Censor Watch

The animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars has made it onto the internet TV service Disney Plus, but it's missing a bit on the episode A Distant Echo .

A once teased, but ultimately axed scene featured some WW2-era pinup-style graphics. It showed a leggy Senator Padme Amidala in high boots, a severe updo, a mischievously cryptic look on her face, and a gun in hand.

In the deleted scene, Anakin asks Hunter, Hey! What's with the nose art? Hunter responds, That's our girl. The Naboo Senator. We check her out on the holoscans. Wrecker responds, Yea! She can negotiate with me anytime!

Disney has not given any reason for this latest cutting room floor decision. But some fans are frustrated at Disneyand those within, who want to sterilize everything for the modern era.

The Trouble with Being Born is a 2020 Austria / Germany Sci-Fi drama by Sandra Wollner.
Starring Ingrid Burkhard, Susanne Gschwendtner and Jana McKinnon.

A sci-fi film depicting a sexualised relationship between an adult man and an android that looks like a 10-year-old girl has prompted outrage and walkouts at festival screenings.

Titled The Trouble With Being Born , the film is programmed as part of Berlinale 2020, the annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany.

In the film, the child-like android, played by Lena Watson, 10, is seen calling her owner Daddy. While most of the sexual relationship is implied rather than explicit, according to reports, the film leaves little doubt that the man, played by Dominik Warta has a sexual relationship with the child robot. The film also contains multiple nude scenes, which were created using CGI.

Although the film has caused a little outrage, it has also found a few admirers with The Hollywood Reporter selecting it as a hidden gem.

Director Sandra Wollner says the story was aimed at being an antithesis to Pinocchio, or Steven Spielberg's A.I., where the central characters dream of becoming human. She added:

What I found interesting about it is that we have an android whose only desires are the ones you program it to have, she says. I found it fascinating to show the perspective of the world through this machine that does not judge and does not care, and doesn't need the meanings that we do.

  Mulan is a 2020 USA family action adventure by Niki Caro.
Starring Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen and Jet Li.

A young Chinese maiden disguises herself as a male warrior in order to save her father. A live-action feature film based on Disney's 'Mulan.'

Mulan movie kiss scene CUT by Disney after China's censors demand removal DISNEY's Mulan movie has cut a kiss scene after Chinese censors forbid its inclusion. By George Simpson PUBLISHED: 13:20, Thu, Feb 27, 2020 | UPDATED: 16:39, Thu, Feb 27, 2020

Muland is a live action remake of a popular Disney cartoon movie. But the Chinese release has seen a kiss removed after China's local executives demand its censorship. The intimate moment was between Mulan and her love interest Chen Honghui.

According to The Hollywood Reporter , Disney showed Mulan at a Chinese test screening. And in the early cut, the kiss scene on a bridge did not go down well with the authorities. Director Niki Caro said:

It was very beautiful, but the China office went, 'No, you can't, that doesn't feel right to the Chinese people.

Stirling Griff, a crossbencher from the Centre Alliance party used a speech in the Australian Senate to call for all anime and manga in the country to be re-reviewed by the classification board. He claimed that they contain depictions of wide-eyed children, usually in school uniforms, engaged in explicit sexual activities and poses, and often being sexually abused.

But given that the classification board had classified the material then presumably the censors hold a different view.

Griff called out Eromanga Sensei, a novel series from 2013 about a 15-year-old high schooler who uses an anonymous partner called Eromanga Sensei to illustrate his stories, who is later revealed to be a 12-year-old junior high schooler.

Manga and anime is exempt from exploitation laws in Japan, as cartoon characters are not considered to be depictions of real children. In Australia, the Classification Board has argued otherwise, with some anime games being refused classification precisely for sexual depictions of underage characters.

 Offsite Comment: Australian senator doesn't understand ratings, begins slippery slope to banning everything

27th February 2020. See article from highimpactclassification.wordpress.com

Update: A response from the Film Classification Board

28th February 2020. See article from classification.gov.au by Margaret Anderson, Director, Classification Board

Classification of anime films

The Classification Board (the Board) is aware of concerns about the classification of certain Japanese anime genre films, specifically Sword Art Online: Extra Edition, No Game No Life, and Eromanga Sensei Volumes 1 & 2, and about comic books featuring manga style drawings not being classified by the Board.

The Board classifies films in accordance with the Guidelines for the Classification of Films (the Film Guidelines) . There are not specific or separate guidelines to classify animated films. Films can be classified in the classification categories from G to R 18+ (with the X 18+ category limited to films containing sexually explicit activity). If a film contains content that exceeds the scope and limits of content that is permitted in the R 18+ category, it will be Refused Classification (RC). Films in the anime genre have been classified across a range of categories, including M, MA 15+, R 18+ and RC.

The Film Guidelines require an assessment of impact of six classifiable elements (themes, violence, sex, coarse language, drug use and nudity); not an assessment of the genre type or whether the film depicts 'real' people or animated characters. The Guidelines state " Context is crucial in determining whether a classifiable element is justified by the story -line or themes. This means that material that falls into a particular classification category in one context may fall outside it in another. "

In addition to determining the classification, the Board must determine consumer advice for a film. The purpose of consumer advice is to draw attention to only the most impactful and frequent content relating to the six classifiable elements. Therefore, not all the content in a film will warrant consumer advice. The classifications for the named films are:

• Sword Art Online: Extra Edition is classified M with consumer advice 'sexualised imagery, sexual references and animated violence.
• No Game No Life is classified MA 15+ with consumer advice 'strong sexual themes'.
• Eromanga Sensei Volumes 1 & 2 are classified MA 15+ with consumer advice 'strong sexual themes'.

Regarding comic books, only submittable publications are required to be classified. The Board classifies submittable publications in accordance with the Guidelines for the Classification of Publications . It is the responsibility of distributors of comic books to decide if the comic book should be classified. States and territories are responsible for classification enforcement legislation which includes offences for selling an unclassified submittable publication.

The Board is aware that a campaign has been launched about the sale of Japanese manga and anime in Australia and that in the context of the Government's Review of Classification Regulation this issue has been raised. The Board welcomes this review.

Margaret Anderson
Director, Classification Board

It came as little surprise to Kuwaiti artist Shurooq Amin that her latest exhibition was shut down by the authorities just a week after it opened. Her work has always sparked controversy.

Amin's most recent defiant display, Like Russian Dolls We Nest in Previous Selves , opened on 8 January. It was planned to run for a month at the Contemporary Art Platform (CAP). But a week after opening, the exhibition was dramatically shut down and her work ordered to be removed.

Though authorities released no official statement , the gallery said they were told they hadn't obtained a prior licence from the concerned authorities and that there were claims that the exhibition contained elements in violation of the publishing law of the Ministry of Information.

In Like Russian Dolls We Nest in Previous Selves , a set of portraits show women sitting on thrones, some in revealing clothing and languid poses with bottles of what appears to be alcohol.

In the main gallery space, mannequins were positioned to look like visitors viewing the artwork. In a country where alcohol is illegal, the bottles might be controversial enough. But the conservatively veiled mannequins looking at the portraits of the scantily clad women may also have provoked debate.

Prager University (PragerU) is a right wing group that creates videos explaining a right wing perspective to political issues.

YouTube didn't much care for the content and shunted the videos up a 'restricted mode' back alley.

PragerU challenged the censorship in court but have just lost their case. First Amendment rights in the US bans the state from censoring free speech but this protection does not extended to private companies. PragerU had tried to argue that Google has become so integral to American life that it should be treated like a state institution.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed that YouTube, a Google subsidiary, is a private platform and thus not subject to the First Amendment. In making that determination, the Court also rejected a plea from a conservative content maker that sued YouTube in hopes that the courts would force it to behave like a public utility.

Headed by conservative radio host Dennis Prager, PragerU alleged in its suit against YouTube that the video hosting platform violated PragerU's right to free speech when it placed a portion of the nonprofit's clips on Restricted Mode, an optional setting that approximately 1.5 percent of YouTube users select so as not to see content with mature themes.

Writing for the appeals court, Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown said YouTube was a private forum despite its ubiquity and public accessibility, and hosting videos did not make it a state actor for purposes of the First Amendment.

Question Time
BBC One, 20 February 2020

Summary of complaint

We have received complaints from viewers who felt that a member of the audience was allowed to make unchallenged racist comments, and that a clip should not have been posted to the programme's Twitter page.

Our response

Question Time is a topical discussion programme where the audience place a key role in the debate. We always seek out a range of opinions and views on every topic and it is therefore inevitable that from time to time there will be comments made that you may disagree with. This edition of the programme included a debate about immigration which featured a broad range of views from the audience members and panellists.

After the audience member in question finished speaking, Fiona offered the panel the opportunity to respond to the points raised. Ash Sarkar strongly refuted the audience member's claims before the debate continued and we heard from other members of the panel and our audience on this issue. We recognise that some of our viewers would have preferred that Fiona interrupted this particular audience member more quickly but we are satisfied that in the generality of the debate we ensured that different perspectives and viewpoints were heard. As a programme we are a forum for discussion and therefore never take a view on the comments made by our panellists or audience members. We do want to assure you, however, that all content that we publish adheres to the BBC's editorial and legal guidelines.

In regards to the Tweet, Question Time posted five clips of people expressing their different views on the issue, which included the contributions of two panel members and two other audience contributions. We note that some of these posts have also been widely discussed and shared in keeping with our core obligation around ensuring that our audiences on social and digital as well as television and radio get a balanced summary of the debate in question.

1300 complaints were sent to the US TV censors of the FCC about Shakira and J.Lo's Super Bowl halftime show

The Federal Communications Commission received 1,312 complaints from viewers whingeing about the sexy dancing of Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.

The singers danced on poles, twerked, belly-danced and made more than a few sexually suggestive gestures.

Some of the complaints claimed that their children were exposed to a 'porno' show. Other adults claimed the show encouraged sex trafficking. And some people were upset that no public warnings were given before the show, which one viewer said was less a musical act than an X-rated strip club performance.

A lot of the complaints included threats about boycotting Pepsi. Well, not even just Pepsi. People said they planned to also boycott the Super Bowl, its halftime shows and even the entire NFL.

Firefox has begun the rollout of encrypted DNS over HTTPS (DoH) by default for US-based users. The rollout will continue over the next few weeks to confirm no major issues are discovered as this new protocol is enabled for Firefox's US-based users.

A little over two years ago, we began work to help update and secure one of the oldest parts of the internet, the Domain Name System (DNS). To put this change into context, we need to briefly describe how the system worked before DoH. DNS is a database that links a human-friendly name, such as www.mozilla.org, to a computer-friendly series of numbers, called an IP address (e.g. 192.0.2.1). By performing a lookup in this database, your web browser is able to find websites on your behalf. Because of how DNS was originally designed decades ago, browsers doing DNS lookups for websites -- even encrypted https:// sites -- had to perform these lookups without encryption. We described the impact of insecure DNS on our privacy:

Because there is no encryption, other devices along the way might collect (or even block or change) this data too. DNS lookups are sent to servers that can spy on your website browsing history without either informing you or publishing a policy about what they do with that information.

At the creation of the internet, these kinds of threats to people's privacy and security were known, but not being exploited yet. Today, we know that unencrypted DNS is not only vulnerable to spying but is being exploited, and so we are helping the internet to make the shift to more secure alternatives. We do this by performing DNS lookups in an encrypted HTTPS connection. This helps hide your browsing history from attackers on the network, helps prevent data collection by third parties on the network that ties your computer to websites you visit.

We're enabling DoH by default only in the US. If you're outside of the US and would like to enable DoH, you're welcome to do so by going to Settings, then General, then scroll down to Networking Settings and click the Settings button on the right. Here you can enable DNS over HTTPS by clicking, and a checkbox will appear. By default, this change will send your encrypted DNS requests to Cloudflare.Users have the option to choose between two providers 204 Cloudflare and NextDNS -- both of which are trusted resolvers.

Utah's lawmakers are calling for mandatory warning labels on all pornography distributed within the state.

