Censor Watch

High Court judges have given the UK government six months to revise parts of its Investigatory Powers Act. The government has been given a deadline of 1 November this year to make the changes to its Snooper's Charter.

Rules governing the British surveillance system must be changed quickly because they are incompatible with European laws, said the judges.

The court decision came out of legal action by human rights group Liberty. It started its legal challenge to the Act saying clauses that allow personal data to be gathered and scrutinised violated citizens' basic rights to privacy.

The court did not agree that the Investigatory Powers Act called for a general and indiscriminate retention of data on individuals, as Liberty claimed. However in late 2017, government ministers accepted that its Act did not align with European law which only allows data to be gathered and accessed for the purposes of tackling serious crime. By contrast, the UK law would see the data gathered and held for more mundane purposes and without significant oversight.

One proposed change to tackle the problems was to create an Office for Communications Data Authorisations that would oversee requests to data from police and other organisations.

The government said it planned to revise the law by April 2019 but Friday's ruling means it now has only six months to complete the task.

Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, said the powers to grab data in the Act put sensitive information at huge risk.

Javier Ruiz, policy director at the Open Rights Group which campaigns on digital issues, said:

We are disappointed the court decided to narrowly focus on access to records but did not challenge the general and indiscriminate retention of communications data.

Rafiki is a 2018 Kenya / South Africa drama by Wanuri Kahiu.
Starring Patricia Amira, Muthoni Gathecha and Jimmy Gathu.

Rafiki, which means friend in Swahili, is adapted from the 2007 Caine Prize-winning short story, Jambula Tree, by Ugandan writer Monica Arac Nyeko. It follows two close friends, Kena and Ziki, who eventually fall in love despite their families being on opposing sides of the political divide.

The first Kenyan film to debut at the Cannes Film Festival has been banned in Kenya due to its lesbian storyline.

The Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) claimed the film seeks to legitimize lesbian romance. KFCB warned that anyone found in possession of the film would be in breach of the law in Kenya, where gay sex is punishable by 14 years.

The film's director Wanuri Kahiu told the BBC: I really had hoped that the classification board would classify it as an 18. Because we feel the Kenyan audience is a mature, discerning enough audience.

The film, which will be shown in Cannes next month,

Tell someone not to do something and sometimes they just want to do it more. That's what happened when Facebook put red flags on debunked fake news. Facebook's red warning flags only made the post more interesting and more likely to be shared.

So Facebook ditched the red warning and replaced them with links to articles where the supposed fake news is debunked.

Now Facebook has dreamt up another couple of wheezes.

Posts
	Amber Rudd MP I was not aware of Home Office removals targets
	BBC News Amber Rudd claimed she was not aware of Home Office removals targets... but a memo leak suggests otherwise

First, rather than call more attention to fake news, Facebook wants to make it easier to miss these stories while scrolling. When Facebook's third-party fact-checkers verify an article is inaccurate, Facebook will shrink the size of the link post in the

News Feed. Facebook will also downrank the news to make it less likely that it will appear in news feeds at all.

Second, Facebook is now using machine learning to look at newly published articles and scan them for signs of falsehood. 'Fact checkers' will then prioritise high scoring articles so as to make more efficient use of their time.

Facebook now says it can reduce the spread of a false news story by 80%.

Cinema films in the Indian state of Kerala are soon set to display a statutory warning when showing scenes that depict violence against women.

This comes after the Kerala State Human Rights Commission issued a directive to the regional office of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), asking the board to include a statutory warning that violence against women is punishable under the law, when showing scenes that portray crimes against the gender. The Commission claimed that showing violent sexual crimes on screen could influence youngsters and hoped that displaying the statutory warning may create a positive impact.

Regional officer of CBFC, A Prathibha, told TNM that the board is open to complying with the Commission's directive. He said:

We have informed the CBFC Chairman about the directive and hope to arrive at a decision within 30 days. Since we agree with the Commission's observation that a warning that such acts are punishable must be displayed, I am certain the Chairman will issue a favourable order soon,

However, he added:

We don't have a clear picture as to how to implement this.

Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market destined to become a nightmare

OPEN LETTER IN LIGHT OF THE 27 APRIL 2018 COREPER I MEETING

Your Excellency Ambassador, cc. Deputy Ambassador,

We, the undersigned, are writing to you ahead of your COREPER discussion on the proposed Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market.

We are deeply concerned that the text proposed by the Bulgarian Presidency in no way reflects a balanced compromise, whether on substance or from the perspective of the many legitimate concerns that have been raised. Instead, it represents a major threat to the freedoms of European citizens and businesses and promises to severely harm Europe's openness, competitiveness, innovation, science, research and education.

A broad spectrum of European stakeholders and experts, including academics, educators, NGOs representing human rights and media freedom, software developers and startups have repeatedly warned about the damage that the proposals would cause. However, these have been largely dismissed in rushed discussions taking place without national experts being present. This rushed process is all the more surprising when the European Parliament has already announced it would require more time (until June) to reach a position and is clearly adopting a more cautious approach.

