impact statement said the mandatory classification presented a risk that content providers may withdraw from the market due to an increased compliance burden should they be required to classify all content via the current process. Officials also noted the risk of content providers would pass on the cost of classification to consumers through higher prices.

Officials noted that an approach that allowed the providers to classify their own content using a method prescribed by the censorship office should mitigate that risk and that no provider had yet threatened to leave the market.

In the end the Government opted to allow providers to self-classify, going against the wishes of the Children's Commissioner and the OFLC which wanted the current process followed.

Brief Statement from Josh Fox about The Public Theater cancellation of The Truth Has Changed

For the past week I have been performing my solo show THE TRUTH HAS CHANGED at The Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival.

The remainder of the show's run was cancelled today without notice nor any attempt to communicate clearly the reasons for the cancellation.

THE TRUTH HAS CHANGED is a highly political monologue that addresses our current crisis of truth and misinformation in this year's highly charged electoral atmosphere. It calls directly for non-violent political revolution and it addresses the connections between big oil, big data and white supremacy. The project is a clear, straightforward indictment of the politics of misinformation of Donald Trump, Facebook, and the oil industry, and it calls for direct audience reactions to its content. It is a vitally important work of art that nightly standing ovations, strong reviews, and vibrant public reaction prove needs to be seen. The Public Theater continually put up roadblocks to the show's success and promotion in the run up to the premiere and the staff was openly hostile towards the show in its brief tenure at the theater.

This includes verbal threats, coercion, angry tirades and physical intimidation by festival producers including Mark Russell, Jon Grenay and other Public staff members towards me personally and to members of our team. These clear violations of the code of conduct of the theater were noted, and we emailed 4 written statements to The Public Theater.. Our complaints were ignored and belittled. In response to acts of aggression towards me, I continually and passionately pleaded with Mark Russell, Ruth Sternberg and others, saying that we were feeling unsafe and that under present conditions we felt we could not do the show. I was accused of being too emotional, complaining too loudly, and then, without notice they cancelled the remaining run of the show.

...

However, are undaunted in our desire to present THE TRUTH HAS CHANGED. We will be running performances of the show at our small rehearsal space in Brooklyn, WOW HAUS, on Saturday and Sunday evenings at 8pm. We can only fit about 50 people into our space, but we wish to honor all ticket holders for our remaining shows AND ANYONE ELSE who wants to come. Free of charge. We will be looking for theaters to continue the run of this show immediately.

We reserve the right to legal action against The Public Theater and the Under The Radar Staff for their actions.

An Australian feminist campaign group, Collective Shout , have whinged about a KFC ZInger advert featuring young lads being transfixed by the cleavage of young woman checking her cheerleader like attire in the reflection of a car window.

The campaigners claimed the the ad to be:

a regression to tired and archaic stereotypes where young women were sexually objectified for male pleasure; and males were helplessly transfixed when confronted with the opportunity to ogle a woman's body.

The ad has been running on television and has also been shared on the fast food chain's YouTube channel.

KFC apologised saying:

We apologise if anyone was offended by our latest commercial. Our intention was not to stereotype women and young boys in a negative light.

KFC has not confirmed if it will stop using the ad.

Parents TV Council is a US moralist campaign. The group is clearly impressed by The Witcher on Netflix and is kindly spreading the message. The group writes:

The Parents Television Council is warning families about the graphic content found in Netflix's The Witcher , a new fantasy drama based on a book series and video game that is being compared to HBO's Game of Thrones .

Using filtering data from VidAngel, the PTC found that across eight episodes of the first season of The Witcher, viewers would hear 207 instances of profanity; witness 417 scenes of violence; and be subjected to 271 instances of sex, nudity and other sexual content -- around 100 instances of adult content per one hour episode.

PTC Program Director Melissa Henson said:

While families might be drawn to a fantasy-themed TV show, The Witcher is decidedly not family-friendly given the new data highlighting the explicit content viewers can see. From frequent nudity to graphic violence, The Witcher is certainly comparable to Game of Thrones with respect to adult content, most of which appears gratuitous. We hope that Netflix and other streaming services come to realize that needless explicit adult content isn't usually what viewers seek.

Netflix should also offer content filtering options for families who might be interested in watching The Witcher -- but without the adult content. That's a win-win solution for families and for Netflix, and crucial to Netflix's long-term growth strategy.

The Rhythm Section is a 2020 UK action mystery thriller by Reed Morano.
Starring Blake Lively, Sterling K Brown and Jude Law.

Passed 15 uncut for cinema release in 2019. A month later it was resubmitted in a slighter shorter version with the same rating and advice. MPAA R rated in the US but it is not known which version was submitted.

Summary Notes

Blake Lively stars as Stephanie Patrick, an ordinary woman on a path of self-destruction after her family is tragically killed in a plane crash. When Stephanie discovers that the crash was not an accident, she enters a dark, complex world to seek revenge on those responsible and find her own redemption. Based on the novel by Mark Burnell, from director Reed Morano ("The Handmaid's Tale") and the producers of the James Bond film series, The Rhythm Section also stars Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown.

Versions

re-edited cut: 3s run: 109:27s pal: 105:04s		UK: A shorter re-edited version was passed 15 for strong language, violence, brief drug misuse: 2020 cinema release
uncut run: 109:30s pal: 105:07s		UK: Passed 15 uncut for strong language, violence, brief drug misuse: 2019 cinema release

The Christian morality campaign group has had a beef about a Burger King advert where a customers says he's a 'damn fool' being deceived about a faux beef Whopper. The group complains:

Burger King is airing a commercial that uses profanity to advertise its Impossible Whopper -- a burger made from plants instead of beef.

The language in the commercial is offensive, and it's sad that this once family restaurant has made yet another deliberate decision to produce a controversial advertisement instead of a wholesome one.

In the Burger King commercial that is currently airing on TV, customers' responses are being videoed as they taste-test the Impossible Whopper. One man is completely shocked that the burger is not beef, so he uses word 'damn' to describe how he feels about himself for being deceived by the taste of the burger.

One Million Moms finds this highly inappropriate. When responding to the taste test, he didn't have to curse. Or if, in fact, it was a real and unscripted interview in which the man was not an actor, then Burger King could have simply chosen to edit the profanity out of the commercial.

Burger King's Impossible Whopper ad is irresponsible and tasteless. It is extremely destructive and damaging to impressionable children viewing the commercial. We all know children repeat what they hear.

This ad is airing during prime time, when families are likely watching. Burger King should be more responsible in its marketing decisions. Let the fast-food restaurant know that as a parent and a customer you are disgusted by its recent marketing choices.

Burger King needs to know parents do not approve!

Irish Justice minister Charlie Flanagan has announced the commencement of the Blasphemy (Abolition of Offences and Related Matters) Act 2019 .

The act was passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas before the Christmas recess, and was signed by the President on 21st December. The Minister said:

This act abolishes the offence of blasphemy, and reflects the outcome of last year's referendum in which the people approved removing the Constitutional requirement that blasphemy be a criminal offence, by a majority in each of the 40 constituencies, and by 64.85% of voters nationally.

He said that the very notion of criminalising blasphemy, with the risk of a chilling effect on free expression and public debate, has no place in the Constitution or the laws of a modern republic. He said the right to express differing viewpoints in a forthright and critical manner is a right to be cherished and upheld. He added:

It may seem abstract to devote time to abolishing an offence which has not been prosecuted in practice. But it must be remembered that a number of countries still actively prosecute charges of blasphemy. Imprisonment

Those charges can carry severe penalties, including terms of imprisonment, brutal physical punishments, and even the death penalty. They have also been applied in a discriminatory manner to justify the persecution of dissidents, the socially excluded, or religious minorities.