House Bill 243, sponsored by Representative Brady Brammer requires the following warning label:

Exposing minors to pornography is known to the state of Utah to cause negative impacts to brain development, emotional development and the ability to maintain intimate relationships. Such exposure may lead to harmful and addictive sexual behavior, low self-esteem, and the improper objectification of and sexual violence towards others, among numerous other harms.

Perhaps porn producers could add the note:

However it should be noted that any harms supposedly caused by porn are as nothing compared to the harm that religion causes around the world.

The enforcement mechanism is based upon anti-porn activists complaining to the state's attorney general.

Compliance details include the clear display of the warning label for 15 seconds on all videos, along with a prominent display on printed publications and websites, with the 15 second display requirement valid for all online videos and individual images.

The move is a follow-up to 2016's declaration by Utah lawmakers that porn constitutes a public health crisis.

Comment: The bill is unsupported by scientific facts, and very clearly unconstitutional

9th February 2020. See article from avn.com

The Free Speech Coalition representing the US adult trade has issued a statement responding to the Utah proposal:

A proposed bill in the Utah legislature would require adult content to carry a warning attesting to the alleged dangers of viewing, or face a $2,500 fine. The bill is unsupported by scientific facts, and very clearly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that such requirements are compelled speech, and a violation of First Amendment rights. The government can not force its citizens or organizations to convey a specific message, especially one political in nature.

The proponent, State Representative Brady Brammer, likens his proposal -- which would mandate a fifteen-second clip before any video featuring nudity -- to warning labels on toxic chemicals. However, toxic chemicals are highly regulated, and not a form of speech. They possess no First Amendment protections. Videos, photographs, and live performances are speech, and their creators are protected. (As for the dangers, the bill quotes no science or studies -- in fact, there is no credible evidence to support the legislator's claims.)

When it comes to adults, consumption of adult entertainment has been shown to decrease stress, increase tolerance and produce more egalitarian attitudes toward women. Over the past two decades, the availability to adult content has skyrocketed, and yet the rates of divorce, teen pregnancy and sexual assault have all fallen dramatically.

The scope of the bill is dangerously broad and would open not just explicit content, but mere nudity. All manner of film, video, and social media content could be subject to prosecution. Under the bill, individual citizens are financially rewarded for bringing lawsuits against such content -- from a Game of Thrones clip to a Kim Kardashian selfie -- if it shows so much as a bared breast and does not carry a warning of the dangers.

We have no doubt that should this bill be passed, the likely targets would be a long list of targets social conservatives regularly deem obscene -- from feminist art and LGBTQ film to comprehensive sex education texts. The State of Utah and its taxpayers would be on the hook for millions of dollars defending a law that is ultimately indefensible.

Adult content should be limited to adults, but this bill accomplishes little in that regard. Instead, it punishes speech that is not in lock step with the moral views of the bill's proponent. If Rep. Brammer wants to keep minors from accessing adult material, he should work on a proven effective solution: helping parents be more involved in their children's online lives and installing effective filters on their devices.

Update: Passed committee

12th February 2020.

Utah's House Judiciary Committee voted 9-2 in favor of the legislation, HB243 , after several strongly worded speeches about the harms of pornographic material.

Rep. Eric Hutchings said: I'm sorry, but if you want to threaten my kids, I'm not playing nice anymore,

And Rep. Travis Seegmiller said the bill's proposed fine of up to $2,500 per violation didn't seem steep enough.

Update: Passed in the House

12th February 2020. See article from sltrib.com

Representatives voted 60-12 in favor of HB243 , which seeks to curtail the prominence of pornography in the state -- and particularly its reach to children -- by requiring the inclusion of a warning label on printed materials or a 15-second advisory ahead of online content.

Failing to do so could result in a $2,500 fine for each violation.

Update: Passed in Senate Committee but...

26th February 2020. See article from heraldextra.com

A bill that would impose civil penalties on pornography distributors who fail to put a warning label on obscene material passed through the Utah Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee on Tuesday.

However free speech concerns have downgraded its purpose somewhat. The bill has been amended to replace a warning about 'pornography' , to be a warning about 'obscene material'.

The reason for the change is that obscenity is a higher legal standard and does not enjoy constitutional protections. Bill sponsor Rep. Brady Brammersaid legal counsel has said that a narrowly tailored warning requirement like this would not violate the Constitution with respect to free speech.

However surely mainstream porn is not considered to be obscene so the warning we be about material that is not generally available anyway.

Shooter is a 2020 India action film by Inderjit Singh
Starring Jayy Randhawa.

Following in the steps of the Indian state of Punjab, the Haryana state government has imposed a ban on the screening of the Punjabi movie Shooter- based on the life and crimes of notorious gangster Sukha Kahlwan.

As per the order issued by Vijai Vardhan, additional chief secretary (home), the suspension of screening/exhibition of the movie in the state shall remain in force for two months.

Filmmaker Kewal Singh has filed a petition within the High Court stating that the Punjab authorities has banned its launch on February 10 with out seeing the movie. The movie has not but been issued a certificates by the censor board and neither has the movie been seen. T

Earlier the Punjab authorities banned this movie claiming that the movie is selling violence, crime and gang tradition, which may promote crime in Punjab.

In the UK the film was passed 15 uncut for strong bloody violence, brief drug misuse.

Dance of the Seven Veils is a 1970 UK music biography by Ken Russell.
Starring Christopher Gable, Judith Paris and Kenneth Colley.

An imaginary portrait of composer Richard Strauss.

Ken Russell's film about Richard Strauss, has been banned for 50 years but is screening at the Keswick film festival on 29th February.

It was banned 50 years ago after one screening. The BBC TV documentary shocked with its portrayal of the German composer as a vulgar, pompous man with Nazi sympathies.

Mary Whitehouse, the self-appointed moral guardian, got hot under her collar about its sex scenes, while questions were asked in the House of Commons.

Then the Strauss family complained about the use of the composer's music, before applying a ban, through copyright, which only expired a week ago.

The screening at the Keswick film festival, will also feature another Russell cause célèbre, A Kitten for Hitler. This short was prompted by Melvyn Bragg, who wondered if the film-maker could conjure up something purely to offend. Made in 2007, the eight-minute film is the story of a Jewish kid who, feeling sorry for the unloved Fuhrer, goes to Germany to give him a kitten.

It sounds not so far away from the Mark Meechan joke about a Nazi saluting pug which resulted in a 2018 conviction for a 'hate crime'.

Several Jewish groups have complained about Amazon's fictitious depictions of the Holocaust in its new series Hunters .

The groups complained that the show, starring Al Pacino, was in bad taste and was described as 'Jewsploitation'.

In one scene, inmates of Auschwitz concentration camp are forced to kill each other while being used in a game of human chess.

Auschwitz Memorial, a group that maintains the former camp as a historical site, accused the programme makers of inventing a fake game of human chess in an act of dangerous foolishness.

Karen Pollack, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, claimed that such portrayals risked fuelling Holocaust denial, and lent a tone of flippant entertainment to the programme.

A Times article has popped up under the headline Boris Johnson set to water down curbs on tech giants.

It had all the hallmarks of an insider briefing, opening with the following

The prime minister is preparing to soften plans for sanctions on social media companies amid concerns about a backlash from tech giants.

There is a very pro-tech lobby in No 10, a well-placed source said. They got spooked by some of the coverage around online harms and raised concerns about the reaction of the technology companies. There is a real nervousness about it.

Read the full article from johncarr.blog

The European Commission has told its staff to start using Signal, an end-to-end-encrypted messaging app, in a push to increase the security of its communications.

The instruction appeared on internal messaging boards in early February, notifying employees that Signal has been selected as the recommended application for public instant messaging.

The app is favored by privacy activists because of its end-to-end encryption and open-source technology. Bart Preneel, cryptography expert at the University of Leuven explained:

It's like Facebook's WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage but it's based on an encryption protocol that's very innovative. Because it's open-source, you can check what's happening under the hood.

Promoting the app, however, could antagonize the law enforcement community. It will underline the hypocrisy of  Officials in Brussels, Washington and other capitals have been putting strong pressure on Facebook and Apple to allow government agencies to access to encrypted messages; if these agencies refuse, legal requirements could be introduced that force firms to do just that.

American, British and Australian officials have published an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in October, asking that he call off plans to encrypt the company's messaging service. Dutch Minister for Justice and Security Ferd Grappehaus told POLITICO last April that the EU needs to look into legislation allowing governments to access encrypted data.

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan is a 2020 India gay comedy by Hitesh Kewalya.
Starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Jitendra Kumar and Gajraj Rao.

Presenting the life of two gay men who are in love, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan depicts their struggle to convince their families to accept the relationship. But things are never as easy as they seem and one of the boy`s family decides to get him married to a girl. Will their `unconventional` love prevail?

A major Bollywood gay film has been banned in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Touted as India's first gay male romantic comedy, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (Be Extra Careful About Marriage) stars popular actor Ayushmann Khurrana as an openly gay man, who battles traditional attitudes to be with his boyfriend.

Film director Hitesh Kewalya said: Yes, it's banned adding that he had no further details about the move.

Meanwhile the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) CEO Ezekiel Mutua has also banned the screening of Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhan'. In a statement he maintained that the 'gay-themed is not in line with Kenyan constitution and the institution of family, hence the decision to ban its screening. He added:

The film is worse than the ones we have banned in the past as it has scenes involving children in homosexual practices and openly attempts to legitimize same-sex marriage.

Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya. Further, Kenya is a God-fearing nation which places a great premium on family, an institution derived from a union between two people of the opposite gender.

Kenya will not be the dumping ground for all manner of filth that seeks to destroy the institution of family and our cultural identity.

For comparison the film was passed 12A uncut by the BBFC for implied strong language, suicide references, discrimination theme

US internet giants including Microsoft have raised the spectre of geo-blocking New Zealand if the Government proceeds with a bill for classifying streamed content.

A law requiring film ratings to apply to streaming services like Netflix and Lightbox has raised hackles from some Silicon Valley firms. The bill mandates that certain commercial video-on-demand (CVoD) providers follow the process that broadcasting and film companies follow in classifying content or submit themselves to a self-classification system to be developed by the Chief Censor and the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC).

But even this self classification option would require reclassifying vast back catalogs of content, some CVoD providers say, and it might be easier for them to pull some content out of New Zealand altogether. There are also worries that streaming services might choose to leave the country rather than deal with a potentially onerous regulatory regime.

Submissions to the Governance and Administration select committee raised concerns about enforceability or whether companies might just pull out. NZME's submission said news sites with paid subscriptions that aired video footage could fall under the classification system .

In its submission to the select committee, Microsoft warned that content it has yet to classify could be geo-blocked. Microsoft observes, however, that while the majority of content it makes available through the Microsoft Movies & TV platform is or may be rated by the studio producing the content, where a small independent studio or filmmaker makes content available on the platform, that content may not have a rating assigned. In that situation, a provider like Microsoft is unlikely to apply to rate the content itself (or itself develop a rating system) as it isn't in the business of reviewing the film's content in order to apply for the correct label. In the result, unobjectionable yet unrated / unlabelled content may, in some cases, not be made available to New Zealand audiences, due to the regulatory threshold associated with rating and labelling.

The Deputy Chief Censor also did not think that providers would skip the New Zealand market because of the proposed changes. The OFLC, in its select committee submission , said that given that this framework is low cost and simple for providers to implement, this would be unlikely to impact services provided to NZ public. We have not seen providers withdraw from other jurisdictions due to regulation. This light-handed regulatory approach will not require providers to make significant investment to supply our relatively small market.

The logo for Jägermeister alcohol is not religiously offensive, a Swiss court has ruled.

The Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property had blocked efforts by the German spirit brand to expand its trademark to cosmetics and entertainment services. It claimed that the logo - a stag and a cross - could offend the country's Christians.

But Swiss federal judges ruled in favour of Jägermeister. The Federal Administrative Court ruled that the "intensive" use of the logo had "weakened its religious character" over time, making the chance of genuine offence unlikely, Swissinfo reported.

