Censor Watch

Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner Information Commissioner's Office,

Dear Commissioner Denham,

Re: The Draft Age Appropriate Design Code for Online Services

We write to you as civil society organisations who work to promote human rights, both offline and online. As such, we are taking a keen interest in the ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code. We are also engaging with the Government in its White Paper on Online Harms, and note the connection between these initiatives.

Whilst we recognise and support the ICO's aims of protecting and upholding children's rights online, we have severe concerns that as currently drafted the Code will not achieve these objectives. There is a real risk that implementation of the Code will result in widespread age verification across websites, apps and other online services, which will lead to increased data profiling of both children and adults, and restrictions on their freedom of expression and access to information.

The ICO contends that age verification is not a silver bullet for compliance with the Code, but it is difficult to conceive how online service providers could realistically fulfil the requirement to be age-appropriate without implementing some form of onboarding age verification process. The practical impact of the Code as it stands is that either all users will have to access online services via a sorting age-gate or adult users will have to access the lowest common denominator version of services with an option to age-gate up. This creates a de facto compulsory requirement for age-verification, which in turn puts in place a de facto restriction for both children and adults on access to online content.

Requiring all adults to verify they are over 18 in order to access everyday online services is a disproportionate response to the aim of protecting children online and violates fundamental rights. It carries significant risks of tracking, data breach and fraud. It creates digital exclusion for individuals unable to meet requirements to show formal identification documents. Where age-gating also applies to under-18s, this violation and exclusion is magnified. It will put an onerous burden on small-to-medium enterprises, which will ultimately entrench the market dominance of large tech companies and lessen choice and agency for both children and adults -- this outcome would be the antithesis of encouraging diversity and innovation.

In its response to the June 2018 Call for Views on the Code, the ICO recognised that there are complexities surrounding age verification, yet the draft Code text fails to engage with any of these. It would be a poor outcome for fundamental rights and a poor message to children about the intrinsic value of these for all if children's safeguarding was to come at the expense of free expression and equal privacy protection for adults, including adults in vulnerable positions for whom such protections have particular importance.

Mass age-gating will not solve the issues the ICO wishes to address with the Code and will instead create further problems. We urge you to drop this dangerous idea.

Yours sincerely,

Open Rights Group
Index on Censorship
Article19
Big Brother Watch
Global Partners Digital

Prior to the European Parliament elections, popular YouTube users in Germany appealed to their followers to boycott the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD).

Following a miserable election result, CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer made statements suggesting that in the future, such opinions may be censored.

Popular German YouTube star Rezo urged voters to punish the CDU and its coalition partner by not voting for them. Rezo claimed that the government's inactions on critical issues such as climate change, security and intellectual property rights are destroying our lives and our future.

Rezo quickly found the support of 70 other influential YouTube presenters. But politicians accused him of misrepresenting information and lacking credibility in an effort to discredit him. Nonetheless, his video had nearly 4 million views by Sunday, the day of the election.

Experts like Prof. J3crgen Falter of the University of Mainz believe that Renzo's video swayed the opinions of many undecided voters, especially those under age 30.

Kramp-Karrenbauer commented on it during a press conference:

What would have happened in this country if 70 newspapers decided just two days before the election to make the joint appeal: 'Please don't vote for the CDU and SPD ? That would have been a clear case of political bias before the election.

What are the rules that apply to opinions in the analog sphere?  And which rules should apply in the digital sphere?

She concluded that these topics will be discussed by the CDU , saying:

I'm certain, they'll play a role in discussions surrounding media policy and democracy in the future.

Many interpreted her statements as an attack on freedom of speech and a call to censor people's opinions online. Ria Schröder, head of the Young Liberals, wrote:

The CDU's understanding of democracy If you are against me, I censor you is incomprehensible!

The right of a user on YouTube or other social media to discuss his or her political view is covered by Germany's Basic Law, which guarantees freedom of speech.

Kramp-Karrenbauer's statements may threaten her chance for the chancellorship. More importantly, they expose the mindset of Germany's political leadership.

To GCHQ

The undersigned organizations, security researchers, and companies write in response to the proposal published by Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson of GCHQ in Lawfare on November 29, 2018 , entitled Principles for a More Informed Exceptional Access Debate. We are an international coalition of civil society organizations dedicated to protecting civil liberties, human rights, and innovation online; security researchers with expertise in encryption and computer science; and technology companies and trade associations, all of whom share a commitment to strong encryption and cybersecurity. We welcome Levy and Robinson's invitation for an open discussion, and we support the six principles outlined in the piece. However, we write to express our shared concerns that this particular proposal poses serious threats to cybersecurity and fundamental human rights including privacy and free expression.

The six principles set forth by GCHQ officials are an important step in the right direction, and highlight the importance of protecting privacy rights, cybersecurity, public confidence, and transparency. We especially appreciate the principles' recognition that governments should not expect unfettered access to user data, that the trust relationship between service providers and users must be protected, and that transparency is essential.

Despite this, the GCHQ piece outlines a proposal for silently adding a law enforcement participant to a group chat or call. This proposal to add a ghost user would violate important human rights principles, as well as several of the principles outlined in the GCHQ piece. Although the GCHQ officials claim that you don't even have to touch the encryption to implement their plan, the ghost proposal would pose serious threats to cybersecurity and thereby also threaten fundamental human rights, including privacy and free expression. In particular, as outlined below, the ghost proposal would create digital security risks by undermining authentication systems, by introducing potential unintentional vulnerabilities, and by creating new risks of abuse or misuse of systems. Importantly, it also would undermine the GCHQ principles on user trust and transparency set forth in the piece.

How the Ghost Proposal Would Work The security in most modern messaging services relies on a technique called public key cryptography. In such systems, each device generates a pair of very large mathematically related numbers, usually called keys. One of those keys -- the public key -- can be distributed to anyone. The corresponding private key must be kept secure, and not shared with anyone. Generally speaking, a person's public key can be used by anyone to send an encrypted message that only the recipient's matching private key can unscramble. Within such systems, one of the biggest challenges to securely communicating is authenticating that you have the correct public key for the person you're contacting. If a bad actor can fool a target into thinking a fake public key actually belongs to the target's intended communicant, it won't matter that the messages are encrypted in the first place because the contents of those encrypted communications will be accessible to the malicious third party.

Encrypted messaging services like iMessage, Signal, and WhatsApp, which are used by well over a billion people around the globe, store everyone's public keys on the platforms' servers and distribute public keys corresponding to users who begin a new conversation. This is a convenient solution that makes encryption much easier to use. However, it requires every person who uses those messaging applications to trust the services to deliver the correct, and only the correct, public keys for the communicants of a conversation when asked.

The protocols behind different messaging systems vary, and they are complicated. For example, in two-party communications, such as a reporter communicating with a source, some services provide a way to ensure that a person is communicating only with the intended parties. This authentication mechanism is called a safety number in Signal and a security code in WhatsApp (we will use the term safety number). They are long strings of numbers that are derived from the public keys of the two parties of the conversation, which can be compared between them -- via some other verifiable communications channel such as a phone call -- to confirm that the strings match. Because the safety number is per pair of communicators -- more precisely, per pair of keys -- a change in the value means that a key has changed, and that can mean that it's a different party entirely. People can thus choose to be notified when these safety numbers change, to ensure that they can maintain this level of authentication. Users can also check the safety number before each new communication begins, and thereby guarantee that there has been no change of keys, and thus no eavesdropper. Systems without a safety number or security code do not provide the user with a method to guarantee that the user is securely communicating only with the individual or group with whom they expect to be communicating. group with whom they expect to be communicating. Other systems provide security in other ways. For example, iMessage, has a cluster of public keys -- one per device -- that it keeps associated with an account corresponding to an identity of a real person. When a new device is added to the account, the cluster of keys changes, and each of the user's devices shows a notice that a new device has been added upon noticing that change.

The ghost key proposal put forward by GCHQ would enable a third party to see the plain text of an encrypted conversation without notifying the participants. But to achieve this result, their proposal requires two changes to systems that would seriously undermine user security and trust. First, it would require service providers to surreptitiously inject a new public key into a conversation in response to a government demand. This would turn a two-way conversation into a group chat where the government is the additional participant, or add a secret government participant to an existing group chat. Second, in order to ensure the government is added to the conversation in secret, GCHQ's proposal would require messaging apps, service providers, and operating systems to change their software so that it would 1) change the encryption schemes used, and/or 2) mislead users by suppressing the notifications that routinely appear when a new communicant joins a chat.

The Proposal Creates Serious Risks to Cybersecurity and Human Rights The GCHQ's ghost proposal creates serious threats to digital security: if implemented, it will undermine the authentication process that enables users to verify that they are communicating with the right people, introduce potential unintentional vulnerabilities, and increase risks that communications systems could be abused or misused. These cybersecurity risks mean that users cannot trust that their communications are secure, as users would no longer be able to trust that they know who is on the other end of their communications, thereby posing threats to fundamental human rights, including privacy and free expression. Further, systems would be subject to new potential vulnerabilities and risks of abuse.

Integrity and Authentication Concerns As explained above, the ghost proposal requires modifying how authentication works. Like the end-to-end encryption that protects communications while they are in transit, authentication is a critical aspect of digital security and the integrity of sensitive data. The process of authentication allows users to have confidence that the other users with whom they are communicating are who they say they are. Without reliable methods of authentication, users cannot know if their communications are secure, no matter how robust the encryption algorithm, because they have no way of knowing who they are communicating with. This is particularly important for users like journalists who need secure encryption tools to guarantee source protection and be able to do their jobs.

Currently the overwhelming majority of users rely on their confidence in reputable providers to perform authentication functions and verify that the participants in a conversation are the people they think they are, and only those people. The GCHQ's ghost proposal completely undermines this trust relationship and the authentication process.

Authentication is still a difficult challenge for technologists and is currently an active field of research. For example, providing a meaningful and actionable record about user key transitions presents several known open research problems, and key verification itself is an ongoing subject of user interface research. If, however, security researchers learn that authentication systems can and will be bypassed by third parties like government agencies, such as GCHQ, this will create a strong disincentive for continuing research in this critical area.