If no further thought is put in the discussion, the result will be a huge gap between stated intentions and the damage that the text will actually achieve if the actual language on the table remains:

• Article 13 (user uploads) creates a liability regime for a vast area of online platforms that negates the E-commerce Directive, against the stated will of many Member States, and without any proper assessment of its impact. It creates a new notice and takedown regime that does not require a notice. It mandates the use of filtering technologies across the board.

• Article 11 (press publisher's right) only contemplates creating publisher rights despite the many voices opposing it and highlighting it flaws, despite the opposition of many Member States and despite such Member States proposing several alternatives including a "presumption of transfer".

• Article 3 (text and data mining) cannot be limited in terms of scope of beneficiaries or purposes if the EU wants to be at the forefront of innovations such as artificial intelligence. It can also not become a voluntary provision if we want to leverage the wealth of expertise of the EU's research community across borders.

• Articles 4 to 9 must create an environment that enables educators, researchers, students and cultural heritage professionals to embrace the digital environment and be able to preserve, create and share knowledge and European culture. It must be clearly stated that the proposed exceptions in these Articles cannot be overridden by contractual terms or technological protection measures.

• The interaction of these various articles has not even been the subject of a single discussion. The filters of Article 13 will cover the snippets of Article 11 whilst the limitations of Article 3 will be amplified by the rights created through Article 11, yet none of these aspects have even been assessed.

With so many legal uncertainties and collateral damages still present, this legislation is currently destined to become a nightmare when it will have to be transposed into national legislation and face the test of its legality in terms of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Bern Convention.

We hence strongly encourage you to adopt a decision-making process that is evidence-based, focussed on producing copyright rules that are fit for purpose and on avoiding unintended, damaging side effects.

Yours sincerely,

The over 145 signatories of this open letter -- European and global organisations, as well as national organisations from 28 EU Member States, represent human and digital rights, media freedom, publishers, journalists, libraries, scientific and research institutions, educational institutions including universities, creator representatives, consumers, software developers, start-ups, technology businesses and Internet service providers.

EUROPE 1. Access Info Europe. 2. Allied for Startups. 3. Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER). 4. Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties). 5. Copyright for Creativity (C4C). 6. Create Refresh Campaign. 7. DIGITALEUROPE. 8. EDiMA. 9. European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA). 10. European Digital Learning Network (DLEARN). 11. European Digital Rights (EDRi). 12. European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA). 13. European Network for Copyright in Support of Education and Science (ENCES). 14. European University Association (EUA). 15. Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU 16. Lifelong Learning Platform. 17. Public Libraries 2020 (PL2020). 18. Science Europe. 19. South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO). 20. SPARC Europe.

AUSTRIA 21. Freischreiber Österreich. 22. Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA Austria).

BELGIUM 23. Net Users' Rights Protection Association (NURPA)

BULGARIA 24. BESCO -- Bulgarian Startup Association. 25. BlueLink Foundation. 26. Bulgarian Association of Independent Artists and Animators (BAICAA). 27. Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. 28. Bulgarian Library and Information Association (BLIA). 29. Creative Commons Bulgaria. 30. DIBLA. 31. Digital Republic. 32. Hamalogika. 33. Init Lab. 34. ISOC Bulgaria. 35. LawsBG. 36. Obshtestvo.bg. 37. Open Project Foundation. 38. PHOTO Forum. 39. Wikimedians of Bulgaria. C ROATIA 40. Code for Croatia

CYPRUS 41. Startup Cyprus

CZECH R EPUBLIC 42. Alliance pro otevrene vzdelavani (Alliance for Open Education)
43. Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic. 44. Czech Fintech Association. 45. Ecumenical Academy. 46. EDUin.

DENMARK 47. Danish Association of Independent Internet Media (Prauda) E STONIA. 48. Wikimedia Eesti

FINLAND 49. Creative Commons Finland. 50. Open Knowledge Finland. 51. Wikimedia Suomi.

FRANCE 52. Abilian. 53. Alliance Libre. 54. April. 55. Aquinetic. 56. Conseil National du Logiciel Libre (CNLL). 57. France Digitale. 58. l'ASIC. 59. Ploss Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (PLOSS-RA). 60. Renaissance Numérique. 61. Syntec Numérique. 62. Tech in France. 63. Wikimédia France.

GERMANY 64. Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Medieneinrichtungen an Hochschulen e.V. (AMH). 65. Bundesverband Deutsche Startups. 66. Deutscher Bibliotheksverband e.V. (dbv). 67. eco -- Association of the Internet Industry. 68. Factory Berlin. 69. Initiative gegen ein Leistungsschutzrecht (IGEL). 70. Jade Hochschule Wilhelmshaven/Oldenburg/Elsfleth. 71. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). 72. Landesbibliothekszentrum Rheinland-Pfalz. 73. Silicon Allee. 74. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg. 75. Ubermetrics Technologies. 76. Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg). 77. University Library of Kaiserslautern (Technische Universität Kaiserslautern). 78. Verein Deutscher Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare e.V. (VDB). 79. ZB MED -- Information Centre for Life Sciences.