The logo refers to the legend of St Hubertus, the 'Apostle of the Ardennes', who is said to have converted to Christianity one Good Friday in the 8th century after witnessing a stag with a crucifix between its antlers.

Jägermeister can now use its logo on a wide-range of products in Switzerland including cosmetics, mobile phones, or telecommunications services.

Facebook has blocked Singapore-based users access to the page of the State Times' Review (STR) on the orders of the Singapore government.

STR has been accused on multiple occasions by the government claiming fake news and misinformation. The latest correction notice was served after STR posted an article containing claims about the coronavirus (Covid-19) situation that was deemed entirely untrue according to the government.

After STR failed to heed the notice, the government resorted to ordering Facebook to block Singapore users from accessing STR's page.

Facebook complied as it said it was legally compelled to carry out the order. However, the social network told Channel NewsAsia it believed orders like this are disproportionate and contradict the Singapore government's claim that POFMA would not be used as a censorship tool. A Facebook spokesman said:

We've repeatedly highlighted this law's potential for overreach and we're deeply concerned about the precedent this sets for the stifling of freedom of expression in Singapore.

Today, we're publishing a white paper setting out some questions that regulation of online content might address.

Charting a Way Forward: Online Content Regulation builds on recent developments on this topic, including legislative efforts and scholarship.

The paper poses four questions which go to the heart of the debate about regulating content online:

• How can content regulation best achieve the goal of reducing harmful speech while preserving free expression? By requiring systems such as user-friendly channels for reporting content or external oversight of policies or enforcement decisions, and by requiring procedures such as periodic public reporting of enforcement data, regulation could provide governments and individuals the information they need to accurately judge social media companies' efforts.

• How can regulations enhance the accountability of internet platforms? Regulators could consider certain requirements for companies, such as publishing their content standards, consulting with stakeholders when making significant changes to standards, or creating a channel for users to appeal a company's content removal or non-removal decision.

• Should regulation require internet companies to meet certain performance targets? Companies could be incentivized to meet specific targets such as keeping the prevalence of violating content below some agreed threshold.

• Should regulation define which "harmful content" should be prohibited on the internet? Laws restricting speech are generally implemented by law enforcement officials and the courts. Internet content moderation is fundamentally different. Governments should create rules to address this complexity -- that recognize user preferences and the variation among internet services, can be enforced at scale, and allow for flexibility across language, trends and context.

Guidelines for Future Regulation

The development of regulatory solutions should involve not just lawmakers, private companies and civil society, but also those who use online platforms. The following principles are based on lessons we've learned from our work in combating harmful content and our discussions with others.

• Incentives. Ensuring accountability in companies' content moderation systems and procedures will be the best way to create the incentives for companies to responsibly balance values like safety, privacy, and freedom of expression.

• The global nature of the internet. Any national regulatory approach to addressing harmful content should respect the global scale of the internet and the value of cross-border communications. They should aim to increase interoperability among regulators and regulations.

• Freedom of expression. In addition to complying with Article 19 of the ICCPR (and related guidance), regulators should consider the impacts of their decisions on freedom of expression.

• Technology. Regulators should develop an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of technology in content moderation and allow internet companies the flexibility to innovate. An approach that works for one particular platform or type of content may be less effective (or even counterproductive) when applied elsewhere.

• Proportionality and necessity. Regulators should take into account the severity and prevalence of the harmful content in question, its status in law, and the efforts already underway to address the content.

If designed well, new frameworks for regulating harmful content can contribute to the internet's continued success by articulating clear ways for government, companies, and civil society to share responsibilities and work together. Designed poorly, these efforts risk unintended consequences that might make people less safe online, stifle expression and slow innovation.

We hope today's white paper helps to stimulate further conversation around the regulation of content online. It builds on a paper we published last September on data portability , and we plan on publishing similar papers on elections and privacy in the coming months.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has welcomed a number of new and returning ministers, following appointments made by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Oliver Dowden, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

The Secretary of State has overall responsibility for strategy and policy across the department and management of Brexit for the department.

Caroline Dinenage, Minister of State for Digital and Culture:

• Online Harms and Security
• Digital and Tech Policy including Digital Skills
• Creative Industries
• Arts and Libraries
• Museums and Cultural Property
• Festival 2022

John Whittingdale, Minister of State for Media and Data:

• Media
• Oversight of EU negotiations
• Overall international strategy including approach to future trade deals
• Data and the National Archives
• Public Appointments

Matt Warman: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Digital Infrastructure:

• Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK)
• Gigabit delivery programme
• Mobile coverage
• Telecoms supply chain
• Cyber Security

Nigel Huddleston: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Sport, Tourism and Heritage:

• Sport
• Commonwealth Games
• Gambling and Lotteries
• Tourism and Heritage
• Lead Secondary Legislation Minister (including EU Exit SIs)

Diana Barran: DCMS Lords Minister, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Civil Society and DCMS

• All DCMS business in the House of Lords
• Ceremonials
• Youth and Social Action
• Office for Civil Society
• Loneliness

Ofcom has imposed a £75,000 fine on Talksport Ltd in relation to its service Talk Radio for failing to comply with our broadcasting rules, and required the service to broadcast a summary of our findings.

Between 16 March and 6 August 2018, Talk Radio broadcast three episodes of the George Galloway programme dealing with the following issues: the poisoning of Yulia and Sergei Skripal in Salisbury on 4 March 2018, and allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

In Ofcom's Decisions published on 28 January and 25 March 2019 in issue 371 and issue 375 of the Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin, Ofcom found that each of the three programmes failed to maintain due impartiality and had breached Rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code.

Ofcom has also imposed a £20,000 fine on Baltic Media Alliance Limited in relation to its service NTV Mir Baltic for failing to comply with our broadcasting rules. The broadcaster must also broadcast a summary of our findings on the channel.

On 2 April 2018, Baltic Media Alliance Limited broadcast a news programme, Today, which included a discussion about the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury on 4 March 2018.

In Ofcom's Decision published on 11 February 2019 in issue 372 of the Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin, Ofcom found that the programme failed to maintain due impartiality and had breached Rules 5.1, 5.11 and 5.12 of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has called for more regulation of harmful online content, saying it was not for companies like his to decide what counts as legitimate free speech.

He was speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany. He said:

We don't want private companies making so many decisions about how to balance social equities without any more democratic process.

The Facebook founder urged governments to come up with a new regulatory system for social media, suggesting it should be a mix of existing rules for telecoms and media companies. He added:

In the absence of that kind of regulation we will continue doing our best,

But I actually think on a lot of these questions that are trying to balance different social equities it is not just about coming up with the right answer, it is about coming up with an answer that society thinks is legitimate.

During his time in Europe, Zuckerberg is expected to meet politicians in Munich and Brussels to discuss data practices, regulation and tax reform.

The Big Boss is a 1971 Hong Kong martial arts film by Wei Lo.
With Bruce Lee, Maria Yi and James Tien.

Cut by the BBFC for cinema release and VHS. The cuts were waived in 2000, but not all DVD releases have used the uncut version. There are reports of longer version with lost scenes, for example, the infamous saw in the head or Lee's second visit to the brothel.

In fact there was a longer version submitted to the Australian Censor in 1973, but unfortunately it was banned and never saw the light of day. It was 5 and a half minutes longer than the version distributed today. At the time Australia was a good market for Hong Kong movies and it was common for Australia to take movies, eg Shaw Brothers productions, that weren't distributed in the US or Europe. So perhaps it seems believable that an early release was submitted in Australia before Bruce Lee's talent was spotted elsewhere, resulting in the film being cut for world wide distribution.

Thanks to Philip who has been looking into the longer version:

Rumour is that in the early 70s a Mandarin language print was shown of a cut of the movie which was 5-10 minutes longer than the version widely distributed. How much of this is due to extra scenes or due to the fps rate of the print I couldn't find out.

Legend has it that there are extra scenes not available in the theatrical version, possibly some that have already surfaced on DVD such as the second visit to brothel etc, but most excitingly the uncut version of the icehouse / saw through the head scene.

Also apparently the violence in the movie was tamed prior to the general release of the film.

Only one print of this version is known to exist, but the owner has so far refused to distribute or sell the reels.

Background to the case

1. Between November 2018 and January 2019 the Claimant, Harry Miller, posted a number of tweets on Twitter about transgender issues. He holds gender critical views. The Claimant strongly denies being prejudiced against transgender people. He regards himself as taking part in the ongoing debate about reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 on which the Government consulted in 2018.

2. The College of Policing is the professional body whose purpose is to provide those working in policing with the skills and knowledge necessary for effective policing. The College publishes operational guidance for police forces in relation to hate incidents. This is called the Hate Crime Operational Guidance (HCOG). It requires police forces to record hate incidents whether or not they are criminal. The recording is done primarily for intelligence purposes. A noncriminal hate incident in relation to transgender is defined as

Any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.

3. The Claimant's tweets were reported to Humberside Police by a transgender woman called Mrs B. Mrs B read the tweets when a friend told her about them. She regarded them as transphobic. They were recorded by the police as a non-crime hate incident. Of all the people who read the tweets, Mrs B was the only person to complain.

[An example Twitter post was

You're a man.

You're breasts are made of silicone
Your vagina goes nowhere
And we can tell the difference
Even when you are not there

Your hormones are synthetic
And lets just cross this bridge
What you have you stupid man
Is male privilege.]

4. A police officer visited the Claimant's place of work to speak to him about his tweets. They subsequently spoke on the telephone. What was said is disputed, but in his judgment Mr Justice Julian Knowles finds that the officer left the Claimant with the impression that he might be prosecuted if he continued to tweet. A press statement issued by an Assistant Chief Constable and a response to a complaint by the police also referred to the possibility of criminal proceedings if matters escalated, a term which was never further defined.

The judgment

5. In this application for judicial review the Claimant challenged the lawfulness of HCOG. He argued that, as a policy, it violates domestic law and also Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression. Alternatively, he argued that even if the policy is lawful, his treatment by the police was disproportionate and unlawfully interfered with his right of free speech under Article 10(1).

6. In his judgment handed down today, Mr Justice Julian Knowles concludes that HCOG is lawful as a policy both under domestic law and under Article 10. The policy draws upon many years of work on hate crime and hate incidents which began with the 1999 Macpherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. The Court concludes that HCOG serves legitimate purposes and is not disproportionate.

7. However, Mr Justice Julian Knowles also finds that the police's actions towards the Claimant disproportionately interfered with his right of freedom of expression on the particular facts of this case. The judgment emphasises the vital importance of free speech in a democracy and provides a reminder that free speech includes not only the inoffensive, but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative, and that the freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.

8. Mr Justice Julian Knowles concludes that the Claimant's tweets were lawful and that there was not the slightest risk that he would commit a criminal offence by continuing to tweet. He finds the combination of the police visiting the Claimant's place of work, and their subsequent statements in relation to the possibility of prosecution, were a disproportionate interference with the Claimant's right to freedom of expression because of their potential chilling effect. In response to the Defendants' submissions that any interference with the Claimant's rights was trivial and justifiable, the judge concludes that these arguments impermissibly minimise what occurred and do not properly reflect the value of free speech in a democracy. He writes: The effect of the police turning up at [the Claimant's] place of work because of his political opinions must not be underestimated. To do so would be to undervalue a cardinal democratic freedom. In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society.

9. To that extent, Mr Justice Julian Knowles upholds the Claimant's claim.

The BBC obtained a follow up statement from the police rather showing that the police are wedded to the Orwellian society that they are enforcing.

Deputy Chief Constable Bernie O'Reilly, of the College of Policing, said:

Policing's position is clear - we want everyone to feel able to express opinions as passionately as they wish without breaking the law.

He added:

Hate incidents can be a precursor to these types of crimes and without recording them the police will begin to lose sight of what is happening in their communities - and potentially lose their confidence.

Offsite Comment: We need more Harry Millers

15th February 2020. See article from spiked-online.com by Tom Slater

He fought the thoughtpolice, and he won.