Potential for Introducing Unintentional Vulnerabilities Beyond undermining current security tools and the system for authenticating the communicants in an encrypted chat, GCHQ's ghost proposal could introduce significant additional security threats. There are also outstanding questions about how the proposal would be effectively implemented.

The ghost proposal would introduce a security threat to all users of a targeted encrypted messaging application since the proposed changes could not be exposed only to a single target. In order for providers to be able to suppress notifications when a ghost user is added, messaging applications would need to rewrite the software that every user relies on. This means that any mistake made in the development of this new function could create an unintentional vulnerability that affects every single user of that application.

As security researcher Susan Landau points out, the ghost proposal involves changing how the encryption keys are negotiated in order to accommodate the silent listener, creating a much more complex protocol--raising the risk of an error. (That actually depends on how the algorithm works; in the case of iMessage, Apple has not made the code public.) A look back at recent news stories on unintentional vulnerabilities that are discovered in encrypted messaging apps like iMessage, and devices ranging from the iPhone to smartphones that run Google's Android operating system, lend credence to her concerns. Any such unintentional vulnerability could be exploited by malicious third parties.

Possibility of Abuse or Misuse of the Ghost Function The ghost proposal also introduces an intentional vulnerability. Currently, the providers of end-to-end encrypted messaging applications like WhatsApp and Signal cannot see into their users' chats. By requiring an exceptional access mechanism like the ghost proposal, GCHQ and U.K. law enforcement officials would require messaging platforms to open the door to surveillance abuses that are not possible today.

At a recent conference on encryption policy, Cindy Southworth, the Executive Vice President at the U.S. National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), cautioned against introducing an exceptional access mechanism for law enforcement, in part, because of how it could threaten the safety of victims of domestic and gender-based violence. Specifically, she warned that [w]e know that not only are victims in every profession, offenders are in every profession...How do we keep safe the victims of domestic violence and stalking? Southworth's concern was that abusers could either work for the entities that could exploit an exceptional access mechanism, or have the technical skills required to hack into the platforms that developed this vulnerability.

While companies and some law enforcement and intelligence agencies would surely implement strict procedures for utilizing this new surveillance function, those internal protections are insufficient. And in some instances, such procedures do not exist at all. In 2016, a U.K. court held that because the rules for how the security and intelligence agencies collect bulk personal datasets and bulk communications data (under a particular legislative provision) were unknown to the public, those practices were unlawful. As a result of that determination, it asked the agencies - GCHQ, MI5, and MI6 - to review whether they had unlawfully collected data about Privacy International. The agencies subsequently revealed that they had unlawfully surveilled Privacy International.12

Even where procedures exist for access to data that is collected under current surveillance authorities, government agencies have not been immune to surveillance abuses and misuses despite the safeguards that may have been in place. For example, a former police officer in the U.S. discovered that 104 officers in 18 different agencies across the state had accessed her driver's license record 425 times, using the state database as their personal Facebook service.13 Thus, once new vulnerabilities like the ghost protocol are created, new opportunities for abuse and misuse are created as well.14

Finally, if U.K. officials were to demand that providers rewrite their software to permit the addition of a ghost U.K. law enforcement participant in encrypted chats, there is no way to prevent other governments from relying on this newly built system. This is of particular concern with regard to repressive regimes and any country with a poor record on protecting human rights.

The Proposal Would Violate the Principle That User Trust Must be Protected The GCHQ proponents of the ghost proposal argue that [a]ny exceptional access solution should not fundamentally change the trust relationship between a service provider and its users. This means not asking the provider to do something fundamentally different to things they already do to run their business.15 However, the exceptional access mechanism that they describe in the same piece would have exactly the effect they say they wish to avoid: it would degrade user trust and require a provider to fundamentally change its service.

The moment users find out that a software update to their formerly secure end-to-end encrypted messaging application can now allow secret participants to surveil their conversations, they will lose trust in that service. In fact, we've already seen how likely this outcome is. In 2017, the Guardian published a flawed report in which it incorrectly stated that WhatsApp had a backdoor that would allow third parties to spy on users' conversations. Naturally, this inspired significant alarm amongst WhatsApp users, and especially users like journalists and activists who engage in particularly sensitive communications. In this case, the ultimate damage to user trust was mitigated because cryptographers and security organizations quickly understood and disseminated critical deficits in the report,16 and the publisher retracted the story.17

However, if users were to learn that their encrypted messaging service intentionally built a functionality to allow for third-party surveillance of their communications, that loss of trust would understandably be widespread and permanent. In fact, when President Obama's encryption working group explored technical options for an exceptional access mechanism, it cited loss of trust as the primary reason not to pursue provider-enabled access to encrypted devices through current update procedures. The working group explained that this could be dangerous to overall cybersecurity, since its use could call into question the trustworthiness of established software update channels. Individual users aware of the risk of remote access to their devices, could also choose to turn off software updates, rendering their devices significantly less secure as time passed and vulnerabilities were discovered [but] not patched.18 While the proposal that prompted these observations was targeted at operating system updates, the same principles concerning loss of trust and the attendant loss of security would apply in the context of the ghost proposal.

Any proposal that undermines user trust penalizes the overwhelming majority of technology users while permitting those few bad actors to shift to readily available products beyond the law's reach. It is a reality that encryption products are available all over the world and cannot be easily constrained by territorial borders.19 Thus, while the few nefarious actors targeted by the law will still be able to avail themselves of other services, average users -- who may also choose different services -- will disproportionately suffer consequences of degraded security and trust.

The Ghost Proposal Would Violate the Principle That Transparency is Essential Although we commend GCHQ officials for initiating this public conversation and publishing their ghost proposal online, if the U.K. were to implement this approach, these activities would be cloaked in secrecy. Although it is unclear which precise legal authorities GCHQ and U.K. law enforcement would rely upon, the Investigatory Powers Act grants U.K. officials the power to impose broad non-disclosure agreements that would prevent service providers from even acknowledging they had received a demand to change their systems, let alone the extent to which they complied. The secrecy that would surround implementation of the ghost proposal would exacerbate the damage to authentication systems and user trust as described above.

Conclusion For these reasons, the undersigned organizations, security researchers, and companies urge GCHQ to abide by the six principles they have announced, abandon the ghost proposal, and avoid any alternate approaches that would similarly threaten digital security and human rights. We would welcome the opportunity for a continuing dialogue on these important issues.

Sincerely,

Civil Society Organizations Access Now Big Brother Watch Blueprint for Free Speech Center for Democracy & Technology Defending Rights and Dissent Electronic Frontier Foundation Engine Freedom of the Press Foundation Government Accountability Project Human Rights Watch International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group Internet Society Liberty New America's Open Technology Institute Open Rights Group Principled Action in Government

Privacy International Reporters Without Borders Restore The Fourth Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) TechFreedom The Tor Project X-Lab

Technology Companies and Trade Associations ACT | The App Association Apple Google Microsoft Reform Government Surveillance ( RGS is a coalition of technology companies)

Startpage.com WhatsApp

Security and Policy Experts* Steven M. Bellovin, Percy K. and Vida L.W. Hudson Professor of Computer Science; Affiliate faculty, Columbia Law School Jon Callas, Senior Technology Fellow, ACLU L Jean Camp, Professor of Informatics, School of Informatics, Indiana University Stephen Checkoway, Assistant Professor, Oberlin College Computer Science Department Lorrie Cranor, Carnegie Mellon University Zakir Durumeric, Assistant Professor, Stanford University Dr. Richard Forno, Senior Lecturer, UMBC, Director, Graduate Cybersecurity Program & Assistant Director, UMBC Center for Cybersecurity Joe Grand, Principal Engineer & Embedded Security Expert, Grand Idea Studio, Inc. Daniel K. Gillmor, Senior Staff Technologist, ACLU Peter G. Neumann, Chief Scientist, SRI International Computer Science Lab Dr. Christopher Parsons, Senior Research Associate at the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto Phillip Rogaway, Professor, University of California, Davis Bruce Schneier Adam Shostack, Author, Threat Modeling: Designing for Security Ashkan Soltani, Researcher and Consultant - Former FTC CTO and Whitehouse Senior Advisor Richard Stallman, President, Free Software Foundation Philip Zimmermann, Delft University of Technology Cybersecurity Group

New proposals to safeguard children will require everyone to prove they are over 18 before accessing online content.

These proposals - from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) - aim at protecting children's privacy, but look like sacrificing free expression of adults and children alike. But they are just plans: we believe and hope you can help the ICO strike the right balance, and abandon compulsory age gates, by making your voice heard.

The rules cover websites (including social media and search engines), apps, connected toys and other online products and services.

The ICO is requesting public feedback on its proposals until Friday 31 May 2019. Please urgently write to the consultation to tell them their plan goes too far! You can use these bullet points to help construct your own unique message:

• In its current form, the Code is likely to result in widespread age verification across everyday websites, apps and online services for children and adults alike.

• Age checks for everyone are a step too far. Age checks for everyone could result in online content being removed or services withdrawn. Data protection regulators should stick to privacy. It's not the Information Commissioner's job to restrict adults' or children's access to content.

• With no scheme to certify which providers can be trusted, third-party age verification technologies will lead to fakes and scams, putting people's personal data at risk.

• Large age verification providers will seek to offer single-sign-in across a wide variety of online services, which could lead to intrusive commercial tracking of children and adults with devastating personal impacts in the event of a data breach.

The authorities have admitted for the first time they will be unable to enforce the porn block law if browsers such as Firefox and Chrome roll out DNS over HTTPS encryption.

The acknowledgement comes as senior representatives of ISPs privately told Daily Star Online they believe the porn block law could be delayed.

Earlier this month, this publication revealed Mozilla Firefox is thought to be pushing ahead with the roll out of DNS encryption, despite government concerns they and ISPs will be unable to see what website we are looking at and block them.

