Internet News

In July 2011 the state of Missouri enacted legislation making Facebook friendship between teachers and students, as well as any sort of social networking, illegal.

After teachers complained the ban was unconstitutional and interfered with education, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon altered the state policy in a new bill he just signed. The initial state senate bill, which has come to be known as the Facebook Law, is no longer in effect, reports The Kansas City Star.

Instead, all Missouri school districts will have until March 2012 to create their own social networking policies.

The Missouri State Teachers Association, concerned about First Amendment rights, had sued the state over the law, claiming it was too vague. They were awarded an injunction Aug. 26, two days before the law was supposed to go into effect.

Needled by government warnings to keep more stringent tabs on its users, China's most popular microblog Sina Weibo is taking considerable new measures to censor millions of its posts that it and authorities deem are Internet rumors.

Sina, the Internet company that operates Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog service, plans to form a rumor-busting team of about a dozen editors to sift out posts that may offend the authorities and implement a rating system to assess the likelihood that users may tweet what they shouldn't.

Sina will create a team consisting of 10 senior editors to monitor, verify, and 'clarify rumors' that may be making their way through Weibo, CEO Charles Chao said according to the state-run China News Service.

All the meddling by Party officials has made investors nervous. Sina's stock has taken a number of hits over concerns about restrictive regulations; on Sept. 20 the stock dropped 15%.

In the two years since its inception, Sina Weibo's userbase has rocketed to 200 million as of June. That number is making Communist Party officials sweat as Sina Weibo has been increasingly used as a soapbox for anti-government sentiment.

This was particularly apparent when Sina Weibo was alight with comments lambasting the government's emergency response to and handling of the recent train crash.

Westminster City Council plans to spend £ 180,000 over three years monitoring social media networks through a dedicated gangs information desk, according to reports in The Times.

According to a private council document, youth workers will collect intelligence gathered from sites such as Facebook and Twitter as a precautionary measure and consider letting instigators know they are being watched.

The document states Westminster is interested in exploring ways to spot confrontations and provide street-level intelligence and would consider working with social enterprises to monitor Blackberry Messenger, YouTube and Facebook postings to intervene and offer protection and a way out to those involved with gangs.

Cllr Nickie Aiken, cabinet member for children, young people and community protection, said:

We have known the importance of social networking sites such as facebook and twitter for some time but during the disturbances in August we saw young people rapidly organising criminal behaviour through technologies like Blackberry Messenger.

Some of our youth workers were successful in discouraging young people from getting involved in the looting in Oxford Circus. However, as part of our new Gangs Strategy we want to make this work more systematic over the next few months and will be asking young people, as the real experts, how we can best do this without spying on people.

The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), an organization representing the interests of Christian broadcasters and ministries, has released a report showing that social media websites are actively censoring Christian viewpoints.

According to an NRB press release, the group's study examined the practices of Apple and its iTunes App Store, Google, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, as well as Internet service providers AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, The findings, said the NRB's senior vice president and general counsel, Craig Parshall, were ominous.

The NRB found that among the major players in new media, only Twitter had shied away from Christian opinions.

One of the most conspicuous examples of censorship the NRB found was that targeting viewpoints that challenged the notion that homosexuality is a normal and healthy lifestyle.

As reported by The New American, over the past year Apple has bowed to pressure from homosexual activists to pull two iPhone apps, one by Exodus International, a group that helps individuals leave the homosexual lifestyle, and another that included the text of a Christian document entitled the Manhattan Declaration, which among other things, makes a strong declaration of the sanctity of life, the scriptural view of traditional marriage, and the importance of religious liberty. The NRB study found that of the 425,000 or so apps available through Apple's iTunes App Store, only these two were taken down solely because of the viewpoints they expressed on homosexuality.

Among the other findings of the NRB study, part of its John Milton Project for Religious Free Speech:

• Facebook has indicated that it will delete all instances of content that it considers to be anti-homosexual.
• The Google for Non-Profits web tool includes a policy that excludes churches, ministries, and other faith groups that consider religion or sexual orientation in their hiring practices.
• While virtually all major new media platforms ban what is generally referred to as hate speech, what that definition generally boils down to is unacceptable viewpoints on such issues as homosexuality.

China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have proposed an Internet code of conduct at the United Nations General Assembly. Their document calls on signatories to curb:

the dissemination of information that incites terrorism, secessionism, or extremism, or that undermines other countries' political, economic, and social stability, as well as their spiritual and cultural environment.

Syracuse professor and Internet governance expert Martin Mueller warns of the dangers such codes of conduct could pose.

That section would give any state the right to censor or block international communications for almost any reason.

Presumably this is along the lines of what Dave Cameron and co are thinking when they talk about internet censorship in times of troubles.

Thinking about e-mailing your friends and neighbors about the protests against Wall Street happening right now? If you have a Yahoo e-mail account, think again. ThinkProgress has reviewed claims that Yahoo is censoring e-mails relating to the protest and found that after several attempts on multiple accounts, we too were prevented from sending messages about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

Over the weekend, thousands gathered for a Tahrir Square -style protest of Wall Street's domination of American politics. The protesters, organized online and by organizations like Adbusters, have called their effort Occupy Wall Street and have set up the website: www.OccupyWallSt.org. However, several YouTube users posted videos of themselves trying to email a message inviting their friends to visit the Occupy Wall St campaign website, only to be blocked repeatedly by Yahoo.

ThinkProgress emails relating to the OccupyWallSt.org protest were blocked with the following message (emphasis added):

Your message was not sent Suspicious activity has been detected on your account. To protect your account and our users, your message has not been sent. If this error continues, please contact Yahoo! Customer Care for further help. We apologize for the inconvenience.

And in a later update:

Yahoo's customer care Twitter account acknowledges blocking the emails, but says it was an unintentional error: We apologize 4 blocking 'occupywallst.org' It was not intentional & caught by our spam filters. It is resolved, but may be a residual delay.

[Yeah! yeah!]

Commons Home Affairs select committee, 11th September 2011

Following accusations that social media were used to play a key role in the social unrest in August, representatives from Research in Motion, Twitter and Facebook appeared for questioning by the Commons Home Affairs select committee.

Stephen Bates, Managing Director of BlackBerry's Research in Motion, Richard Allen, Director of Policy at Facebook and Alexander McGilvray of Twitter were questioned by the committee, chaired by MP Keith Vaz, regarding the role of social media in the riots which spread across the country in August, and the trio insisted that all three platforms were used as a force for good.

In the midst of the unrest, calls were made to shut down social networking, particularly BlackBerry messenger, as it was suggested that this was being used to organise violence. Cutting off Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry messenger in times of unrest seems no different to the censoring this kind of media experiences in China and oppressive countries over the world.

The committee heard that should it be necessary, all three of the representatives of the social media, who work within frameworks to condone with the law, would not resist closing down social media, but did not feel that it would be necessary.

Bates, Allen and McGilvray all said that throughout the unrest in August, social media were used in a positive way -- to contact family and friends to advise that users were safe, to help clean-up in the wake of the riots, and perhaps most importantly as a tool of communication, used to quell and correct rumours.

A key issue addressed by the committee was responsibility. Bates admitted that BlackBerry messenger had been used in a malicious way to organise crime, but stressed the need for balance when addressing the issue.

Keith Vaz advised that there may be times when closing down social media was necessary, asking Why should the government not use the powers to close down these networks if there is mass disorder and this is the only way to stop it happening.

The operators of Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 have introduced measures to circumvent court-ordered web-blocking measures designed to render the site inoperable in the UK.

Site staff aren't revealing how the stand-alone software client works but some basic network packet analysis shows that it defeats ISP BT's Cleanfeed censorship system by using a handful of techniques including encryption.

Following a complaint from the Motion Picture Association, earlier this year a judge at London's High Court ordered leading UK ISP BT to block subscriber access to Usenet indexing site Newzbin2.

TorrentFreak ran some basic tests on the Newzbin2 client today which revealed that it does indeed defeat known features of Cleanfeed in a number of ways. Initially the client tries to resolve the site's domain name to an IP in the usual manner via DNS, but from there, and without going into too many details, an encrypted session is initiated between the client and the Newzbin2 site in a way that Cleanfeed won't like, rendering blocking impractical and snooping more or less impossible.