Today is a good day for free speech in Britain. The High Court has ruled that it is unlawful for police officers to harass members of the public for expressing views on the internet that some people find offensive, but are otherwise entirely legal to express. That this even had to be clarified tells us something about how far we've fallen, and how sorely this ruling was needed.

Statement: Index welcomes ruling that police reaction to tweets was disproportionate interference

15th February 2020. See article from indexoncensorship.org by Jodie Ginsberg

Index has long expressed concerns about the way police are handling online speech.

Index on Censorship chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said:

All too often speech that breaks no law is being investigated in a way that stifles people's freedom to express themselves -- while direct and credible threats of violence go unpunished.

Index on Censorship provided a witness statement in the Miller case and in particular noted the importance of being able to debate matters of public interest, such as the questions that arose from the government's consultation on the Gender Recognition Act. Index argued that the growing number of cases in which police were contacting individuals about online speech that was not illegal -- and sometimes asking for posts to be removed -- was creating confusion among the wider population about what is and is not legal speech.

Offsite Comment: Unpopular Thoughts Approved In The UK

17th February 2020. See article from reprobatepress.com by David Flint

 

Oliver Dowden was appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 13 February 2020.

He was previously Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, and before that, Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office. He was elected Conservative MP for Hertsmere in May 2015.

The previous Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan will now be spending more time with her family.

There's been no suggestions that Dowden will diverge from the government path on setting out a new internet censorship regime as outlined in its OnlIne Harms white paper.

Perhaps another parliamentary appointment that may be relevant is that Julian Knight has taken over the Chair of the DCMS Select Committee, the Parliamentary scrutiny body overseeing the DCMS.

Knight seems quite keen on the internet censorship idea and will surely be spurring on the DCMS.

And finally one more censorship appointment was announced by the Government. The government has appointed Ofcom to regulate video-sharing platforms under the audiovisual media services directive, which aims to reduce harmful content on these sites. That will provide quicker protection for some harms and activities and will act as a stepping stone to the full online harms regulatory framework.

 Matt Warman, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport announced:

We also yesterday appointed Ofcom to regulate video-sharing platforms under the audiovisual media services directive, which aims to reduce harmful content on these sites. That will provide quicker protection for some harms and activities and will act as a stepping stone to the full online harms regulatory framework.

In Fact this censorship process is set to start in September 2020 and in fact Ofcom have already produced their solution that shadows the age verification requirements of the Digital Economy Act but now may need rethinking as some of the enforcement mechanisms, such as ISP blocking, are no longer on the table. The mechanism also only applies to British based online adult companies providing online video. of which there are hardly any left, after previously being destroyed by the ATVOD regime.

J'accuse (An Officer and a Spy) is a 2019 France / Italy historical thriller by Roman Polanski.
Starring Jean Dujardin, Louis Garrel and Emmanuelle Seigner.  

In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil's island.

The entire board of the César Academy, which distributes France's equivalent of the Oscars, has resigned amid a wave of #MeToo criticism of its nomination for 12 awards for a film by Roman Polanski. The Césars had defended the nominations, saying that the body "should not take moral positions" in giving awards.

1,500,000 French people have seen the film at French cinemas, and by all accounts, it is a remarkable film worthy of the nominations.

The decision to honour Polanski's An Officer and a Spy has angered feminist groups and led to calls for a boycott. Hundreds of actors, producers and directors have attacked the board  claiming "dysfunction" at the César Academy and opacity in its management.

A general meeting is set to be held after this month's ceremony to elect a new board.

The Polish-French director has been wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl since the 1970s. He has since faced other accusations of sexual assault. 

The Pakistan government should immediately roll back a set of social media censorship measures that were passed in secret, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said..

On January 28, the federal cabinet approved the Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules, 2020, a set of regulations on social media content, without public consultation; the measures were enacted in secret.

A copy of the regulations, which was leaked online, shows that the rules empower the government to fine or ban social media platforms over their users' content. The regulations provide for a National Coordinator to be appointed within the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications responsible for enforcing the rules.

Steven Butler, CPJ's Asia program coordinator, said:

These stringent but vague rules approved by Pakistan's federal cabinet threaten the ability of journalists to report the news and communicate with their sources. The cabinet should immediately reverse course and seek broad consultations with legislators and civil society, including the media, on how to proceed with any such regulations.

Social media companies are required to remove content deemed objectionable by the National Coordinator within 24 hours, and to provide to the regulator decrypted content and any other information about users on demand. The companies are also made responsible for preventing the live streaming of any content related to terrorism, extremism, hate speech, defamation, fake news, incitement to violence and national security.

If a service is does not comply, the National Coordinator is granted the power to block services and levy fines of up to 500 million rupees ($3.24 million).

There seems to be a bit of a backlash building against the general PC denigration of British people and their culture. In particular the BBC is being seen as a major institution that has taken to belittling Britishness.

A good example has been provided by a Horrible Histories Brexit special. The programme itself is a musical comedy aimed at kids, but its core purpose seems to be teach kids that British history is horrible and that the nation has contributed nothing of note to mankind.

THE BBC ran a short skit on Brexit day that depicts Queen Victoria of not realising that her British tea is not actually British, but is imported from India. The clip was presented by comedian Nish Kumar who introduced the video with a reference to Britain's EU departure.

The clip has been viewed three million times on Twitter, largely as a result of the controversy it attracted.

Andrew Neil, of the BBC, was a notable voice attacking the clip on Twitter. He commented:

This is anti-British drivel of a high order. Was any of the licence fee used to produce something purely designed to demean us?

It was reported that TV censor Ofcom has received 300 complaints about the issue.

 

Update: The BBC says that  the Anti-British skit was not meant to be anti-British

15th February 2020. See response from bbc.co.uk

This 9 minute long special, available on iPlayer, was a montage of old clips taken from previous series. Some viewers may only have seen the CBBC tweet which linked to the full episode, but only included the final clip from the programme -- a song about British Things which was first broadcast on CBBC in June 2009.

The programme was intended as a light-hearted and fun acknowledgement of a momentous day in Britain's modern history, i.e. leaving the European Union and included sketches about the Norman Invasion, the German origins of the Royal Family, and 15th century Italian fashion. Regular viewers of the programme -- now into its eighth series -- will be familiar with the tone of these comic sketches. None of them were meant to be anti-British or anti-European.

The song British Things, from 2009 , was intended to reflect that we are a nation, like many others, that enjoys a patchwork of traditions and culture from other countries as well as our own. The song accurately reflects the fact that many goods common in Britain during the Victorian era were harvested or produced by slaves in other countries. The contribution Britain made to ending the slave trade prior to this period has been featured in other Horrible Histories episodes.

In numerous sketches over many years Horrible Histories has extolled great British achievements, British ingenuity, inventions in science and agriculture, the genius of our writers and artists, culture and great British achievements. Indeed, the most recent series included a whole episode highlighting Queen Victoria's role in supporting the pioneers of early film technology. Other specials have celebrated the 800-year anniversary of Magna Carta, and the work of William Shakespeare.

The introduction to the full programme states that ....the UK is leaving the European Union and at the end that Britain in the European Union is now history. We feel it is clear to viewers that the reference to leaving Europe means the European Union.

Ever since the Chinese government severely punished the National Basketball Association over a team official's tweet, Americans have awakened to the fact that Beijing is no longer just censoring its own people.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has introduced legislation meant to prevent companies from punishing employees who speak out against China or any other foreign government that seeks to use economic weapons to enforce political loyalty.

Called the Preventing Foreign Censorship in America Act, the legislation is clearly aimed at Beijing, though it isn't limited to China. It would prohibit any companies operating in the United States from firing or retaliating against employees based on their China-related speech. That can include topics such as Hong Kong, the Uighurs or any of the Chinese government's human rights violations.

French President Emmanuel Macron has added his voice to the thousands who have spoken out in defence of a schoolgirl forced into hiding after she criticised Islam.

According to the Guardian Macron, in defending the girl identified only as Mila, insisted that blasphemy:

Is no crime. The law is clear: we have the right to blaspheme, to criticise, to caricature religions ...what is outlawed is to incite hatred and attack dignity.

In this debate we have lost sight of the fact that Mila is an adolescent. We owe her protection at school, in her daily life, in her movements.

The President added that in finding a new school for Mila, the state has fulfilled its responsibilities and that children needed to be better protected against:

New forms of hatred and harassment online that can be destructive.

And as an example of how nasty things have become in France, Abdallah Zekri, general delegate of the French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM), told French radio:

This girl knows exactly what she has done ... they who sow, reap.

The Hunt is a 2019 USA action horror thriller by Craig Zobel.
Starring Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank and Emma Roberts.

Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are, or how they got there. They don't know they've been chosen - for a very specific purpose - The Hunt.

The politically charged satire The Hunt, in which elites track and kill deplorables, will now be released after being pulled last year in the wake of of a string of mass shootings.

According to the Hollywood Reporter , The Hunt's backers will release it in March, having shifted the film from its original release in September last year.

The Hunt is described as a ultra-violent thriller about a gang of wealthy progressives who try to wipe out a group of assorted individuals who have posted right-wing views online.

The decision to scrap the original release was taken in August 2019 in the wake of a series of massacres in Ohio, Texas and California

The Hunt is due for release on over 3,000 screens in the US on 13 March. No date has been set for a UK or Australian release.

Note that the pause has given the producers a little time to think about how to present the the ethics of the film. Before the ban the marketing was neutral about who the good guys are leaving it as a mystery so that prospective cinema goers have to view the movie to find out.The most recent publicity makes it much clearer that the liberal elites are the bad guys.

The Ofcom Board has announced the appointment of Dame Melanie Dawes as Chief Executive.

Dawes has been Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government since 2015. She will take up her new position in early March.

Dawes has held senior roles across the Civil Service, working in partnership across the public and private sectors. She started her career as an economist and spent 15 years at the Treasury, including as Europe Director. She was Director General of the Economic and Domestic Affairs Secretariat at the Cabinet Office between 2011 and 2015, and prior to that she served on the Board of HMRC as Head of Business Tax.

In addition to her current Permanent Secretary role, Dame Melanie chairs the Civil Service People Board, leading workforce strategies across all government departments. She is also Civil Service champion for diversity and inclusion.

The Government has signalled its approach to introducing internet censorship in a government response to consultation contributions about the Online Harms white paper. A more detailed paper will follow in the spring.

The Government has outlined onerous, vague and expensive censorship requirements on any British website that lets its users post content including speech. Any website that takes down its forums and comment sections etc will escape the nastiness of the new law.

The idea seems to be to force all speech onto a few US and Chinese social media websites that can handle the extensive censorship requirements of the British Governments. No doubt this will give a market opportunity for the US and Chinese internet giants to start charging for forcibly moderated and censored interaction.

The Government has more or less committed to appointing Ofcom as the state internet censor who will be able to impose massive fines on companies and their fall guy directors who allow speech that the government doesn't like.

On a slightly more positive note the government seems to have narrowed down its censorship scope from any conceivable thing that could be considered a harm to someone somewhere into more manageable set that can be defines as harms to children.

The introductory sections of the document read:

Executive summary

1. The Online Harms White Paper set out the intention to improve protections for users online through the introduction of a new duty of care on companies and an independent regulator responsible for overseeing this framework. The White Paper proposed that this regulation follow a proportionate and risk-based approach, and that the duty of care be designed to ensure that all companies have appropriate systems and processes in place to react to concerns over harmful content and improve the safety of their users - from effective complaint mechanisms to transparent decision-making over actions taken in response to reports of harm.

2. The consultation ran from 8 April 2019 to 1 July 2019. It received over 2,400 responses ranging from companies in the technology industry including large tech giants and small and medium sized enterprises, academics, think tanks, children's charities, rights groups, publishers, governmental organisations and individuals. In parallel to the consultation process, we have undertaken extensive engagement over the last 12 months with representatives from industry, civil society and others. This engagement is reflected in the response.