Speaking at the Internet Service Providers Association's Annual Conference last week, Mark Hoe, from the government's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said they would not be able to block websites that violate the porn block and enforce the new law. He said:

The age verification -- although those are not directly affected [by DNS encryption] it does effect enforcement of access to non-compliant websites.

So, whereas we had previously envisaged that ISPs would be able to block access to non-compliant sites, [those] using DNS filtering techniques don't provide a way around that.

Hoe said that the browsers were responding to legitimate concerns after the Daily Star reported Google Chrome was thought to have changed its stance on the roll out of encrypted DNS.

However, industry insiders still think Firefox will press ahead, potentially leading to people who want to avoid the ban switching to their browser.

In an official statement, a government spokesman told Daily Star Online the law would come into force in a couple of months, as planned, but without explaining how it will enforce it.

Meanwhile a survey reveals three quarters of Brit parents are worried the porn block could leave them open to ID theft because they will be forced to hand over details to get age verified. AgeChecked surveyed 1,500 UK parents and found 73% would be apprehensive about giving personal information as verification online, for fear of how the data would be used.

Ofcom has published a wide ranging report about internet usage in Britain. Of course Ofcom takes teh opportunity to bolster the UK government's push to censor the internet. Ofcom writes:

When prompted, 83% of adults expressed concern about harms to children on the internet. The greatest concern was bullying, abusive behaviour or threats (55%) and there were also high levels of concern about children's exposure to inappropriate content including pornography (49%), violent / disturbing content (46%) and content promoting self-harm (42%). Four in ten adults (39%) were concerned about children spending too much time on the internet.

Many 12 to 15-year-olds said they have experienced potentially harmful conduct from others on the internet. More than a quarter (28%) said they had had unwelcome friend or follow requests or unwelcome contact, 23% had experienced bullying, abusive behaviour or threats, 20% had been trolled'4 and 19% had experienced someone pretending to be another person. Fifteen per cent said they had viewed violent or disturbing content.

Social media sites, and Facebook in particular, are the most commonly-cited source of online harm for most of the types of potential harm we asked about. For example, 69% of adults who said they had come across fake news said they had seen it on Facebook. Among 12 to 15-year-olds, Facebook was the most commonly-mentioned source of most of the potentially harmful experiences.

Most adults say they would support more regulation of social media sites (70%), video sharing sites (64%) and instant messenger services (61%). Compared to our 2018 research, support for more online regulation appears to have strengthened. However, just under half (47%) of adult internet users recognised that websites and social media sites have a careful balance to maintain in terms of supporting free speech, even where some users might find the content offensive

An ad for Strasse Garage, seen in the 911 and Porsche World Magazine on 28 February 2019 featured an image of the lower half of a woman's body wearing a black fitted mini-dress and brightly coloured high heels positioned underneath a car, surrounded by car tools and a handbag. Text positioned across the image stated ATTRACTIVE SERVICING.

A complainant who believed the ad was degrading and sexist towards women, challenged whether the ad was offensive and irresponsible.

Strasse  Ltd said that the model in the ad was fully clothed in leggings and a tunic and was empowered by the addition of power tools. The attractive servicing referred to in the ad was in relation to their attractive prices versus those of their competitors.

They did not consider that the ad contained anything that was likely to cause widespread offence on the grounds of sex. They confirmed that they had not received any complaints about the ad.

ASA Assessment: Complaint upheld

The ASA noted the model's head was obscured and the text ATTRACTIVE SERVICING appeared across her crotch and legs. The model's waist and lower half appeared from beneath the car, with her legs placed apart. Because of the positioning of her bent leg, her skirt was pulled up to reveal her upper thigh and crotch, albeit in opaque black tights. We considered that because the model's face was not shown, the lower half of her body became the main focus of the ad.

We considered the phrase attractive servicing would be understood to be a double entendre, implying the woman featured in the ad was the attractive part of the servicing, and considered this was likely to be viewed as demeaning towards women. We considered that although the image was only mildly sexual in nature, when combined with the phrase attractive servicing it had the effect of objectifying women by using a woman's physical features to draw attention to the ad.

We concluded the ad was not sexually explicit, but by using a suggestive image that bore no relevance to the advertised product, the ad objectified women and was likely to cause serious offence to some people.

The ad must not appear in its current form. We told Strasse (UK) Ltd to ensure their advertising was socially responsible and did not cause serious offence by objectifying women.

An artist who redesigns President Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) hats into recognizable symbols of hate speech says she has been banned from Facebook.

Kate Kretz rips apart the iconic red campaign hat and resews it to look like other symbols, such as a Nazi armband or a Ku Klux Klan hood.

It all seems a bit hateful and inflammatory though, sneering at the people who choose to wear the caps. Hopefully the cap wearers will recall that free speech is part of what once made America great.

The artist said Facebook took down an image of the reimagined Nazi paraphernalia for violating community standards.

She appealed the decision and labeled another image with text clarifying that the photo was of a piece of art, but her entire account was later disabled. Kretz said:

I understand doing things for the greater good. However, I think artists are a big part of Facebook's content providers, and they owe us a fair hearing.

US Senator Josh Hawley formally filed the Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act (PCAGA) on May 23 2019. His proposal aims to ban what he considered manipulative video game features aimed at children. Hawley tweeted:

It's pretty simple. Video game companies shouldn't put casinos targeted at kids in their games.

Through the PCAGA, Hawley targets games that are aimed at minors and feature loot boxes and pay-to-win mechanics. He views these features as harmful to children--a way for game companies to monetize the addiction minors already experience by playing video games, he claims.

The bill states that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will enforce these rules, if passed. Companies that violate the rules would be financially penalized. Additionally, the bill calls upon the FTC to submit a report to the Senate on the psychological effects of pay-to-win mechanics and loot boxes on users and if such features induce compulsive purchasing behavior by minors.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has already responded to the bill with its concerns , as CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis called the bill flawed and riddled with inaccuracies. He claims the impact is far-reaching and may negatively affect the more than 220,000 Americans employed by the video game industry. He believes that control of any in-game purchases made by minors should be left up to parents, rather than the federal government.

This bill still has a long way to go to become law.

A briefing by the Australia's Home Affairs department, obtained under freedom of information, reveals that police can use new powers to compel a broad range of companies including social media giants, device manufacturers, telcos, retailers and providers of free wifi to provide information on users.

The briefing also provides examples of what type of assistance authorities can lawfully require, including:

• a social media company helping to automate the creation of fake accounts;
• a mobile carrier increasing the data allowance on a device so surveillance doesn't chew up users' data;
•  blocking internet messages to force a device to send messages as unencrypted SMSes; and
• a data centre providing access to a customer's computer rack to allow installation of a surveillance device.

So if your encrypted app suddenly stops working for no apparent reason then perhaps it is not a good idea to reach for a non-encryted alternative app.

And if your data allowance seems to be lasting forever then perhaps the authorities are downloading everything on your device.

Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo is a 2019 France comedy romance by Abdellatif Kechiche.
Starring Shaïn Boumedine, Ophélie Bau and Salim Kechiouche.

It's the end of summer vacation for Amin. The young photographer spends cozy evenings with Charlotte, the ex-girlfriend of his Casanova cousin. She talks to him about literature, he photographs her.

Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo has made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival 2019  sparking 'outrage' amongst feminists. The film is directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, who had a hit with Blue Is the Warmest Color , infuriated a few viewers who claimed it was rife with objectification and voyeurism.

The film featured what Indie Wire said appeared to be an un-simulated oral sex scene and gratuitous close-ups of women's butts. Apparently the that while the sex seemed consensual, feminists warned it drips with the male gaze. Producer Patricia Hetherington tweeted:

I just walked out of Mektoub My Love: Intermezzo. The most lacivicious [sic] leery trash I've seen. Eurgh! Talk about objectification and voyeurism.

The Daily Mail adds

An almost unwatchable lech fest of a film by one of France's top directors that includes some two and a half hours of twerking and pole dancing was savaged at the Cannes film festival Friday. Critic Boyd van Hoeij from the Hollywood Reporter wrote:

Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo consists of three-hours-plus of jiggling female butts. Oral-sex intermezzo aside, this is basically 'Twerking Female Fannies: The Movie,' said Boyd van Hoeij. Sitting through it was its own kind of hell. If only one could unsee and unhear it.'

The Texas State Legislature has passed a bill criminalizing the electronic transmission of unrequested erotic material, including images of any person engaging in sexual conduct or with the person's intimate parts exposed or covered genitals of a male person that are in a discernibly turgid state.

The bill, H.B. 2789 , was unanimously passed 31-0 by state senators from both parties. It is to take effect, after the governor signs it, on September 1, 2019.

The unprecedented legislation, called An act relating to the creation of the criminal offense of unlawful electronic transmission of sexually explicit visual material creates an offence:

if a person knowingly transmits by electronic means visual material that:

• (1) depicts:
  (a) any person engaging in sexual conduct or with the person's intimate parts exposed; or
  (b) covered genitals of a male person that are in a discernibly turgid state; and

• (2) is not sent at the request of or with the express consent of the recipient.

The bill classifies the offense as a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500.

The BBFC reports on its complaints received in its annual report. And 2018 saw a bumper crop (relative to previous years. The BBFC wrote:

In 2018 we received 364 complaints covering 101 films and 67 complaints covering 24 trailers. The majority of these were from people who had attended the cinema or viewed films at home. However, we also received a number of complaints inspired by news reports, online blogs and organised campaigns.

The top films attracting complaints were:

Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow attracted 64 complaints. All correspondents felt that we should have classified the film at 18 instead of 15 because of elements of violence and sexual violence in the film.

Peter Rabbit

Fifty people contacted us about Peter Rabbit, a film featuring animated rabbits and based on the stories of Beatrix Potter. Four people complained about violence and upsetting scenes but the majority complained about a scene in which the rabbits pelt their adversary, an adult man, with fruit in order to defend themselves from his attack and provoke an allergic reaction. Complainants felt that this was unacceptable at PG because it might be emulated by children.