Perhaps from the viewpoint of the UK authorities website blocking could prove to be a bit of a nightmare as it drives more and more people to take evasive action, that will surely make general eavesdropping a whole lot more difficult.

The bodies of a young man and woman were found hanging from a bridge in the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo.

A sign hung nearby the dead bodies said the pair was killed for condemning drug cartel activity on a social networking site.

Several media outlets in Mexico self-censor out of fear that the cartels will retaliate, and that's why people turn to blogs and social networks to keep the community informed of dangers. In this case...It was a fatal decision.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has written about the contents of the next Comms Act. He outlined several of the measures in a speech to the Royal Television Society.

On topic of internet blocking of 'offensive' content he said:

When it comes to accessing material that can offend taste and decency standards in their own home, we should put consumers firmly in the driving seat.

We won't water down existing protections on traditional media, the watershed is here to stay, and I welcome  the progress made by both the UK Council for Child Internet Safety and also by ISPs who have just completed work on a draft code of practice on parental controls.

But I think we need to go further.

I will therefore consider including in the new Comms Act an obligation on ISPs to ensure all their customers make an active choice about parental controls, either at the point of purchase, or the point of account activation.

An internet troll who posted abuse on Facebook memorial sites dedicated to dead children has been jailed.

Sean Duffy mocked a 15-year-old schoolgirl who committed suicide, leaving nasty messages and videos on a condolence page set up by her family.

The 25-year-old also hijacked tribute websites of three other children he had never met.

He was sentenced to 18 weeks behind bars and banned from using social networking sites for five years.

He had admitted he was hooked on the sick craze of trolling , where internet users deliberately leave abusive comments on networking sites.

One of his victim's parents hit out at Facebook, calling on the website to do more to tackle the problem after it emerged that one girl wrongly accused by others of posting the messages had attempted suicide.

Reading magistrates heard how the alcoholic, who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism surfed the internet looking for tribute sites.

Trolling is an offence under the Malicious Communications Act, which carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison.

Sentencing him  magistrate Paul Warren said: The offences are so serious only a custodial sentence could be justified.

Update: Next!

15th September 2011.  See article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

Another man has been charged with posting offensive images on the internet after the doctored picture of a Scottish schoolgirl, shot dead by her boyfriend, appeared on a website, established in her memory.

The Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection has begun to take comments from a rather predictably selective group.

The committee has heard comments from the Lucy Faithful Foundation, the Mother's Union, YoungMinds, Marie Collins Foundation, Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology at LSE, Jacqui Smith,  the Sun's agony aunt Deidre Sanders and Jerry Barnett, managing director of the UK's largest adult VOD site.

Jacqui Smith, the disgraced former Home Secretary, had a few ideas that caught the interest. She told the Inquiry that online pornography should be made harder to access in Britain, but that the quid pro quo for helping the industry to remain profitable might be that it could help fund sex education programmes for children.

She said that the online pornography industry is not illegal, and it is being impacted by free and unregulated content on the internet . She proposed that if all adult content were only accessible to customers who specifically opted in to it through their internet service providers, then the adult industry might see its profits improved. Online porn has suffered economically in the wake of free YouTube-style sites.

She added after the inquiry. If there are restrictions put on to what people can see, that will have a beneficial effect on the industry. If government or ISPs put in place restrictions that does enable the mainstream industry to [recover economically], that would be the point at which you could apply pressure.

Smith was keen to stress that she did not propose limiting or censoring legal pornography, but that she wanted to make sure only people who were allowed to see it could do so. I genuinely don't think mainstream pornographers want young people to see their material because it risks limiting what they can make for adults, she said. She conceded that her proposal may be technically challenging.

She said that the adult industry was already in a parlous state and that it would be unlikely to be able to fund education programmes at the moment. She said that although the chances of her proposals coming to fruition are not great, there are reasonable people in the porn industry .

The committee will take evidence from ISPs next month.

Police in Thailand have arrested a man on charges of lese majeste on Facebook. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

Surapak Puchaisaeng is a computer programmer from Bangkok. Lawyer Lomrak Meemeuan said his client was accused of creating a Facebook profile with defamatory pictures, audio clips, and messages about the nation's revered monarch, according to CBS News.

Lomrak said his client insists he is innocent, and denies all allegations of insulting the monarchy. He is now being held in a Bangkok jail. Police have also confiscated his desktop and laptop computers.

Any Thai citizen can make a complaint under the lese majeste law against any Thai or foreign citizen in Thailand. Once the complaint has been made, the police are duty-bound to investigate. Once the process of lese majeste has started, it is rarely dismissed.

In the last few years, the number of lese majeste cases in Thailand has soared. There had been hopes that a change of government would reverse the trend but the opposite seems to be happening. Human rights groups have criticized the law for being used by officials to limit freedom of expression.

The Home Office has published draft terror legislation to be used in supposedly exceptional circumstances.

The Enhanced Terrorism and Investigation Measures Bill follows  the government's review of CT powers, published in January, that claims enhanced measures are necessary in extraordinary circumstances.

IHome Secretary Theresa May said:

So we will publish, but not introduce, legislation allowing more stringent measures, including curfews and further restrictions on communications, association and movement.

These measures will require an even higher standard of proof to be met and would be introduced if in exceptional circumstances they were required to protect the public from the threat of terrorism.

We will invite the Opposition to discuss this draft legislation with us on Privy Council terms. These powers would be enacted only with the agreement of both Houses of Parliament.'

UK Police could get new powers to suspend internet domain names without a court order if they're being used for illegal activity, under rules proposed by .uk registry manager Nominet.

A Nominet volunteer policy team has recommended the creation of an expedited process for shutting down addresses when the police say the urgent suspension of the domain name is necessary to prevent serious and immediate consumer harm .

The proposed rules, if adopted, would apply to any address ending in .uk. Shutting down a domain name effectively shuts down the associated website and email.

In order for a domain to be grabbed under the policy, a law enforcement agency would have to file a declaration with Nominet that a seizure would be proportionate, necessary, and urgent . Police would not need to seek court approval, however, in order to have a site taken down.

Domains being used to commit any of an extremely long list of crimes covered by the Serious Crimes Act 2007, eg counterfeiting, fraud, prostitution, money laundering, blackmail and copyright infringement, would be eligible for seizure under the policy.

The policy recommendations envision an explicit exception for cases where freedom of expression is at stake. There would also be an appeals process and a periodic policy review.

The latest Nominet recommendations are still open for comment. See consultation details at nominet.org.uk

Index on Censorship regrets the publication of over 250,000 unredacted US embassy cables by whistleblower site Wikileaks.

While Index supports the principle behind whistleblower initiatives such as Wikileaks, we have consistently expressed concern over the need for careful redaction in order to protect activists and dissidents living under authoritarian regimes. Early this year Index expressed its concern to Wikileaks over reports that unredacted documents had been made available to the Belarusian dictatorship.

Index on Censorship Chief executive John Kampfner commented: Sites such as Wikileaks will continue to emerge, and will have an important role to play. But they should be operated with a great duty of care, both to whistleblowers and to individuals who may find themselves in danger after irresponsible leaks of diplomatic, intelligence or other material.

Among the responsibilities of journalism are protection of sources and the avoidance of reckless endangerment of innocent people. These same responsibilities should be adopted by whistleblower sites.

One of the unanswered questions arising from the August riots is whether the government needs new powers to block the use of Twitter, Facebook and other social media which were used to organise the disturbances.

Prime Minister David Cameron suggested, in the immediate aftermath of the rioting, that blocking the use of social networking communications was a policy option that was to be urgently discussed with telecommunications operators (and then implemented as a priority).

So when the Home Office says (as it has done) that no new powers are needed, then it follows that either no new powers are needed (ie, the government already has the power to block social networking communications) or the politicians have quietly gone off the idea (and have decided not to say so).

...

If I was having a bet, I think ministers might be considering the powers in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. This is because the definition of an emergency -- which is required to trigger use of the Act's draconian powers -- clearly includes a riot, as a riot could cause serious damage to human welfare, to property and threaten lives.

Additionally, where the issue is urgent , then the Civil Contingencies Act's powers can be exercised by ministers without resort to Parliament. Although urgency is understandable in times of a crisis, these urgency provisions also minimise Parliamentary scrutiny of their use at the critical time that the powers are exercised.