3. This initial government response provides an overview of the consultation responses and wider engagement on the proposals in the White Paper. It includes an in-depth breakdown of the responses to each of the 18 consultation questions asked in relation to the White Paper proposals, and an overview of the feedback in response to our engagement with stakeholders. This document forms an iterative part of the policy development process. We are committed to taking a deliberative and open approach to ensure that we get the detail of this complex and novel policy right. While it does not provide a detailed update on all policy proposals, it does give an indication of our direction of travel in a number of key areas raised as overarching concern across some responses.

4. In particular, while the risk-based and proportionate approach proposed by the White Paper was positively received by those we consulted with, written responses and our engagement highlighted questions over a number of areas, including freedom of expression and the businesses in scope of the duty of care. Having carefully considered the information gained during this process, we have made a number of developments to our policies. These are clarified in the 'Our Response' section below.

5. This consultation has been a critical part of the development of this policy and we are grateful to those who took part. This feedback is being factored into the development of this policy, and we will continue to engage with users, industry and civil society as we continue to refine our policies ahead of publication of the full policy response. We believe that an agile and proportionate approach to regulation, developed in collaboration with stakeholders, will strengthen a free and open internet by providing a framework that builds public trust, while encouraging innovation and providing confidence to investors.

Our response Freedom of expression

1. The consultation responses indicated that some respondents were concerned that the proposals could impact freedom of expression online. We recognise the critical importance of freedom of expression, both as a fundamental right in itself and as an essential enabler of the full range of other human rights protected by UK and international law. As a result, the overarching principle of the regulation of online harms is to protect users' rights online, including the rights of children and freedom of expression. Safeguards for freedom of expression have been built in throughout the framework. Rather than requiring the removal of specific pieces of legal content, regulation will focus on the wider systems and processes that platforms have in place to deal with online harms, while maintaining a proportionate and risk-based approach.

2. To ensure protections for freedom of expression, regulation will establish differentiated expectations on companies for illegal content and activity, versus conduct that is not illegal but has the potential to cause harm. Regulation will therefore not force companies to remove specific pieces of legal content. The new regulatory framework will instead require companies, where relevant, to explicitly state what content and behaviour they deem to be acceptable on their sites and enforce this consistently and transparently. All companies in scope will need to ensure a higher level of protection for children, and take reasonable steps to protect them from inappropriate or harmful content.

3. Services in scope of the regulation will need to ensure that illegal content is removed expeditiously and that the risk of it appearing is minimised by effective systems. Reflecting the threat to national security and the physical safety of children, companies will be required to take particularly robust action to tackle terrorist content and online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

4. Recognising concerns about freedom of expression, the regulator will not investigate or adjudicate on individual complaints. Companies will be able to decide what type of legal content or behaviour is acceptable on their services, but must take reasonable steps to protect children from harm. They will need to set this out in clear and accessible terms and conditions and enforce these effectively, consistently and transparently. The proposed approach will improve transparency for users about which content is and is not acceptable on different platforms, and will enhance users' ability to challenge removal of content where this occurs.

5. Companies will be required to have effective and proportionate user redress mechanisms which will enable users to report harmful content and to challenge content takedown where necessary. This will give users clearer, more effective and more accessible avenues to question content takedown, which is an important safeguard for the right to freedom of expression. These processes will need to be transparent, in line with terms and conditions, and consistently applied.

Ensuring clarity for businesses

6. We recognise the need for businesses to have certainty, and will ensure that guidance is provided to help businesses understand potential risks arising from different types of service, and the actions that businesses would need to take to comply with the duty of care as a result. We will ensure that the regulator consults with relevant stakeholders to ensure the guidance is clear and practicable.

Businesses in scope

7. The legislation will only apply to companies that provide services or use functionality on their websites which facilitate the sharing of user generated content or user interactions, for example through comments, forums or video sharing. Our assessment is that only a very small proportion of UK businesses (estimated to account to less than 5%) fit within that definition. To ensure clarity, guidance will be provided by the regulator to help businesses understand whether or not the services they provide or functionality contained on their website would fall into the scope of the regulation.

8. Just because a business has a social media page that does not bring it in scope of regulation. Equally, a business would not be brought in scope purely by providing referral or discount codes on its website to be shared with other potential customers on social media. It would be the social media platform hosting the content that is in scope, not the business using its services to advertise or promote their company. To be in scope, a business would have to operate its own website with the functionality to enable sharing of user-generated content, or user interactions. We will introduce this legislation proportionately, minimising the regulatory burden on small businesses. Most small businesses where there is a lower risk of harm occurring will not have to make disproportionately burdensome changes to their service to be compliant with the proposed regulation.

9. Regulation must be proportionate and based on evidence of risk of harm and what can feasibly be expected of companies. We anticipate that the regulator would assess the business impacts of any new requirements it introduces. Final policy positions on proportionality will, therefore, align with the evidence of risk of harm and impact to business. Business-to-business services have very limited opportunities to prevent harm occurring to individuals and as such will be out of scope of regulation.

Identity of the regulator

11. We are minded to make Ofcom the new regulator, in preference to giving this function to a new body or to another existing organisation. This preference is based on its organisational experience, robustness, and experience of delivering challenging, high-profile remits across a range of sectors. Ofcom is a well-established and experienced regulator, recently assuming high profile roles such as regulation of the BBC. Ofcom's focus on the communications sector means it already has relationships with many of the major players in the online arena, and its spectrum licensing duties mean that it is practised at dealing with large numbers of small businesses.

12. We judge that such a role is best served by an existing regulator with a proven track record of experience, expertise and credibility. We think that the best fit for this role is Ofcom, both in terms of policy alignment and organisational experience - for instance, in their existing work, Ofcom already takes the risk-based approach that we expect the online harms regulator will need to employ.

Transparency

13. Effective transparency reporting will help ensure that content removal is well-founded and freedom of expression is protected. In particular, increasing transparency around the reasons behind, and prevalence of, content removal may address concerns about some companies' existing processes for removing content. Companies' existing processes have in some cases been criticised for being opaque and hard to challenge.

14. The government is committed to ensuring that conversations about this policy are ongoing, and that stakeholders are being engaged to mitigate concerns. In order to achieve this, we have recently established a multi-stakeholder Transparency Working Group chaired by the Minister for Digital and Broadband which includes representation from all sides of the debate, including from industry and civil society. This group will feed into the government's transparency report, which was announced in the Online Harms White Paper and which we intend to publish in the coming months.

15. Some stakeholders expressed concerns about a potential 'one size fits all' approach to transparency, and the material costs for companies associated with reporting. In line with the overarching principles of the regulatory framework, the reporting requirements that a company may have to comply with will also vary in proportion with the type of service that is being provided, and the risk factors involved. To maintain a proportionate and risk-based approach, the regulator will apply minimum thresholds in determining the level of detail that an in-scope business would need to provide in its transparency reporting, or whether it would need to produce reports at all.

Ensuring that the regulator acts proportionately

16. The consideration of freedom of expression is at the heart of our policy development, and we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are included throughout the legislation. By taking action to address harmful online behaviours, we are confident that our approach will support more people to enjoy their right to freedom of expression and participate in online discussions.

17. At the same time, we also remain confident that proposals will not place an undue burden on business. Companies will be expected to take reasonable and proportionate steps to protect users. This will vary according to the organisation's associated risk, first and foremost, size and the resources available to it, as well as by the risk associated with the service provided. To ensure clarity about how the duty of care could be fulfilled, we will ensure there is sufficient clarity in the regulation and codes of practice about the applicable expectations on business, including where businesses are exempt from certain requirements due to their size or risk.

18. This will help companies to comply with the legislation, and to feel confident that they have done so appropriately.

Enforcement

19. We recognise the importance of the regulator having a range of enforcement powers that it uses in a fair, proportionate and transparent way. It is equally essential that company executives are sufficiently incentivised to take online safety seriously and that the regulator can take action when they fail to do so. We are considering the responses to the consultation on senior management liability and business disruption measures and will set out our final policy position in the Spring.

Protection of children

20. Under our proposals we expect companies to use a proportionate range of tools including age assurance, and age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content and to protect them from other harms. This would achieve our objective of protecting children from online pornography, and would also fulfil the aims of the Digital Economy Act.

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 originally rated R by the MPAA for brief language and a sexual reference.

The distributors appealed hoping for a PG-13 rating, but did not win their case. Instead they edited  the film to achieve an MPAA PG-13 rating for some strong language and sexual references.

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

The Prince of Tides is a 1991 USA drama by Barbra Streisand.
Starring Barbra Streisand, Nick Nolte and Blythe Danner.

There are no cuts  issues with this release. The film was rated 15 uncut for 1991 cinema release, and for the follow up home video releases in 1992 and 1995.

A commentary track version was resubmitted in 2020 for Blu-ray extras and the BBFC decided that film would now be 18 rated, should it be submitted in feature format. The BBFC tweeted:

We changed our guidelines on sexual violence at 15 in 2019. The scene of sexual violence in Prince of Tides is no longer permissible at 15. Therefore the rating has been raised to 18. We have not recently been asked to view the film, only the audio commentary version.

After five months of complete internet shutdown in the federally-administered Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, only partial internet access has been restored after the interference of the Indian Supreme Court on January 10, which called the shutdown unconstitutional. Freedom of internet access is a fundamental right , said Justice N. V. Ramana who was a part of the bench that gave this verdict.

This shutdown marks the longest ever internet shutdown in any democracy around the world, and is viewed by experts as a potential signal of the rise of the Great Firewall of India . The term great firewall is used to refer to the set of legislative and technical tools deployed by the Chinese government to control information online, including by blocking access to foreign services and preventing politically sensitive content from entering the domestic network.

While the Chinese firewall has evolved as a very sophisticated internet censorship infrastructure, the Indian one is yet to get organized into a large-scale and complex structure. India's tactics to control information online include banning entire websites and services, shutting down networks and pressuring social media content to remove content on vague grounds. Read More: India partially lifts communications blackout in Kashmir, internet still down 301 websites whitelisted

According to internetshutdowns.in , a project that is tracking internet shutdowns in India and created by legal nonprofit Software Freedom Law Centre , the shutdown that was imposed on August 4, 2019, has been the longest in the country and was only partially lifted in Kargil on December 27, 2019, while the rest of the state was still under the shutdown.

Landlines and mobile communications services were also blocked in addition to regular internet services. Although the verified users of the Kashmir valley saw 2G services working on January 25, 2020 with access to only 301 white-listed websites (153 initially which was later expanded to 301), social media, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and many other sites remain banned.

The administration of J&K passed an order on 25th January ordering for the restoration of 2G internet for around 300 whitelisted websites.

The Logical Indian reported on January 30, 2020, that broadband services in Kashmir will be be restored only after the creation of an alleged social media firewall. It is currently unclear whether these restrictions will only be imposed in Kashmir or in other areas of India as well.

Nazir Ahmad Joo, General Manager of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a public mobile and broadband carrier, told the digital news platform that his company is working on a developing a firewall:

We have called a team of technical experts from Noida and Banglore who are working over creating a firewall to thwart any attempt by the consumers to reach to the social media applications[..]

Internet Service Providers like mobile internet carriers were asked by the government to install necessary firewalls while white-listing the list of allowed websites in an order dated January 13, 2020.

In the meantime, the partial shutdown continues in Kashmir despite the Supreme Court's verdict of January 10. Ironically, the order from the Jammu and Kashmir home department mentioned above was imposed a day after the Court ruling.

Legislation approved by the Siwss parliament in  December 2018 extends anti-racism hate speech laws to encompass discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

However opponents of the law, the Federal Democratic Union (FDU) party, the youth wing of the Swiss People's Party and the Youth and Family Working Group -- gathered over 70,000 signatures. A minimum of 50,000 is required to force a referendum.

And that referendum is now set to take place on 9th December 2020. Needless to say it has split opinions in the country as to whether free speech or restricted speech should prevail.

Spiked offers a passionate speech for free speech: 

 

Offsite Comment: Switzerland must reject these new hate-speech laws

Criminalising homophobia will only make challenging homophobia more difficult.