We received complaints about the allergic reaction before the film was released in the UK in response to press coverage that started in the US. We received no complaints about this scene after the film was released.

A Northern Soul

We classified the film 15 because of around 20 uses of strong language. While the language in the film is not used aggressively or sexually, our research suggests that a significant proportion of parents are concerned about the normalisation of such language in films. The language in A Northern Soul, is used casually in conversations, across a relatively short feature (75 minutes), with no particular justification.

Three people wrote to us complaining about the 15 rating for A Northern Soul feeling a 12A would be more appropriate. We received 45 postcards protesting the 15 rating; however, these had been created and handed out to cinema goers by the filmmakers at screenings and do not provide an accurate representation of broad public opinion.

Kaala

Kaala is a Tamil-language drama which we classified 12A. 43 people emailed us to complain about the film's release. The complaints were not about the rating of the film itself but seemed to object to the actions of the film makers. They were all worded identically and were clearly part of an organised online campaign.

Show Dogs

A police Rottweiler goes undercover at a dog show. As part of the operation he is required to let the judges inspect his genitals in a manner that is not uncommon in dog shows. The character is reluctant but is encouraged to go to his happy place to get through the experience.

Thirty-one people wrote in to us echoing claims made in blogs that the scene might lower children's resistance to predators who wish to inappropriately touch them.

However, the scene is comic, innocent and non-sexual in nature and occurs within the fantastical context of a film about anthropomorphised canines.

In a similar vein to Peter Rabbit the complaints regarding Show Dogs predominantly stopped once the film had been released in cinemas.

Love Simon trailer

We received 18 complaints about a PG-rated trailer for the film Love, Simon. The trailer covers teenage relationships and features some implied kissing and references to being in love. All complainants took issue with the discussion of sex and teenage relationships in the trailer but 11 took particular issue with the fact that the character is gay, believing the depiction of gay relationships to be inappropriate at the PG level.

Ready Player One

Ready Player One received ten complaints with correspondents focusing on infrequent strong language at 12A and some moments of horror.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom received six complaints, chiefly regarding very young children being brought to the 12A screenings.

Venom

Six people complained about Venom, which is rated 15. Complainants were disappointed they or their children would be unable to see the film.

Poland is challenging the EU's copyright directive in the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) on grounds of its threats to freedom of speech on the internet, Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said on Friday.

The complaint especially addresses a mechanism obliging online services to run preventive checks on user content even without suspicion of copyright infringement. Czaputowicz explained at a press conference in Warsaw:

Poland has charged the copyright directive to the CJEU, because in our opinion it creates a fundamental threat to freedom of speech on the internet. Such censorship is forbidden both by the Polish constitution and EU law. The Charter of Fundamental Rights (of the European Union - PAP) guarantees freedom of speech.

The directive is to change the way online content is published and monitored. EU members have two years to introduce the new regulations. Against the directive are Poland, Holland, Italy, Finland and Luxembourg.

The Devil Outside is a drama by Andrew Hulme.
Starring Mark Stobbart, Keeley Forsyth and Daniel Frogson.

Cut by the BBFC for 15 rated VoD in 2019

		UK: Passed 15 for strong language, sex, nudity, images of self-harm after 9s of compulsory BBFC cuts ( 101:59s ) :
2019 Content Media Corporation INTL. VoD

The BBFC commented:

• Compulsory cuts required to remove potentially indecent images involving a child (a child in the same frame as adults simulating sex) in accordance with the Protection of Children Act 1978.

Posters advertising Morrissey's new album, California Son , have been removed from trains and stations after a commuter complained over the singer's politically incorrect views.

Morriseey has repeatedly denied accusations of racism and has previously spoken about how UK politics will not allow diverse opinion. In 2007, he sparked controversy by saying Britain was losing its national identity, saying in an interview with the NME that England is a memory now.

Complainant Jack Dotchin said he was 'offended' by the former The Smiths frontman's views. He said:

[The things Morrissey has said] offend me and a lot of other people. He's very far right these days, going on about immigrants.

It's just strange to think Merseyrail, being a public service for the people, is advertising someone with his views.

It's just pictures of Morrissey with his new album. He's not doing anything inappropriate but his name is a by-name for questionable views at the moment.

BBFC releases Annual Report 2018

• Over the past year, the BBFC has received a 65% rise in content for distribution online.

• Video on demand (VoD) continues to receive more BBFC age ratings than any other format

• Ratings given to Cinema have risen 62% since 2008.

• Once again, 15 was the most common classification given for UK cinema goers

The BBFC has released its Annual Report for 2018 a year that showed another significant increase in age ratings given to online content.

Over the last year the BBFC gave 5,751 age ratings to online content. This represents a 65% over 2017's figure.

Although output from Video on Demand (VoD) providers constituted the majority of content classified by the BBFC, theatrical films still featured strongly. Since 2008 age ratings given to cinema releases have risen 62% from 639 in 2017 to 1,036 in 2018.

15 remained the most common age rating, with 392 theatrical films receiving this classification.

David Austin, BBFC Chief Executive, said:

"In a fast evolving media landscape, the BBFC's core mission continues to be to help families and young people choose films, videos and websites that are right for them. Whenever, wherever, and however they view them. In 2018 we carried out significant research - with more than 10,000 people to help us update our classification standards. This work ensures that our standards continue to stay in line with what people across the UK consider suitable, and we found that 97% of the public believe audiences benefit from having age ratings in place.

"In 2019 we will continue to make a significant contribution to the Government's objective of making the UK the safest place for children to be online. We look forward to the introduction of Age-verification in July which will improve child protection from exposure to pornography online."

In addition to providing the latest age rating information on our websites, social media accounts and free app, the BBFC in 2018 continued to provide resources for children, teachers and older learners including a regular podcast, a children's website ( cbbfc.co.uk ), case studies, classroom resources and posters.

Every film classified by the BBFC comes with detailed ratings info to help people view what's right for themselves and their family. Ratings info is available on bbfc.co.uk and the BBFC's free apps for tablet and mobile devices.

Rocketman is a 2019 UK / USA musical music biography by Dexter Fletcher.
Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Taron Egerton and Richard Madden.

A musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of Elton John's breakthrough years.

Rocketman follows in the footsteps of the similarly gay themed Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsod y. Perhaps with an eye on repeating the successful formula of the earlier sanitised and PG-13 rated biopic, Hollywood producers Paramount seemed to have been pushing for Rocketman to get a PG-13 rating.

Paramount demanded that Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher and producer Matthew Vaughn cut a 40-second scene that depicts Elton John and one-time lover and manager John Reid, writhing on a bed. Fully exposed white derrieres are on display, but the nude escapade is tastefully done.

However it seems that the film makers won the argument as the film ended up with an R rating that confirms the sexual content.

In the UK, the film was passed 15 uncut for drug misuse, sex, very strong language.

Update: Distributors win appeal for an M rating

24th May 2019. See article [pdf] from classification.gov.au

Australia's Review Board has overturned the Classification Board's MA15+ uncut for strong coarse language in favour of M for mature themes, drug use, sex scene and frequent coarse language'.

The Review Board explained that previous confusion about a cut version was down to information being embargoed at the request of the film distributor. Two version were submitted but one of these was an unfinished version rather than a censored versions. The Review Board has now supplied a more complete account of the decision process.

Initially the Classification Board passed the film MA15+ uncut for strong coarse language.

The issues requiring an MA15+ over an M rating were related to strong language rather than the gay themes, and in particular the a single use of the word 'cunt'.

The distributors appealed the MA15+ rating and won their case as the Review Board reduced the rating to M for mature themes, drug use, sex scene and frequent coarse language'. The Review Board explained its decision:

It is the view of the Classification Review Board that the dramatic biographical context does mitigate the impact of the language, and specifically, the one instance of the use of strong coarse language.

Films classified M are considered suitable for mature audiences. It is for the above reasons, that the Review Board has decided that the contextual singular use of a strong coarse word can be accommodated at the M classification on this occasion.

The other frequently used coarse words are routinely accommodated at the M classification level.

India's Most Wanted is a 2019 India action thriller by Raj Kumar Gupta (as Rajkumar Gupta)
Starring Arjun Kapoor, Rajesh Sharma and Gaurav Mishra.

India's Most Wanted is an upcoming Bollywood action thriller film directed by Raj Kumar Gupta starring Arjun Kapoor and Amrita Puri. The film is about tracking a terrorist in a secret mission and arresting him without firing bullets. It pays tribute to unsung heroes of our society.

Film censors in UAE banned India's Most Wanted when the producers declined to delete a line of dialogue saying that most terrorists are based either in Pakistan or Dubai,

The director, Raj Kumar Gupta, explained:

Yes the film will not release in Dubai. There were some issues which could not be sorted and hence this decision. Yes the said dialogue is there in the film and it is a factual one based on the research that has been conducted. So we did not want to do away with the dialogue and decided on retaining it in the film even if it entailed a non-release in Dubai.

A Cardiff record shop called Spillers decided to permanently ban stocking Morrissey's music due to his support of Anne Marie Waters' new party called For Britain.

The owner Ashli Todd explained:

I'm saddened but ultimately not surprised that Spillers is unable to stock Morrissey's releases any longer. I only wished I'd done it sooner.

Morrissey offended when he performed for Jimmy Fallon on US TV wearing a badge featuring the For Britain party.

Anne Marie Waters was once a UKIP leadership candidate who formed her own For Britain party after her leadership bid failed.

Morrissey previously spoke of the party:

It is the first time in my life that I will vote for a political party. Finally I have hope. I find the Tory-Labour-Tory-Labour constant switching to be pointless.

Ireland's Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan confirmed that the Irish government will consider a similar system to the UK's so-called porn block law as part of new legislation on online safety. Flanagan said:

I would be very keen that we would engage widely to ensure that Ireland could benefit from what is international best practice here and that is why we are looking at what is happening in other jurisdictions.