...Read the full article

Courts in the Brazilian state of Ceara have blocked access to $140,000 in the accounts of Google Brazil refused to take down a series of blogs with content supposedly offensive toward the mayor of Varzea Alegre.

The blogs in question accuse the mayor of corruption and diverting public funds, although no sources have been cited for the accusations. The mayor has reportedly said the blogs' anonymous messages smear his image.

A suit was filed on August 24, 2011 against Netfirms Inc., a Canadian web hosting company incorporated in the United States, for releasing personal information to the Thai government.

Netfirms' disclosures allowed Thai officials to identify, detain, and interrogate the plaintiff, Anthony Chai, both in Thailand and on U.S. soil. These disclosures, without which Chai would have remained anonymous, resulted in the Thai government charging Chai with violating a Thai lese majeste law carrying a sentence of 3 to 15 years in jail. Ironically, the comments that caused the online grief were criticizing that very same law used to restrict free speech in Thailand.

The suit alleges that the company's conduct violated California state law, as well as Constitutional and international human rights law. This case lies at the intersection of privacy guarantees, freedom of expression, international human rights law and the Internet.

As set out in the complaint, Chai, who owns a computer store in Long Beach, California from which he and his patrons would access and anonymously post comments on a Thai-language pro-democracy website, Manusaya.com, hosted by Netfirms. Many of the anonymous comments expressed concern with Thailand's lese majeste' laws which prohibit any negative statements about the Thai monarchy and provide for severe punishment.

Chai's privacy rights were violated when, at the request of Thai government officials, Netfirms suspended Manusaya's account and provided Chai's IP address and e-mail address to the Thai officials without notice and without his consent. As a result of this release of Chai's confidential personal information to Thai government officials, he was subsequently detained at the Bangkok airport, taken to the Department of Special Investigations, and interrogated about his postings on the website. After finally being released from police custody in Bangkok and returning home to California, Chai was then interrogated by Thai officials over the course of two days on U.S. soil at a hotel in Hollywood, California. Chai was later informed by Thai officials that if he returns to Thailand, he will be arrested and charged with violating lese majeste' laws.

Theresa Harris, Executive Director of Human Rights USA said, Internet companies need to take great care before releasing confidential information to investigators, especially when those requests come from foreign governments. Information is power, and these companies have the power to place a person at peril of imprisonment for the equivalent of an anonymous letter to the editor. Companies must be held accountable when they disregard the rights of the people who use their services.

Parliament has announced a another inquiry into online child safety, to be headed by Conservative MP and anti-porn campaigner Claire Perry. She got noticed due to her impractical campaign to force ISPs to block porn unless people opt to receive it.

According to a press release on Claire Perry's constituency website, the inquiry will seek:

1) To understand better the extent to which children access on-line pornography and the potential for harm that this may cause

2) To determine what British Internet Service Providers have done to date to protect children online and the extent and possible impact of their future plans in this area

3) To determine what additional tools parents require to protect children from inappropriate content

4) To establish the arguments for and against network level filtering of content that would require an 18 rating in other forms of media

5) To recommend to Government the possible form of regulation required if ISPs fail to meet Recommendation no.5 from the Bailey Review.

Public evidence sessions will take place in Committee Room 7, House of Commons between 14:00 and 16:00 on September 8th and October 18th.

The inquiry will include approximately 60 MPs and gather feedback from ISPs as well as parents and many others [but probably not those who actually enjoy adult material on the internet].

A final report is expected in November 2011.

The growing use of social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook are thought to be the main cause of the surge after a year which saw internet-related libel cases in England and Wales rise from seven to 16.

The singer Courtney Love is among those who have fallen foul of online defamation laws. She is being sued for a second time for posting defamatory statements on Twitter. Ms Love paid $430,000 ( £ 263,000) to settle a lawsuit brought against her by the designer Dawn Simonrangkir in March after calling her a nasty lying hosebag thief on Twitter in a dispute over money.

The barrister Korieh Duodu, a media specialist with Addleshaw Goddard, said a good deal of material on the internet is written by non-professionals without any of the fact-checking in traditional media organisations: There is certainly a need for greater accountability of the providers of user-generated content. He added: People who find themselves damaged on social media sites can find it time-consuming and difficult to have the offending material removed, because many platform providers do not accept responsibility for their users' content.

The UK Government is looking to reform the law with a draft Defamation Bill, currently going through Westminster, which ministers say will help to ensure that people can state honest opinions on the internet with confidence.

Theresa May met with bosses of social network sites in Westminster to discuss whether users should be blocked if they are plotting to riot or commit crimes

David Cameron's plan to shut down social networking sites to prevent disorder was ditched in a humiliating U-turn.

The Home Secretary Theresa May firmly killed off the prospect of any clampdown in the face of opposition from human rights groups and social networking companies.

In a summit with Facebook, Twitter and Research in Motion, the Home Secretary indicated that Cameron's plan did not even merit discussion.

She told the firms that she was not there to talk about restricting internet services. Instead May appealed for help, seeking advice on how law enforcement could more effectively use social media.

Social networking firms are said to have advised police to employ internet monitoring firms to help keep an eye on public chatter on the web.

The Government's retreat came after leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Index on Censorship, wrote to the Home Secretary voicing strong concerns about a possible clampdown. The coalition of ten human rights and free speech advocates said:

Dear Home Secretary,

We are writing to you regarding discussions scheduled to take place between the Government and some social network and communications providers following the recent civil unrest. We noted the Prime Minister's suggestion that the Government will look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.

We believe that Twitter, Research in Motion and Facebook have been invited to meet you to discuss this issue. As you know, there is existing legislation regulating the interception and disclosure of communications information, the use of communications evidence by law enforcement and restrictions on people's use of communications technology.

It is reasonable to review the existing legal regime to ensure that it appropriately fits new technologies. However, turning off, restricting or monitoring people's communications networks are matters that require extreme care and open, detailed deliberation.

We are very concerned that new measures, made in good faith but in a heated political environment, will overextend powers in ways that would be susceptible to abuse, restrict legitimate, free communication and expression and undermine people's privacy. This is especially so if proposals involve unaccountable voluntary arrangements between law enforcement and communications providers.

It is essential that any review of regulations covering communications networks happens through a public consultation, with full details of meetings between the Government and social network platforms made public as soon as possible. This should involve a genuine multi-stakeholder process that includes not only the communications providers but groups representing broader citizens' rights such as freedom of expression and privacy.

We would like to request a meeting to discuss these issues, and look forward to engaging with you further.

Yours sincerely,

Amnesty UK
Article 19
English PEN
Index on Censorship
Liberty
Open Democracy
Open Rights Group
Privacy International
and others

China has ordered a widespread crackdown on the internet in attempts to prevent uprisings like those seen in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The secretary of the Communist Party, Liu Qi has warned ISPs that they must tighten control of online content to prevent the spread of fake and harmful information and that the internet companies should resist such information, the Associated Press reports.

It's not clear how the Chinese government expects the ISPs to control content online, but it's likely that it wants them to monitor people's online activities and disconnect those participating in the spread of dissenting views. Penalties for non-compliance could be to shut down the ISP altogether.

The government-approved Beijing Internet Media Association also called on its 104 members to police the internet for rumors or vulgar contents , saying that the public should be led toward a correct direction - the proper direction being support of the government, of course.

China's equivalent of Twitter, Sina, which has over 140 million users, has been a particular focus of censorship. The company has been forced to monitor users, with over 100 employees checking for dissenting views 24 hours a day. Of course, with such a large user base it might be impossible to censor everything.

This latest move marks one of the strictest crackdowns on internet freedom so far, which could cause even more upset and dissent amongst its citizens.

Twitter and Facebook to resist government censorship

See article from mediapost.com

Facing the first true threats of censorship from the Western world, Facebook and Twitter appear ready for a fight. The major social networks are expected to offer no concessions when they meet the home secretary, Theresa May, at a Home Office summit on Thursday, the Guardian reports.

In the wake of riots and looting across England, government ministers have called for a ban on social networks during times of civil unrest. Prime Minister David Cameron has also asked that suspected rioters be banned from social networks.