Such countries justify those regimes by referring to the continuance of blasphemy as a criminal offence in Ireland. That has always been a very disturbing reality. This act not only addresses the situation, but ensures that Ireland should never again be cited as an exemplar of such outdated concepts. Public showing

The act also amends the Censorship of Films Acts, to remove blasphemous content as a ground for refusing or restricting the public showing, or advertising of, a film.

Channel 4's How to Steal Pigs and Influence People documentary has drawn more than 300 complaints, Farmers Weekly has revealed.

Dozens of angry farmers and people in the agricultural industry have contacted the TV censor Ofcom after the programme aired on 14th January.

The documentary featured vegan activists stealing and freeing pigs from farms. The main focus was an incursion on an unsuspecting Lincolnshire pig farm by animal rights movement Meat the Victims , led by vegan activist Wesley Omar, who shared the footage online to a number of followers.

The overall response to the programme was said to be unsympathetic from the public, who questioned the motives of the vegan activists after they admitted the heists would increase their following on social media and attract thousands of pounds in crowdfunding.

A spokesperson for Ofcom told Farmers Weekly: We have received 313 complaints about the C4 programme, How to Steal Pigs and Influence People.

Four age verification companies have launched legal action to challenge the government's decision to cancel the censorship scheme requiring age verification for access to internet porn. The companies have lodged a judicial review at the High Court Thursday.

The Telegraph understands the companies are arguing the decision was an abuse of power as the move had been approved by parliament. They are also claiming damages, understood to be in the region of £3 million, for losses sustained developing age verification technology.

The four companies behind the judicial review - AgeChecked Ltd, VeriMe, AVYourself and AVSecure - are arguing the secretary of state only had power to choose when the scheme came into force, not scrap it in the form passed by Parliament.

The legal action has been backed by campaigners from the Children's Charities' Coalition for Internet Safety (CCCIS), which represents organisations including the NSPCC and Barnardo's.

The CEO of AVSecure, Stuart Lawley, a British tech entrepreneur who made his fortune in the dotcom boom, said he had personally lost millions creating the technology. He said the company, which is behind other parental control apps such as Ageblock, had been preparing for up to 10 million people signing up for the service on day one.

Comment: Age Verification Judicial Review endangers UK citizens' privacy

18th January 2020. See article from openrightsgroup.org

Reacting to the Judicial Review launched by Tech companies to force Age Verification for adult content to be implemented Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group said:

These companies are asking us to trust them with records of millions of people's sexual preferences, with huge commercial reasons to use that data for profiling and advertising.

The adult industry has a terrible record on data security. We're being asked to hope they don't repeat the many, many times they have lost personal data, with the result that blackmail scams and worse proliferates.

The government did the responsible thing when it admitted its plans were not ready to proceed. Age Verification must not be pushed forward until there is compulsory privacy regulation put in place.

The companies behind the legal action are not subject to tight privacy regulations. Instead, the government can only ask for voluntary privacy commitments.

General data protection law is not sufficient for this industry as data breaches of this nature cannot be fixed by fines. They need to be prevented by the toughest and most specific regulation available.

Sky's chief executive Jeremy Darroch has urged the Government to speed up its plans for an online censor as a bill to appoint Ofcom to the job was introduced in the House of Lords on Tuesday.

Darroch has written to all MPs asking for their support in establishing an internet censor that that will tackle supposed online harms.

Darroch's beef seems to be what he described as the prolific spread of misinformation, online abuse and fake news in last month's general election. He claimed it had shown the damage that unregulated online platforms are doing to our society.

A DCMS spokesperson declined to say how soon it may be before a draft bill is introduced, but Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan pledged in a speech yesterday to develop a media literacy strategy to be published in the summer, which is expected to come before the online harms legislation.

Johnson plans to precede the online harms bill with interim codes of practice ordering tech companies to clamp down on use of their platforms by terrorists and those engaged in child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Tom McNally's Online Harms Reduction Regulator (Report) Bill started its journey in the House of Lords on Tuesday. He has said he prepared the bill to keep up a momentum I fear may be lost and to provide a platform for wider public debate. Th bill appoints Ofcoms as the UK's internet censors and tasks it with preparing for the introduction of a statutory duty of care obligation for online platforms. Ofcom would have to prepare a report with recommendations on how this should be done, and the Government would be forced to produce its draft bill within a year from the publication of this report.
 

A Glasgow record store has decided to ban British pop icon Morrissey from its shelves.Monorail Music said it will continue to sell records from the Smiths:

But like many of our peers will not sell the singer's 13th studio album, I'm Not One dog on a leash.

This follows last year's indie music store ban for Morrissey's latest album, California Son .

Morrissey responded to the latest round of stains and stops saying:

I call for the prosperity of the word. free; the disappearance of totalitarian control; I call for diversity of opinion; I call for the total abolition of the sea; I call for peace, above all; I call for civil society; I call for an end so far. unknown to brutality; No to Soviet Britain.

Morrissey's I'm Not One dog on a leash is set to be released on 20th March.
 

Google is to restrict web pages from loading 3rd party profiling cookies when accessed via its Chrome browser. Many large websites, eg major newspapers make a call to hundreds of 3rd part profilers to allow them to build up a profile of people's browsing history, which then facilitates personalised advertising.

Now Google has said that it will block these third-party cookies within the next two years.

Tracking cookies are very much in the sights of the EU who are trying to put an end to the exploitative practise. However the EU is not willing to actually ban such practises, but instead has invented a silly game about websites obtaining consent for tracking cookies.

The issue is of course that a lot of 'free' access websites are funded by advertising and rely on the revenue from the targeted advertising. I have read estimates that if websites were to drop personalised ads, and fall back on contextual advertising (eg advertising cars on motoring pages), then they would lose about a third of their income. Surely a fall that magnitude would lead to many bankrupt or unviable websites.

Now the final position of the EU's cookie consent game is that a website would have to present two easy options before allowing access to a website:

• Do you want to allow tracking cookies to build up a database of your browsing history
• Do you NOT want to allow tracking cookies to build up a database of your browsing history

The simple outcome will be that virtually no one will opt for tracking, so the website will lose a third of its income. So it is rather unsurprising that websites would rather avoid offering such an easy option that would deprive them of so much of their income.

In reality the notion of consent it not practical. It would be more honest to think of the use of tracking cookies as a price for 'free' access to a website.

Perhaps when the dust has settled, a more honest and practical endgame would bea  choice more like:

• Do you want to allow tracking cookies to build up a database of your browsing history in return for 'free' access
• Do you want to pay a fee to enable access to the website without tracking cookies
• Sorry you may not access this website

The EU has been complaining about companies trying to avoid the revenue destroying official consent options. A study just published observes that nearly all cookie consent pop-ups are flouting EU privacy laws.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University College London (UCL) and Aarhus University have conducted a joint study into the use of cookies. They analysed five companies which offer consent management platforms (CMP) for cookies used by the UK's top 10,000 websites.

Despite EU privacy laws stating that consent for cookies must be informed, specific and freely given, the research suggests that only 12% of the sites met the minimal requirements of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) law. Instead they were found to blanket data consent options in complicated site design, such as:

• pre-ticked boxes burying decline buttons on later pages multiple clicks tracking users before consent and after pressing reject
• Just over half the sites studied did not have rejecting all tracking as an option.
• Of the sites which did, only 13% made it accessible through the same or fewer clicks as the option to accept all.

The researchers estimate it would take, on average, more than half an hour to read through what the third-party companies are doing with your data, and even longer to read all their privacy policies. It's a joke and there's no actual way you could do this realistically, said Dr Veale.

Military Wives is a 2019 UK comedy drama by Peter Cattaneo.
Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Sharon Horgan and Emma Lowndes.