See article from spiked-online.com   By Andrea Seaman

Update: Referendum result

11th February 2020. See article from pinknews.co.uk

Preliminary results have confirmed that voters have backed the hate speech law by a by a comfortable margin of 1,413,609 votes to 827,361.

Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), one of the premier art museums in the United States, removed a finger puppet depicting the religious character Ganesha from its Museum Shop website in response to the perennial whinger Rajan Zed.

Hindu spokesman Rajan Zed thanked DIA for understanding the concerns of Hindu community, which thought such a product was trivialization of their greatly venerated deity. But they were still waiting for formal apology from DIA Director-President-CEO Salvador Salort-Pons and Board Chairman Eugene A. Gargaro Junior.

Zed suggested that DIA should send its executives for training in religious and cultural sensitivity if it was serious in meeting one of its goals of being relevant to a broad and diverse audience by 2021 and to better understand the feelings of communities.

A pre-roll Youtube ad for Prettylittlething.com, a women's clothing retailer, seen on 29 October 2019. The ad opened with a woman wearing black vinyl, high waisted chaps-style knickers and a cut-out orange bra, dragging a neon bar and looking over her shoulder. The ad proceeded to show women in seductive poses, wearing various lingerie style clothing and holding the neon bars.

A complainant, who believed the ad was overly sexualised and objectified women, challenged whether the ad was offensive and irresponsible.

Prettylittlething.com Ltd stated that the ad highlighted how they supported and promoted diversity through bold and distinctive fashion of all shapes and sizes which focused on different trends. They said they had not intended to create an ad which was deemed offensive and irresponsible. They said they worked hard to promote a positive and healthy body image that was inclusive and empowered women. Prettylittlething.com provided a mood board to demonstrate the creative theory behind the ad and explained that the ad was inspired by their customers who seek the latest rave style clothing.

ASA Assessment: Upheld

The ASA noted that the ad began with a woman looking over her shoulder in a seductive manner wearing black vinyl, high waisted chaps-style knickers which revealed her buttocks. A later scene depicted a woman wearing a transparent mesh bodysuit. The woman was lying on her side with her knee bent up and with a neon bar in between her legs. The next scene showed a woman in a bikini top, holding the neon bar behind her shoulders in a highly sexualised pose which accentuated her breasts. The woman was then depicted crouched down with her legs apart, wearing chaps-style trousers to reveal string bikini bottoms. We considered that the cumulative effect of the scenes meant that overall, the products had been presented in an overly-sexualised way that invited viewers to view the women as sexual objects. We therefore concluded that the ad was likely to cause serious offence and was irresponsible.

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Prettylittlething.com Ltd not to use advertising that was likely to cause serious offence by objectifying women.

Offsite Comment: Is the ASA run by Mary Whitehouse?

6th February 2020. See article from spiked-online.com

Update: Pretty Little Thing advert doesn't objectify women

7th February 2020. See article from bbc.co.uk By Eleanor Lawrie Business reporter, BBC News

Even the BBC has called out ASA on this one

Offsite Comment: The Tyranny Of The Perpetually Offended

10th February 2020. See article from reprobatepress.com

Perhaps the ASA could enlighten clothing companies as to how to sell underwear without causing widespread offence to individual cranks.

  Facebook is moving ahead with plans to implement end to end encryption on Facebook Messenger and Instagram to protect users from snoopers, censors, spammers, scammers and thieves.

But children's campaign groups are opposing these safety measures on the grounds the encryption will also protect those illegally distributing child abuse material.

About 100 organisations, led by the NSPCC, have signed an open letter warning the plans will undermine efforts to catch abusers.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said she fully supported the move, presumably also thinking of the state's wider remit to snoop on people's communications.

End-to-end encryption, already used on Facebook-owned WhatsApp, means no-one, including the company that owns the platform, can see the content of sent messages. The technology will make it significantly less likely that hackers will be able to intercept messages, going a long way to protect users from phishing and cyber-stalking. And of course child internet users will also benefit from these protections.

The campaign group opposed such protection arguing:

We urge you to recognise and accept that an increased risk of child abuse being facilitated on or by Facebook is not a reasonable trade-off to make.

A spokesman for Facebook said protecting the wellbeing of children on its platform was critically important to it. He said:

We have led the industry in safeguarding children from exploitation and we are bringing this same commitment and leadership to our work on encryption

We are working closely with child-safety experts, including NCMEC [the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children], law enforcement, governments and other technology companies, to help keep children safe online.

In 2018, Facebook made 16.8 million reports of child sexual exploitation and abuse content to the NCMEC. The National Crime Agency said this had led to more than 2,500 arrests and 3,000 children made safe.

Netflix has reported on the moves and TV shows that it has banned at the request of governments. Netflix writes:

We offer creators the ability to reach audiences all around the world. However, our catalog varies from country to country, including for rights reasons (i.e., we don't have the rights to show everything in every country where we operate). In some cases we've also been forced to remove specific titles or episodes of titles in specific countries due to government takedown demands.

Below are the titles we've removed to date, as of February 2020 -- just nine in total since we launched. Beginning next year, we will report these takedowns annually.

• In 2015, Netflix complied with the New Zealand Film and Video Labeling Body to remove The Bridge . The film is classified as "objectionable" in the country.
• In 2017, Netflix complied with Vietnamese Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information (ABEI) to remove Full Metal Jacket.
• In 2017, Netflix complied with the German Commission for Youth Protection (KJM) to remove Night of the Living Dead . A version of the film is also banned in the country. There's a discussion of exactly which version is banned in a German language article from schnittberichte.com
• In 2018, Netflix complied with the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove Cooking on High (TV series about cooking with cannabis) , The Legend of 420 (a comedy documentary about cannabis) , and Disjointed (TV series about cannabis) from the service in Singapore only.
• In 2019, Netflix complied with the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission to remove one episode -- "Saudi Arabia" -- from Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj (comedy TV news, talk show) .
• In 2019, Netflix complied with the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove The Last Temptation of Christ.
• In 2020, Netflix complied with the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove The Last Hangover . This is the Brazilian TV comedy about a gay Christ that proved controversial in Brazil.

Barnes & Noble has shelved their plans to release a collection of classic books with new culturally diverse covers following an internet backlash.

Penguin Random House and Barnes & Noble Fifth Avenue had given twelve classic young adult novels new covers, known as Diverse Editions. The books were meant hit the shelves on Feb. 5, and the books were to be on display in their massive storefront throughout the month of February.

Each title had five culturally diverse custom covers designed to ensure the recognition, representation, and inclusion of various multiethnic backgrounds reflected across the country.

Following the news of the new covers, many Twitter users expressed their anger and disappointment over the situation. Example tweets were:

Jesus. Slapping cartoon POC on books by white folks when the words within those books don't promote anything but the white narrative isn't diversity. Diversity is giving POC equal opportunity to be published in a predominately white marketplace. Do better.

slapping Brown faces onto white stories is insulting. if #barnesandnoble wants to promote diversity, why not just promote classics written by diverse authors? they exist!

Barnes & Noble released a statement on Twitter acknowledging the concerns of the public and ultimately cancelling the release event at the store.

We acknowledge the voices who have expressed concerns about the Diverse Editions project at our Barnes & Noble Fifth Avenue store and have decided to suspend the initiative.

Diverse Editions presented new covers of classic hooks through a series of limited-edition jackets, designed by artists hailing from different ethnicities and backgrounds. The covers are not a substitute for black voices or writers of color, whose work and voices deserve to be heard.

The booksellers who championed this initiative did so convinced it would help drive engagement with these classic titles. It was a project inspired by our work with schools and was created in part to raise awareness and discussion during Black History Month, in which Barnes & Noble stores nationally will continue to highlight a wide selection of books to celebrate black history and great literature from writers of color.

Thanks to the adoption of a disastrous new Copyright Directive, the European Union is about to require its member states to pass laws requiring online service providers to ensure the unavailability of copyright-protected works. This will likely result in the use of copyright filters that automatically assess user-submitted audio, text, video and still images for potential infringement. The Directive does include certain safeguards to prevent the restriction of fundamental free expression rights, but national governments will need some way to evaluate whether the steps tech companies take to comply meet those standards. That evaluation must be both objective and balanced to protect the rights of users and copyright holders alike.

Quick background for those who missed this development: Last March, the European Parliament narrowly approved the new set of copyright rules , squeaking it through by a mere five votes (afterwards, ten MEPs admitted they'd been confused by the process and had pressed the wrong button).

By far the most controversial measure in the new rules was a mandate requiring online services to use preventive measures to block their users from posting text, photos, videos, or audio that have been claimed as copyrighted works by anyone in the world. In most cases, the only conceivable preventive measure that satisfies this requirement is an upload filter. Such a filter would likely fall afoul of the ban on general monitoring anchored in the 2000 E-Commerce Directive (which is currently under reform) and mirrored in Article 17 of the Copyright Directive.

There are grave problems with this mandate, most notably that it does not provide for penalties for fraudulently or negligently misrepresenting yourself as being the proprietor of a copyrighted work. Absent these kinds of deterrents, the Directive paves the way for the kinds of economic warfare , extortion and censorship against creators that these filters are routinely used for today.

But the problems with filters are not limited to abuse: Even when working as intended, filters pose a serious challenge for both artistic expression and the everyday discourse of Internet users, who use online services for a laundry list of everyday activities that are totally disconnected from the entertainment industry, such as dating, taking care of their health, staying in touch with their families, doing their jobs, getting an education, and participating in civic and political life.

The EU recognized the risk to free expression and other fundamental freedoms posed by a system of remorseless, blunt-edged automatic copyright filters, and they added language to the final draft of the Directive to balance the rights of creators with the rights of the public. Article 17(9) requires online service providers to create effective and expeditious complaint and redress mechanisms for users who have had their material removed or their access disabled.

Far more important than these after-the-fact remedies, though, are the provisions in Article 17(7), which requires that Member States shall ensure that users...are able to rely on limitations and exceptions to copyright, notably quotation, criticism, review and use for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche. These free expression protections have special status and will inform the high industry standards of professional diligence required for obtaining licenses and establishing preventive measures (Art 17(4)).

This is a seismic development in European copyright law. European states have historically operated tangled legal frameworks for copyright limitations and exceptions that diverged from country to country. The 2001 Information Society Directive didn't improve the situation: Rather than establishing a set of region-wide limitations and exceptions, the EU offered member states a menu of copyright exceptions and allowed each country to pick some, none, or all of these exceptions for their own laws.

With the passage of the new Copyright Directive, member states are now obliged to establish two broad categories of copyright exceptions: those quotation, criticism, review and caricature, parody or pastiche exceptions. To comply with the Directive, member states must protect those who make parodies or excerpt works for the purpose of review or criticism. Equally importantly, a parody that's legal in, say, France, must also be legal in Germany and Greece and Spain.

Under Article 17(7), users should be able to rely on these exceptions. The protective measures of the Directive--including copyright filters--should not stop users from posting material that doesn't infringe copyright, including works that are legal because they make use of these mandatory parody/criticism exceptions. For avoidance of doubt, Article 17(9) confirms that filters shall in no way affect legitimate uses, such as uses under exceptions or limitations provided for in Union law and Recital 70 calls on member states to ensure that their filter laws do not interfere with exceptions and limitations, in particular those that guarantee the freedom of expression of users.

As EU member states move to transpose the Directive by turning it into national laws, they will need to evaluate claims from tech companies who have developed their own internal filters (such as YouTube's Content ID filter) or who are hoping to sell filters to online services that will help them comply with the Directive's two requirements:

1. To block copyright infringement; and

2. To not block user-submitted materials that do not infringe copyright, including materials that take advantage of the mandatory exceptions in 17(7), as well as additional exceptions that each member state's laws have encoded under the Information Society Directive (for example, Dutch copyright law permits copying without permission for "scientific treatises," but does not include copying for "the demonstration or repair of equipment," which is permitted in Portugal and elsewhere).

Evaluating the performance of these filters will present a major technical challenge, but it's not an unprecedented one.