The home secretary is expected to explore what measures the major social networks could take to help contain disorder -- including how law enforcement can more effectively use the sites -- rather than discuss powers to shut them down, according to the Guardian.

Facebook and Twitter are expected to strongly warn the government against introducing emergency measures that could usher in a new form of online censorship, the Guardian reports.

Hits by Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Take That are among 100 songs that have been placed on an internet blacklist by China's culture ministry.

Music websites have been given until 15 September to remove the offending tracks, which officials claim harm national cultural security . Those that fail to do so risk being prosecuted by the Chinese authorities.

A notice posted on the culture ministry's website said the 100 songs had not been submitted for official approval.

A 2009 directive was cited that targets supposed poor taste and vulgar content as well as copyright violations. This directive requires that alll hosted tracks have official sanction.

Most of the banned songs are from Taiwan or Hong Kong, with several from Japan. Among the Western acts:

• Lady Gaga has six banned tracks: The Edge of Glory, Hair, Marry the Night, Americano, Judas and Bloody Mary .
• Beyonce's Run the World (Girls)
• Katy Perry's Last Friday Night.
• Backstreet Boys track I Want It That Way.

Facebook has sent notes of apology and is changing automated systems that it said blocked environmental activists and other people from posting on like-minded Facebook pages.

The activists were told they were victims of an anti-spam computer algorithm that was impersonally doing what it was designed to do. Facebook is not --- and has never been --- in the business of disabling accounts or removing content simply because people are discussing controversial topics, Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes claimed in a statement to The Associated Press; On the contrary, we want Facebook to be a place where people can openly express their views and opinions, even if others don't agree with them.

Facebook has an appeals process for people whose personal accounts were disabled, but doesn't appear to have one for the 15-day spam sentence. That lack of an appeals process is one of the things that angered Burr Hubbell, a critic of gas drilling: I can't figure out how to even get a response to an e-mail, let alone talk to a person.

Hubbell and others got this message from Facebook: Your account was mistakenly blocked from posting on Pages. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. We've lifted the block from your account, and you should now be able to post again.

Police are looking into alleged email threats against the Conservative MP Louise Mensch's children from supporters of the Anonymous and LulzSec hacking groups.

Mensch, a high-profile backbencher and member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, disclosed the alleged threats to her via Twitter. She said: I'm posting it on Twitter because they threatened me telling me to get off Twitter. Hi kids!

The prompt for the threat is unknown, but Mensch has led calls for social networks to be temporarily shut down during periods of civil unrest such as the recent riots in English cities.

Anonymous and LulzSec have previously targeted individuals and organisations from which they perceive a threat to free speech online, such as the Church of Scientology and Arab governments.

The north German state of Schleswig-Holstein has banned the use of the Facebook Like button.

The Independent Centre for Privacy Protection (ULD) under Commissioner Thilo Weichert announced the ban on 19 August. The ULD explains:

Whoever visits facebook.com or uses a plug-in must expect that he or she will be tracked by the company for two years. Facebook builds a broad individual and for members even a personalised profile. Such a profiling infringes German and European data protection law.

The ruling requires any websites operating within Schleswig-Holstein to deactivate any Like plug-ins, as well as shut down any fan pages. Any site owners not complying by 30 September 2011 could face a fine of EUR50,000 ( £ 44,000).

The ULD also warns of the pitfalls of social networking and advises to keep their fingers from clicking on social plug-ins such as the like -button and not to set up a Facebook account if they wish to avoid a comprehensive profiling by this company.

An Argentina court ordered blocks on two specific sites, leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com.

But this resulted in over a million blogs being blocked. That's because some ISPs, in order to cut off the blogspot site, simply blocked the IP address used across all of Blogger's blogspot websites.

Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan both pleaded guilty to using Facebook in attempts to instigate riots in Cheshire. They have been jailed for four years

Jordan Blackshaw set up an event called Smash Down in Northwich Town for the night of 8 August on the social networking site but no one apart from the police, who were monitoring the page, turned up at the pre-arranged meeting point outside a McDonalds restaurant. Blackshaw was promptly arrested.

Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan used his Facebook account in the early hours of 9 August to design a web page entitled The Warrington Riots. The court was told it caused a wave of panic in the town. When he woke up the following morning with a hangover, he removed the page and apologised, saying it had been a joke. His message was distributed to 400 Facebook contacts, but no rioting broke out as a result.

Sentencing Blackshaw to four years in a young offenders institution, Judge Elgan Edwards QC said he had committed an evil act . This happened at a time when collective insanity gripped the nation. Your conduct was quite disgraceful and the title of the message you posted on Facebook chills the blood. T he judge said Sutcliffe-Keenan caused a very real panic and put a very considerable strain on police resources in Warrington .

The revelation that magistrates were advised by justices' clerks to disregard normal sentencing guidelines when dealing with riot-related cases alarmed a number of lawyers who warn it will trigger a spate of appeals.

Water Fights

Based on article from guardian.co.uk

A man will appear before magistrates next month for allegedly trying to organise a mass water fight via his mobile phone. The 20-year-old from Colchester was arrested on Friday after Essex police discovered the alleged plans circulating on the BlackBerry Messenger service and Facebook.

The unnamed man has been charged with encouraging or assisting in the commission of an offence under the 2007 Serious Crime Act, police said.

He was arrested with another 20-year-old man the day the water fight was allegedly due to take place, and has been bailed to appear before Colchester magistrates on 1 September. The second man was released without charge.

Update: Dundee Riots?

19th August 2011. See article from news.scotsman.com

A schoolboy has been banned from using the internet until he stands trial accused of trying to incite riots on Facebook. The 14-year-old boy appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court. He was arrested along with Shawn Divin and Jordan McGinley who were remanded in custody.

The schoolboy appeared on a petition alleging that along with Divin and McGinley he encouraged others to riot in Dundee. Prosecutors say the trio acted in a disorderly manner by creating the page between 9 and 10 August. The 14-year-old was released on bail with the condition that he does not access the internet by any means.

Update: Northwich Riots?

19th August 2011.  See article from bbc.co.uk

A Cheshire man jailed for using Facebook to incite disorder during last week's riots is to appeal against his prison sentence.

Jordan Blackshaw was jailed for four years at Chester Crown Court. The judge said he hoped the sentences would act as a deterrent.

Blackshaw's barrister said his 21-year-old client and his family were somewhat shocked by the sentence .

Update: Bream Riots?

19th August 2011.  See article from bbc.co.uk

A 19-year-old in Gloucestershire who posted Facebook messages encouraging people to vandalise a shop during last week's riots has avoided court.

Joshua Moulinie posted a message on his Facebook wall urging people to damage the Spar store in his home town of Bream, Forest of Dean. But instead of facing the courts, Moulinie - who said it was a blatant joke - was told to write a letter of apology to the shop owner.

Update: Two More

19th August 2011.  See article from bbc.co.uk

Two more people have been charged with inciting public disorder via social network sites and are due to appear in court on Thursday, Cheshire police said.

A 24-year-old man from Runcorn is due to appear at Warrington Magistrates Court and a 17-year-old male from Crewe will appear at Crewe Magistrates Court.

Update: Appeals

1st October 2011.   See article from huffingtonpost.co.uk

Two men jailed for four years for setting up Facebook pages inciting others to riot have challenged their manifestly excessive custodial terms.

Lawyers for Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan told three Court of Appeal judges that what their clients had done was monumentally foolish , hugely stupid and hugely short-sighted .

But they urged the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, sitting in London with Lord Justice Thomas and Lord Justice Leveson, to rule that their sentences were too long.

Chester Crown Court had heard that Blackshaw set up a Facebook event called Smash Down In Northwich Town but nobody turned up at the meeting point outside a McDonald's restaurant.

Sutcliffe-Keenan's page, The Warrington Riots, invited people to riot on the evening of Wednesday August 10 between 7pm and 10pm.

Gareth Roberts, counsel for Blackshaw, told the appeal judges: Four years goes well beyond what could be a properly deterrent sentence and could properly be deemed to be a fair sentence, even in the context of what was going on nationwide.

Judgement was deferred to a later date.