Inspired by global phenomenon of military wives choirs, the story celebrates a band of misfit women who form a choir on a military base. As unexpected bonds of friendship flourish, music and laughter transform their lives, helping each other to overcome their fears for loved ones in combat.

In the US the film was rated R by the MPAA for brief language and a sexual reference.

The distributors are now appealing the decision presumably hoping for a PG-13 rating.

For comparison the BBFC gave the film a 12A rating for infrequent strong language, moderate sex references.

Privacy International and over 50 other organisations have submitted a letter to Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai asking Google to take action against exploitative pre-installed software on Android devices.

Dear Mr. Pichai,

We, the undersigned, agree with you: privacy cannot be a luxury offered only to those people who can afford it.

And yet, Android Partners - who use the Android trademark and branding - are manufacturing devices that contain pre-installed apps that cannot be deleted (often known as "bloatware"), which can leave users vulnerable to their data being collected, shared and exposed without their knowledge or consent.

These phones carry the "Google Play Protect" branding, but research shows that 91% of pre-installed apps do not appear in Google Play -- Google's app store.

These pre-installed apps can have privileged custom permissions that let them operate outside the Android security model. This means permissions can be defined by the app - including access to the microphone, camera and location - without triggering the standard Android security prompts. Users are therefore completely in the dark about these serious intrusions.

We are concerned that this leaves users vulnerable to the exploitative business practices of cheap smartphone manufacturers around the world.

The changes we believe are needed most urgently are as follows:

• Individuals should be able to permanently uninstall the apps on their phones. This should include any related background services that continue to run even if the apps are disabled.

• Pre-installed apps should adhere to the same scrutiny as Play Store apps, especially in relation to custom permissions.

• Pre-installed apps should have some update mechanism, preferably through Google Play and without a user account. Google should refuse to certify a device on privacy grounds, where manufacturers or vendors have attempted to exploit users in this way.

We, the undersigned, believe these fair and reasonable changes would make a huge difference to millions of people around the world who should not have to trade their privacy and security for access to a smartphone.

We urge you to use your position as an influential agent in the ecosystem to protect people and stop manufacturers from exploiting them in a race to the bottom on the pricing of smartphones.

Yours sincerely,

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

• Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC)

• Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)

• Amnesty International

• Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC)

• Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

• Association for Technology and Internet (ApTI)

• Association of Caribbean Media Workers

• Australian Privacy Foundation

• Center for Digital Democracy

• Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT)

• Citizen D

• Civil Liberties Union for Europe

• Coding Rights

• Consumer Association the Quality of Life-EKPIZO

• Datos Protegidos

• Digital Rights Foundation (DRF)

• Douwe Korff, Emeritus Professor of International Law, London Metropolitan University and Associate of the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

• DuckDuckGo

• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

• Forbrukerrådet // Norwegian Consumer Council

• Foundation for Media Alternatives

• Free Media Movement (FMM)

• Freedom Forum

• Fundación Karisma

• Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)

• Hiperderecho

• Homo Digitalis

• IJC Moldova

• Initiative for Freedom of Expression- Turkey (IFox)

• Irish Council for Civil Liberties

• Media Foundation for West Africa

• Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)

• Media Policy and Democracy Project (University of Johannesburg)

• Media Policy Institute (MPI)

• Media Watch

• Metamorphosis Foundation for Internet and Society

• Open Rights Group (ORG)

• Palestinian Center For Development & Media Freedoms (MADA)

• Panoptykon

• Paradigm Initiative

• PEN Canada

• Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA)

• Privacy International

• Public Citizen

• Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D)

• Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)

• TEDIC

• The Danish Consumer Council

• The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM)

• The Tor Project

• Unwanted Witness

• Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State

The Australian government writes:

We are seeking feedback on proposals for a new Online Safety Act to improve Australia's online safety regulatory framework.

The proposed reforms follow a 2018 review of online safety legislation which recommended the replacement of the existing framework with a single Online Safety Act.

Key proposals include:

• A set of basic online safety expectations for industry (initially social media platforms), clearly stating community expectations, with associated reporting requirements.

• An enhanced cyberbullying scheme for Australian children to capture a range of online services, not just social media platforms.

• A new cyber abuse scheme for Australian adults to facilitate the removal of serious online abuse and harassment and introduce a new end user take-down and civil penalty regime.

• Consistent take-down requirements for image-based abuse, cyber abuse, cyberbullying and seriously harmful online content, requiring online service providers to remove such material within 24 hours of receiving an eSafety Commissioner request.

• A reformed online content scheme requiring the Australian technology industry to be proactive in addressing access to harmful online content. The scheme would also expand the eSafety Commissioner's powers to address illegal and harmful content on websites hosted overseas.

• An ancillary service provider scheme to provide the eSafety Commissioner with the capacity to disrupt access to seriously harmful online material made available via search engines, app stores and other ancillary service providers.

• An additional power for the eSafety Commissioner to respond rapidly to an online crisis event (such as the Christchurch terrorist attacks) by requesting internet service providers block access to sites hosting seriously harmful content.

The consultation runs to 5pm 19th February 2020

Speaking at CES in Las Vegas, Twitter's director of product management, Suzanne Xie, unveiled some new changes that are coming to the platform this year, focusing specifically on conversations.

Xie says Twitter is adding a new setting for conversation participants right on the compose screen. It has four options: Global, Group, Panel, and Statement. Global lets anybody reply, Group is for people you follow and mention, Panel is people you specifically mention in the tweet, and Statement simply allows you to post a tweet and receive no replies.

Xie says that Twitter is in the process of doing research on the feature. Twitter is considering the ability to quote tweets as an alternative to replying.

A poster ad for PeoplePerHour, seen on the London Underground in November 2019, featured an image of a woman and text that stated YOU DO THE GIRL BOSS THING. WE'LL DO THE SEO THING. Further text stated Hire expert freelancers by the hour to help your business grow. With everything from coding to video editing, it's easy to see why over 2 million people have trusted PeoplePerHour to help build their dream business.

Nineteen complainants, who believed that the ad perpetuated harmful gender stereotypes by depicting a woman running a business in a patronising way and by implying that women were not technologically skilled, challenged whether it breached the Code.

People Per Hour Ltd said the core intention of the campaign was to celebrate entrepreneurs and business owners, highlighting the fact they often walked a tightrope between driving their business forward and being weighed down by small day-to-day tasks.

The term girl boss was a reference to a book, popular culture movement and professional network. PeoplePerHour and their agency said they had not considered that the pairing of the term girl boss with the word thing could come across as patronising and reductive.

They acknowledged that the execution might unintentionally come across as sexist and demeaning to women. They had taken steps to rectify that by removing the word girl from the ad and issuing a public apology on their website.

ASA Assessment: Complaints upheld

The CAP Code stated Advertisements must not include gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence. The joint CAP and BCAP Advertising guidance on depicting gender stereotypes likely to cause harm or serious or widespread offence said that gender-stereotypical roles included occupations or positions usually associated with a specific gender, while gender-stereotypical characteristics included attributes or behaviours usually associated with a specific gender. It further stated that ads that directly contrast male and female stereotypical roles or characteristics need to be handled with care, and that care should be taken to avoid suggesting that stereotypical roles or characteristics were always uniquely associated with one gender.

The poster stated You do the girl boss thing. We'll do the SEO thing. It was a well-established stereotype that men were more suited to positions of authority in the business world than women. We considered that using the gendered term girl boss, as opposed to just boss, implied that the gender of the person depicted was relevant to their performance in a managerial or entrepreneurial role. It was also likely to be interpreted as indicating that a female boss was an exception to the norm. Furthermore, in the context of the girl boss thing, use of the word girl to refer to an adult woman reinforced the impression that a female boss was a novelty, playing at their role and somehow less serious than a man in the same position. We acknowledged that the term girl boss made reference to a book and TV show about a female entrepreneur, and resulting use of that term more widely in popular culture. However, we considered that many people viewing the ad were unlikely to be familiar with that reference.