Law and regulation are no stranger to technical performance standards. Regulators routinely create standardized test suites to evaluate manufacturers' compliance with regulation, and these test suites are maintained and updated based on changes to rules and in response to industry conduct. (In)famously, EU regulators maintained a test suite for evaluating compliance with emissions standards for diesel vehicles, then had to undertake a top-to-bottom overhaul of these standards in the wake of widespread cheating by auto manufacturers.

Test suites are the standard way for evaluating and benchmarking technical systems, and they provide assurances to consumers that the systems they entrust will perform as advertised. Reviewers maintain standard suites for testing the performance of code libraries, computers and subcomponents (such as mass-storage devices and video-cards) and protocols and products, such as 3D graphics rendering programs.

We believe that the EU's guidance to member states on Article 17 implementations should include a recommendation to create and maintain test suites if member states decide to establish copyright filters. These suites should evaluate both the filters' ability to correctly identify infringing materials and non-infringing uses. The filters could also be tested for their ability to correctly identify works that may be freely shared, such as works in the public domain and works that are licensed under permissive regimes such as the Creative Commons licenses

EFF previously sketched out a suite to evaluate filters' ability to comply with US fair use . Though fair use and EU exceptions and limitations are very different concepts, this test suite does reveal some of the challenges of complying with Article 17's requirement the EU residents should be able to rely upon the parody and criticism exceptions it defines.

Notably, these exceptions require that the filter make determinations about the character of a work under consideration: to be able to distinguish excerpting a work to critique it (a protected use) versus excerpting a work to celebrate it (a potentially prohibited use).

For example, a creator might sample a musician's recording in order to criticize the musician's stance on the song's subject matter (one of the seminal music sampling cases turned on this very question ). This new sound file should pass through a filter, even if it detects a match with the original recording, after the filter determines that the creator of the new file intended to criticize the original artist, and that they sampled only those parts of the original recording as were necessary to make the critical point.

However, if another artist sampled the original recording for a composition that celebrated the original artist's musical talent, the filter should detect and block this use, as enthusiastic tribute is not among the limitations and exceptions permitted under the Infosoc Directive , nor those mandated by the Copyright Directive.

This is clearly a difficult programming challenge. Computers are very bad at divining intent and even worse at making subjective determinations about whether the intent was successfully conveyed in a finished work.

However, filters should not be approved for use unless they can meet this challenge. In the decades since the Acuff-Rose sampling decision came down in 1994, musicians around the world have treated its contours as a best practice in their own sampling. A large corpus of music has since emerged that fits this pattern. The musicians who created (and will create) music that hews to the standard--whose contours are markedly similar to those mandated in the criticism/parody language of Article 17--would have their fundamental expression rights as well as their rights to profit from their creative labors compromised if they had to queue up to argue their case through a human review process every time they attempted to upload their work.

Existing case-law among EU member states makes it clear that these kinds of subjective determinations are key to evaluating whether a work is entitled to make use of a limitation or exception in copyright law. For example, the landmark Germania 3 case demands that courts consider a balancing of relevant interests when determining whether a quotation is permissible.

Parody cases require even more subjective determination, with Dutch case law holding that a work can only qualify as a parody if it evokes an existing work, while being noticeably different, and constitutes an expression of humor or mockery. ( Deckmyn v. Vandersteen (C-201/13, 2014) ).

Article 17 was passed amidst an unprecedented controversy over the consequences for the fundamental right to free expression once electronic discourse was subjected to automated judgments handed down by automated systems. The changes made in the run-up to the final vote were intended to ensure a high level of protection for the fundamental rights of European Internet users.

The final Article 17 text offers two different assurances to European Internet users: first, the right to a mechanism for effective and expeditious complaint and redress, and second, Article 17(7) and (4)'s assurance that Europeans are able to rely on their right to undertake quotation, criticism, review and use for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche ... in accordance with high industry standards of professional diligence.

The Copyright Directive passed amid unprecedented controversy, and its final drafters promised that Article 17 had been redesigned to protect the innocent as well as punishing the guilty, this being the foundational premise of all fair systems of law. National governments have a duty to ensure that it's no harder to publish legal material than it is to remove illegal material. Streamlining the copyright enforcement system to allow anyone to block the publication of anything, forever, without evidence or oversight presents an obvious risk for those whose own work might be blocked through malice or carelessness, and it is not enough to send those people to argue their case before a tech company's copyright tribunal. If Europeans are to be able to rely upon copyright limitations and exceptions, then they should be assured that their work will be no harder to publish than any other's.

The Department of Homeland Security has a scary vision for expanding face recognition surveillance into our everyday lives, threatening a dystopian future in which the technology is used throughout our public spaces to scrutinize our identity, check us against watchlists, record our movements, and more. Work on building the infrastructure for this pervasive monitoring has already started, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection currently operating a face recognition system at the gates of departing international flights.

See article from aclu.org

The U.K. government has hinted at its thoughts on its internet censorship plans and has also be giving clues about the schedule.

A first announcement seems to be due this month. It seems that the government is planning a summer bill and implementation within about 18 months.

The plans are set to be discussed in Cabinet on Thursday and are due to be launched to coincide with Safer Internet Day next Tuesday when Baroness Morgan will also publish results of a consultation on last year's White Paper on online harms.

The unelected Nicky Morgan proposes the new regime should mirror regulation in the financial sector, known as senior management liability where firms have to appoint a fall guy director to take personal responsibility for ensuring they meet their legal duties. They face fines and criminal prosecution for breaches.

Ofcom will advise on potential sanctions against the directors ranging from enforcement notices, professional disqualification, fines and criminal prosecution. Under the plans, Ofcom will also draw up legally enforceable codes of practice setting out what the social media firms will be expected to do to protect users from loosely define online harms that may not even be illegal. 

Other legal harms to be covered by codes are expected to include disinformation that causes public harm such as anti-vaccine propaganda, self-harm, harassment, cyberbullying, violence and pornography where there will be tougher rules on age verification to bar children.

Tellingly proposals to include real and actual financial harms such as fraud in the codes have been dropped.

Ministers have yet to decide if to give the internet censor the power to block website access to UK internet users but this option seems out of favour, maybe because it results in massive numbers of people moving to the encrypted internet that makes it harder the authorities to snoop on people's internet activity.

The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation does is part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. It's tasked by the Government to connect policymakers, industry, civil society, and the public to develop the 'right' governance regime for data-driven technologies.

The group has just published its final report into the control of social media and their 'algorithms' in time for their suggestions to be incorporated into the government's upcoming internet censorship bill.

Maybe the term 'algorithm' has been used to imply some sort of manipulative menace that secretly drives social media. In fact the algorithm isn't likely to be far away from: Give them more of what they like, and maybe also try them with what their mates like. No doubt the government would prefer something more like: Give them more of what the government likes.

Anyway the press release reads:

The CDEI publishes recommendations to make online platforms more accountable, increase transparency, and empower users to take control of how they are targeted. These include:

• New systemic regulation of the online targeting systems that promote and recommend content like posts, videos and adverts.

• Powers to require platforms to allow independent researchers secure access to their data to build an evidence base on issues of public concern - from the potential links between social media use and declining mental health, to its role in incentivising the spread of misinformation

• Platforms to host publicly accessible online archives for 'high-risk' adverts, including politics, 'opportunities' (e.g. jobs, housing, credit) and age-restricted products.

• Steps to encourage long-term wholesale reform of online targeting to give individuals greater control over how their online experiences are personalised.

The CDEI recommendations come as the government develops proposals for online harms regulation.

The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), the UK's independent advisory body on the ethical use of AI and data-driven technology, has warned that people are being left in the dark about the way that major platforms target information at their users, in its first report to the government.

The CDEI's year long review of online targeting systems - which use personal information about users to decide which posts, videos and adverts to show them - has found that existing regulation is out of step with the public's expectations.

A major new analysis of public attitudes towards online targeting, conducted with Ipsos MORI, finds that people welcome the convenience of targeting systems, but are concerned that platforms are unaccountable for the way their systems could cause harm to individuals and society, such as by increasing discrimination and harming the vulnerable. The research highlighted most concern was related to social media platforms.

The analysis found that only 28% of people trust platforms to target them in a responsible way, and when they try to change settings, only one-third (33%) of people trust these companies to do what they ask. 61% of people favoured greater regulatory oversight of online targeting, compared with 17% of people who support self-regulation.

The CDEI's recommendations to the government would increase the accountability of platforms, improve transparency and give users more meaningful control of their online experience.

The recommendations strike a balance by protecting users from the potential harms of online targeting, without inhibiting the kind of personalisation of the online experience that the public find useful. Clear governance will support the development and take-up of socially beneficial applications of online targeting, including by the public sector.

The report calls for internet regulation to be developed in a way that promotes human rights-based international norms, and recommends that the online harms regulator should have a statutory duty to protect and respect freedom of expression and privacy.

And from the report:

Key recommendations

Accountability

The government's new online harms regulator should be required to provide regulatory oversight of targeting:

• The regulator should take a "systemic" approach, with a code of practice to set standards, and require online platforms to assess and explain the impacts of their systems.

• To ensure compliance, the regulator needs information gathering powers. This should include the power to give independent experts secure access to platform data to undertake audits.

• The regulator's duties should explicitly include protecting rights to freedom of expression and privacy.

• Regulation of online targeting should encompass all types of content, including advertising.

• The regulatory landscape should be coherent and efficient. The online harms regulator, ICO, and CMA should develop formal coordination mechanisms.

The government should develop a code for public sector use of online targeting to promote safe, trustworthy innovation in the delivery of personalised advice and support.

Transparency

• The regulator should have the power to require platforms to give independent researchers secure access to their data where this is needed for research of significant potential importance to public policy.

• Platforms should be required to host publicly accessible archives for online political advertising, "opportunity" advertising (jobs, credit and housing), and adverts for age-restricted products.

• The government should consider formal mechanisms for collaboration to tackle "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" on online platforms.

User empowerment

Regulation should encourage platforms to provide people with more information and control:

• We support the CMA's proposed "Fairness by Design" duty on online platforms.

• The government's plans for labels on online electoral adverts should make paid-for content easy to identify, and give users some basic information to show that the content they are seeing has been targeted at them.

• Regulators should increase coordination of their digital literacy campaigns. The emergence of "data intermediaries" could improve data governance and rebalance power towards users. Government and regulatory policy should support their development.

Liberty, the human rights organisation, and Privacy International, today announced a joint legal action against MI5 following revelations the intelligence agency has systematically broken surveillance laws for years and kept it secret from the surveillance watchdog.

The details of MI5's lawlessness emerged last summer in two legal cases -- Liberty's challenge to the Snoopers' Charter (the Investigatory Powers Act 2016) and Privacy International's challenge to state powers to collect and store ordinary people's data.

In Liberty's challenge to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA), the Government revealed that MI5 had been unlawfully retaining and mishandling the public's data for years.

As part of that case, the Government disclosed a number of documents to the court, including correspondence between the security service and the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office (IPCO, the body responsible for overseeing state surveillance practices), correspondence between the security service and the Home Secretary, and reports of inspections carried out by IPCO after they learnt of MI5's failings.

The documents reveal that MI5 not only broke the law, they failed to report this to IPCO, despite knowing about their non-compliance for years. They also gave IPCO false information in order to obtain warrants. These revelations led the then Investigatory Powers Commissioner, Lord Justice Fulford, to conclude that the UK security service had held and handled our data in an "undoubted unlawful manner".

In a remarkable admission to the Commissioner, a senior MI5 official acknowledged that personal data collected by MI5 might be stored in "ungoverned spaces", while an MI5 review in 2016 found "a high likelihood [of material] being discovered when it should have been deleted".

Liberty and Privacy International have today launched a legal bid to get MI5 to disclose the full extent of its unlawful conduct. The groups are asking the court to rule that MI5 violated our rights to privacy and free expression by unlawfully retaining and mishandling our data. The groups are also demanding that surveillance warrants granted during this unlawful activity are quashed and all record of the public's illegitimately obtained or retained data is destroyed.