GREECE 80. Greek Free Open Source Software Society (GFOSS)

HUNGARY 81. Hungarian Civil Liberties Union. 82. ICT Association of Hungary -- IVSZ. 83. K-Monitor

IRELAND 84. Technology Ireland

ITALY 85. Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights. 86. Istituto Italiano per la Privacy e la Valorizzazione dei Dati. 87. Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights (CILD). 88. National Online Printing Association (ANSO).

LATVIA 89. Startin.LV (Latvian Startup Association). 90. Wikimedians of Latvia User Group.

LITHUANIA 91. Aresi Labs.

LUXEMBOURG. 92. Frënn vun der Ënn.

MALTA
93. Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning

NETHERLANDS 94. Dutch Association of Public Libraries (VOB) 95. Kennisland.

POLAND 96. Centrum Cyfrowe. 97. Coalition for Open Education (KOED). 98. Creative Commons Polska. 99. Elektroniczna BIBlioteka (EBIB Association). 100. ePan@stwo Foundation. 101. Fundacja Szkola z Klasa@ (School with Class Foundation). 102. Modern Poland Foundation. 103. Os@rodek Edukacji Informatycznej i Zastosowan@ Komputerów w Warszawie (OEIiZK). 104. Panoptykon Foundation. 105. Startup Poland. 106. ZIPSEE.

PORTUGAL 107. Associação D3 -- Defesa dos Direitos Digitais (D3). 108. Associação Ensino Livre. 109. Associação Nacional para o Software Livre (ANSOL). 110. Associação para a Promoção e Desenvolvimento da Sociedade da Informação (APDSI).

ROMANIA 111. ActiveWatch. 112. APADOR-CH (Romanian Helsinki Committee). 113. Association for Technology and Internet (ApTI) 114. Association of Producers and Dealers of IT&C equipment (APDETIC). 115. Center for Public Innovation. 116. Digital Citizens Romania. 117. Kosson.ro Initiative. 118. Mediawise Society. 119. National Association of Public Librarians and Libraries in Romania (ANBPR).

SLOVAKIA 120. Creative Commons Slovakia. 121. Slovak Alliance for Innovation Economy (SAPIE).

SLOVENIA 122. Digitas Institute. 123. Forum za digitalno dru@bo (Digital Society Forum).

SPAIN 124. Asociación de Internautas. 125. Asociación Española de Startups (Spanish Startup Association)
126. MaadiX. 127. Sugus. 128. Xnet.

SWEDEN 129. Wikimedia Sverige

UK 130. Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (LACA). 131. Open Rights Group (ORG). 132. techUK.

GLOBAL 133. ARTICLE 19. 134. Association for Progressive Communications (APC). 135. Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). 136. COMMUNIA Association. 137. Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA). 138. Copy-Me. 139. Creative Commons. 140. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). 141. Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL). 142. Index on Censorship. 143. International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR). 144. Media and Learning Association (MEDEA). 145. Open Knowledge International (OKI). 146. OpenMedia. 147. Software Heritage

Facebook took a step toward greater accountability this week, expanding the text of its community standards and announcing the rollout of a new system of appeals . Digital rights advocates have been pushing the company to be more transparent for nearly a decade, and many welcomed the announcements as a positive move for the social media giant.

The changes are certainly a step in the right direction. Over the past year, following a series of controversial decisions about user expression, the company has begun to offer more transparency around its content policies and moderation practices, such as the Hard Questions series of blog posts offering insight into how the company makes decisions about different types of speech.

The expanded community standards released on Tuesday offer a much greater level of detail of what's verboten and why. Broken down into six overarching categories--violence and criminal behavior, safety, objectionable content, integrity and authenticity, respecting intellectual property, and content-related requests--each section comes with a "policy rationale" and bulleted lists of "do not post" items.

But as Sarah Jeong writes , the guidelines "might make you feel sorry for the moderator who's trying to apply them." Many of the items on the "do not post" lists are incredibly specific--just take a look at the list contained in the section entitled "Nudity and Adult Sexual Activity"--and the carved-out exceptions are often without rationale.

And don't be fooled: The new community standards do nothing to increase users' freedom of expression; rather, they will hopefully provide users with greater clarity as to what might run afoul of the platform's censors.

Facebook's other announcement--that of expanded appeals --has received less media attention, but for many users, it's a vital development. In the platform's early days, content moderation decisions were final and could not be appealed. Then, in 2011, Facebook instituted a process through which users whose accounts had been suspended could apply to regain access. That process remained in place until this week.

Through Onlinecensorship.org , we often hear from users of Facebook who believe that their content was erroneously taken down and are frustrated with the lack of due process on the platform. In its latest announcement , VP of Global Policy Management Monika Bickert explains that over the coming year, Facebook will be building the ability for people to appeal content decisions, starting with posts removed for nudity/sexual activity, hate speech, or graphic violence--presumably areas in which moderation errors occur more frequently.