Update: Appeal Outcomes

19th October 2011. See article from bbc.co.uk , thanks to Nick
See also Rejecting these riot appeals is no deterrent from guardian.co.uk by Alan Travis

Appeals by two men jailed for using Facebook to try to incite disorder during August's riots in England have been rejected by the Court of Appeal.

Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw were among 10 people challenging riot-related sentences. The court rejected five other appeals but cut the sentences for three people convicted of handling stolen goods.

Update: Joking in Hastings

22nd November 2011. See article from dailymail.co.uk

A man has been cleared inciting looting at the height of the nationwide riots in the summer with a series of Facebook messages.

A jury decided unemployed Nathan Sinden was joking when he wrote comments including: Let's start a riot in Hastings. Who's on it? In postings visible to his 754 Facebook friends, he also wrote: Looting it is then today. Who's up for shopping? and followed it up with Town on lockdown. LOL. But in a private chat thread on Facebook, Sinden was asked by a friend whether he was serious about his comments and he confirmed he was joking.

Shaven-headed Sinden, of St Leonards-on-Sea, was arrested the following day but told police he was joking and never had any intention to follow through with his threats. He denied intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of burglary.

Jurors sitting at Hove Crown Court returned a not guilty verdict after deliberating for 30 minutes.

Update: Riot in the Toon

21st December 2011. See article from bbc.co.uk

Two teenagers who used Facebook to try to start a riot in a Scottish city have been locked up for three years each.

Shawn Divin, 16, and Jordan McGinley, 18, were administrators of a Facebook page called Riot in the toon which urged people to kill some daftys .

The Dundee riot page was published during the summer's unrest in England.

Update: Southampton Riots

22nd June 2012. See article from guardian.co.uk

A man who used Facebook to try to incite violence and urged others to attack the police and Muslims during the height of last summer's riots has been jailed for three years.

A jury took less than two hours to find Mitchell Stancombe, 21, guilty of encouraging and assisting people to commit violent disorder.

He made three posts on his personal page on the social networking site on 9 August starting with the words: When are we going to start the Southampton riots then? When told to shut up by a friend, he replied: LOL -- do a few coppers in. He then made a post which included an abusive remark about Muslims.The posts, which could be accessed by anyone, were made during widespread rioting in Birmingham, Manchester, Derby, London and Liverpool.

openrightsgroup.org have set up the following petition:

Prime Minister David Cameron announced that social media could be used for good or ill and therefore would look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality .

We know this is a knee-jerk reaction. If it involved suspension of services, it would be unworkable, and would hit people trying to stop disorder or protect themselves. Targeting individuals would need to be supervised by the courts: but the UK usually leaves decisions like this to the Police, rather than courts, as in RIPA.

The Government is focusing on entirely the wrong problem in trying to increase their powers to ban, block or monitor people's communications. Social networks like Twitter are used for a huge array of positive purposes such as warnings of danger and organising clean up projects. Blanket surveillance measures of private communications or increased powers to mine users data would undermine people's freedom to communicate in very damaging ways, and would in no way address the problems at hand. Making laws in haste, with limited analysis and information, to deal with an exceptional problem is likely to create unbalanced laws and abuses of our rights.

...Sign the petition

Police claim they prevented attacks by rioters on the Olympic site and London's Oxford Street after picking up intelligence on social networks.

The Blackberry Messenger (BBM) system is popular among many young people because they think it is both private and secure. Users are invited to join each other's contacts list using a unique PIN, although once they have done so, messages can be distributed to large groups.

Assistant Met Police Commissioner Lynne Owens told a committee of MPs officers learned of possible trouble via Twitter and Blackberry messenger. Owens said officers had been attempting to sift through an overwhelming amount of chitter chatter on social networks during last week's riots in London, but some had proved vital.

But Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin said that on Monday, when disorder spread to 22 of London's 32 boroughs, police were receiving a new piece of intelligence every second. And while much of the information coming via social media was obviously wrong and rather silly , he said police did considered trying to shut the networks down in order to prevent them being used to organise further violence:

We did contemplate, I contemplated, asking the authorities to switch it off. The legality of that is very questionable and additionally, it is also a very useful intelligence asset. So, as a result of that, we did not request that that was turned off, but it is something that we are pursuing as part of our investigative strategy.

The Daily Mail writes:

A teenager who incited his 2,000 Facebook friends to riot was inspired by a violent cult film about gangs ruling the streets, a court has heard.

Amed Pelle, 18, sent three messages on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday following the outbreak of violence in his home city of Nottingham.

The first two read: Nottz Riot whose onit? and Kill one black youth, we kill a million Fedz [police], riot til we own cities .

In his third message, Pelle asked if friends wanted goods from a fashion shop. He wrote: Rioting 2nyt anyone want anything from Flannels? The store, in the city centre, had its windows smashed hours later.

Unemployed Pelle pleaded guilty at Nottingham magistrates' court to a breach of section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. He was remanded in custody for sentencing at the city's crown court.

Prosecutor John Wallis said Pelle told police that he had watched a film called Shank , in which gangs take over London, and that he wanted the same to happen here . The 2010 film depicted an apocalyptic future capital where gangs of youths rule the streets and carry out looting and wanton violence.

Pelle, who is from Cuba, was arrested after police officers spotted the messages while monitoring social networking sites during the trouble in the city.

The Spanish government has ordered Google to delete information about 90 individuals from its search engine indexes. Spain said it believes that the individuals have a right to be forgotten. The 90 are thoie that lodged complaints with the Spanish data protection agency.

But Google said preventing some data being accessed through search engines would have a profound chilling effect on free expression without protecting people's privacy

A court will determine whether the individuals' details should be deleted.

The issue rose when Spain published an official database online. The database contained personal information about Spanish citizens that is maybe best not published on the internet. And indeed the Google search engine indexed the site and made the information available in the usual search engine results.

Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission and EU Justice Commissioner seems sympathetic with the right to be forgotten. She said:

I do not approach this subject of the 'right to be forgotten' lightly. I know that there is a balance to be struck with freedom of expression. It may also call for some flexibility in the way this balance is struck, but I cannot accept that individuals have no say over their data once it has been launched into cyberspace.

The first Briton to have his Twitter identity forcibly revealed by a court is seeking to sue the council that blew his anonymity and force a judicial review of the case.

A review could have implications for whistleblowing websites and for a council that used public funds to unmask a perceived detractor.

In April, South Tyneside Council won an order from the Superior Court of California forcing Twitter to release details about four accounts. The council claimed the information, including contact details and IP addresses, could reveal who is behind the Mr Monkey blog, which it claimed was spreading libellous comments.

South Tyneside Councillor Ahmed Khan admits being the owner of one of the Twitter accounts, but maintains he is not Mr Monkey .

South Tyneside Council has already spent about £ 75,000 on the case. Khan is looking into the possibility of forcing a legal review into the misuse of public funds.

Khan is waiting for a court decision before taking further legal action.

US technology researchers have demonstrated that they can link up facial recognition camera technology with a database of people with their pictures tagged by Facebook.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University combined off-the-shelf image scanning, cloud computing and public profiles from social network sites to identify individuals in the offline world.

In another experiment, researchers were able to extract the social security number of a student starting only with their photo.

When we share tagged photos of ourselves online, it becomes possible for others to link our face to our names in situations where we would normally expect anonymity, said team leader Professor Alessandro Acquisti.

The researchers have also developed an augmented reality mobile app that can display personal data over a person's image captured on a smartphone screen.

The results of the research will be presented at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas this week.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has said that the government will not bring forward regulations on site-blocking established as reserve powers in the Digital Economy Act, following a technical Ofcom report. The ministry added: We are keen to explore the issues raised by Ofcom's report and will be doing more work on what measures can be pursued to tackle online copyright infringement.

Ofcom's report effectively kicked web-blocking into the long grass. Ofcom examined various techniques and concluded that blocking discrete URLs or web addresses is not practical or desirable as a primary approach. Ofcom instead recommends something critics might see as more draconian, however:

The report says that if site-blocking is adopted, it should be at the domain level. But such a technique will become harder, when digital signing is more common. So it recommends examining further measures such as transparent proxy-blocking (cleanfeed) or hybrid routing technology:

In the medium to longer term we consider that deep packet inspection techniques are likely to provide a more robust approach to blocking than DNS. Although costly to implement today, we would expect that costs will fall as the larger ISPs invest in DPI devices for other purposes. However, for it to be part of a legislative approach the cost burden for smaller ISPs would need careful evaluation as would legal concerns related to compatibility with privacy, data protection and interception rules.

