Internet News

Reporters Without Borders takes note of a report in today's South China Morning Post revealing that leading foreign social networks and news websites will be accessible in the Shanghai free trade zone that is to be inaugurated at the end of the month.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a government source told the newspaper that, as an experiment, the authorities were on the point of allowing access to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and the New York Times website in the Shanghai business district of Pudong, where the free trade zone will be located.

Reporters Without Borders said:

By taking this decision, the Chinese government is acknowledging that Internet censorship is bad for business. We regret that this lifting of censorship will apply to just a limited part of the country and that the reasons behind it are purely economic.

Targeted mainly at foreigners, this measure will probably not benefit the Chinese population. It should be extended to all Chinese Internet users, who are now the victims of discrimination in access to information.

As in the Hong Kong free trade zone, the Chinese authorities want the Shanghai free trade zone to attract foreign telecommunications companies that will offer their Internet connection services to companies based in the zone. The restrictions on Internet access are being lifted with the chief aim of attracting additional foreign investment, and the measure will apply only to an area of some 30 square kilometres centred on Pudong.

Update: Just a rumour. Censorship continues unabated

27th September 2013. See  article from  theverge.com

China's regime doesn't want visitors reading The New York Times after all, even in the free trade zone.

The People's Daily is disputing those initial reports, insisting that internet management measures inside the Shanghai zone will be identical to those elsewhere in China. The state-run media outlet also emphasized that the government plans to clamp down on any pornography, gambling, drugs, and smuggling within the Shanghai free trade zone, according to The Register.

Labour MP Tom Watson spoke out at the Labour Conference to criticise Ed Miliband, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and the rest of Parliament for turning a blind eye to the explosive growth in the power of the surveillance state

Speaking in the light of a summer of revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden about the Internet surveillance programmes of British and American intelligence, he said:

We're living in the most closed system of liberal democracy in the Western world. We have the most unaccountable intelligence services.

Parliamentary scrutiny hasn't just failed. It doesn't exist.

I can't think what any party leader has said about this. That's an absolute disgrace. This is a callous denial of our freedom.

I have no faith in the Intelligence and Security Committee [which is charged with overseeing the UK intelligence agencies]. I hope Parliamentarians say we're not going to take it this anymore.

We have to say we're not going to put up with this and build a cross-party coalition to make the intelligence services accountable for once and for all and provide oversight of a surveillance state running amok.

He was speaking at a fringe event hosted by campaign groups Open Rights Group and Big Brother Watch.

Also speaking was Paul Johnson, the Deputy Editor of The Guardian who has orchestrated their coverage of the Edward Snowden revelations. He talked about:

The most surreal 36 hours I've ever had as a journalist where, on the orders of GCHQ, we bought masks and anglegrinders...to destroy the material [that they had from Edward Snowden].

We told them two weeks earlier it was already in New York. The whole thing was surreal. It was an entirely bizarre moment. It illustrates at heart that the British Government doesn't believe this story should have been written.

Javier Ruiz, Campaigns Director of Open Rights Group called for the start of a movement against mass surveillance:

This isn't just the responsibility of political parties. We really need to look at a political solution that involves citizens, government and private companies.

Nick Pickles - Director of Big Brother Watch, told the audience:

How we govern data isn't fit for the Internet age. Parliament need to drag the intelligence agencies into the open. Secrecy cannot be justified to simply prevent embarrassment. We've been telling the world to do one thing while doing a completely different thing ourselves.

All internet connections to Sudan were cut off abruptly on Wednesday afternoon, after riots erupted in northern Khartoum over the ending of fuel subsidies.

The move to cut connections appears to have been done by the government to prevent protesters using social media to organise riots.

Protests broke out after the Sudanese government removed fuel subsidies, with several petrol stations and a university building set on fire, Reuters reported. Security forces fired teargas to disperse dozens of protesters who have demonstrated and set fire to a police station in Khartoum. The protests have gone on for three days after Sudan's Council of Ministers decided to stop the subsidies. That caused an immediate doubling in the price of fuel.