It was also a well-established stereotype that women were not skilled at using technology. In contrast with the gendered reference in the first part of the sentence, we considered that We'll do the SEO thing (referring to search engine optimisation) was likely to be understood to mean that female bosses in particular needed outside help with IT matters. We acknowledged the steps taken to rectify those issues by removing the word girl from the ad and issuing an apology.

However, for the reasons given we concluded that the ad had the effect of reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes and that it breached the Code.

The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told People Per Hour Ltd to ensure their advertising did not perpetuate gender stereotypes in a harmful way.

Elspeth Howe announced her intentions in a House of Lords debate about the Queen's Speech. She said:

My Lords, I welcome the Government's commitment to introduce its online harms Bill to improve internet safety for all, but, equally, stress that I remain deeply concerned by their failure to implement Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act. The rationale for focusing on the new Bill instead seems to be a desire to put attempts to protect children from pornographic websites on the same footing as attempts to protect them on social media platforms. It is entirely right to seek to promote safety in both contexts, but a basic error to suggest that both challenges should be addressed in the same way. The internet is complicated and one-size-fits-all policies simply will not work.

The focus of what I have read about the Government's plans for online harms revolves around social media companies and fining them if they do not do what they are supposed to do under a new legal duty of care. An article in the Times on 31 December suggested that Ofcom is going to draw up legally enforceable codes of practice that will include protecting children from accessing pornography. This approach may work for social media platforms if they have bases in the UK but it will be absolutely useless at engaging with the challenge of protecting children from pornographic websites.

Initially when the Digital Economy Bill was introduced in another place, the proposal was that statutory age-verification requirements should be enforced through fines, but a cross-party group of MPs pointed out that this would never work because the top 50 pornographic websites accessed in the UK are all based in other jurisdictions. One could certainly threaten fines but it would be quite impossible to enforce them in a way that would concentrate the minds of website providers because, based in other jurisdictions, they could simply ignore them.

Because of that, MPs amended the Bill to give the regulator the option of IP blocking. This would enable the regulator to tell a site based in say, Russia, that if it failed to introduce robust age-verification checks within a certain timeframe, the regulator would block it from accessing the UK market. Children would be protected either by the site being blocked after the specified timeframe or, more probably, by the site deciding that it would make more sense for it to introduce proper age-verification checks rather than risk disruption of its UK income stream. The Government readily accepted the amendment because the case for it was unanswerable.

I say again that I welcome the fact that the Government want to address online safety with respect to social media platforms through their new Bill. This must not, however, be used as an excuse not to proceed with implementing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Bill, which provides the very best way of dealing with the different challenge of protecting children from pornographic websites.

The failure to implement this legislation is particularly concerning because, rather than being a distant aspiration, it is all there on the statute book. The only thing standing in the way of statutory age verification with respect to pornographic websites is the Government's delay in relaying the BBFC age-verification guidance before Parliament and setting an implementation date. Having the capacity to deal with this problem204thanks to Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act204yet not bothering to avail ourselves of it does not reflect at all well on either the Government or British society as a whole. The Government must stop procrastinating over child safety with respect to pornographic websites and get on with implementing Part 3.

Mindful of that, on 21 January I will introduce my Digital Economy Act 2017 (commencement of Part 3) Bill, the simple purpose of which will be to implement Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act .

I hope that that will not be necessary and that the Minister will today confirm that, notwithstanding the new online safety Bill, the Government will now press ahead with implementation themselves. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Ireland's Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton T.D. has published the general scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, to protect children online. Bruton said:

This new law is the start of a new era of accountability. It sets out a clear expectation for online services. They will have to comply with binding online safety codes made by an Online Safety Commissioner, who will have significant powers to sanction companies for non-compliance.

There are already significant regulatory and legal frameworks in place in relation to many online issues, including data protection and criminal justice responses to criminal activities online. However, there is a serious gap both internationally and in Ireland when it comes to addressing harmful online content. This new law will close this legal gap and establish a robust regulatory framework to deal with the spread of harmful online content.

The Online Safety Commissioner will be part of a new Media Commission which will replace the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and will also take on the role of regulating the audiovisual sector.

The new Online Safety Commissioner will be responsible for designating which online services should be covered under the new law. These designated services will then be required to comply with binding online safety codes made by the Commissioner.

Each Online Safety Code will set out the steps the designated service provide must take to keep their users safe online and will depend on the type of service that is being offered. Codes will address a wide range of matters, including:

• Combating cyber bullying material and material promoting eating disorders, self-harm and suicide

• Ensuring that services operate effective complaints procedures where people can request material is taken down

• Ensuring advertising, sponsorship and product placement are not harmful and uphold minimum standards

• How companies are mitigating against risks to the prevalence of harmful content on their platforms.

It is a matter for the Commissioner to design the relevant codes and decide which codes apply to each designated service. Online services will be legally obliged to abide by the codes that apply to them.

The Online Safety Commissioner can:

• Decide the appropriate reporting requirements of compliance with online safety codes by online services

• Request information from online services about their compliance with the online safety codes that apply to them

• Audit the complaints and/or issues handling mechanisms operated by online services

• Appoint authorised officers to assess compliance and carry out audits

• The Online Safety Commissioner will establish a scheme to receive "super complaints" about systemic issues with online services from nominated bodies, including expert NGOs, and may request information, investigate or audit an online service on the basis of information received through this scheme.

If an online service is not complying with their safety code, the Online Safety Commissioner will, in the first instance, issue a compliance notice setting out what they must do to bring themselves into compliance- including the removal or restoration of content.

If the Online Safety Commissioner is not satisfied with the response and action taken by the online service, the Online Safety Commissioner can issue a warning notice. Warning notices will set out what the online service must do to bring itself into compliance and what steps the Online Safety Commissioner will take if it fails to do so.

If the Online Safety Commissioner is not satisfied with the response and action taken by the online service on foot of a warning notice then the Online Safety Commissioner can seek to impose a sanction on that service.

The Online Safety Commissioner can publish compliance and warning notices.

The Media Commission can only seek to impose a sanction on an online service if the service has failed to comply with a warning notice. The sanctions that the Media Commission can impose include:

• Financial penalties,

• Compelling the online service to take certain actions, and,

• Blocking an offending online service.

The application of each of these sanctions requires court approval.

The US perennial religious complainer Rajan Zed continuously rails against beers betaring references to Hinduism so it is interesting to read what the UK drinks censor makes of religious references in marketing.

The Portman Group represents the UK alcohol trade and has a self censorship role to censor drinks packaging that may inspire offence taking. It recently considered a complaint against the Australian Lucky Buddha beer brand.

Complaint (which was not made by a religious person but by a food and drinks consultancy, Zenith Global).

The shape of the bottle, the name and the Buddha symbol are all prominently displayed on the bottle. This may cause widespread offence to Buddhism followers who consider the Buddha as a sacred symbol to the religion. Displaying this on an alcoholic beverage is perceived as disrespectful to the faith.

The company explained that they were an Australian company who had sold their uniquely packaged beer for over 12 years on the international market. The company stated that they owned the Lucky Beer and Lucky Buddha brands and that the bottle and the logo were trademarks in many parts of the world. The company explained that the product was produced in China, was sold internationally in restaurants and supermarkets and had been sold for 10 years in UK supermarkets and restaurants. They argued that, if their product caused serious or widespread offence, they would have heard about it: they said they had never received an email or negative comment from any government or religious agency.