Casting.xxx has become the first porn site to go live with the .XXX domain name.

It's the first site to launch under ICM Registry's Founder Program.

Casting.xxx, billed as a site presenting amateur hardcore content.

General availability of .xxx website addresses is set for December 2011..

The High Court's decision requiring British Telecom to block access to the file-indexing website, Newzbin.com sets a worrying international precedent against the right to freedom of expression.

The decision sets too low the threshold for ordering blocking, fails to properly balance the right to property with the right to freedom of expression, and shows no consideration for the chilling effect such a decision would have. Ordering the blocking of an entire domain name, as opposed to specific webpages, is also likely to breach the requirement for necessity in international law.

Although ARTICLE 19 supports development of clear standards related to online copyright infringement, the judgment of the English High Court on 28 July 2011 sets a worrying precedent which could have a dramatic chilling effect on legitimate online content. It is also highly likely to breach international standards of freedom of expression.

ARTICLE 19 notes with concern that the judge granted the website blocking injunction not only in relation to the studios' own films but also those of third parties who were not involved in the case, on the basis that there was no reason to believe that they would not support it. The judge accepted that the order would also prevent BT subscribers from making use of Newzbin.com for legitimate purposes, but considered that there was little evidence that the site was being used in this way.

ARTICLE 19 believes that the high court order is very likely to breach international standards for the protection of freedom of expression, in particular the principle that any restriction on freedom of expression for a legitimate aim must be proportionate.

The ruling gives short shrift to this well-established principle as follows:

• In its judgment, the high court failed to carry out a proper balancing exercise between freedom of expression and the right to property. In particular, the judge provided very little reasoning for his conclusion that the intellectual property rights of the studios clearly outweighed the free speech rights of BT and its many UK users;
   
• The threshold for granting such a website blocking order was set very low, despite its obviously far-reaching consequences. In particular, the studios simply had to show that BT knew that one or more persons were using its service to infringe copyright, and that was sufficient to justify an order blocking the entire site;
   
• Moreover, little or no consideration was given to the chilling effect that the order is highly likely to have on freedom of expression and the free flow of information on the Internet, especially legitimate online content. This is borne out by the overly broad terms of the order sought, which is directed to the website's domains and sub domains rather than specific URLs deemed illegitimate. In ARTICLE 19's view, any order seeking to block access to domain names as a whole rather than specific URLs is very likely to breach the requirement of necessity under international law. In this respect, ARTICLE 19 also points out to a July 2011 report by the OSCE Special Representative for Freedom of the Media said that Arguably, the practice of banning access to entire websites, and the future publication of articles thereof (whose content is unknown at the time of access blocking) goes beyond any notion of necessary restraint in a democratic society and, instead, amounts to censorship .

ARTICLE 19 urges the establishment of clear legislative standards in this area in order to strike a fairer balance between the interests of rights holders and Internet users and better protect freedom of expression on the Internet.

Teachers and students walk a dangerous line where they could become too personally involved, at least in cyberspace. And without constant outside supervision to ensure all interaction is proper, who knows what could happen?

At least, that appears to be the argument behind a new bill signed into law by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, that bans student-teacher friendships on social networks, like Facebook and twitter. The law is intended to keep personal interaction at an absolute minimum to ensure all relationships are entirely professional and public seemingly by trying to ban all relationships.

There are also complainst that the vagueness of the language of the law makes it unclear what actually counts as a violation. The law forbids any online interaction between teachers and current or former students on any system that allows private messages. But does students refer to anyone in your class? Or your school? Or anyone in any classroom at any school? Does former mean students you used to teach, and if so, for how long? And how does this apply to twitter, where often people aren't even sure totally sure of the names and identities of everyone who follows them?

A Los Angeles-based group of Holocaust survivors has asked the Facenbook's administrators to remove Holocaust denial groups from its pages.

MSNBC reported that Facebook sent them an email in which the website claimed that despite the nature of the Holocaust-denial pages, they still do not rise to the level of something they would remove. Facebook said:

At Facebook, one of the toughest questions we face is how to handle the sharing of controversial ideas and opinions on the site. Recently, there has been a focus on groups created to deny the occurrence of the Holocaust. We find these groups to be repugnant and ignorant, just as we object to some of the other ideas expressed on Facebook, write spokesman Andrew Noyes. We have spent considerable time internally discussing the issues of Holocaust denial and have come to the conclusion that the mere statement of denying the Holocaust is not a violation of our terms... However, if the members of the Holocaust denial groups consistently post hateful or threatening comments, we will take the groups down, and we have done so on many occasions... Many of us at Facebook have direct personal connection to the Holocaust, through parents who were forced to flee Europe or relatives who could not escape. We believe in Facebook's mission that giving people tools to make the world more open is a better way to combat ignorance or deception than censorship, though we recognize that others may disagree.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has approved a measure that would force ISPs to save users' IP address information for one year.

The bill, HR 1981 The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 ,was approved on a 19-10 vote and considered a victory for conservative Republicans despite opposition from digital rights groups and civil liberties advocates.

An 11th hour rewrite of the controversial data retention mandate reportedly expands the information that commercial ISPs are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses.

The panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.

Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the panel said the bill is mislabeled: This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.

The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) penned a letter to the U.S. Congress protesting its erroneous use of the phrase Internet Pornographers in the new legislation. ASACP executive director Tim Henning told XBIZ that lumping in adult businesses in the bill's labeling is flat out wrong. 'Protecting Children From Internet Pedophiles' or 'Protecting Children From Internet Sex Crimes' would both be more appropriate and accurate titles for this Act, the ASACP letter stated.

Twitter has added a way to flag links within tweets as possibly sensitive. The company has announced that there is a new field used whenever a tweet contains a link, giving Twitter users the option to be warned before they click links that might office or age friendly.

The new feature is not functional yet, but Twitter was informing developers that it was just added and is now in the testing phase.

According to Twitter representative Taylor Singletary:

In the future, we'll have a family of additional API methods & fields for handling end-user 'media settings' [linked pages and images etc] and possibly sensitive content. To us, this seems like a feature that's long overdue, giving users the ability to control the kind of content they or their children are exposed to, letting them use Twitter without fear of being unpleasantly surprised when they click on an inappropriate link.

According to Twitter's media policy document, the company will remove media that might be considered sensitive such as nudity, violence, or medical procedures.

A High Court judge has ruled that BT must block access to a website which provides links to pirated movies.

Newzbin 2 is a members-only site which aggregates a large amount of copied material found on Usenet discussion forums.

The landmark case is the first time that a UK ISP has been ordered to block access to such a site.

It paves the way for other sites to be blocked.

In his ruling, Justice Arnold stated: In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newbin2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the Studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes.

The Motion Picture Association, which represents the likes of Warner, Disney and Fox, launched the legal action to close down Newzbin 2. MPA signalled its intention to pursue other ISPs.

The judge ruled that BT must use its blocking technology CleanFeed - which is currently used to prevent access to websites featuring child sexual abuse - to block Newzbin.

The Internet Service Providers' Association has been a fierce critic of web blocking. It said that using blocking technology, designed to protect the public from images of child abuse, was inappropriate.

Currently CleanFeed is dealing with a small, rural road in Scotland, ISPA council member James Blessing told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. Trying to put Newzbin and other sites into the same blocking technology would be a bit like shutting down the M1. It is not designed to do that.

Update: Case by Case

30th July 2011. See article from theregister.co.uk

BT's head of retail Simon Milner has admitted that the company is not deliriously happy, but BT won't be appealing the decision.

He told the Register that: We believe in an open internet -- we won't do any other blocking. We will never stop our customers getting to any service they want to get to. Unless a court orders us to.

Although the case went against BT, Milner points out that a test case has finally made the law clear. And since web-blocking requires a court order, he says BT is satisfied with that. Each web-blocking request will have to go before a court -- where a judge must examine it on its merits.

There's no suggestion in this judgement that BT has done anything wrong as an innocent intermediary. We said it's questionable whether an intermediary can have these obligations put on it. Now we know.