The Irish communications minister Richard Bruton said there are also issues around privacy laws and this has to be carefully dealt with. H said:

It would be my view that government through the strategy that we have published, we have a cross-government committee who is looking at policy development to ensure online safety, and I think that forum is the forum where I believe we will discuss what should be done in that area because I think there is a genuine public concern, it hasn't been the subject of the Law Reform Commission or other scrutiny of legislation in this area, but it was worthy of consideration, but it does have its difficulties, as the UK indeed has recognised also.

When Bruce Lee was handed his first pair of nunchucks in the mid-1960s, he called the weapon a piece of junk, his training partner, Dan Inosanto, recalled recently.

Lee said the nunchucks were not as effective as sticks -- too fancy and too showy. Then he goes, This might be good for the movies.

And indeed they were good for the movies. But their popularity alarmed the authorities, in what many now see as a hysteria that echoed other racist fears of Asians. The police began arresting people for carrying what some called deadly weapons. In four states, lawmakers banned them.

This month, after more than 40 years on the books, Arizona's ban, which one lawmaker called antiquated, was repealed. In December, a federal judge struck down New York's decades-long ban , saying it violated the Second Amendment, despite arguments from officials that the weapons were dangerous and unusual.

The remaining state bans are in Massachusetts and California.

Alabama Public Television (APT) has banned a TV cartoon which shows a same-sex wedding.

The first episode of the 22nd series of children's programme Arthur features the character Mr Ratburn marrying his aardvark partner, Patrick.

But APT instead ran an old episode, and announced it had no plans to show the premiere. Programming director Mike McKenzie claimed that broadcasting it would break parents' trust in the network. He said in a statement:

Parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision, and that children younger than the 'target' audience might watch without parental knowledge.

Show creator WGBH and broadcaster PBS reportedly alerted local stations in April about the episode, and McKenzie said this was when they decided not to air the show.

APT previously refused to broadcast a 2005 episode of the series which depicted Buster, a rabbit, visiting a girl who had two mothers.

Tom Watson asked a parliamentary question about the censor busting technology of DNS over HTTPS.

Up until now, ISPs have been able to intercept website address look ups (via a DNS server) and block the ones that they, or the state, don't like.

This latest internet protocol allows browsers and applications to bypass ISPs' censored DNS servers and use encrypted alternatives that cannot then be intercepted by ISPs and so can't be censored by the state. (note that they can offer a censored service such as an option for a family friendly feeds, but this is on their own terms and not the state's).

Anyway Labour Deputy leader has been enquiring about whether browsers are intending to implement the new protocol. Perhaps revealing an idea to try and pressurise browsers into not offering options to circumvent the state's blocking list.

Tom Watson Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many internet browser providers have informed his Department that they will not be adopting the Internet Engineering Task Force DNS over HTTPS ( DOH ) protocol.

Margot James The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport

How DOH will be deployed is still a subject of discussion within the industry, both for browser providers and the wider internet industry. We are aware of the public statements made by some browser providers on deployment and we are seeking to understand definitively their rollout plans. DCMS is in discussions with browser providers, internet industry and other stakeholders and we are keen to see a resolution that is acceptable for all parties.

Update: Speaking of government pressure

22nd May 2019. See  article from edinburghnews.scotsman.com

Here's another indication that the government is trying to preserve its internet censorship capabilities by pressurising browser companies:

The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) - representing firms including BT, Virgin, and Sky - has expressed concerns over the implications the encryption on Firefox could have on internet safety.

A spokesperson said, We remain concerned about the consequences these proposed changes will have for online safety and security, and it is therefore important that the Government sends a strong message to the browser manufacturers such as Mozilla that their encryption plans do not undermine current internet safety standards in the UK.

Users Without Resources to Fight Back Are Most Affected by Unevenly-Enforced Rules

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched TOSsed Out, a project to highlight the vast spectrum of people silenced by social media platforms that inconsistently and erroneously apply terms of service (TOS) rules.

TOSsed Out will track and publicize the ways in which TOS and other speech moderation rules are unevenly enforced, with little to no transparency, against a range people for whom the Internet is an irreplaceable forum to express ideas, connect with others, and find support.

This includes people on the margins who question authority, criticize the powerful, educate, and call attention to discrimination. The project is a continuation of work EFF began five years ago when it launched Onlinecensorship.org to collect speech takedown reports from users.

Last week the White House launched a tool to report take downs, following the president's repeated allegations that conservatives are being censored on social media, said Jillian York, EFF Director for International Freedom of Expression. But in reality, commercial content moderation practices negatively affect all kinds of people with all kinds of political views. Black women get flagged for posting hate speech when they share experiences of racism. Sex educators' content is removed because it was deemed too risqu39. TOSsed Out will show that trying to censor social media at scale ends up removing far too much legal, protected speech that should be allowed on platforms.

EFF conceived TOSsed Out in late 2018 after seeing more takedowns resulting from increased public and government pressure to deal with objectionable content, as well as the rise in automated tools. While calls for censorship abound, TOSsed Out aims to demonstrate how difficult it is for platforms to get it right. Platform rules--either through automation or human moderators--unfairly ban many people who don't deserve it and disproportionately impact those with insufficient resources to easily move to other mediums to speak out, express their ideas, and build a community.

EFF is launching TOSsed Out with several examples of TOS enforcement gone wrong, and invites visitors to the site to submit more. In one example, a reverend couldn't initially promote a Black Lives Matter-themed concert on Facebook, eventually discovering that using the words Black Lives Matter required additional review. Other examples include queer sex education videos being removed and automated filters on Tumblr flagging a law professor's black and white drawings of design patents as adult content. Political speech is also impacted; one case highlights the removal of a parody account lampooning presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke.

The current debates and complaints too often center on people with huge followings getting kicked off of social media because of their political ideologies. This threatens to miss the bigger problem. TOS enforcement by corporate gatekeepers far more often hits people without the resources and networks to fight back to regain their voice online, said EFF Policy Analyst Katharine Trendacosta. Platforms over-filter in response to pressure to weed out objectionable content, and a broad range of people at the margins are paying the price. With TOSsed Out, we seek to put pressure on those platforms to take a closer look at who is being actually hurt by their speech moderation rules, instead of just responding to the headline of the day.

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) chairman, David Currie, said the group was in talks with platforms such as Facebook and Google, adding that they could be more open about their systems for handling and monitoring irresponsible and inappropriate ads.

The advert censor is also exploring the potential for monitoring exposure to online ads for junk food and alcohol when users are logged-in environments such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. He said:

We need to find a way of working closer with the online platforms on this issue, said Lord Currie. We've had conversations with them. We've got to work closely with them. They have their own systems of taking down or blocking inappropriate ads.

It's not as transparent as we'd like. We'd like to understand it much better. I think probably they could be a bit more open about how they do it, he added. I think, given all the concerns that parents and others have, they recognise that they need to take action.

Growing Up With I Spit On Your Grave is a 2019 USA documentary by Terry Zarchi.
Starring Camille Keaton, Meir Zarchi and Gunter Kleemann.

There are no censorship issues with this release.

US: Uncut and MPAA Unrated for:

• 2019 Deja Vu R1 DVD at US Amazon released on 22nd April 2019
• 2019 Deja Vu VoD on US Amazon Prime at US Amazon

Reviews

•  See review from horrorcultfilms.co.uk : " It's generally well paced and edited, and I have to say I learnt a lot "

Promotional Material

For the First time ever, explore the myths behind the controversial 1978 film, I Spit On Your Grave with the all new and only feature-length documentary, Growing Up With I Spit On Your Grave. Five years in the making, Terry Zarchi's exhaustive analysis of the history of the film, packed with never before seen footage and exclusive interviews, is what every I Spit On Your Grave fan and cinephile has been waiting for! As director Meir Zarchi himself once said of I Spit On Your Grave, this movie is indestructible!

Age verification for porn is pushing internet users into areas of the internet that provide more privacy, security and resistance to censorship.

I'd have thought that security services would prefer that internet users to remain in the more open areas of the internet for easier snooping.

So I wonder if it protecting kids from stumbling across porn is worth the increased difficulty in monitoring terrorists and the like? Or perhaps GCHQ can already see through the encrypted internet.

RQ12: Privacy & Security for Firefox

Mozilla has an interest in potentially integrating more of Tor into Firefox, for the purposes of providing a Super Private Browsing (SPB) mode for our users.

Tor offers privacy and anonymity on the Web, features which are sorely needed in the modern era of mass surveillance, tracking and fingerprinting. However, enabling a large number of additional users to make use of the Tor network requires solving for inefficiencies currently present in Tor so as to make the protocol optimal to deploy at scale. Academic research is just getting started with regards to investigating alternative protocol architectures and route selection protocols, such as Tor-over-QUIC, employing DTLS, and Walking Onions.

What alternative protocol architectures and route selection protocols would offer acceptable gains in Tor performance? And would they preserve Tor properties? Is it truly possible to deploy Tor at scale? And what would the full integration of Tor and Firefox look like?

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) Annual Report 2018 have been published revealing that more ads have been censored or banned than ever befor. And, in a year when online cases* outnumbered television cases by almost 3:1, it also highlights the new, proactive and innovative projects ASA and CAP are undertaking as part of a new five year strategy focused on having more impact online.

In a record year, the ASA resolved 33,727complaints about 25,259 ads Of those, 16,059 complaints (41% increase on 2017) were about 14,257 online ads (38% increase) 10,773 complaints (14% increase) were about 5,748 TV ads (23% increase) Resolved 27,014 own-initiative compliance cases Overall, the ASA secured the amendment or withdrawal of 10,850 ads (a 53% increase on 2017)

The report also reviews the actions that have been taken to tackle consumer harms and to protect the financially vulnerable; including projects on:

Secondary Tickets -- rulings against the main operators in the secondary ticketing sector for misleading pricing claims on their websites, including enforcement action against viagogo (facing the prospect of prosecution, viagogo came into compliance with our rules) Parcel Delivery Charges -- Enforcement Notice issued to retailers across the UK making clear that a definitive claim about UK delivery should apply wherever a consumer lives, including Northern Ireland and northern Scotland Superimposed text - research published into whether TV viewers can read and understand superimposed text (supers). Subsequently, CAP toughened the standards we require for supers, while the ASA announced it will take a stricter approach to ensure qualifications are presented clearly.