The company said the bottle showed Pu Tai, the Laughing Monk, not Buddha. The company explained that: Pu Tai's image was used in amulets and within restaurants; Pu Tai had become a deity of contentment and abundance; people rubbed Pu Tai's belly for wealth, good luck and prosperity; Pu Tai was the patron saint of restauranteurs, fortune-tellers and bartenders; when someone ate or drank too much, it was jokingly blamed on Pu Tai.

The Portman Group assessment: Complaint not upheld

The Panel first discussed whether the product name or packaging had caused serious or widespread offence. The Panel noted the product was sold in predominantly Buddhist countries including Thailand. The Panel noted that there were different named Buddhas and different images of Buddha. Despite the fact that the bottle included the brand name Lucky Buddha, the Panel considered that the bottle was in fact a representation of Pu Tai. The Panel also noted that this product had reached the complaints process following a compliance audit of the new Code and considered that it did not provide evidence that Buddhists were offended by the name or packaging.

The Panel accordingly did not uphold the complaint under Code rule 3.3.

Anne Frank: Parallel Stories (aka #AnneFrank. Parallel Stories) is a 2019 Italy documentary by Sabina Fedeli and Anna Migotto.
Starring Anne Frank, Martina Gatti and Helen Mirren.

The 2020 BBFC cinema rating was reduced from 15 to 12A after a formal distributor request for a reconsideration was agreed.

Summary Notes

One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did but whose faces have remained in the shadows-Primo Levi. The Oscar®-winning Helen Mirren will introduce audiences to Anne Frank's story through the words in her diary. The set will be her room in the secret refuge in Amsterdam, reconstructed in every detail by set designers from the Piccolo Theatre in Milan. Anne Frank this year would have been 90 years old. Anne's story is intertwined with that of five Holocaust survivors, teenage girls just like her.

94:59s

UK: Passed 12A uncut for Holocaust images, references to violence: 2020 cinema release The BBFC commented on a reduction of rating from 15 to 12A: This work was originally classified 15 without cuts on 19 December 2019. This determination was formally reconsidered by the BBFC at the request of the submitting company. The BBFC carefully considered the arguments put forward by the submitting company, looked again at the relevant submitted material, and concluded that a revision to the original determination was appropriate. UK: Passed 15 uncut for Holocaust images: 2020 cinema release

One of China's longest-running independent film festivals has decided to shut down against the backdrop of mounting government censorship.

The China International Film Festival (CIFF) announced:

We believe that under current local organizational conditions it is impossible to organize an effective film festival that has a pure, independent spirit.

The CIFF was founded in the eastern city of Nanjing in 2003 and has been staged 14 times. It had screened films on sensitive subjects such as homosexuality and controversies surrounding the massive Three Gorges Dam project in central China.

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post quoted Zhang Xianmin, a Beijing Film Academy professor and the festival's key organizer, as saying the shutdown takes China back to a more restricted era for film. Zhang added:

We just went back to 20 years ago, when there was no room and opportunity for independent films.

France is marking the fifth anniversary of a terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo with street ceremonies and social media tributes.

On 7 January 2015, militant Islamists shot dead 11 people in the magazine's Paris office, before murdering a policeman outside.

On Tuesday, former French President François Hollande, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet were among those to pay their respects to the victims outside Charlie Hebdo's former offices in the capital. Several tributes took place, including readings of commemorative plaques, wreath-laying and a minute's silence.

The weekly magazine, which published a special issue marking the anniversary with contributions from the victims' relatives, tweeted:

It was five years ago, it was a century ago, it was yesterday. We do not forget and we will always continue: to speak, to write, to draw.

Update: France plans centre dedicated to satirical cartoons

10th January 2020. See article from theartnewspaper.com

 France is planning to create a "house of press cartoons and satirical cartoons", according to a statement issued by the culture ministry. The French culture minister Franck Riester said the project was "conceived and wanted" by Georges Wolinski--one of five caricaturists killed in the 2015 attacks. The centre's aim is to create "a place for meetings" to enable the creation and promotion of satirical cartoons and support their creators.

The statement refers to press cartoons as "a witness of our time, our freedom and the dangers that threaten us" and "a powerful form of expression and creativity to the service of the independence of the media and therefore of the vitality of our democracies".

Riester has tasked Vincent Monadé, currently head of the Centre National du Livre (the National Centre of the Book), to present proposals for the venue by the end of May.

Offsite Comment: Je suis Charlie

12th January 2020. See article from spiked-online.com by Brendan O"Neill

Today is the fifth anniversary of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo. Five years since one of the darkest days in the modern history of the French Republic, when 10 journalists and cartoonists, as well as a maintenance worker and a police officer, were massacred by two Islamist gunmen for the crime of blaspheming against Muhammad.

 See article from spiked-online.com

When David Shanks presents himself at international conferences, his peers recoil slightly. He explained:

I'd introduce myself as, 'Hi, I'm David from New Zealand. New Zealand's chief censor,' And basically these people would take an involuntary step backwards, almost, on many occasions.

Shanks is head of New Zealand's film and media censors of the Office of Film and Literature Classification and his official job title is Chief Censor. He continues

But fellow attendees at the annual world meeting of classifiers -- those responsible for rating or, at times, restricting access to content in their countries -- omit the c-word from their job titles.

They would introduce themselves and they were the head of the classifications group or general manager, Shanks says -- referring to his counterparts in other countries.

He told the Guardian:

 What I've kind of realised is I'm the last censor standing in the western world.

German public broadcaster WDR 2 issued an apology for showing a video of a children's choir singing a humorous, traditional tune rewritten with satirical lyrics.

The song, titled My grandma is an old environmental pig, triggered heated reactions on Twitter. One user described the lyrics as disrespectful, whilst a WDR news editor said the remake of the traditional tune was scandalously good.

The lyrics, including verses about grandma riding a motorcycle that burns a thousand liters of gasoline every month and eating a cutlet every day because meat from the discount supermarket is so cheap, include the refrain, My grandma is an old environmental pig. The video ends with a quote from teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg: We will not let you get away with this.

In response to complaints the broadcaster deleted the video saying:

We are concerned by the allegation that the children involved may have been 'instrumentalized'. This is absolutely not the case, but we decided to delete the video.

But of course that was not the end of the matter. The decision to take down the video was widely criticised. In an open letter about 40 TV authors have expressed their solidarity with the makers of the video, demanded it be immediately reposted and accused the WDR director of falling into the trap set by right-wing trolls and abandoning his staff.

In fact the WDR editor's office also supported the producers of the video and sharply criticized the censorship saying:

We are stunned that the program director of WDR 2 has a video with a satirical children's song deleted, and above all about the fact that director Tom Buhrow gives in so easily to a shitstorm apparently orchestrated by right-wing extremists, hastily distances himself editorially and not only apologizes in person, but also publicly (and repeatedly) in the process, instead of backing them up in the face of staged outrage against WDR and the other public broadcasters. According to the editors' representatives, the internal freedom of broadcasting had thus been violated.

EDM 48: Provision of The Sun newspaper on the Parliamentary Estate Share

Motion tabled 09 January 2020:

That this House notes with great sadness that it has been 30 years since the Hillsborough disaster where 96 people were unlawfully killed; further notes that The Sun newspaper's coverage of this event was widely criticised and that many retailers in Liverpool still refuse to sell The Sun; notes that some Members are survivors of this disaster or relations of survivors; and resolves that The Sun newspaper should not be available for reading on the Parliamentary Estate.