Some questions about the process remain (will users be able to appeal content decisions while under temporary suspension? Will the process be expanded to cover all categories of speech?), but we congratulate Facebook on finally instituting a process for appealing content takedowns, and encourage the company to expand the process quickly to include all types of removals.

Catholic Church leaders are to meet the head of BBC Scotland Donalda MacKinnon to discuss their concerns over a digital film about being gay in 2018.

The piece, published on digital content stream The Social , included a clip saying the communion host tastes like cardboard and smells like hate.

Bishop of Paisley John Keenan said that was deeply insulting and offensive.

Ms MacKinnon has agreed to meet the Bishop of Edinburgh and St Andrews, Archbishop Leo Cushley who, along with Bishop Keenan, complained about the film titled Homophobia In 2018 : The Time for Love.

In an official statement, BBC Scotland explained that The Social existed uniquely to give young content creators a platform to express their views about matters that directly impacted on them. It added:

The 'Time for Love' piece is a personal polemic about being gay in 2018 and the experiences outlined in the film are intended to reflect those of the filmmaker.

As a young gay man, raised in the Catholic faith, it is seen though his eyes and told in his voice, and is intended to reflect the challenges and opinions he personally faced while growing up in Scotland.

The BBC appreciates that some of our audiences will find it challenging in its approach to tackling some very difficult themes, but we do believe it important that we should provide platforms such as The Social to allow appropriate space for artistic freedom of speech.

Mersey side police have threatend

We've issued the following statement following reports of social media posts being made in relation to Alder Hey Hospital and the ongoing situation with Alfie Evans:

Chief Inspector Chris Gibson said: Merseyside Police has been made aware of a number of social media posts which have been made with reference to Alder Hey Hospital and the ongoing situation involving Alfie Evans.

I would like to make people aware that these posts are being monitored and remind social media users that any offences including malicious communications and threatening behaviour will be investigated and where necessary will be acted upon.

Belgium has declared the loot box systems in FIFA 18, Overwatch , and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive illegal under Belgium gambling laws.

Belgium's Minister of Justice, Koen Greens stated that the offending content must be removed from the games. Failure to do so could result in fines of up to 800,000 euros and imprisonment.

To determine whether the loot box systems were illegal the Belgium Gaming Commision looked at two factors -- whether a purchase could lead to a profit or loss and whether or not the results of the "bet" were based on skill or merely luck. It was decided that FIFA 18, Overwatch and CS:GO all had elements of chance in their MT systems and as such fall under the gambling laws of the country.

Belgium has not set a deadline for the removal of the loot boxes but is rather looking to open a discussion with game makers regarding the issue.

In 1985, a group of Washington women hit back at strong language in lyrics of some of pop's biggest names. Now their parental advisory meddling -- and the 15 tracks they initially targeted -- have been turned into a riotous piece of musical revenge

First, I was stunned, then I got mad!" That's how Mary "Tipper" Gore -- wife of American senator Al Gore -- described the experience of buying Prince's mega-selling Purple Rain album for her 11-year-old daughter, and listening to it with her. Mrs Gore's rage was triggered by the track Darling Nikki , which begins:

I knew a girl name Nikki
Guess you could say she was a sex fiend
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine.

Along with other wives of powerful American politicians, in 1985 Gore founded the PMRC -- Parents Music Resource Center -- to campaign for stronger censorship in music. The initial list of songs they considered "most offensive" -- dubbed the Filthy 15 -- included some of pop's biggest names.

The Filthy 15

• Prince: Darling Nikki
• Sheena Easton:Sugar Walls
• Judas Priest: Eat Me Alive
• Vanity: Strap On Robbie Baby
• Motley Crue: Bastard
• AC/DC: Let Me Put My Love Into You
• Twisted Sister: We're Not Gonna Take It
• Madonna: Dress You Up
• WASP: Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)
• Def Leppard: High n Dry (Saturday Night)
• Mercyful Fate: Into the Coven
• Black Sabbath: Trashed
• Mary Jane Girls: In My House
• Venom : Possessed
• Cyndi Lauper: She Bop

The furore went to the Senate and on 19th September 1985, the Senate's Committee On Commerce, Science And Transportation held a hearing about the need to put warning labels on albums. The PMRC put forward their case and three musicians provided testimony.

Frank Zappa said, If it looks like censorship and it smells like censorship, it is censorship, no matter whose wife is talking about it. Dee Snider, lead singer of heavy metal band Twisted Sister, argued that it was a straightforward infringement of civil liberties.

The third musician was John Denver. Snider recalled:

Gotta give John Denver credit. His testimony was one of the most scathing, because they fully expected -- he was such a mom's, American pie, John Denver Christmas special, fresh-scrubbed guy -- that he would be on the side of censorship. When he brought up, 'I liken this to the Nazi book burnings,' you should've seen them start running for the hills. His testimony was the most powerful in many ways.