The ASA has already taken its first steps to strengthen further the regulation of online advertising through its recent use of new monitoring technology in the form of child avatars - online profiles which simulate children's browsing activity - to identify ads that children see online. This has enabled the ASA to take swift action to ban ads from five gambling operators which were served to child avatars on children's websites. The ASA is planning to extend this avatar work, as well as to explore how other new technologies can help it better protect the public.

The ASA don't seem to have broken out statistics that the Melon Farmers would like to know:

• What proportion of the ASA's workload is enforcing political correctness?
• What proportion of the ASA's workload is nannyism telling us for example what food is 'good' for us?
• What proportion of the ASA's workload is treating people as simpletons that are likely to become alcoholics just because an attractive 21 year old appeared in an ad

Exeter Cathedral has banned a Ukip candidate from taking part in hustings for Thursday's European elections.

Carl Benjamin, blogging as Sargon of Akkad, is the focus of a PC lynch mob after making a rape joke referencing Jess Phillips.  He had been due to speak at the event alongside other candidates for the South West England region on Wednesday evening.

In a statement, Exeter Cathedral justified the censorship supposedly being concerned about milk shakes being thrown. The church said:

Under the rules of the Electoral Commission, we may exclude candidates from a non-selective hustings for a number of reasons, including concerns about public order.

In this case, the cathedral believes that the presence of one particular candidate may cause a risk to public order, given a number of incidents over the last few weeks. Ukip has been invited to send another candidate from its list of six candidates standing for election in the South West region.

Ukip's Devon chair, Margaret Dennis, said the move was outrageous and an affront to democracy. She told DevonLive :

The hustings are either open for the public to discuss and debate or it is an attempt to censor and restrict an opportunity to hear a range of views at this election.

She said Benjamin was an articulate and intelligent advocate not only for our party but for free speech.

Amsterdam based Friekens Brewery (Friekens Brouwerij) has apologized and removed Hindu deity Lord Ganesh's image, associated with its I.P.A beer, from its website, ins response to comments from the perennial whinger RajanZed.

Friekens Brewery wrote:

We would like to apologise for the use of the image of Ganesh on the label of our I.P.A. beer. We never meant to offend anyone. Our apology. All reference to Ganesh and his image have been removed from our website, and we will develop a new brand identity for our I.P.A.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, thanked Friekens Brewery for understanding the concerns of Hindu community which thought image of Lord Ganesh on such a product was highly insensitive.

Rajan Zed suggested that companies should send their senior executives for training in religious and cultural sensitivity so that they had an understanding of the feelings of customers and communities when introducing new products or launching advertising campaigns.

The internet technology known as deep packet inspection is currently illegal in Europe, but big telecom companies doing business in the European Union want to change that. They want deep packet inspection permitted as part of the new net neutrality rules currently under negotiation in the EU, but on Wednesday, a group of 45 privacy and internet freedom advocates and groups published an open letter warning against the change:

Dear Vice-President Andrus Ansip, (and others)

We are writing you in the context of the evaluation of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 and the reform of the BEREC Guidelines on its implementation. Specifically, we are concerned because of the increased use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology by providers of internet access services (IAS). DPI is a technology that examines data packets that are transmitted in a given network beyond what would be necessary for the provision IAS by looking at specific content from the part of the user-defined payload of the transmission.

IAS providers are increasingly using DPI technology for the purpose of traffic management and the differentiated pricing of specific applications or services (e.g. zero-rating) as part of their product design. DPI allows IAS providers to identify and distinguish traffic in their networks in order to identify traffic of specific applications or services for the purpose such as billing them differently throttling or prioritising them over other traffic.

The undersigned would like to recall the concerning practice of examining domain names or the addresses (URLs) of visited websites and other internet resources. The evaluation of these types of data can reveal sensitive information about a user, such as preferred news publications, interest in specific health conditions, sexual preferences, or religious beliefs. URLs directly identify specific resources on the world wide web (e.g. a specific image, a specific article in an encyclopedia, a specific segment of a video stream, etc.) and give direct information on the content of a transmission.

A mapping of differential pricing products in the EEA conducted in 2018 identified 186 such products which potentially make use of DPI technology. Among those, several of these products by mobile operators with large market shares are confirmed to rely on DPI because their products offer providers of applications or services the option of identifying their traffic via criteria such as Domain names, SNI, URLs or DNS snooping.

Currently, the BEREC Guidelines3 clearly state that traffic management based on the monitoring of domain names and URLs (as implied by the phrase transport protocol layer payload) is not reasonable traffic management under the Regulation. However, this clear rule has been mostly ignored by IAS providers in their treatment of traffic.

The nature of DPI necessitates telecom expertise as well as expertise in data protection issues. Yet, we observe a lack of cooperation between national regulatory authorities for electronic communications and regulatory authorities for data protection on this issue, both in the decisions put forward on these products as well as cooperation on joint opinions on the question in general. For example, some regulators issue justifications of DPI based on the consent of the customer of the IAS provider which crucially ignores the clear ban of DPI in the BEREC Guidelines and the processing of the data of the other party communicating with the subscriber, which never gave consent.

Given the scale and sensitivity of the issue, we urge the Commission and BEREC to carefully consider the use of DPI technologies and their data protection impact in the ongoing reform of the net neutrality Regulation and the Guidelines. In addition, we recommend to the Commission and BEREC to explore an interpretation of the proportionality requirement included in Article 3, paragraph 3 of Regulation 2015/2120 in line with the data minimization principle established by the GDPR. Finally, we suggest to mandate the European Data Protection Board to produce guidelines on the use of DPI by IAS providers.

Best regards

European Digital Rights, Europe Electronic Frontier Foundation, International Council of European Professional Informatics Societies, Europe Article 19, International Chaos Computer Club e.V, Germany epicenter.works - for digital rights, Austria Austrian Computer Society (OCG), Austria Bits of Freedom, the Netherlands La Quadrature du Net, France ApTI, Romania Code4Romania, Romania IT-Pol, Denmark Homo Digitalis, Greece Hermes Center, Italy X-net, Spain Vrijschrift, the Netherlands Dataskydd.net, Sweden Electronic Frontier Norway (EFN), Norway Alternatif Bilisim (Alternative Informatics Association), Turkey Digitalcourage, Germany Fitug e.V., Germany Digitale Freiheit, Germany Deutsche Vereinigung f3cr Datenschutz e.V. (DVD), Germany Gesellschaft f3cr Informatik e.V. (GI), Germany LOAD e.V. - Verein f3cr liberale Netzpolitik, Germany (And others)

In March, the Russian government's internet censor Roskomnadzor contacted 10 leading VPN providers to demand they comply with local censorship laws or risk being blocked.

Roskomnadzor equired them to hook up to a dedicated government system that defines a list of websites required to be blocked to Russian internet users.

The VPN providers contacted were ExpressVPN, NordVPN, IPVanish, VPN Unlimited, VyprVPN, HideMyAss!, TorGuard, Hola VPN, OpenVPN, and Kaspersky Secure Connection. The deadline has now passed and the only VPN company that has agreed to comply with the new requirements is the Russia-based Kaspersky Secure Connection.

Most other providers on the list have removed their VPN servers from Russia altogether, so asn ot to be at risk of being asked to hand over information to Russia about their customers.

The South African Law Reform Commission is debating widespread changes law pertaining to the protection of children. Much of the debate is about serious crimes of child abuse but there is a significant portion devoted to protecting children from legal adult pornography. The commission writes:

SEXUAL OFFENCES: PORNOGRAPHY AND CHILDREN

On 16 March 2019 the Commission approved the publication of its discussion paper on sexual offences (pornography and children) for comment.

Five main topics are discussed in this paper, namely:

• Access to or exposure of a child to pornography;

• Creation and distribution of child sexual abuse material;

• Consensual self-child sexual abuse material (sexting);

• Grooming of a child and other sexual contact crimes associated with or facilitated by pornography or child sexual abuse material; and

• Investigation, procedure & sentencing.

The Commission invites comment on the discussion paper and the draft Bill which accompanies it. Comment may also be made on related issues of concern which have not been raised in the discussion paper. The closing date for comment is 30 July 2019.

The methodology discussed doesn't seem to match well to the real world. The authors seems to hold a lot of stock in the notion that every device can contain some sort of simple porn block app that can render a device unable to access porn and hence be safe for children. The proposed law suggests penalties should unprotected devices get bought, sold, or used by children. Perhaps someone should invent such an app to help out South Africa.

A pair of entrepreneurs have been refused European trademark protection for their energy drink named Brexit after an EU body labelled it offensive.

Pawel Tumilowicz and Mariusz Majchrzak had attempted to register their product Brexit with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (Euipo) after they launched the drink in October 2016.

But they were denied on the grounds that EU citizens would be deeply offended by the appropriation of the word. Euipo claimed:

Citizens across the EU would be deeply offended if the expression at issue was registered as a European Union trade mark.

The pair then appealed before Euipo's Grand Board of Appea which rejected Euipo's judgement that the word was offensive. However it ruled that Brexit could not be trademarked because it was not distinctive enough under EU law and would be confusing.

The high-caffeine drink - which is described on its website as the only reasonable solution in this situation - is branded with the Union Jack and was only named after the contentious political event for a laugh, the Telegraph reports.

The Change UK partly leader Heidi Allen has accused the BBC of inconsistency after the broadcaster pulled an episode of Have I Got News For You at the last minute claiming that it would breach election guidelines.

The Change UK leader was due to appear in a pre-recorded episode of the popular quiz show on Friday night, only to be notified an hour beforehand that it would not be broadcast.

The BBC said it was inappropriate to feature political party leaders on the programme ahead of the European parliament elections on 23 May to ensure equal representation of views.