Liberty lawyer Megan Goulding said :

"It's clear we need to know the extent of MI5's lawlessness as these court cases have revealed how our surveillance laws are not fit for purpose as well as MI5's disregard for our rights. MI5 has unprecedented and dangerous power to spy on any one of us and collect our sensitive private information.

"It's clear that the so-called safeguards in our surveillance laws are totally ineffective in protecting our rights. The Snoopers' Charter needs to be torn up and the Government must create a targeted surveillance regime that protects us while respecting our rights and freedoms."

Privacy International's Legal Director Caroline Wilson Palow said :

"For more than a decade, MI5 has been building massive datasets by systematically collecting our personal information. Such practices are a serious interference with our right to privacy and threaten democratic values. We were promised that robust safeguards were in place so that such data would never be abused. Yet it turns out that those safeguards were in some cases illusory - that MI5 held significant data in ungoverned spaces without any effective oversight. We are bringing this challenge together with Liberty to ensure that MI5 does not continue to operate outside of the law."

What we know of MI5's wrongdoing so far

• Illegal actions: The Investigatory Powers Commissioner concluded that the way MI5 was holding and handling people's data was "undoubtedly unlawful" . MI5 breached IPA safeguards relating to how long data is held for, how often it is copied, the number of persons to whom and extent to which material is disclosed, and how data is stored securely. The exact details of MI5's breaches are yet unknown, but Liberty and Privacy International hope this new legal case will reveal more.

• Senior people at MI5 knew for six years before informing IPCO : Issues with MI5's legal compliance were known to the MI5 Board in 2013, but were only brought to IPCO's attention in February 2019.

• MI5 misled judges : Senior judges (known as Judicial Commissioners) issued surveillance warrants on the understanding that MI5's data handling obligations under the IPA were being met - when they were not, in fact MI5 gave false information to obtain the warrants. The Investigatory Powers Commissioner has pointed out that warrants would not have been issued if IPCO had been aware about the breaches. The Commissioner states that "it is impossible to sensibly reconcile the explanation of the handling of arrangements the Judicial Commissioners were given in briefings...with what MI5 knew over a protracted period of time was happening."

The "bulk" powers Liberty challenged in the case against the Snoopers' Charter allow MI5 to scoop up the public's personal data en masse, regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. It is therefore unclear how many people may have had their personal information unlawfully retained and mishandled, without their knowledge, by the security service.

The Rajya Sabha is the upper house of the Indian parliament. Its Ethics Committee has just published an extensive list of internet censorship measures in the name of curbing online child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The Committee has recommended that law enforcement agencies be permitted to break end-to-end encryption, and that ISPs provide parents with website blocking services.

The ad hoc Committee, headed by Jairam Ramesh, made 40 recommendations in its report pubished on January 25.

Recommendations:

• Amend the Information Technology Act, 2000:
  • Make intermediaries responsible for proactively identifying and removing CSAM, and for reporting it to Indian and foreign authorities, and for reporting, to the designated authority, the IP address/identities of people who search for or access child porn and CSAM
  • Make gateway ISPs liable so that they can detect and block CSAM websites.
  • Prescribe punitive measures for those who give pornographic access to children and those who access, produce or transmit CSAM.
  • Allow Central Government through "its designated authority" to block and/or prohibit all websites/intermediaries that carry CSAM . The designated authority has not been specified.
• Allow law enforcement to break end-to-end encryption to trace distributors of child pornography.
• Mandate CSAM detection for all social media companies through minimum essential technologies to detect CSAM besides reporting it to law enforcement agencies.
• Separate adult content section on streaming platforms like Netflix and social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook where children are not allowed.
• Age verification and gating mechanisms on social media to restrict access to "objectionable/obscene material".
• Manage children's access to internet: To do that, make apps that monitor children's access to porn mandatory on all devices in India, and make such apps/solutions freely available to ISPs, companies, schools and parents. Also, ISPs should provide family-friendly filters to parents to regulate children's access to internet.
• Use blockchain to trace buyers of child porn: MeitY should coordinate with blockchain analysis companies to trace users who use cryptocurrencies to purchase child porn online.
• Ban all payments to porn websites: Online payment portals and credit cards be prohibited from processing payments for any pornographic website.
• Amend the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012:
  • Prescribe a Code of Conduct for intermediaries (online platforms) to maintain child safety online, ensure age appropriate content, and curb use of children for pornographic purposes.
  • Make "advocating or counseling" sexual activities with a minor through written material, visual media, audio recording, or any other means, an offence under the Act.
  • Make school management responsible for safety of children within schools, transportation services and any other programmers with which the school is associated.
  • Make National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal the national portal for all report related to electronic material.
• Make National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) the nodal agency to deal with the issue. It should have "necessary" technological, cyber policing and prosecution capabilities. Each state and UT should also have a Commission for the Protection for Child Rights that mirrors NCPCR.
• Appoint e-safety commissioners at state level to ensure implementation of social media and website guidelines.
• National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) must record and report cases of child pornography of all kinds annually. Readers should note that the last annual report from NCRB was for 2017 and was released in October 2019.
• National Tipline Number where citizens can report about child sexual abuse and distribution of CSAM.
• Awareness campaigns by Ministries of Women and Child Development, and Information and Broadcasting on recognising signs of child abuse, online risks and improving online safety. Schools should also conduct training programmes for parents at least twice a year.

Mark Zuckerberg has declared that Facebook is going to stand up for free expression in spite of the fact it will piss off a lot of people.

He made the claim during a fiery appearance at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Utah on Friday. Zuckerberg told the audience that Facebook had previously tried to resist moves that would be branded as too offensive - but says he now believes he is being asked to partake in excessive censorship:

Increasingly we're getting called to censor a lot of different kinds of content that makes me really uncomfortable, he claimed. We're going to take down the content that's really harmful, but the line needs to be held at some point.

It kind of feels like the list of things that you're not allowed to say socially keeps on growing, and I'm not really okay with that.

This is the new approach [free expression], and I think it's going to piss off a lot of people. But frankly the old approach was pissing off a lot of people too, so let's try something different.

The publisher of Jeanine Cummins' new novel American Dirt has cancelled the remainder of her promotional tour as a result of a politically correct backlash.

The novel about a Mexican mother and her young son fleeing to the US border had been praised widely before its 21 January release and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her book club.

But PC bullies who think they have the right to tell others what stories they can write have campaigned against the book for wrong think. Mexican American writers have claimed that the book contains  stereotypical depictions of Mexicans.

Julissa Arce Raya, the author of My (Underground) American Dream, argued American Dirt was not representative of her experience as an undocumented immigrant in America. Author Celeste Ng shared a review calling Cummins' depictions of Mexico laughably inaccurate. Roxane Gay deplored Oprah's decision to elevate the novel.

Bob Miller, president of the book's publisher, Flatiron Books commented:

Jeanine Cummins spent five years of her life writing this book with the intent to shine a spotlight on tragedies facing immigrants. We are saddened that a work of fiction that was well-intentioned has led to such vitriolic rancor.

Unfortunately, our concerns about safety have led us to the difficult decision to cancel the book tour.

Flatiron now plans to send Cummins to town-hall style events, where the author will be joined by some of the groups who have raised objections to the book.

 

Offsite Comment: The offencerati just got a book tour cancelled

2nd February 2020. See article from spiked-online.com

Librarians and free speech advocates are fighting back against a proposal in the Missouri House of Representatives that would ban certain books from the state's libraries with the threat of a misdemeanor charges meaning the possibility of jail for librarians.

Missouri House Representative Ben Baker introduced the bill, dubbed the Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act , in January that calls for the creation of a panel made up of non-library workers who will determine the removal of age-inappropriate sexual material, from their local branch.

Libraries that don't comply will lose their funding. Library employees providing material deemed inappropriate would be hit with a misdemeanor charge and liable for a $500 fine or a maximum jail sentence of a year, according to the bill's current language.

The bill is targeted at protecting minors but the impracticality of age verification and making adults only spaces would probably mean that the censored books would end up being banned for everyone.

Cynthia Dudenhoffer, the president of the Missouri Library Association, said she was shocked when she first heard about the bill and said it was unnecessary. Each of the state's library systems, which account for a total of 365 branches, already have their own protocols in place to determine which materials are allowed for their younger members.

Scooby-Doo is a 2002 USA / Australia comedy mystery adventure by Raja Gosnell.
Starring Matthew Lillard, Freddie Prinze Jr and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The Mystery Inc. gang have gone their separate ways and have been apart for two years, until they each receive an invitation to Spooky Island. Not knowing that the others have also been invited, they show up and discover an amusement park that affects young visitors in very strange ways. Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby soon realize that they cannot solve this mystery without help from each other.

Screenwriter James Gunn has confirmed that a lesbian kiss was filmed but was cut from the final edit. He also commented on a submission that was indeed MPAA R rated. See article from screenrant.com :

Gunn answered a fan's question on Twitter about an eventual release of the R-rated Scooby-Doo , and shed some light on how the whole rating fiasco went down. Gunn confirms that the film was originally rated R by the MPAA, but that he never set out to write an adult movie. Apparently, the harsh rating was because of one stupid joke the MPAA misinterpreted. The film eventually earned a PG-13 from the ratings board, but by then a successful test screening skewed the film's target demo to a younger audience. This led to a third PR rated cut of the film removing material such as language, cleavage, and sexual situations - including a same-sex kiss between Daphne and Velma. Gunn tweeted:

Yes, the first MPAA rating was R, but it was only because of one stupid joke the MPAA misinterpreted.

The movie was originally meant to be PG-13 & was cut down to PG after like 3 parents were outraged at a test screening in Sacramento. The studio decided to go a more family friendly route.

Language and jokes and sexual situations were removed, including a kiss between Daphne and Velma. Cleavage was CGI'd over. But, thankfully, the farting remained.

I thought at the time the rating change was a mistake. I felt like a lot of teens came out for the first film and didn't get what they wanted (and didn't come back for the sequel). But today I don't know. So many young kids loved those movies, which is pretty cool.

Also, for the record I doubt any of those old cuts still exist.

The National Pig Association has submitted a formal complaint to Ofcom regarding the Channel 4 programme How to Steal Pigs and Influence People .

The group said that because of the programme , Channel 4 could be considered complicit in the theft of pigs. The NPA found it astonishing that it showed 23-year-old pignapper Wesley Omar stealing five pigs on separate occasions. The complaint letter says:

Wesley already has a criminal conviction for theft of a pig from a previous incursion which was reported in the programme, so the production company were clearly aware of his record.

NPA believes that Channel 4 has acted incredibly irresponsibly in this instance and should therefore be held accountable in some way. At the very least, they should furnish the police with information concerning any criminal activity gathered during the course of the programme production.

The NPA goes on to say that the programme - particularly the title and the promotion before the broadcast - explicitly glamorises illegal activity.

Therefore, we would be grateful if Ofcom would consider whether it has breached Rule 3.1 of the Broadcasting Code (material likely to encourage or incite the commission of crime or to lead to disorder must not be included in television or radio services or BBC ODPS).

Update: 370 complaints

5th February 2020. See article from farminguk.com

More than 370 people have complained to Ofcom over Channel 4's recent programme How to Steal Pigs and Influence People.

The TV censor, who says the controversial programme is still under investigation, has received hundreds of complaints.

The National Pig Association (NPA) submitted a formal complaint last week, saying Channel 4 could be considered complicit in the theft of pigs.

A Danish newspaper has rejected China's demand for an apology after it published a satirical cartoon of a Chinese flag with the five gold stars replaced by the deadly coronavirus.

China's embassy in Denmark called the Jyllands-Posten cartoon an insult to China. The paper and cartoonist Niels Bo Bojesen must publicly apologise to the Chinese people, it said.

Danes have jumped to the defence of Jyllands-Posten on Twitter, eg:

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen reminded China on Tuesday that we have freedom of expression in Denmark - also to draw.

Other Danish politicians stood by the paper's right to publish such a cartoon.