Despite Denver's intervention, the PMRC got their way and "Parental advisory: explicit lyrics" stickers were introduced. However, it didn't necessarily work out the way they wanted. Heavy metal bands on the list received a sales and publicity boost, and the sort of lyrics that followed in rock, rap and even country music suggests that the group were fighting a losing battle.

Two new encryption algorithms developed by the US NSA have been rejected by an international standards body amid accusations of threatening behavior.

The Simon and Speck cryptographic tools were designed for encryption of the Internet of Things and were intended to become a global standard.

But the pair of techniques were formally rejected earlier this week by the International Organization of Standards (ISO) amid concerns that they contained a backdoor that would allow US spies to break the encryption. The process was also marred by complaints from encryption experts of threatening behavior from American snoops.

When some of the design choices made by the NSA were questioned by experts, the US response was to personally attack the questioners. While no one has directly accused the NSA of inserting backdoors into the new standards, that was the clear suspicion, particularly when it refused to give what experts say was a normal level of technical detail. It took 3 years for the ISO to extract technical details about the encryption. But by then the trust had been undermined and the vote went against the standards at a meeting in the US late last year.

Reporters Without Borders has published its annual review of Worldwide press freedom.

The Index ranks 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists. It is a snapshot of the media freedom situation based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each country. It does not rank public policies even if governments obviously have a major impact on their country's ranking. Nor is it an indicator of the quality of journalism in each country.

The top 5 countries are Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland. The bottom 5 in descending order are China, Syria, Turkmenistan, Eritrea and North Korea.

Reporters Without Borders offer a note about the UK's disgraceful 40th position in the rankings:

A worrying trend

A continued heavy-handed approach towards the press (often in the name of national security) has resulted in the UK keeping its status as one of the worst-ranked Western European countries in the World Press Freedom Index. The government began to implement the Investigatory Powers Act -- the most extreme surveillance legislation in UK history -- with insufficient protection mechanisms for whistleblowers, journalists, and their sources. Home Secretary Amber Rudd repeatedly threatened to restrict encryption tools such as WhatsApp and announced plans to criminalize the repeated viewing of extremist content. Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 remained on the books, presenting cause for concern since the law's punitive cost-shifting provision could hold publishers liable for the costs of all claims made against them, regardless of merit.

Both the Conservative and Labour parties restricted journalists' access to campaign events ahead of the June 2017 general election, and BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg received extensive online abuse and threats, resulting in her being assigned bodyguards to cover the Labour Party conference.

Offshore law firm Appleby sued the BBC and The Guardian for breach of confidence over the Paradise Papers source materials, making them the only two media outlets out of 96 in 67 countries to have analyzed the Paradise Papers and taken to court.