Comment: Blocking Newzbin2 paves the way for internet censorship

30th July 2011.  See article from guardian.co.uk by Loz Kaye

The court decision to allow BT to block the pirate site means Hollywood is dictating our internet policy

...

There is no good reason to believe that this will end at copyright enforcement, for example those fond of libel action will no doubt be eyeing this result with interest. One of the most depressing aspects of the case is that is the blocking is to be enacted using the system set up to address the issue of child abuse images on the net. This system was simply not made for a hugely wider remit, and frankly the use of Cleanfeed seems shockingly cynical. Assurances given that it would only ever be used for dealing with this most appalling of crimes now seem hollow

...Readv the full article

Nirvana's Nevermind album made waves when it was released in 1991 because of its cover art which featured a naked baby boy floating in a pool, has run into censorship yet again, this time on its Facebook page.

After product shots of the album (which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this fall) were uploaded to Nirvana's Facebook page, the social networking company removed the photo citing a violation of its Terms of Use:

Facebook does not allow photos that attack an individual or group, or that contain nudity, drug use, violence or other violations of the Terms of Use.

Update: Nevermind

29th July 2011. See article from guardian.co.uk

As is usually the case with Facebook censorship, once their ill-considered censorship is rumbled they they rapidly change their mind and say it was alright all along.

And So Nirvana's Nevermind album cover is welcomed back on Facebook.

Nirvana's Nevermind album made waves when it was released in 1991 because of its cover art which featured a naked baby boy floating in a pool, has run into censorship yet again, this time on its Facebook page.

After product shots of the album (which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this fall) were uploaded to Nirvana's Facebook page, the social networking company removed the photo citing a violation of its Terms of Use:

Facebook does not allow photos that attack an individual or group, or that contain nudity, drug use, violence or other violations of the Terms of Use.

Italian ISPs were forced to block a legal proxy-server website after the authorities found that proxyitalia.com could be used to access BtJunkie, The Pirate Bay, and other websites banned under Italy's copyright enforcement regime.

Italy's cybercrime police unit, the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), banned the general-purpose proxy service at the request of Cagliari deputy prosecutor, in a move which provoked widespread condemnation in the Internet community:

A UK ISPA Spokesperson said:

Blocking access to proxy servers and VPNs is not an effective means of tackling copyright infringement online and will prevent access for legitimate uses of this technology such as mobile working and securing public wireless networks.

Some US educators have said that website blocking is posing a threat to kids' education and intellectual freedom.

Filtering software and school rules designed to keep out violence and pornography are also blocking key educational and otherwise useful sites, teachers say, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google and National Geographic.

New York City's Department of Education blocked Google Images last month for what it called objectionable content but later left it up to schools whether to allow it.

The Pinellas County School Board in Florida voted unanimously to block teachers from communicating with students via Facebook or Twitter, even about school-related matters. The school board said it hopes to prevent the appearance of inappropriate contact between students and teachers via social media.

This fall, a handful of schools and libraries across the USA plan to celebrate Banned Sites Day to draw attention to the issue, according to New Canaan (Conn.) High School librarian Michelle Luhtala. The day was her idea. She says the same issues of censorship, fear and free speech that make banned books resonate also apply to social-networking sites that most public schools block: Teaching with social media shows students how to responsibly use those platforms. Blocking access in schools denies kids the chance to practice sharing their knowledge with the real world in a supervised setting.

Australian attorneys-generals are discussing ways to give parents access to their kids' Facebook profiles. They will also examine an 18+ Facebook age limit.

The idea was first proposed by a South Australian Family First MP, Dennis Hood, and is being championed by South Australian Attorney-General John Rau.

Rau argued that giving parents assistance to supervise their children on Facebook would help protect against online predators and limit access to unsuitable material.

But Susan McLean, who was Victoria Police's first cyber safety officer and is now an online safety consultant, said:

The proposal was ill-informed and it shows a total lack of understanding of what the internet is. It's not Facebook's fault that there are problems on Facebook. You can't legislate against stupidity or poor parenting or anything like that. It would be nice but it can't be done and it breaks down any level of trust that you should be trying to develop with your kids.

At their meeting today, the country's top lawmakers will consider requiring proof of age checks and even raising the age limit to 18, federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland confirmed.

Rau said:

Age verification is something that various platforms deal with and I can't see why it should be beyond the wit of Facebook to do the same thing, if that was the solution people wanted.

I think people need to understand that just because they are operating in the virtual world, that is on the internet, it does not mean that there should not be boundaries or rules or standards of behaviour.

The Singapore government has indicated it has no plans to block access to the .xxx top-level domain, the Straits Times has reported.

As a symbolic statement of our community's stand on harmful and undesirable content on the Internet, the Media Development Authority has mandated that ISPs block 100 sites. The list of banned sites is not limited to porn and will not be expanded to include .xxx sites. The article also quotes MDA deputy director for regulations. Yuvarani Thangavelu, as saying the MDA will go after locally hosted pornographic .xxx sites, to get these sites taken offline.

Regarding the legality of porn in the country, the Straits Times stated, It is illegal under the Films Act to possess pornographic material, and those found with it can be fined thousands of dollars. However, the Government has said previously it would not pro-actively hunt down those who download pornographic material.

Websites that encourage people to commit suicide or make death pacts with strangers must be closed down, ministers will insist this week.

In the absence of any official organisation to monitor such websites, ISPs are to be told they have an obligation to shut down these chatrooms and forums, as part of the Government's suicide prevention strategy.

Promoting suicide is already outlawed under the 1961 Suicide Act, but this has never been used to prosecute a website operator. Officials say the law does not apply only to face-to-face meetings, and should be enforced more rigorously if companies fail to shut down offending websites.

Health Minister Paul Burstow said:

One of the nastier sides of social media is the emergence of websites which are almost coaching people into how to commit suicide and offering the possibility of pacts with other people to commit suicide -- really evil stuff.

Websites begin in a therapeutic way - I think because the people who run them think it's a place for people to share how they feel when they are very low and don't have much hope in life.

Then they move from being therapeutic to being supportive, a friend network. But the end result is it becomes a closed circle... nobody on those websites is going to confess to anybody outside.

It becomes a depressive circle of people talking about all types of things, which give them knowledge - because the sites give you various ways of taking life if that is the decision you chose - and friendship with people thinking the same way.

They use all kinds of words like 'Catching the bus or Making the journey - slang words - other people might not understand.'

Early day motion 2004
Primary sponsor: Robert Halfon

That this House is deeply concerned that privacy is gradually being eroded by private companies using the internet to obtain personal data and selling it for commercial gain; notes that the latest problem is with WPP Group plc, the advertising firm, which claims to have built up individual profiles for half a billion internet users across the world, including allegedly almost 100 per cent. of British people; further notes that secret monitoring of internet users is already a huge issue, with data scraping and cookies monitoring people without their consent; believes an internet bill of rights is needed to guard against the growing infringement of civil liberties that are not covered by existing legislation; and further believes that the Information Commissioner lacks the powers necessary to protect personal data and has done precious little to protect our privacy in recent tests such as the Google Street View project.

Signed by

• Campbell, Gregory Democratic Unionist
• Campbell, Ronnie Labour
• Corbyn, Jeremy Labour
• Davidson, Ian Labour
• Dodds, Nigel Democratic Unionist
• Edwards, Jonathan Plaid Cymru
• Halfon, Robert Conservative
• Hancock, Mike Liberal Democrats
• Leech, John Liberal Democrats
• Lewis, Julian Conservative
• Llwyd, Elfyn Plaid Cymru
• McCrea, Dr William Democratic Unionist
• McDonnell, John Labour
• Meale, Alan Labour
• Simpson, David Democratic Unionist
• Stringer, Graham Labour
• Williams, Roger Liberal Democrats

The FBI and the US Department of Justice have announced that, as far as they were concerned, notice and take down now had almost zero value as an aid to law enforcement re child porn. The highly organised, technically literate distributors have by and large deserted publicly accessible places, burrowing deep into file sharing environments, peer-to-peer networks and closed groups of one kind or another. Police work today in this field is principally covert, intelligence led.