Allen questioned why former Ukip leader Nigel Farage was allowed to appear on the programme ahead of similar elections in 2014 and said her party was not getting a fair crack of the whip. Change UK has now written to the BBC director general Tony Hall about the decision.

Of course she did not mention the even more flagrant pre-election censorship where by candidates Carl Benjamin and Tommy Robinson have been totally banned from social media, the major communication platforms of the modern age.

Update: The BBC explains its case for censorship

17th May 2019. See article from bbc.co.uk

Have I Got News for You,
BBC One, 10 May 2019 BBC Logo

We received complaints from people unhappy with the decision to drop the billed episode. Some people felt this was biased in favour of Brexit.

BBC Response

The BBC has specific editorial guidelines that apply during election periods which mean it would be inappropriate to feature a single party leader on a weekly programme such as Have I Got News for You during the short time available if other parties are not also represented on the programme during the same period. When the fact of Heidi Allen's appearance on the show was brought to our attention, we took the decision to withdraw the show. We can assure you this would have been the case whichever party was involved.

A number of our viewers have referred to 2014, when Nigel Farage also appeared on the programme in the period before the European Parliamentary elections. Those episodes of Have I Got News for You were planned in the run-up to the election to ensure an appropriate range of guests from different political parties were represented. In the circumstances of this year's election, a similar approach was not practical. We refute any suggestions that the BBC has favoured Mr Farage.

In contrast, Question Time is a political debate programme and, in accordance with the guidelines, will feature representatives from a range of political parties throughout the election period. The 9 May edition, for example, featured Anna Soubry MP (Change UK), Amber Rudd MP (Conservatives), Jonathan Reynolds MP (Labour), and Nigel Farage MEP (Brexit Party). Other parties will have appeared on different editions of Question Time during the course of the election period. Similarly, the Andrew Marr Show ensures that over the course of the campaign, an appropriate range of party representatives appear on the programme.

Senior editorial staff within BBC News keep a close watch on programmes to ensure that standards of impartiality are maintained. We consider that the BBC continues to report Brexit impartially and features a wide range of different perspectives across our news coverage.

The team are sorry for the disappointment to viewers that this episode featuring Ms Allen was pulled at short notice. Have I Got News for You will return to our screens this week, and we will look to broadcast the episode featuring Ms Allen at a later date.

A man was fined £90 for refusing to show his face to police trialling new facial recognition systems.

The man pulled his jumper up above his chin as he walked past Met Police officers trialling Live Facial Recognition software in east London.

BBC cameras filmed as officers swooped on the man, told him to wind his neck in then handed him the hefty penalty charge.

A campaigner from Big Brother Watch -- who were protesting the use of cameras on the day -- was also filmed telling an officer: I would have done the same.

The United States has decided not to support the censorship call by 18 governments and five top American tech firms and declined to endorse a New Zealand-led censorship effort responding to the live-streamed shootings at two Christchurch mosques. White House officials said free-speech concerns prevented them from formally signing onto the largest campaign to date targeting extremism online.

World leaders, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Jordan's King Abdullah II, signed the Christchurch Call, which was unveiled at a gathering in Paris that had been organized by French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

The governments pledged to counter online extremism, including through new regulation, and to encourage media outlets to apply ethical standards when depicting terrorist events online.

But the White House opted against endorsing the effort, and President Trump did not join the other leaders in Paris. The White House felt the document could present constitutional concerns, officials there said, potentially conflicting with the First Amendment. Indeed Trump has previously threatened social media out of concern that it's biased against conservatives.

Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter also signed on to the document, pledging to work more closely with one another and governments to make certain their sites do not become conduits for terrorism. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was among the attendees at the conference.

The companies agreed to accelerate research and information sharing with governments in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. They said they'd pursue a nine-point plan of technical remedies designed to find and combat objectionable content, including instituting more user-reporting systems, more refined automatic detection systems, improved vetting of live-streamed videos and more collective development of organized research and technologies the industry could build and share.

The companies also promised to implement appropriate checks on live-streaming, with the aim of ensuring that videos of violent attacks aren't broadcast widely, in real time, online. To that end, Facebook this week announced a new one-strike policy, in which users who violate its rules -- such as sharing content from known terrorist groups -- could be prohibited from using its live-streaming tools.

The US Whitehouse has set up a page on the online form building website, typefac.com. Donald Trump asks to be informed of biased censorship. The form reads:

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS should advance FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Yet too many Americans have seen their accounts suspended, banned, or fraudulently reported for unclear violations of user policies.

No matter your views, if you suspect political bias caused such an action to be taken against you, share your story with President Trump.

Proposals for an official definition of 'Islamophobia' were rejected by the Government yesterday.

Downing Street said the suggested definition had not been broadly accepted, adding: This is a matter that will need further careful consideration. '

The definition had been proposed by a parliamentary campaign group, the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims. It wanted the Government to define Islamaphobia as rooted in racism or a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.

Ministers are now expected to appoint two independent advisers to draw up a less legally problematic definition, the Times reported.

A parliamentary debate on anti-Muslim prejudice is due to be held today in Parliament.

The  criticism of the definition has been published in an open letter to the Home Secretary Sajid Javid:

Open Letter: APPG Islamophobia Definition Threatens Civil Liberties

The APPG on British Muslims' definition of Islamophobia has now been adopted by the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats Federal board, Plaid Cymru and the Mayor of London, as well as several local councils. All of this is occurring before the Home Affairs Select Committee has been able to assess the evidence for and against the adoption of the definition nationally.

Meanwhile the Conservatives are having their own debate about rooting out Islamophobia from the party.

According to the APPG definition, "Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness".

With this definition in hand, it is perhaps no surprise that following the horrific attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, some place responsibility for the atrocity on the pens of journalists and academics who have criticised Islamic beliefs and practices, commented on or investigated Islamist extremism.

The undersigned unequivocally, unreservedly and emphatically condemn acts of violence against Muslims, and recognise the urgent need to deal with anti-Muslim hatred. However, we are extremely concerned about the uncritical and hasty adoption of the APPG's definition of Islamophobia.

This vague and expansive definition is being taken on without an adequate scrutiny or proper consideration of its negative consequences for freedom of expression, and academic and journalistic freedom. The definition will also undermine social cohesion -- fuelling the very bigotry against Muslims which it is designed to prevent.

We are concerned that allegations of Islamophobia will be, indeed already are being, used to effectively shield Islamic beliefs and even extremists from criticism, and that formalising this definition will result in it being employed effectively as something of a backdoor blasphemy law.

The accusation of Islamophobia has already been used against those opposing religious and gender segregation in education, the hijab, halal slaughter on the grounds of animal welfare, LGBT rights campaigners opposing Muslim views on homosexuality, ex-Muslims and feminists opposing Islamic views and practices relating to women, as well as those concerned about the issue of grooming gangs. It has been used against journalists who investigate Islamism, Muslims working in counter-extremism, schools and Ofsted for resisting conservative religious pressure and enforcing gender equality.

Evidently abuse, harmful practices, or the activities of groups and individuals which promote ideas contrary to British values are far more likely to go unreported as a result of fear of being called Islamophobic. This will only increase if the APPG definition is formally adopted in law.

We are concerned that the definition will be used to shut down legitimate criticism and investigation. While the APPG authors have assured that it does not wish to infringe free speech, the entire content of the report, the definition itself, and early signs of how it would be used, suggest that it certainly would. Civil liberties should not be treated as an afterthought in the effort to tackle anti-Muslim prejudice.

The conflation of race and religion employed under the confused concept of 'cultural racism' expands the definition beyond anti-Muslim hatred to include 'illegitimate' criticism of the Islamic religion. The concept of Muslimness can effectively be transferred to Muslim practices and beliefs, allowing the report to claim that criticism of Islam is instrumentalised to hurt Muslims.

No religion should be given special protection against criticism. Like anti-Sikh, anti-Christian, or anti-Hindu hatred, we believe the term anti-Muslim hatred is more appropriate and less likely to infringe on free speech. A proliferation of 'phobias' is not desirable, as already stated by Sikh and Christian organisations who recognise the importance of free discussion about their beliefs.

Current legislative provisions are sufficient, as the law already protects individuals against attacks and unlawful discrimination on the basis of their religion. Rather than helping, this definition is likely to create a climate of self-censorship whereby people are fearful of criticising Islam and Islamic beliefs. It will therefore effectively shut down open discussions about matters of public interest. It will only aggravate community tensions further and is therefore no long term solution.

If this definition is adopted the government will likely turn to self-appointed 'representatives of the community' to define 'Muslimness'. This is clearly open to abuse. The APPG already entirely overlooked Muslims who are often considered to be "insufficiently Muslim" by other Muslims, moderates, liberals, reformers and the Ahmadiyyah, who often suffer persecution and violence at the hands of other Muslims.

For all these reasons, the APPG definition of Islamophobia is deeply problematic and unfit for purpose. Acceptance of this definition will only serve to aggravate community tensions and to inhibit free speech about matters of fundamental importance. We urge the government, political parties, local councils and other organisations to reject this flawed proposed definition.