Offsite: Sudan blacks out internet to hide brutal suppression of protests

28th September 2013. See  article from  indexoncensorship.org

Peaceful protests in Sudan have led to ongoing violent government crackdowns and internet blackout

...Read the full article

A House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee report has condemned Google's failure to adequately respond to the issue of online piracy and its refusal to block infringing websites on the grounds they might also carry legal material. Citing the recent successful prosecution of a streaming site admin, the committee also calls for punishment in such cases to be extended to 10 years imprisonment.

During the last couple of years media industry companies have heavily criticized Google for linking to copyright-infringing material in its search results.

Google has responded by removing many millions of links but apparently that's just not enough. In the past couple of weeks the world's largest search engine has become a punching bag for the music and movie industries and today they find themselves battered again, this time by a British House of Commons report.

The reports finds many targets for criticism but begins with a swipe at the UK's leading Internet rights groups. Open Rights Group

The relationship between the strength of Britain's creative industries and robust copyright laws is acknowledged by the Open Rights Group which aims radically to liberalise the use and sharing of copyrighted content.

While we share the Open Rights Group's attachment to freedom of expression via the internet, we firmly repudiate their laissez-faire attitudes towards copyright infringement.

The report goes on to mention the creation of a new City of London Police unit dedicated to cracking down on intellectual property crime and reveals that a first-of-its-kind conference is being planned to bring players from across the world to London to discuss enforcement issues.

But inevitably the big guns were turned on the messenger. Google in the firing line again

The Committee begins by quoting Google itself, who at the time were removing around 9 million URLs from its indexes every month at the request of copyright holders. This was countered with information provided by the BPI who said that despite Google's alleged algorithm changes, the instances of infringing sites turning up in the top 10 results had fallen only marginally, from 63% in August 2012 to 61% a year later. Clearly the Committee are unimpressed. The report states:

We strongly condemn the failure of Google, notable among technology companies, to provide an adequate response to creative industry requests to prevent its search engine directing consumers to copyright-infringing websites.

We are unimpressed by their evident reluctance to block infringing websites on the flimsy grounds that some operate under the cover of hosting some legal content. The continuing promotion by search engines of illegal content on the internet is unacceptable. So far, their attempts to remedy this have been derisorily ineffective.

We do not believe it to be beyond the wit of the engineers employed by Google and others to demote and, ideally, remove copyright infringing material from search engine results. Google co-operates with law enforcement agencies to block child pornographic content from search results and it has provided no coherent, responsible answer as to why it cannot do the same for sites which blatantly, and illegally, offer pirated content.

We recommend that the maximum penalty for serious online copyright theft be extended to ten years' imprisonment. Criminal offences in the online world should attract the same penalties as those provided for the physical world by the Copyright, etc. and Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Act 2002.

Finally the report criticizes the delay in implementing the controversial Digital Economy Act, stalled now for the best part of three years. In particular, the issuing of warning notices to infringers should come sooner rather than later.

We recommend that a copyright infringement notification system envisaged by the Digital Economy Act be implemented with far greater speed than the Government currently plans. By targeting information letters to the worst infringers, early implementation will, we believe, serve an important educative purpose which could percolate more widely.

Update: Open Rights Group respond

27th September 2013. See  article from  openrightsgroup.org

Overall the Committee's report is a fairly disappointing and unimaginative piece of work. They offer a view of copyright that is too simplistic, one-sided and which effectively tries to reduce the debate to whether you like the creative industries or not. They thus ignore the wider impact of new technology on citizens as creators and participants in culture, and on how markets for cultural goods can now function most effectively.

...See Open Rights Group comments about the report

An in-game ad for the film The Purge , which appeared in the game app Real Football 2013 , included various scenes of violence. At one point a group of people carrying weapons approached a house, and a man's voice said, Anybody tries to come in, you blast them. Towards the end of the ad, the man told a woman Everything is gonna be OK. She replied tearfully, Nothing is going to be OK.

A complainant challenged whether the ad was irresponsible, because it appeared on an app that might be played by children.

