Internet News

Québec's government-run lottery agency, Loto-Québec, is forging ahead with a plan to block roughly 2,200 online-gambling sites following last week's passage of the controversial Bill 74, which authorizes the state-run lottery to compile such a blacklist and to assess heavy fines against the province's ISPs in case of noncompliance.

The province's censorship plan, which has been heavily assailed as being unconstitutional and in direct violation of Canada's federal communications laws, is likely to face stiff legal challenges in the coming weeks and months. Bill 74, which is actually Québec's omnibus budget legislation, proved to be the vehicle through which Québec's lottery forced through the changes it desired -- a way to eradicate competition.

Whether a blacklist will be delivered by Loto-Québec to the province's ISPs in June, with an accompanying order to enforce the new law, remains uncertain. Loto-Québec is early in a 30-day period in which it is mandated to draw up the blacklist's targets, meaning that attempted domain blocking won't begin, at the earliest, until the latter half of June.

Loto-Quebec weakly claim that blacklisting needs to be done as a "public health" service for Québec' citizens. Of course, Loto-Québec hopes to get healthier as well... financially, that is. Loto-Québec openly admits that this is all about the dollars; as of now, the official Québec lottery is estimated to have only 10% of the province's "real" online-gambling market, and the lottery is willing to go the "Great Firewall of China" route to get the remaining 90% and thus the online monopoly it craves.

Instagram is blocking lesbian, gay and bisexual content, by censoring images collated under a range of gay hashtags.

The blocked tags include #lesbian, #gays, #lesbians, #bi. Some other hashtags such as #gay, are not.

When attempting to browse certain hashtags, users are shown a select few images, along with the following message:

Recent posts from #lesbian are currently hidden because the community has reported some content that may not meet Instagram's community guidelines.

A spokescensor for Instagram told HuffPost UK that these hashtags have been restricted to a top posts setting, which is reserved for hashtags that contain a large amount of violating content .

When a hashtag is censored in this way, Instagram removes the most recent section and only display 33 top posts , which have been approved by moderators. This will remain the case until the hashtags are no longer used to post violating content .

Users can still post images using the hashtag, but the images just won't collate on the page.

A new legislative proposal amending the AVMSD has been adopted by the European Commission on 25 May 2016. The reform brings the Directive in line with the new realities. Share A media framework for the 21st century

Viewers, and particularly minors, are moving from traditional TV to the online world, while the regulatory burden is much higher on TV. The Directive therefore introduces flexibility when restrictions only applicable to TV are no longer justified. At the same time, it ensures that consumers will be sufficiently protected in the on-demand and Internet world. This is done while making sure that innovation will not be stifled.

The idea is to achieve a balance between competitiveness and consumer protection.

What's new?

The main new elements of the proposal are summarised below:

1. The Country of origin principle (COO)

   COO is a cornerstone of the Directive . It will be maintained and facilitated by:

   • simplifying the rules which determine the country having jurisdiction over a provider,

   • establishing an obligation on Member States to inform about what providers are under their jurisdiction and maintaining an up-to-date database to ensure transparency,

   • clarifying cooperation procedures between Member States regarding permissible limitations to COO.
     

2. Commercial Communications

   The proposed modifications aim at reducing the burden of TV broadcasters while maintaining, and even reinforcing those rules seeking to protect the most vulnerable. For example, the revised AVMSD:

   • maintains the strict 20% limit on advertising time, but gives broadcasters more flexibility as to when ads can be shown,

   • it allows more flexibility in putting product placement and sponsorship,

   • it encourages the adoption of self- and co-regulation for the existing rules seeking to protect the most vulnerable (alcohol advertising, fatty food, minors, etc.).
     

3. Promotion of European works

   The proposed modifications aim at enhancing the promotion of European works by:

   • allowing MS to impose financial contributions to providers of on-demand services established in other MS (but only on the turnover generated in the imposing country),

   • putting on-demand players under the obligation to promote European content to a limited level by imposing a minimum quota obligations (20% share of the audiovisual offer of their catalogues) and an obligation to give prominence to European works in their catalogues,

   • low turnover companies, thematic services and small and micro enterprises are exempted from these requirements.
     

4. Prohibition of hate speech

   The grounds for prohibiting hate speech will be aligned to those of the Framework Decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia ( Decision 2008/913/JHA ). This prohibits incitement to violence and hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to sex, race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.
   

5. Protection of Minors

   The proposed modifications aim at simplifying the obligation to protect minors against harmful content. It now says that everything that 'may be harmful' should be restricted on all services. The most harmful content shall be subject to the strictest measures, such as PIN codes and encryption. This will apply also to on-demand services.

   Member States shall ensure that audiovisual media service providers provide sufficient information to viewers about harmful content to minors. For this purpose, Member States may use a system of descriptors indicating the nature of the content of an audiovisual media service.
   

6. Platforms

   Video-sharing platforms will be included in the scope of the AVMSD only when it comes to combat hate speech and dissemination of harmful content to minors.

   Platforms which organise and tag a large quantity of videos will have to protect minors from harmful content and to protect all citizens from incitement to hatred, based on new EU-specific terms in the revised AVMSD. Fully in line with the ecommerce Directive , this builds on existing efforts by the industry and will be implemented by co-regulation.
   

7. The Audiovisual Regulators

   The independence of audiovisual regulators will be enshrined into EU law by ensuring that they are legally distinct and functionally independent from the industry and government (eg they do not seek nor take instructions), operate in a transparent and accountable manner which is set out in a law and have sufficient powers.
   

8. ERGA (The European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services)

   ERGA will have a bigger role in shaping and preserving the internal market, for example in assessing EU co-regulatory codes and will take part in the procedures derogating from the country of origin.

   The role of the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) will be set out in EU legislation.

What's next?

Once adopted by the European Commission, the legislative proposal is sent to the European Parliament and to the Council.

Offsite Comment: Onus on Companies

27th May 2016. See article from cdt.org

There are positive messages in the document, but also some problematic ones. CDT has consistently pushed back on proposals that would endanger the internet as an enabler of free expression, public debate, and access to information.

...See full article from cdt.org

The Centre for Democracy and Technology describes itself as:

CDT is a champion of global online civil liberties and human rights, driving policy outcomes that keep the Internet open, innovative, and free.