Internet News

A German court has ruled that authorities are justified in banning three unnamed porn websites based in Cyprus from operating in Germany due to rules requiring age verification.

The Duesseldorf administrative court said it had rejected complaints by the sites' two unnamed operators, who argued that the age verification regulations in Germany didn't apply to them because they were based in another European Union country.

The court said the decision taken by the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia state to ban the sites in Germany didn't breach national, European or international law.

The names of the sites weren't released by the court. The ruling can be appealed.

An episode of The Simpsons that refers to the Tiananmen Square massacre is reported to be missing from Disney's streaming service in Hong Kong.

Customers noticed that episode 12 of season 16 is missing from Disney +, which launched in the city this month.

Firms serving Hong Kong are now forced to abide by the same repressive media censorship rules that apply to mainland China.

The episode, named Goo Goo Gai Pan , sees the cartoon family visit China. During their trip to Beijing, they visit Tiananmen Square where a sign reads: On this site, in 1989, nothing happened - a nod to censorship of the deadly crackdown on protesters there that year.

In another part of the episode, the Simpsons also visit the embalmed body of former Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, whom Homer refers to as a little angel that killed 50 million people.

The Sunday Times is reporting that UK government inisters are preparing to introduce mandatory ID verification for adults to be able to access internet porn.

Plans to bring in ID verification for adult sites, which were shelved in 2019 over their failure to include data protection for porn users, are now being looked on with approval by Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, and Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary.

Their support follows an intervention by Dame Rachel de Souza, the children's commissioner, who has sent a report to ministers recommending that age verification becomes compulsory on all porn sites, not just those with user uploaded content as proposed under the draft Online 'Safety' Bill.

Since August, EFF and others have been telling Apple to cancel its new child safety plans . Apple is now changing its tune about one component of its plans: the Messages app will no longer send notifications to parent accounts.

That's good news. As we've previously explained , this feature would have broken end-to-end encryption in Messages, harming the privacy and safety of its users. So we're glad to see that Apple has listened to privacy and child safety advocates about how to respect the rights of youth. In addition, sample images shared by Apple show the text in the feature has changed from "sexually explicit" to "naked," a change that LBTQ+ rights advocates have asked for, as the phrase "sexually explicit" is often used as cover to prevent access to LGBTQ+ material.

Now, Apple needs to take the next step, and stop its plans to scan photos uploaded to a user's iCloud Photos library for child sexual abuse images (CSAM). Apple must draw the line at invading people's private content for the purposes of law enforcement. As Namrata Maheshwari of Access Now pointed out at EFF's Encryption and Child Safety event , "There are legislations already in place that will be exploited to make demands to use this technology for purposes other than CSAM." Vladimir Cortés of Article 19 agreed, explaining that governments will "end up using these backdoors to ... silence dissent and critical expression." Apple should sidestep this dangerous and inevitable pressure, stand with its users, and cancel its photo scanning plans.

Apple: Pay attention to the real world consequences, and make the right choice to protect our privacy.

Young people in Russia have been jailed for posting sexually suggestive images of themselves online in front of well-known landmarks.

There have been reports of at least 4 cases in the past week where police have investigated, detained, or jailed young people for posting suggestive images of themselves in front of the Kremlin walls, St. Basil's Cathedral, St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersberg, and next to an eternal flame commemorating the history of the 2nd world war.

One young couple was jailed for 10 months for supposedly insulting believers' feelings by taking an image suggestive of oral sex outside the famous domes of Moscow's St. Basil's Cathedral. Blogger Ruslan Bobiev and his girlfriend, influencer Anastasia Chistova staged a photoshoot that showed her on her knees in front of the cathedral wearing a police jacket. This was apparently the first time that such charges have led to actual jail time. After the hearing last week Bobiev has subsequently been ordered to be deported back to his native Tajikistan.

Cases that date back to August have seen women detained for flashing bare breasts and buttocks in front of monuments and landmarks, although many of whom protest their innocence stating that they were not responsible for the images being posted online. Last week a model was compelled to publicly apologise for a 3-year-old photograph of herself kissing another woman in front of the Eternal Flame monument saying that it was made without the goal to offend or defile.

The Department for Culture, Media & Sport has accepted recommendations from the Law Commission for crimes under its Online Censorship Bill to be based on likely psychological harm rather than just indecent or grossly offensive content.

This widens the purview of the law, and the proposed change will focus on the supposed harmful effect of a message rather than the content itself.

A knowingly false communication offence will be created that will criminalise those who send or post a message they know to be false with the intention to cause emotional, psychological, or physical harm to the likely audience.

The move is justifiably likely to be met with resistance from freedom of speech campaigners.