2018 World Press Freedom Index
1 Norway 7.63 2 Sweden 8.31 3 Netherlands 10.01 4 Finland 10.26 5 Switzerland 11.27 6 Jamaica 11.33 7 Belgium 13.16 8 New Zealand 13.62 9 Denmark 13.99 10 Costa Rica 14.01 11 Austria 14.04 12 Estonia 14.08 13 Iceland 14.10 14 Portugal 14.17 15 Germany 14.39 16 Ireland 14.59 17 Luxembourg 14.72 18 Canada 15.28 19 Australia 15.46 20 Uruguay 15.56 21 Surinam 16.44 22 Samoa 16.69 23 Ghana 18.41 24 Latvia 19.63 25 Cyprus 19.85 26 Namibia 20.24 27 Slovakia 20.26 28 South Africa 20.39 29 Cabo Verde 20.39 30 Liechtenstein 20.49 31 Spain 20.51 32 Slovenia 21.69 33 France 21.87 34 Czech Republic 21.89 35 OECS 22.11 36 Lithuania 22.20 37 Andorra 22.21 38 Chile 22.69 39 Trinidad and Tobago 40 United Kingdom 23.25 41 Burkina Faso 23.33 42 Taiwan 23.36 43 South Korea 23.51 44 Romania 23.65 45 United States 23.73 46 Italy 24.12 47 Belize 24.55 48 Botswana 25.29 49 Comoros 25.30 50 Senegal 25.61 51 Tonga 25.68 52 Argentina 26.05 53 Papua New Guinea 54 Madagascar 26.20 55 Guyana 26.25 56 Mauritius 26.45 57 Fiji 26.55 58 Poland 26.59 59 Dominican Republic 60 Haïti 26.82	61 Georgia 27.34 62 Bosnia-Herzegovina 63 Niger 27.40 64 Malawi 27.43 65 Malta 27.44 66 El Salvador 27.78 67 Japan 28.64 68 Lesotho 28.78 69 Croatia 28.94 70 Hong Kong 29.04 71 Mongolia 29.05 72 Mauritania 29.09 73 Hungary 29.11 74 Greece 29.19 75 Albania 29.49 76 Serbia 29.58 77 Northern Cyprus 29.59 78 Kosovo 29.61 79 Sierra Leone 29.98 80 Armenia 29.99 81 Moldova 30.01 82 Côte d'Ivoire 30.08 83 Guinea Bissau 30.09 84 Benin 30.16 85 Seychelles 30.17 86 Togo 30.23 87 Israel 30.26 88 Peru 30.27 89 Liberia 30.33 90 Nicaragua 30.41 91 Panama 30.56 92 Ecuador 30.56 93 Tanzania 30.65 94 Bhutan 30.73 95 East Timor 30.81 96 Kenya 30.82 97 Tunisia 30.91 98 Kyrgyzstan 31 99 Mozambique 31.12 100 Lebanon 31.15 101 Ukraine 31.16 102 Brazil 31.20 103 Montenegro 31.21 104 Guinea 31.90 105 Kuwait 31.91 106 Nepal 32.05 107 Paraguay 32.32 108 Gabon 32.37 109 Macedonia 32.43 110 Bolivia 32.45 111 Bulgaria 35.22 112 Central African Republic 113 Zambia 35.36 114 Congo-Brazzaville 35.42 115 Mali 36.15 116 Guatemala 36.17 117 Uganda 36.77 118 Afghanistan 37.28 119 Nigeria 37.41 120 Maldives 37.95	121 Angola 38.35 122 Gambia 38.36 123 Chad 38.45 124 Indonesia 39.68 125 Qatar 40.16 126 Zimbabwe 40.53 127 Oman 40.67 128 United Arab Emirates 129 Cameroon 40.92 130 Colombia 41.03 131 Sri Lanka 41.37 132 Jordan 41.71 133 Philippines 42.53 134 Palestine 42.96 135 Morocco / Western Sahara 136 Algeria 43.13 137 Myanmar 43.15 138 India 43.24 139 Pakistan 43.24 140 Thailand 44.31 141 Honduras 45.23 142 Cambodia 45.90 143 Venezuela 46.03 144 South Sudan 46.88 145 Malaysia 47.41 146 Bangladesh 48.62 147 Mexico 48.91 148 Russia 49.96 149 Tajikistan 50.06 150 Ethiopia 50.17 151 Singapore 50.95 152 Swaziland 51.46 153 Brunei 51.48 154 Democratic Republic of Congo 155 Belarus 52.59 156 Rwanda 52.90 157 Turkey 53.50 158 Kazakhstan 54.41 159 Burundi 55.26 160 Iraq 56.56 161 Egypt 56.72 162 Libya 56.79 163 Azerbaijan 59.73 164 Iran 60.71 165 Uzbekistan 60.84 166 Bahrain 60.85 167 Yemen 62.23 168 Somalia 63.04 169 Saudi Arabia 63.13 170 Laos 66.41 171 Equatorial Guinea 172 Cuba 68.90 173 Djibouti 70.77 174 Sudan 71.13 175 Vietnam 75.05 176 China 78.29 177 Syria 79.22 178 Turkmenistan 84.20 179 Eritrea 84.24 180 North Korea 88.87

A post on the Facebook page of Suede Bar & Nightclub in Walsall, seen on 19 December 2017, included an image of two full flute wine glasses with text that read Unlimited BOTTOMLESS PROSECCO For £5. Additional text in the post said Join us for bottomless Prosecco between 10pm and 12am on SATURDAY NIGHT for just 2£5 per person.

A complainant, who believed that the unlimited bottomless prosecco offer was likely to encourage excessive consumption of alcohol, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible.

Suede Bar & Nightclub did not respond to the ASA's enquiries.

ASA Assessment: Complaint upheld

The ASA was concerned by Suede Bar & Nightclub's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code. Any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA's enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code. We reminded them of their responsibility to provide a substantive response to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.

The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be socially responsible and must contain nothing that was likely to lead people to adopt styles of drinking that were unwise. The CAP Code also stated that marketing communications which included a promotion must not imply, condone or encourage excessive consumption of alcohol.

We noted that the offer was available for individuals from 10pm to 12am on the night before Christmas Eve in December 2017, and that it was promoted to celebrate the start of the festive period. We considered that the references to unlimited and bottomless suggested that there would be an abundance of alcohol available to be consumed in a short period of time. Given that the offer was available within the space of two hours, we considered that the ad was likely to encourage people to drink as much as they could within that short period of time. In addition, we considered that some readers might associate Christmas with celebrations that involved drinking alcohol and that by promoting an unlimited and bottomless prosecco offer to mark the start of the festive period, the ad was likely to encourage people to drink excessively during the celebrations, particularly in the context of the offer being available in a nightclub setting on a Saturday night.

For the above reasons, we considered the ad was likely to encourage excessive drinking and lead people to adopt styles of drinking that were unwise. We therefore considered that the ad was irresponsible and breached the Code.

The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Suede Bar & Nightclub to ensure that future ads did not imply, condone or encourage excessive consumption of alcohol and lead people to adopt styles of drinking that were unwise.

India topped a survey of countries having firewalls and censorship systems to block web pages. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country have installed the highest number of censorshp systems, and have blocked the highest number of web pages.