Assessment: Complaint not upheld

The ASA considered that the themes of violence and fear contained in the ad were likely to cause distress to young and early teenage children, and that care was therefore needed to ensure responsible targeting. We understood that the same ad had received a post-9 pm restriction when it was cleared for broadcast on TV, and that Universal Pictures had asked their media agency to target those aged 15- to 24-years when placing the ad. We were satisfied that the content of the ad would be suitable for audiences aged 15 and over, and considered that Universal Pictures should have taken steps to ensure that the ad was targeted as far as reasonably possible to that age group.

The complainant reported the ad having been served to their seven-year-old son at around 9 pm, whilst he was playing the game Real Football 2013 . Whilst we noted Universal Pictures' views on the content of Real Football 2013 , and acknowledged that the game was not explicitly targeted at children, we considered that the type of strategic gameplay described was likely to appeal to some children, and particularly teenagers interested in football. We also noted that the figures provided by Gameloft, which indicated a high proportion of users aged 18+, were based only on those users who connected the game to their Facebook accounts and relied on accurate self-reporting of age to that site. We therefore considered that the audience composition data provided for Real Football 2013 , whilst it suggested that the proportion of users aged under 15 was likely to be relatively low, was not in itself sufficient to demonstrate responsible targeting of the ad.

We understood, however, that the ad had been served on a time-targeted basis, meaning that it would not be shown to users before 8 pm or after 6 am. Gameloft had subsequently extended the restriction to begin at 9 pm. We considered that showing the ad only after 9 pm was likely to successfully minimise the risk of children aged under 15 seeing it, and that the 9 pm to 6 am time-targeting was therefore sufficient to ensure responsible delivery of the ad. Although we welcomed Gameloft's subsequent decision to ensure the ad was not shown earlier than 9 pm, because the complaint related to a particular instance of the ad having been shown at 9 pm, we concluded that it had not on that occasion been inappropriately targeted and was not irresponsible.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code rules 1.3 (Responsible advertising) and 4.2 (Harm and offence), but did not find it in breach.

[Just for background I looked up typical bedtimes for children. The consensus is that teenagers 12+ need 8 or 9 hours sleep per night, and hence typical bedtimes are likely to be 10 to 11pm. It looks likely that a 9pm restriction will not do much to minimise viewing by 12-14 year olds. It's not like the TV watershed where 9pm is a also a marker to warn parents that programmes might not be suitable, even when the kids are still up for a couple of hours. There is no similar convention for games that warns parents that games after 9pm may have 15 rated ads served]

ATVOD publishes determinations that 10 adult video on demand services had breached statutory rules requiring UK video on demand providers to keep hardcore pornographic content out of reach of children and announces summit with financial industry on blocking payments to non-UK porn services which fail to protect children

The findings by the Authority for Television On Demand (ATVOD) bring to almost 30 the number of porn operators against whom the regulator has acted over the past two years.

The 10 online video on demand services - Absolute Cruelty, Belted by Beauty, Bitch Slapped, CFNM, CMNM, Frankie and Friends, Jessica Pressley, The British Institution, The Casting Room and Young Dommes -- were held to be in breach of a statutory rule which requires that material which might seriously impair under 18's can only be made available if access is blocked to children.

The ten services offered any user access to explicit hardcore porn videos which could be viewed on-demand. Yet the content of the videos was equivalent to that which could be sold only to adults in licensed sex shops if supplied on DVD.

The services each broke the statutory rules in two ways. Firstly, they allowed any visitor free, unrestricted access to hardcore pornographic or BDSM video promos/trailers or still images featuring real sex in explicit detail or strong BDSM activity. Secondly, access to the full videos was open to any visitor who paid a fee. As the services accepted commonplace payment methods -- such as debit cards -- which can be used by under 18's,

[ATVOD don't mention the fact that it is almost impossible to run a business that cannot accept commonplace payment systems, and cannot show the products that they are selling before purchase. Who's going to risk giving credit card details to a porn website that you can't see. It would be a scammers charter].

ATVOD counsels against complacency as most websites which allow UK children to access hardcore pornography operate from outside the UK and therefore fall outside ATVOD's remit.