8 labour MPs have sponsored or supported the motion

• Barker, Paula
• Byrne, Ian
• Whitley, Mick
• Esterson, Bill
• Johnson, Kim
• Carden, Dan
• Lavery, Ian
• Hopkins, Rachel

A Facebook post by The Folly Bar in Boston, Lincolnshire, seen on 29th September 2019, featured text which stated Buy your own keg for you and your friends! Over 50 cold pints available at your fingertips -- Have it next to your table in the main room, our private room or outside in the beer garden! The ad featured an image of a man in a suit with a pint of beer leaning on a bar, under which sat a keg of beer.

A complainant challenged whether the ad was irresponsible because it encouraged the excessive consumption of alcohol.

The Folly Bar said that the keg was offered to groups of 10 or more people. As that offered up to five pints of beer to each person, they did not deem such consumption as excessive. They said the keg was predominantly purchased for birthdays and stag parties, and their staff monitored the consumption throughout. The Folly Bar said that their local Licensing Authority saw no issue with the ad, and that the keg was only available for pre-purchase, where consumers were required to complete an online form confirming how many people would be attending the event. They said they would amend the ad so that it stated For group bookings.

ASA Assessment: Complaint upheld

The CAP Code required marketing communications to contain nothing that was likely to lead people to adopt styles of drinking that were unwise, including excessive drinking. The ASA considered that consumers would understand from the text Buy your own keg for you and your friends! Over 50 pints available at your fingertips -- Have it next to your table in the main room, our private room or outside in the beer garden to mean that they and a group of friends could purchase the keg, which offered them 50 pints of beer, in various areas of the pub, and consequently implied it was readily available to any size group.

We acknowledged The Folly Bar's comment that the product was available to groups of 10 or more people. However, that was not accounted for in the ad, and we noted that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) defined binge drinking as having over eight units in a single session for men and over six units in a single session for women. We understood that the UK's Chief Medical Officer (CMO)'s Low Risk Drinking Guidelines advised both men and women not to drink regularly more than 14 units a week. It also advised consumers not to save up their 14 units, and that it was best to evenly spread them across the week. We understood that five pints of 5% beer such as the one on offer equated to 14 units, which went beyond the ONS's definition of binge drinking, and went against the CMO's advice to spread the units evenly across the week. In light of the above, we considered the ad was irresponsible because it encouraged the excessive consumption of alcohol and was therefore in breach of the Code.

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told The Folly Bar to ensure that their future advertising did not encourage excessive drinking.

Offsite Comment: Binging On Stupidity

11th January 2020. See article from reprobatepress.com

The advertising censors get worked up about the idea of someone having more than two pints of lager in a session.

The First Temptation of Christ (A Primeira Tentação de Cristo) is a 2019 Brazil comedy short film by Rodrigo Van Der Put.
Starring Evelyn Castro, Gregório Duvivier and Fábio Porchat.

Jesus, who's hitting the big 3-0, brings a surprise guest to meet the family.

A judge in Brazil has ruled that a film depicting Jesus as gay must be removed from the TV streaming service Netflix.

The film, The First Temptation of Christ, infuriated some Christians in the country.Two million people signed a petition calling for it to be banned, and the production company was attacked with Molotov cocktails last month.

In the ruling against Netflix, the judge said: The right to freedom of expression... is not absolute.

The ban is a temporary injunction whilst a final decision is made by a higher court.

Update: Injunction overturned

10th January 2020. See article from bbc.com

Brazil's Supreme Court has overturned a ruling that TV streaming service Netflix must remove a film depicting Jesus as gay.

The film, The First Temptation of Christ, infuriated fervent Christians in the country. But Supreme Court president Dias Toffoli said on Thursday that Netflix should be allowed to continue streaming the show, stating that freedom of speech was fundamental in a democracy. The judge said:

One cannot suppose that a humorous satire has the ability to weaken the values of the Christian faith, whose existence is traced back more than two thousand years, and which is the belief of the majority of Brazilian citizens.

The Australian Government write:

The National Classification Scheme was enacted in 1995 in the age of dial-up internet. Since then, the internet and streaming services have changed the way we access and consume content.

The current system was not designed to manage changing technologies or the large volumes of content now available via streaming services, online game storefronts and other content platforms.

On 16 December 2019, the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts released terms of reference for a review of Australia's classification regulation.

This review seeks to develop a classification framework that meets community needs and reflects today's digital environment.

Key issues to be considered include:

• How best to harmonise the regulatory framework for classification across broadcast content, online content and physical product such as DVDs and boxed games.

• Whether the criteria for classifying films and computer games are still appropriate and useful and continue to reflect community standards and concerns.

• The type of content that should be required to be classified.

• Who should be responsible for classifying content and what level of government oversight is appropriate.

Consultation Period: January 08 to February 19, 2020 17:00 AEDT

Note that the government has specifically excluded X rated porn issues from the debate.

A TV ad for PCSpecialist, a manufacturer and seller of bespoke PC computers, was seen on 17 September 2019. It featured three men performing different activities on computers, including producing music and coding. The male voice-over stated, It's the beginning of the end. The end of following. It's the start of freedom, individuality, choice. It's an uprising. An insurgence. For the players, the gamers, the 'I'll sleep laters', the creators, the editors, the music makers. The techies, the coders, the illustrators. Bespoke, customised, like no other. From the specialists for the specialists. PC Specialist.

Eight complainants, who believed that the ad perpetuated harmful gender stereotypes by depicting men in roles that were stereotypically male and implying that it was only men who were interested in technology and computers, challenged whether it breached the Code.

Response

PCSpecialist said their customer base was 87.5% male, aged between 15 and 35 years. Their product, branding and service had been developed for and aimed at that target audience and the characters in the ad therefore represented a cross-section of the PCSpecialist core customer base. PCSpecialist said the characters looked into the camera as though they were using a PCSpecialist machine. They did not believe they represented negative stereotypes and were playing the roles of entrepreneurs, forward-thinkers and hard workers. They considered there was no comparison between men and women in the ad and the ad did not imply that women were not interested in computers. They said the ad did not juxtapose men using computers with women not using computers, nor did the ad explicitly state that women did not use computers or that the service was unsuitable for them.

ASA Assessment: Complaints upheld

The BCAP Code stated Advertisements must not include gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence. The joint CAP and BCAP Advertising guidance on depicting gender stereotypes likely to cause harm or serious or widespread offence said that gender-stereotypical characteristics included occupations or positions and also attributes or behaviours usually associated with a specific gender. It added that ads may feature people undertaking gender-stereotypical roles but they should take care to avoid suggesting that stereotypical roles or characteristics were always uniquely associated with one gender; were the only options available to one gender; or were never carried out or displayed by another gender. The guidance also stated that, subject to the guiding principles, neither the rule nor the guidance were intended to prevent ads from featuring one gender only, including in ads for products developed for and aimed at one gender.

The ad began with a PC exploding and went on to state freedom, individuality and choice before referencing a number of specialist and creative roles in quick succession, encompassing leisure pursuits and professional positions, not just limited to information technology, but in the creative and artistic industries and entertainment, namely: players/gamers, creators, editors, music makers, techies, coders and illustrators. We considered that the voice-over and fast-paced series of scenes in the ad conveyed a sense of excitement and opportunity and implied that those depicted in the ad were innovative, highly skilled and achieving excellence in the roles and careers mentioned and that those watching should aspire to excel in them too. However, the ad repeatedly cut to images of only men, who were both prominent and central to the ad's message of opportunity and excellence across multiple desirable career paths. We therefore considered that the ad implied that excellence in those roles and fields would be seen as the preserve of men. Because of that, we considered that the ad went further than just featuring a cross-section of the advertiser's core customer base and implied that only men could excel in those roles.

Although the guidance did not prohibit ads from featuring only one gender, we considered that because the ad strongly implied only men could excel in the specialisms and roles depicted we concluded the ad presented gender stereotypes in way that was likely to cause harm and therefore breached the Code.