According to a new investigation covering 10 countries by University of Toronto-based Citizen Lab along with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and The Indian Express found that India had 42 installations of technology marketed by Canadian company Netsweeper that implement content censorship for national-level, consumer-facing ISPs. These installations were found in internet services offered by 12 ISPs in the country. India also had the highest number of blocked unique URLs at 1,158 out of 2,464.

The data being released today accounts only for representative samples of censorship during the testing period between August 2017 and April 2018.

Other than those websites pertaining to porn or privacy, Indian ISPs have been found blocking access to websites and web pages belonging to domestic and foreign NGOs, United Nations organizations, human rights groups, health forums, feminist groups, and political activists at different points during the test period.

Reddit India's twitter handle (@redditindia) and Twitter handles of @anilkohli54, @tajinderbagga and @i_panchajanya, three accounts followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi , were found blocked at some point or the other during the test period, and instructions to block these Twitter handles are said to have been issued in August 2012.

Indian ISPs also blocked access to web pages of several media companies including those belonging to ABC News, Telegraph (UK), Al Jazeera, Tribune (Pakistan) with some of them dating back to 2012. The investigation also found ISPs blocking content related to the Rohingya refugee issue, and the deaths of Muslims in Burma and India more generally, and even snapshots of these content stored in Internet Archive's Wayback Machine have been found to be blocked.

A Missouri state Senate committee is considering a resolution that would declare pornography a public health threat. The Republican-backed resolution declares that pornography perpetuates a sexually toxic environment.

The resolution argues that pornography can contribute to emotional and medical illnesses, shape deviant sexual arousal and has negatively affected the family unit.

GOP state Senator Ed Emery, whinged:

In my opinion, what is unveiled by a personal moral failure may be a reflection of a disturbing and invasive social evil -- that of the proliferation of pornography and modern culture's ambivalence toward it.

Far too often, such behavior grows out of an exposure to pornography, he added. Where is the outcry against the evil of pornography?

Popular messaging service WhatsApp is introducing a minimum age restriction of 16yo, at least in Europe.

The Facebook owned service is changing the rules ahead of the introduction of new EU data privacy regulations in May.

The app,will ask users to confirm their age when prompted to agree new terms of service in the next few weeks. It has not said if the age limit will be enforced.

At present, WhatsApp does not ask users their age when they join, nor does it cross-reference their Facebook or Instagram accounts to find out. About a third of all UK-based 12- to 15-year-olds active on social media use WhatsApp, according to a 2017 report by the media regulator Ofcom. That made it the fifth most popular social network with the age group after Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube.

The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) includes specific rules to protect youngsters whose personal data is processed in order to provide them with online services. Such websites and apps are obliged to make reasonable efforts to verify that a parent or guardian has given consent for their child's data to be handled. The law says this obligation applies to under-16s, although some countries - including the UK - have been allowed to set the cut-off limit lower, at 13.

Facebook, which has also been criticised for its handling of personal data, is taking a different approach to younger users on its main service. To comply with GDPR , the social network is asking those aged 13 to 15 to nominate a parent or guardian to give permission for them to share information on the platform. If they do not, they will not see a fully personalised version of the platform.

The policy changes implemented in response to GDPR will surely have profound impact on the take up of social media services. Age restrictions (or the ability to ignore age restrictions) are incredibly important. For some apps, the dominant services are those that connect the most people, (whilst others become dominant because the effectively exclude parents). A messaging app will be diminished for many if the kids are banned from it. And as you start chipping away at the reach of the network so it would be less attractive to others on the network. Users could soon rift away to less restrictive alternatives.

Free speech hero Count Dankula got one over on a news reporter from Sky who wanted to do his boot to stick the establishment boot in.

Count Dankula was well up for the challenge and wiped Mr snotty's nose into the ground.

See video from YouTube

Youtuber Count Dankula who filmed his girlfriend's pet dog doing a Nazi salute has been fined £800.

Mark Meechan was sentenced at Airdrie Sheriff Court after he was found guilty last month of a 'hate crime'.

He recorded his girlfriend's pug, Buddha, responding to statements such as gas the Jews and Sieg Heil by raising its paw during the footage called M8 Yur Dug's a Nazi .

The original Youtube video had been viewed more than three million times on YouTube.

Surely free speech has dropped to a new low in Britain but the widespread disquiet at the verdict may have helped keep Count Dankula out of prison.

Free speech campaigners orgainised a protest in London to coincide with the announcement of the sentencing. See video from YouTube

Update: Sheriff's comments

24th April 2018. See article from dailymail.co.uk

Sheriff O'Carroll had told the court he did not believe Meechan had made the video only to annoy his girlfriend and ruled it was anti-Semitic. Fining Meechan, he said:

You deliberately chose the Holocaust as the theme of the video.

I also found it proved that the video contained anti-Semitic, and racist material, in that it explicitly and exclusively referred to Jews, the Holocaust and the role of the Nazis in the death of six million Jews in a grossly offensive manner. You knew or must have known that.

The social work report on you is important. It is very favourable to you and, leaving aside the circumstances of this offence, shows you to have led a generally pro-social life thus far.