ATVOD notes that Crown Prosecution Service guidance on the Obscene Publications Act makes clear that non-UK websites which offer unrestricted access to hardcore pornography and which can be accessed from the UK are likely to be considered to be operating in breach of UK law. Such websites offer free content as a shop window to attract subscriptions mainly paid by credit and debit card. ATVOD has therefore questioned whether it can be right for businesses which are likely to be operating illegally to draw revenues from UK bank and credit card accounts.

[But this legal argument relies on under 18's being depraved and corrupted by viewing hardcore porn. All campaigners seem to insist that massive amounts of children access porn, yet the vast majority are clearly neither depraved nor corrupt, nor seriously harmed for that matter.]

ATVOD has raised this issue directly with those involved in facilitating such payments and is holding a summit with the UK Cards Association, the Payments Council, the British Bankers' Association, and leading payment scheme operators on 10 October to discuss how the financial industry's response to the problem might evolve.

The latest ATVOD victims, with full text of the ATVOD determinations are:

• Absolute Cruelty
• Belted by Beauty
• Bitch Slapped
• CFNM
• CMNM
• Frankie and Friends
• Jessica Pressley
• The British Institution
• The Casting Room
• Young Dommes

Liberal Democrats have resoundingly rejected plans for an automatic block on internet pornography.

The motion, proposed by Floella Benjamin, the former children's television presenter, suggested all computers should block out pornography unless a user specifically opts to receive it.

The rejection of the motion will be seen as a warning to Nick Clegg, who has already signed up to coalition proposals that means people will automatically have an anti-pornography filter on new computers unless they switch it off.

Despite the leadership's position, several Liberal Democrat speakers stood up to oppose the motion, with one arguing it was counter to all liberal instincts .

Jess Palmer was cheered by members after saying a pornography filter would have prevented her from discovering fan fiction with some adult themes and finding out about asexuality.

Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge, successfully asked for the motion to be referred back to the party's policy committee for a rethink. He said there are some problems with children accessing internet pornography but this is not the solution.

Update: Crappy website blocking algorithms cited in vote against internet censorship policy

17th September 2013. See  article from  cambridge-news.co.uk

Cllr Sarah Brown, who represents Petersfield on Cambridge City Council, was successful in urging Liberal Democrat members to reject calls for software companies to filter out pornography.

Adults would have had to opt in to view pornography under the proposals, which will now go back to party bosses for redrafting. The vote put the party at odds with the Conservatives.

Cllr Brown, who campaigns for transgender rights, said filters on public computers had stopped her from visiting her own blog - as well as websites on issues such as safe working conditions for prostitutes. She said:

As an equality campaigner I have seen first hand the effects of Internet censorship. I have been frustrated when trying to access LGBT news sites, or reading blogs of people campaigning for quality, sex education, breast feeding, safer working conditions for those involved in sex work, drugs information, and so on.

I have even been disallowed access to my own blog, which, by the way, was shortlisted for a Lib Dem Voice award this year, because, apparently, it contains adult content .

Perhaps campaigning for equal rights for vulnerable and abused minorities is adult content , but so-called porn filters shouldn't be blocking it.

She said the motion had good intentions, but argued:

In seeking to protect children from porn, automated filters will block political campaigners, satire, support sites for victims of homophobic bullying, sexual abuse and eating disorders, breast feeding campaigners and the blogs of members of this party.

It is profoundly illiberal and will cause real harm to things of value.

Australian broadcaster, ABC, says it is protesting a Facebook decision to censor a Reuters image from its latest #Knowthestory marketing campaign because it features a naked man.

ABC managing director Mark Scott tweeted the censored image which shows a naked man facing riot police protesting against harsh Greek budget cuts in 2012.

An ABC spokesperson said the public broadcaster has asked Facebook to reverse its decision:

The ABC stands by the image in the #knowthestory ABC News campaign, an ABC spokesperson said. We acknowledge some people might find the image a bit cheeky but we believe it is a powerful and legitimate news image and feedback indicates that Australians are indeed interested to #knowthestory.

The ABC is disappointed with Facebook and are continuing to ask them to reverse their decision.

Facebook's rules ban nudity unless they embarrassed by publicity, in which case nudity is fine.

China has unveiled repressive new measures to stop the spread of what the government calls irresponsible rumours, threatening offenders with three years in jail if untrue posts online are widely reposted, drawing an angry response from Chinese internet users.