The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told PCSpecialist Ltd to ensure their advertising did not present gender stereotypes in a way that was likely to cause harm, including by suggesting that excellence in multiple career paths was uniquely associated with one gender.

The End Will Be Spectacular is a 2019 Syria war film by Ersin Çelik.
Starring Arjîn Baysal, Arif Demîr and Sahire Ozhan.

Zilan, a young woman, returns to her hometown looking for the traces of his dead brother, killed by the Islamic State. But her town is not what it used to be: social and political tensions have escalated into a state of war. The people have risen to demand their political autonomy and the police and army repress them with brutal force. But the city's resistance will go on for more than 100 days and Zilan will not remain a passive witness. Based on the diaries of those who died fighting and the testimony of survivors, who enact the protagonists of the film, Çelik's first feature explores concepts such as hope, friendship, sacrifice and loss in the struggle for freedom of a group of young people.

A film based on the real-life resistance of Kurdish youth in Turkey was banned by Sulaimani's security forces just a day before its Kurdistan premiere.

Ji Bo Azadiye (The End Will be Spectacular) , directed by Kurdish filmmaker Ersin Celik was pulled by Sulamani Asayesh (security forces) from the premiere at Sulaimani's Salim Cinema.

The film team and cinema staff have criticised the cancellation of the screening, which has been shown abroad but now cannot be seen by a Kurdistan Region audience.

First premiering at Calcutta's 25th International Film Festival in November, the production has received positive responses from foreign audiences. The film will next be screened in Rotterdam, Holland in January.

I was just wondering if the ICO's Age Appropriate Design documentation had been published anywhere on the parliamentary website and spotted this official document marking the end of the BBFC's tenure as the UK's porn censor.

Matt Warman, a minister at the DCMS, signed the revocation of the BBFC's internet censorship powers on 31st October 2019. The notice reads:

Department for Digital, Culture Media & Sport

NOTICE TO REVOKE DESIGNATION OF AGE-VERIFICATION REGULATOR UNDER DIGITAL ECONOMY ACT 2017

The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport hereby revokes, in exercise of the power in section 16(3)(a) of the Digital Economy Act 2017 ("the 2017 Act"), the designation of the British Board of Film Classification as the age verification regulator made under section 16(1) of the 2017 Act on 21 February 2018 for the purposes of the following functions:

• a. section 18 (regulator's power to require information);

• b. section 19(2) and (11) (enforcement by regulator of section 14);

• c. section 21 (notice by regulator to payment-services providers and ancillary service providers);

• d. section 23 (regulator's power to require internet service providers to block access to material), subject to section 24 (no power to give notice under section 23(1) where detrimental to national security etc);

• e. section 25 (guidance to be published by regulator);

• f. section 26 (exercise of functions by regulator); and

• g. section 28 (requirements for notices given by regulator under this Part) (to the extent that this applies in relation to the giving of notices by the British Board of Film Classification under the provisions listed in this paragraph).

Matt Warman
Minister for Digital and Broadband on behalf of the Secretary of State
#1st October 2019.

Norway Today has reported about the latest attempt by Chinese citizens to censor material in other countries It involves a delegation of more than 40 Chinese cross-country skiers, along with 15 coaches and managers, who are in the Norwegian municipality of Meråker to train for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics:

The Chinese visitors have whinged about books in the local library that are banned in China. Among the books the delegation wanted removed is one about the Falun Gong movement that has been banned in China since 1999.

Thankfully the library has refused categorically to remove any books. The library manager said:

We have freedom of speech in Norway so that was completely out of the question. It's only a small incident, easily overlooked. But if it can happen in a tiny local library in the depths of Norway, just because a few Chinese skiers were training there, it is highly likely to start happening in other places, where more Chinese citizens are present, and where China has greater economic and political influence.

We're often told that it's not censorship when a private actor tells you to shut up on their own private platform -- but when the government decides not to create any public spaces (say, by declining to create publicly owned internet infrastructure) and then allows a handful of private companies to dominate the privately owned world of online communications, then those companies' decisions about who may speak and what they may say become a form of government speech regulation -- albeit one at arm's length.

I don't think that the solution to this is regulating the tech platforms so they have better speech rules -- I think it's breaking them up and forcing them to allow interoperability, so that their speech rules no longer dictate what kind of discourse we're allowed to have.

Imagine two different restaurants: one prohibits any discussion of any subject the management deems political and the other has no such restriction. It's easy to see that we'd say that you have more right to freely express yourself in the Anything Goes Bistro than in the No Politics at the Table Diner across the street.

Now, the house rules at the No Politics at the Table Diner have implications for free speech, but these are softened by the fact that you can always eat at the Anything Goes Bistro, and, of course, you can always talk politics when you're not at a restaurant at all: on the public sidewalk (where the First Amendment shields you from bans on political talk), in your own home, or even in the No Politics Diner, assuming you can text covertly under the tablecloth when the management isn't looking.

See short version from boingboing.net
See full version from locusmag.com

Mary Skelter 2 is a 2018 Japan console game by Compile Heart

The game was originally banned for its October 2019 release by the Australian Censorship Board.  But now it has relented and awarded the game an R18+ rating.

It is reported that all traces of the earlier ban have now been removed from the Australian Censorship Board's online database.

The change of heart is typical of Australia's automated games classification scheme  This produces random MA15+, R18+ or banned (refused classification) ratings for games. If the game is of sufficient  economic importance then human censors are asked to jump in and sort out the mess.

Have I Got News For You,
BBC One, 20 December 2019

Presenter Charlie Brooker joked about allegations of anti-Semitism:

According to many commentators the Labour Party is on a state of denial...but at least it's not about the Holocaust

The BBC responded to complaints:

We've received complaints from people who were offended by Charlie Brooker's joke which referenced the Holocaust.

Our response

HIGNFY looks at the biggest news stories each week and in this episode that included the General Election. Charlie Brooker's comment was a reference to the allegations of anti-Semitism which have plagued the Labour party since 2016. It was in no way directed at victims of the Holocaust or their families, however, we have noted that some people felt it was inappropriate.

YouTube has posted on its blog outlining a recent changes to the moderation of comments about videos posted. YouTube writes:

Addressing toxic comments

We know that the comment section is an important place for fans to engage with creators and each other. At the same time, we heard feedback that comments are often where creators and viewers encounter harassment. This behavior not only impacts the person targeted by the harassment, but can also have a chilling effect on the entire conversation.

To combat this we remove comments that clearly violate our policies -- over 16 million in the third quarter of this year , specifically due to harassment.The policy updates we've outlined above will also apply to comments, so we expect this number to increase in future quarters.

Beyond comments that we remove, we also empower creators to further shape the conversation on their channels and have a variety of tools that help. When we're not sure a comment violates our policies, but it seems potentially inappropriate, we give creators the option to review it before it's posted on their channel. Results among early adopters were promising -- channels that enabled the feature saw a 75% reduction in user flags on comments. Earlier this year, we began to turn this setting on by default for most creators.

We've continued to fine tune our systems to make sure we catch truly toxic comments, not just anything that's negative or critical, and feedback from creators has been positive. Last week we began turning this feature on by default for YouTube's largest channels with the site's most active comment sections and will roll out to most channels by the end of the year. To be clear, creators can opt-out, and if they choose to leave the feature enabled they still have ultimate control over which held comments can appear on their videos. Alternatively, creators can also ignore held comments altogether if they prefer.

EastEnders
BBC One, 17th December 2019

We received complaints from viewers who had concerns about some of the content featured in the Phil Mitchell/Jack Branning storyline.