It also shows that you have learned a certain amount from your experiences and that you are of low risk of reoffending.

In these circumstances, I rule out a custodial sentence and therefore any alternative to a custodial sentence. You have a certain amount of income and other resources according to the reports. I now fine you the sum of 2£800.

Offsite Comment: Count Dankula and the death of free speech

24th April 2018. See article from blogs.spectator.co.uk by Brendan O'Neill

On freedom of speech, Britain has become the laughing stock of the Western world. People actually laugh at us. I recently gave a talk in Brazil on political correctness and I told the audience about the arrest and conviction of a Scottish man for publishing a video of his girlfriend's pug doing a Nazi salute for a joke and they laughed. Loudly. Some of them refused to believed it was true.

Read the full article from blogs.spectator.co.uk

Brussels may threaten social media companies with censorship laws unless they move urgently to tackle supposed 'fake news' and Cambridge Analytica-style data abuse.

The EU security commissioner, Julian King, said short-term, concrete plans needed to be in place before the elections, when voters in 27 EU member states will elect MEPs.

Under King's ideas, social media companies would sign a voluntary code of conduct to prevent the misuse of platforms to pump out misleading information.

The code would include a pledge for greater transparency, so users would be made aware why their Facebook or Twitter feed was presenting them with certain adverts or stories. Another proposal is for political adverts to be accompanied with information about who paid for them.

Google has released their latest transparency report, for Youtube takedowns. It contains information about the number of government requests for terrorist or extremist content to be removed. For a number of years, the government has promoted the idea that terrorist content is in rampant circulation, and that the amount of material is so abundant that the UK police alone are taking down up to 100,000 pieces of content a year.

These referrals, to Google, Facebook and others, come from a unit hosted at the Metropolitan Police, called CTIRU, or the Counter-Terrorism Internet Referrals Unit . This unit has very minimal transparency about its work. Apart from claiming to have removed over 300,000 pieces of terrorist-related content over a number of years, it refuses to say how large its workforce or budget are, and has never defined what a piece of content is.

Google and Twitter publish separate takedown request figures for the UK that must be largely from CTIRU. The numbers are much smaller than the tens of thousands that might be expected at each platform given the CTIRU figures of around 100,000 removals a year. For instance, Google reported 683 UK government takedown requests for 2,491 items through Jan-June 2017 .

Google and Twitter's figures imply that CTIRU file perhaps 2,000-4,000 removal requests a year, for maybe 12,000 items at most, implying a statistical inflation by CTIRU of around 1,000%.

A number of CTIRU requests have been published on the takedown transparency database Lumen. These sometimes have more than one URL for takedown. However this alone does not explain the disparity.

Perhaps a 'piece of terrorist content' is counted as that 'piece' viewed by each person known to follow a terrorist account, or perhaps everything on a web page is counted as a piece of terrorist content, meaning each web page might contain a terrorist web font, terrorist Javascript and terrorist CSS file.

Nonetheless, we cannot discount the possibility that the methodologies for reporting at the companies are in some way flawed. Without further information from CTIRU, we simply don't know whose figures are more reliable.

There are concerns that go beyond the statistics. CTIRU's work is never reviewed by a judge, and there are no appeals to ask CTIRU to stop trying to remove a website or content. It compiles a secret list of websites to be blocked on the public estate, such as schools, departmental offices or hospitals, supplied to unstated companies via the Home Office. More or less nothing is known: except for the headline figure.

Certainly, CTIRU do not provide the same level of transparency as Google and other companies claim to be providing.

People have tried extracting further information from CTIRU, such as the content of the blacklist, but without success. Ministers have refused to supply financial information to Parliament, citing national security. ORG is the latest group to ask for information, for a list of statistics and a list of documents ; turned down on grounds of national security and crime prevention. In the case of statistics, CTIRU are currently claiming they hold no statistics other than their overall takedown figure; which if true, seems astoundingly lax from even a basic management perspective.

The methodology for calculating CTIRU's single statistic needs to be published, because what we do know about CTIRU is meaningless without it. Potentially, Parliament and the public are be being misled; or otherwise, misreporting by Internet platforms needs to be corrected.

Transport for London (TfL) has apologised for an 'insensitive' body shaming message written on a service information whiteboard at Blackhorse Road Underground station

The sign, which was posted as a quote of the day read:

During this heatwave please dress for the body you have... not for the body you want!.

The PC lynch mob accused TfL of body-shaming, branding the message gross and disgusting , contrary to the usual insightful and witty quotes shared with commuters on its whiteboards.

No doubt the person who posted this didn't understand the complex PC pecking order of who is allowed to bully who. They will surely suffer 'appropriate', probably meaning extreme, punishment for their innocence. A TfL spokesperson told i:

We apologise unreservedly to customers who were offended by the insensitive message on the whiteboard at Blackhorse Road station.

Our staff across the network share messages on these boards, but in this instance the message was clearly ill-judged and it has been removed.

An investigation is underway to establish who thought such an unacceptable message was a good idea, so that the appropriate action can be taken.