China is in the middle of yet another crackdown on what it terms online rumours , as the government tries to further repress social media and the discussion of politics.

According to a judicial interpretation issued by China's top court and prosecutor, people will be charged with defamation if online rumours they create are visited by 5,000 internet users or reposted more than 500 times. That could lead to three years in jail.

Users of China's popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging site expressed anger about the new rules. It's far too easy for something to be reposted 500 times or get 5,000 views. Who is going to dare say anything now? wrote one Weibo user.

Thailand

Cuban artist Erik Ravelo's latest project is a personal artwork, unrelated to his career as a creative director at Benetton, has managed to outrage the easily offended.

I had people writing me, threatening me, he said in a phone conversation with the Huffington Post. At first the project was fun but it got a little out of hand.

Los Intocables, which translates to The Untouchables, is what Ravelo refers to as a human installation, featuring a variety of issues plaguing children around the world. Several works features both a child and an adult posed to demonstrate a contemporary evil, whether it be gun violence, molestation or the threat of nuclear war. Each work features a child being crucified on the back of an adult, each scene attempting to tell a different story about the loss of innocence.

The human sculptures are then photographed with the child's face blurred, resulting in images as visually jarring as they are conceptually saddening. It's art, it's communication, Ravelo explained.

Facebook obligingly have censored Ravelo's project. Halting his likes at 18,000, he has been prevented from uploading more images. I am used to governmental censorship from Cuba but with this, he paused, my first reaction was 'woah.'

Nominet has launched a review of its registration policy for .uk domain names.  The scope of the review focuses on whether there should be restrictions on the words and expressions permitted in .uk domain name registrations.

Nominet currently has an open policy on domain registrations since 1996, which has played a key role in promoting a dynamic and open internet in the UK.

However, concerns over this approach have been raised by an internet safety commentator and subsequently reported in the Daily Mail. Nominet was also contacted by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in relation to this issue and are keeping them informed of our actions.

The review is to be independently chaired by former Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald QC.

Lord Macdonald will work with Nominet's policy team to conduct a series of meetings with key stakeholders, and to review and assess wider contributions from the internet community, which should be received by 4 November 2013. The goal is to deliver a report to Nominet's board in December of this year, which will be published shortly thereafter.

Nominet are now seeking contributions from the public via this online form in relation to this policy review.

Max Mosley was famously the victim of a spectacular 2008 sting by News of the World which posted photos and video of him participating in a sadomasochistic sex party that the paper described as a sick Nazi orgy with hookers.

The High Court ruled that there was no evidence that the sex party had been intended to be an enactment of Nazi behavior or adoption of any of its attitudes. It also found that there had been no public interest or other justification for the clandestine recording.

The court ordered News of the World to remove the material in question from its Web site, naturally, and there the story might have ended. Except, of course, that the photos and video continue to live on the Internet, via social media and on Web sites maintained by individuals.

Although initially deserving of sympathy for the intrusion, Mosley has been calling for the repressive censorship of the internet in his vindictive quest to get the genie put back in the bottle.

Mosley has asked a Paris court during the past week to order Google to create an algorithm to somehow censor all such photos from its service and search engine, now and forever. His lawyer told the court, the Tribunal de Grande Instance, that if Google France refused to remove the offending images it should face fines.

Google responded in a statement, noting that it had always honoured his requests to remove links to material that obviously violated the High Court order:

We sympathize with Mr. Mosley's situation, But his proposal to filter the Web would censor legitimate speech, restrict access to information, and stifle innovation.

Google noted that there was already a solution to the problem: Going after the actual publishers of the material, and working with Google through our existing and effective removals process.

The French court said it would issue a ruling on Oct. 21. Mosley has filed a similar case in Hamburg that is to be heard this month.

Australia's Coalition has made a couple of last minute changes of mind about its internet censorship policy.

Under a last-minute plan, which was not accompanied by any press release or announcement, Australian mobile phone and ISPs would be required to censor adult content on the internet unless users opt out.

But by Thursday evening, the Coalition's communications spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, announced the policy had been changed so that users would opt in if they wanted websites to be blocked.