Obviously the US Government was not saying they were indifferent to the images remaining on public view. Getting them off any and all parts of the internet remains an important goal of policy for everyone, particularly the child protection community. The Feds were simply pointing out that the amount of time and money devoted to notice and take down was disproportionate to the benefits obtained in terms of reducing the total volume of illegal activity or helping to secure convictions.

Step forward Microsoft. They have described new software they had developed. It's called PhotoDNA. Microsoft will give it away free to appropriate companies.

Every image stored on a computer can already be reduced to a nearly unique hash value. There are various programmes around that can pick up and read these values and compare them with known illegal images. The trouble is if anyone does anything as elementary or obvious as edit the picture, even by the tiniest fraction it then takes on a totally different hash value. The picture then goes undetected.

By contrast PhotoDNA looks at what makes the picture what it is i.e. the visual content. Thus, even if the picture changes format, shape, size or colour, within certain generous tolerances it will still be picked up. Using the parameters Microsoft recommends the chances of the software making a mistake seemingly are around 1 in 10 billion.

It may be several years before we see how well PhotoDNA works at scale around the world. Using a database of illegal images supplied by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Facebook is currently trialling it in an environment in which between 200 and 300 million new pictures go up every day. The early signs are good.

PhotoDNA in the wrong hands might be a worry. It could be used to prevent publication of a cartoon of the King or the Archbishop. Microsoft is fully aware of this and will be watching like hawks how their licences are deployed.

The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) of the European Parliament has adopted a compromise text agreed with the Council and the Commission on the draft Child Sexual Exploitation Directive. The compromise text allows Member States to introduce mandatory blocking measures for Internet sites containing child abuse images, but does not require them as the Council had proposed.

Article 21: Measures against websites containing or disseminating child pornography:

1. Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure the prompt removal of webpages containing or disseminating child pornography hosted in their territory and to endeavour to obtain the removal of such pages hosted outside of their territory.
    
2. Member States may take measures to block access to webpages containing or disseminating child pornography towards the Internet users in their territory. These measures must be set by transparent procedures and provide adequate safeguards, in particular to ensure that the restriction is limited to what is necessary and proportionate, and that users are informed of the reason for the restriction. These safeguards shall also include the possibility of judicial redress.

Civil liberties groups will be pleased at having defeated mandatory blocking across Europe, but disappointed at having failed to ensure that judicial authority is required before an ISP can be forced to block an Internet address.

The draft Directive is due to be adopted in the Autumn.

British website owners could face extradition to the US on piracy charges even if their operation has no connection to America and does something which is most probably legal in the UK, the official leading US web anti-piracy efforts has told the Guardian.

The US's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is targeting overseas websites it believes are breaking US copyrights whether or not their servers are based in America or whether there is another direct US link, said Erik Barnett, the agency's assistant deputy director.

As long as a website's address ends in .com or .net, if it is implicated in the spread of pirated US-made films, TV or other media it is a legitimate target to be closed down or targeted for prosecution, Barnett said. While these web addresses are traditionally seen as global, all their connections are routed through Verisign, an internet infrastructure company based in Virginia, which the agency believes is sufficient to seek a US prosecution.

As well as sites that directly host or stream pirated material, ICE is also focusing on those that simply provide links to it elsewhere. There remains considerable doubt as to whether this is even illegal in Britain, the only such case to be heard before a British court, involving a site called TV-Links, was dismissed by a judge in February last year.

Barnett, in an interview with the Guardian, explained the broader thinking behind it: By definition, almost all copyright infringement and trademark violation is transnational. There's very little purely domestic intellectual property theft, he said.

Civil rights and internet freedom organisations said they were alarmed at the apparent intention to enforce US copyright laws around the globe.

Isabella Sankey, director of policy for Liberty, said: Many countries, including the US, are increasingly asserting jurisdiction over alleged actions that take place in other parts of the world. The internet increases our risk of falling foul of the law, making it possible to commit an offence on the other side of the world without even leaving your bedroom.

She called on the government to amend the UK's extradition agreement with the US so a British judge could decide where an alleged crime should be best tried: It would allow UK courts to bar extradition in the interests of justice where conduct leading to an alleged offence has quite clearly taken place on British soil.

Optus, Australia's second largest telco, has confirmed recent rumors that the voluntary filtering technology it is rolling out in the upcoming weeks can be easily circumvented by users.

In response to a question whether a work-around to the Uptus filer was possible by simply using a different DNS server than the default setting on the user's PC, a company spokesperson said: That's correct. It's a feature of the Interpol list.

The ease of circumvention led a critic of the plan, Electronic Frontiers Association spokesperson Stephen Collins, to wonder why the filter was being unveiled in the first place. With such a trivial circumvention, Optus' implementation of this block list is worse than ineffective, it's also misleading on a grand scale, he said, adding, Nobody will be protected from criminals by this, and worse, for those customers who believe they are protected, their kids or anyone else using their internet connection will bypass this with less than 30 seconds effort. Optus should be ashamed of themselves; first for implementing this list and trying to have their customers believe it would work and second for doing such a half-baked job.

A man has been cautioned by police after making internet allegations about the Britain's Got Talent TV show, it emerged today.

An anonymous blogger caused a stir last month after claiming that Ronan Parke, a 12-year-old who did well on the show, had been groomed for stardom by Simon Cowell for two years.

Cowell called in the police after the blogger alleged Parke already had a management deal and had been moulded to appeal to the audience.

Today a Scotland Yard spokesman said: We can confirm that a 52-year-old man has accepted a caution under the Malicious Communications Act. There is no further police action.

A spokeswoman for Sony Music said: A man has now admitted responsibility for the wholly untrue blogs relating to Ronan Parke and the false allegations against Britain's Got Talent, Sony Music and Syco. He has admitted he has absolutely no connection with Ronan Parke, Sony Music, Syco, or Britain's Got Talent. He has apologised both via the police and directly to those involved and the matter will not be taken further.

Google have created a report to keep the world informed about governments requesting Google to remove content fro various reasons.

Google explain:

Like other technology and communications companies, Google regularly receives requests from government agencies and federal courts around the world to remove content from our services and hand over user data. Our Government Requests tool discloses the number of requests we receive from each government in six-month periods with certain limitations.

Some content removals are requested due to allegations of defamation, while others are due to allegations that the content violates local laws prohibiting hate speech or pornography. Laws surrounding these issues vary by geographic region, and the requests reflect the legal context of a given jurisdiction. We hope this tool will be helpful in discussions about the appropriate scope and authority of government requests.

The latest report shows that the British government lead the world in requests to Google to take down internet content. The top 3 is:

1. UK made 38 requests to Google to remove 93518 items of data
2. South Korea made 139 requests to remove 32152 items of data
3. Brazil made 263 request to remove 12363 items of data.

Brazil have been suffering a long courtroom battle as celebrities seem to think that they can get Google to hide links to embarrassing things that the celebs have done.

There are some internet reports suggesting that some of the UK's requests have been related to financial scams.

A campaign has been launched to help people avoid breaking the law when they post pictures, music and videos online.

Copyright group Creative Commons has published a guide to identifying material that can be used freely without getting sued.

It is also advises individuals how to protect content they have made themselves.

Around 500 million pieces of work are currently covered by Creative Commons.

The free-to-use legal licenses add a range of protections to content.

At one end of the scale, a rights holder can chose to share their property with anyone, and let them do what they like with it. Stricter versions of the licences protect material from being manipulated or used for commercial purposes.

...Read the full article

A federal judge in Alaska has struck down as unconstitutional a state law criminalizing the electronic distribution of adult material to minors.

The judge said the broadly written law could have a chilling effect on free speech. He said people communicating online have no reasonable way to know the age of those accessing their communications.

Beistline said the state has a compelling interest in protecting minors but said the government may not reduce the adult population to only what is fit for children.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a group that included bookstores, a photographer, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and ACLU of Alaska.

Inspired by the classic V-J Day in Timesquare photograph taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt, a photograph was posted in celebration of New York's passing of the marriage equality bill.

The clever pic was liked by hundreds of Facebook users before being taken down by Facebook. Sharers of the photo received a message from Facebook stating the picture held:

content that is pornographic or contains nudity, or is inappropriately sexual.

After the backlash from their users, Facebook inevitably issued an apology stating:

Upon investigation, we concluded the photo does not violate our guidelines and was removed in error. We apologize for the inconvenience.