Our response

We're aware that any scenes of violence and unpleasantness can sometimes be upsetting for some of our audience but occasionally it's necessary to the narrative. EastEnders has a long established relationship with its audience who have come to expect big dramatic moments such as these. Our regular viewers will know that Phil and Jack share a very turbulent history and that the scenes in question were part of an ongoing storyline where Phil learned that he was not the father of wife Sharon's baby, and wrongly believed that Jack was.

We are always extremely mindful of the content within an episode and the time slot in which it is shown. All of our content must be editorially justified and we're always careful to film and edit scenes in such a way that they do not exceed reasonable expectations for the programme.

It's also important to note that EastEnders is a fictional drama but, like society, it's made up of many different character types. We feel the scenes in question are crucial aspects of the overall storyline and Phil's intent on seeking revenge whatever the cost over this betrayal, and that they were not included gratuitously.

The content and placing of EastEnders has been carefully considered at a senior level, and although we know that children do watch, it isn't aimed at them. We believe that the general tone and content of EastEnders is now widely recognised, and that parents can make an informed decision as to whether they want their children to watch it.

Chinese authorities have approved a new set of comprehensive regulations that expand the scope of online censorship, emphasize the prohibition of 'negative' content and make platforms more liable for content violations.

China previously had very detailed censorship laws laying out exactly what was banned and what part of the internet the rule applied to. The new Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem rationalises them into more general rules that apply to the entire internet.

The new rules were approved in mid-December and will take effect in March. They apply to everyone and have noted that anyone who posts anything to the internet si to be considered a content producer.

Jeremy Daum, senior fellow at the Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center notes that the new laws for what counts as illegal or now 'negative content' are quite vague. The document lays out what constitutes illegal content in sweeping terms. Content that undermines ethnic unity or undermines the nation's policy on religions is forbidden, as is anything that disseminates rumors that disrupt economic or social order or generally harms the nation's honor and interests, among other rules.

The new regulations then go on to dictate that content producers must employ measures to prevent and resist the making, reproduction or publication of negative information. This includes the following:

• the use of exaggerated titles, gossip,
• improper comments on natural disasters, major accidents, or other disasters,
• anything with sexual innuendo or that is readily associated with sex, gore or horror,
• or things that would push minors towards behaviors that are unsafe or violate social mores.

Platforms are the ones responsible for policing all these restrictions, the rules say, and should establish mechanisms for everything from reviewing content and comments to real-time inspections to the handling of online rumors. They are to have designate a manager for such activities and improve related staff.

Most national retailers in Thailand have just stopped handing out free plastic carrier bags to shoppers on January 1st

In the run up to the big day Thai TV added plastic bags to their list of social vices that must be optically censored, previously guns, alcoholic drinks, and cigarettes.

Perhaps the TV companies would have more of an effect blurring out cars, motorbikes, airplanes, air conditioners and meat.

Anyway the censorship has caused much derision on social media and the Thai environment minister stepped in to support the censorship.

National Resources and Environment Minister Varawut Silpa-archa said it was easy for the online community to criticise this act of self-censorship by TV stations. He defended the broadcasters' "well intentioned" efforts by comparing it to the censorship of alcohol and cigarettes.

Channel 4's The Last Leg has received a few Ofcom complaints after Rosie Jones made a joke about climate activist Greta Thunberg.

A few celebs appearing on the show dubbed Greta as their hero of the year after her efforts to save the planet. Although Rosie Jones begged to differ. She joked:

Greta's amazing and what she's doing is brilliant. But don't do it now. She needs to live a little, she's only 16. She should be doing two things -- drinking Lambrini and getting fingered.

An Ofcom spokesperson confirmed to Metro.co.uk that they have received 22 complaints so far about Rosie's remark.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that he will legislate if necessary to get parental controls in place to block kids from porn. He said in a speech to UNESCO:

We do not take a 13-year-old boy to a sex-shop, not anything goes in the digital world.

We will clarify in the penal code that the simple fact of declaring one's age online is not a strong enough protection against access to pornography by minors.

The measure will give the websites a period of six months to set up parental control by default . I know it hurts a lot of platforms, a lot of digital operators, but if in six months we have no solution, we will pass a law for automatic parental control.

Macron's reference to age 13 is not casual, because that is reportedly the average age of access to erotic content for the first time in France.

The US Army has banned the use of popular Chinese social media video app TikTok, with Military.com first reporting it was due to security concerns. The US Navy have followed suit.

It is considered a cyber threat, a US Army spokesperson told Military.com . We do not allow it on government phones.

The ban comes in the wake of Democrat Senator Charles Schumer and Republican Senator Tom Cotton writing a letter to US Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire insisting an investigation into TikTok would be necessary to determine whether the Chinese-owned social media video app poses a risk to national security.

Given these concerns, we ask that the Intelligence Community conduct an assessment of the national security risks posed by TikTok and other China-based content platforms operating in the US and brief Congress on these findings, the letter said.

On 1st January 2020 Netflix started streaming Messiah, a series about a mysterious figure, Al-Masih, played by Belgian actor Mehdi Dehbi. It is not clear whether he is a divine entity ... or simply a charlatan.

But according to an on-line petition, Al-Masih is, in fact, the Muslim version of the antiChrist. The Royal Film Commission of Jordan has asked Netflix not to stream the drama in the country. The Jordanian government organisation's Managing Director, Mohannad al-Bakr, held a press conference with local media. He said:

While still standing firmly by its principles, notably the respect of creative freedom, the RFC -- as a public and responsible institution -- cannot condone or ignore messages that infringe on the Kingdom's basic laws.

The RFC's announcement represents an about-face for the organisation. Its statement acknowledges that Messiah was partially shot in the Kingdom in 2018, and that, after it had reviewed synopses for the series' episodes, it approved the shoot and granted the show a tax credit.

A spokesperson for Netflix indicated that they have not received a formal legal request to remove the series from the streamer's Jordanian service.

A new California law has come into effect that seems to have been inspired by the EU's box ticking nighmare, the GDPR. It give's Californians rights in determining how their data is used by large internet companies.

The law gives consumers the right to know about the personal data that companies have collected about them, to demand that it be deleted, and to prevent it from being sold to third parties.

Although privacy controls only are required for Californians it seems likely that large companies will provide the same controls to all Americans.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will only apply to businesses that earn more than $25 million in gross revenue, that collect data on more than 50,000 people, or for which selling consumer data accounts for more than 50% of revenue.

In early December, Twitter rolled out a privacy center where users can learn more about the company's approach to the CCPA and navigate to a dashboard for customizing the types of info that the platform is allowed to use for ad targeting. Google has also created a protocol that blocks websites from transmitting data to the company. Facebook, meanwhile, is arguing that it does not need to change anything because it does not technically sell personal information. Companies must at least set up a webpage and a toll-free phone number for fielding data requests.

The personal data covered by the CCPA includes IP addresses, contact info, internet browsing history, biometrics (like facial recognition and fingerprint data), race, gender, purchasing behavior, and locations.

Many sections of the law are quite vague and awaiting further clarification in the final draft regulations, which the California attorney general's office is expected to release later in 2020.

Alanis Morissette was invited to appear ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest. She was joined by the cast of her new Broadway musical J agged Little Pill .

But the producers had clearly done no research into what they may expect from the performance. When she took to the stage in Times Square on Tuesday night, those fans were no doubt thrilled to see a performance of  Morissette's 1995 single You Oughta Know.

Or at least they were until they realized that some of the song's edgier lyrics had been removed entirely, while seemingly random lyrics were bleeped, including the word perverted in the lyric Is she perverted like me?

A viewer pointed out that the excised lyrics actually appear intact when the song receives radio play throughout North America. Another tweeted:

Our president says horrible things every day that @ABC reports, but on @ABC you can't ask if she would go down on you in a theater.

ABC also censored the line: An older version of me for reasons not quite clear.