Coalition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said:

All I can say to you is mistakes happen. As soon as I became aware of the policy having been released in the form it was I took steps to correct it.

The opting in to website blocking policy had received the tick of approval from Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and other senior Liberals before being released, but was apparently misunderstood by those who first presented the policy.

India's Supreme Court has ordered the government to take steps to block porn sites and has granted four weeks to produce a plan.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the morality campaigner Kamlesh Vaswani who claimed that although watching obscene videos is not an offence, pornographic sites should be banned as they are one of the major causes for crime against women.

The petition alleged that over 20 crore porn videos or clippings are freely available in the market, which are directly been downloaded through Internet or other video CDs.

The sexual content that kids are accessing today is far more graphic, violent, brutal, deviant and destructive and has put entire society in danger so also safety threats to public order in India.

The petitioner most respectfully submits that most of the offences committed against women/girls/children are fuelled by pornography. The worrying issue is the severity and gravity of the images are increasing. It is a matter of serious concern that prepubescent children are being raped.

The petition also asked that watching and sharing obscene videos should be made non-bailable and cognisable offence.

Today the BBFC becomes the new regulator of mobile content, replacing the Independent Mobile Classification Body, which had regulated this content since 2004. From 2 September, the BBFC will provide the UK mobile network operators EE, O2, Three and Vodafone, with a new independent Classification Framework for content accessed via their mobile networks. Mobile Operators will use this as a basis for their code of practice for content, meaning content that would be age rated 18 by the BBFC, can be put behind access filters.

The Classification Framework designed by the BBFC allows mobile operators to classify their own commercial content and to calibrate the filters they use to restrict content accessible by children via a mobile operator's Internet access service. Such content will include pornography and other adult sexual content, pro-ana websites and content which promotes or glorifies discrimination or real life violence.

The BBFC's new partnership will better enable EE, O2, Three and Vodafone to make consistent, evidence based and transparent decisions about the use of Internet filters and will make a significant contribution to protecting children from unsuitable and even harmful content accessed through their mobile devices.

BBFC's Classification Framework

See article from bbfc.co.uk

It seems that the BBFC have just patched up their film classification guidelines and ignored the consequences of trying to apply this to a much broader medium such as a large website.

Back in 2004 when the IMCB were in charge, the rules were envisaged to control video clips and the like provided by mobile phone companies, but David Cooke's introduction seems to suggest that the scope of this has been extended to take in internet websites too.

It makes sense to speak of 'repeated' use of the word 'cunt' for a 90 minute film or 1 5 minute video clip, but how does this apply to a massive website such as the Guardian newspaper? It will have many uses of the word 'cunt' spread thinly throughout 1000's of pages. Is it ok to use asterisked spellings such as 'c**t'?

The BBFC speak of references to porn terms being 18 rated but how would this apply to a list of R18 DVDs with titles and cuts using explicit porn terminology?

The BBFC opts out of discussing how effective age restrictions are such, as self declared age like on the BBFC website. Does such an age gate mean that the BBFC porn terms don't trigger an 18 rating (Can other websites use this same technique?)

The BBFC doesn't mention anything about links to other website. Does a link to a porn website mean that the linking website is 18 rated?

And what about pixellated nudity sex scenes.

The questions are endless and the BBFC document is woeful at answering even the most basic.

Perhaps the BBFC could provide a few illustrations such as how it classifies its own website, or how it would classify the Daily Mail website? Enquiring minds need to know.

A repressive law banning Vietnamese online users from discussing current affairs has come into effect.

The decree, known as Decree 72, says blogs and social websites should not be used to share news articles, but only personal information. It also prohibits the online publication of material that opposes the Vietnamese government or harms national security .

The law also requires foreign internet companies to keep their local servers inside Vietnam.

It has been widely criticised by internet companies and human rights groups, as well as the US government. Last month the US embassy in Hanoi said it was deeply concerned by the decree's provisions , arguing that fundamental freedoms apply online just as they do offline .

The Asia Internet Coalition, an industry group that represents companies including Google and Facebook, said the move would stifle innovation and discourage businesses from operating in Vietnam .