• Emma Webb, Civitas
• Hardeep Singh, Network of Sikh Organisations (NSOUK)
• Lord Singh of Wimbledon
• Tim Dieppe, Christian Concern
• Stephen Evans, National Secular Society (NSS)
• Sadia Hameed, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB)
• Prof. Paul Cliteur, candidate for the Dutch Senate, Professor of Law, University of Leiden
• Brendan O'Neill, Editor of Spiked
• Maajid Nawaz, Founder, Quilliam International
• Rt. Rev'd Dr Gavin Ashenden
• Pragna Patel, director of Southall Black Sisters
• Professor Richard Dawkins
• Rahila Gupta, author and Journalist
• Peter Whittle, founder and director of New Culture Forum
• Trupti Patel, President of Hindu Forum of Britain
• Dr Lakshmi Vyas, President Hindu Forum of Europe
• Harsha Shukla MBE, President Hindu Council of North UK
• Tarang Shelat, President Hindu Council of Birmingham
• Ashvin Patel, Chairman, Hindu Forum (Walsall)
• Ana Gonzalez, partner at Wilson Solicitors LLP
• Baron Desai of Clement Danes
• Baroness Cox of Queensbury
• Lord Alton of Liverpool
• Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali
• Ade Omooba MBE, Co-Chair National Church Leaders Forum (NCLF)
• Wilson Chowdhry, British Pakistani Christian Association
• Ashish Joshi, Sikh Media Monitoring Group
• Satish K Sharma, National Council of Hindu Temples
• Rumy Hasan, Academic and author
• Amina Lone, Co-Director, Social Action and Research Foundation
• Peter Tatchell, Peter Tatchell Foundation
• Seyran Ates, Imam
• Gina Khan, One Law for All
• Mohammed Amin MBE
• Baroness D'Souza
• Michael Mosbacher, Acting Editor, Standpoint Magazine
• Lisa-Marie Taylor, CEO FiLiA
• Julie Bindel, journalist and feminist campaigner
• Dr Adrian Hilton, academic
• Neil Anderson, academic
• Tom Holland, historian
• Toby Keynes
• Prof. Dr. Bassam Tibi, Professor Emeritus for International Relations, University of Goettingen
• Dr Stephen Law, philosopher and author

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum is a 2019 USA action thriller by Chad Stahelski.
Starring Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane and Asia Kate Dillon.

In this third instalment of the adrenaline-fuelled action franchise, skilled assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) returns with a $14 million price tag on his head and an army of bounty-hunting killers on his trail. After killing a member of the shadowy international assassin's guild, the High Table, John Wick is excommunicado, but the world's most ruthless hit men and women await his every turn.

India's Central Board of Film Certification has made significant cuts to John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, even for an adults only 'A' rating. The cuts are described as:

• the standard blurs, mutes and additions for profanity, visual gestures, all mention and presence of alcohol and the ever-present anti-smoking label
• one cut reducing revenge and escape violence by 50%, and
• cuts to another scene of graphic violence involving knives and shooting.

The cuts add up to about 3 minutes.

To challenge online censorship of art featuring naked bodies or body parts, photographer Spencer Tunick, in collaboration with the National Coalition Against Censorship, will stage a nude art action in New York on June 2. The event will bring together 100 undressed participants at an as-yet-undisclosed location, and Tunick will photograph the scene and create an installation using donated images of male nipples.

Artists Andres Serrano, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Tunick have given photos of their own nipples to the cause, as has Bravo TV personality Andy Cohen, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and actor/photographer Adam Goldberg.

In addition, the National Coalition Against Censorship has launched a #WeTheNipple campaign through which Instagram and Facebook users can share their experiences with censorship and advocate for changes to the social media platforms' guidelines related to nudity.

At the moment when internet users want to view a page, they specify the page they want in the clear. ISPs can see the page requested and block it if the authorities don't like it. A new internet protocol has been launched that encrypts the specification of the page requested so that ISPs can't tell what page is being requested, so can't block it.

This new DNS Over HTTPS protocol is already available in Firefox which also provides an uncensored and encrypted DNS server. Users simply have to change the settings in about:config (being careful of the dragons of course)

Questions have been raised in the House of Lords about the impact on the UK's ability to censor the internet.

House of Lords, 14th May 2019, Internet Encryption Question

Baroness Thornton Shadow Spokesperson (Health) 2:53 pm, 14th May 2019

To ask Her Majesty 's Government what assessment they have made of the deployment of the Internet Engineering Task Force 's new " DNS over HTTPS " protocol and its implications for the blocking of content by internet service providers and the Internet Watch Foundation ; and what steps they intend to take in response.

Lord Ashton of Hyde The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

My Lords, DCMS is working together with the National Cyber Security Centre to understand and resolve the implications of DNS over HTTPS , also referred to as DoH, for the blocking of content online. This involves liaising across government and engaging with industry at all levels, operators, internet service providers, browser providers and pan-industry organisations to understand rollout options and influence the way ahead. The rollout of DoH is a complex commercial and technical issue revolving around the global nature of the internet.

Baroness Thornton Shadow Spokesperson (Health)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, and I apologise to the House for this somewhat geeky Question. This Question concerns the danger posed to existing internet safety mechanisms by an encryption protocol that, if implemented, would render useless the family filters in millions of homes and the ability to track down illegal content by organisations such as the Internet Watch Foundation . Does the Minister agree that there is a fundamental and very concerning lack of accountability when obscure technical groups, peopled largely by the employees of the big internet companies, take decisions that have major public policy implications with enormous consequences for all of us and the safety of our children? What engagement have the British Government had with the internet companies that are represented on the Internet Engineering Task Force about this matter?

Lord Ashton of Hyde The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for discussing this with me beforehand, which was very welcome. I agree that there may be serious consequences from DoH. The DoH protocol has been defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force . Where I do not agree with the noble Baroness is that this is not an obscure organisation; it has been the dominant internet technical standards organisation for 30-plus years and has attendants from civil society, academia and the UK Government as well as the industry. The proceedings are available online and are not restricted. It is important to know that DoH has not been rolled out yet and the picture in it is complex--there are pros to DoH as well as cons. We will continue to be part of these discussions; indeed, there was a meeting last week, convened by the NCSC , with DCMS and industry stakeholders present.

Lord Clement-Jones Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Digital)

My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised a very important issue, and it sounds from the Minister 's Answer as though the Government are somewhat behind the curve on this. When did Ministers actually get to hear about the new encrypted DoH protocol? Does it not risk blowing a very large hole in the Government's online safety strategy set out in the White Paper ?

Lord Ashton of Hyde The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

As I said to the noble Baroness, the Government attend the IETF . The protocol was discussed from October 2017 to October 2018, so it was during that process. As far as the online harms White Paper is concerned, the technology will potentially cause changes in enforcement by online companies, but of course it does not change the duty of care in any way. We will have to look at the alternatives to some of the most dramatic forms of enforcement, which are DNS blocking.

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Opposition Whip (Lords)

My Lords, if there is obscurity, it is probably in the use of the technology itself and the terminology that we have to use--DoH and the other protocols that have been referred to are complicated. At heart, there are two issues at stake, are there not? The first is that the intentions of DoH, as the Minister said, are quite helpful in terms of protecting identity, and we do not want to lose that. On the other hand, it makes it difficult, as has been said, to see how the Government can continue with their current plan. We support the Digital Economy Act approach to age-appropriate design, and we hope that that will not be affected. We also think that the soon to be legislated for--we hope--duty of care on all companies to protect users of their services will help. I note that the Minister says in his recent letter that there is a requirement on the Secretary of State to carry out a review of the impact and effectiveness of the regulatory framework included in the DEA within the next 12 to 18 months. Can he confirm that the issue of DoH will be included?

Lord Ashton of Hyde The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Clearly, DoH is on the agenda at DCMS and will be included everywhere it is relevant. On the consideration of enforcement--as I said before, it may require changes to potential enforcement mechanisms--we are aware that there are other enforcement mechanisms. It is not true to say that you cannot block sites; it makes it more difficult, and you have to do it in a different way.

The Countess of Mar Deputy Chairman of Committees, Deputy Speaker (Lords)

My Lords, for the uninitiated, can the noble Lord tell us what DoH means --very briefly, please?

Lord Ashton of Hyde The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

It is not possible to do so very briefly. It means that, when you send a request to a server and you have to work out which server you are going to by finding out the IP address, the message is encrypted so that the intervening servers are not able to look at what is in the message. It encrypts the message that is sent to the servers. What that means is that, whereas previously every server along the route could see what was in the message, now only the browser will have the ability to look at it, and that will put more power in the hands of the browsers.

Lord West of Spithead Labour

My Lords, I thought I understood this subject until the Minister explained it a minute ago. This is a very serious issue. I was unclear from his answer: is this going to be addressed in the White Paper ? Will the new officer who is being appointed have the ability to look at this issue when the White Paper comes out?

Lord Ashton of Hyde The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

It is not something that the White Paper per se can look at, because it is not within the purview of the Government. The protocol is designed by the IETF , which is not a government body; it is a standards body, so to that extent it is not possible. Obviously, however, when it comes to regulating and the powers that the regulator can use, the White Paper is consulting precisely on those matters, which include DNS blocking, so it can be considered in the consultation.

Jackie Doyle-Price is the government's first suicide prevention minister. She seems to believe that this complex and tragic social problem can somehow be cure by censorship and an end to free speech.

She said society had come to tolerate behaviour online which would not be tolerated on the streets. She urged technology giants including Google and Facebook to be more vigilant about removing harmful comments.

Doyle-Price told the Press Association:

It's great that we have these platforms for free speech and any one of us is free to generate our own content and put it up there, ...BUT... free speech is only free if it's not abused. I just think in terms of implementing their duty of care to their customers, the Wild West that we currently have needs to be a lot more regulated by them.

A paid-for message from William Hill seen on the dating app Tinder, on 11 March 2019, stated:

Stuck in the friend zone? You won't be for much longer if you use this Cheltenham free bet offer. Join William Hill with code W40 and bet £10 on any Cheltenham race to get 4 X £10 free bets. T&Cs apply. This was followed by a link to download the William Hill app. Issue

A complainant challenged whether the ad breached the Code by linking gambling to sexual success.

ASA Assessment: Complaint upheld

The CAP Code required that marketing communications for gambling must be socially responsible and that they must not link gambling to seduction, sexual success or enhanced attractiveness. The ASA acknowledged that William Hill had removed the ad. However, we considered that the text Stuck in the friend zone? You won't be for much longer if you use this Cheltenham free bet offer suggested that those who gambled would be more likely to develop a friendship into a sexual relationship and therefore linked gambling with sexual success. We therefore concluded that the ad breached the Code.

The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told William Hill to ensure they did not link gambling to sexual success.

Today, after a five year battle with the UK government, Privacy International has won at the UK Supreme Court. The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal's (IPT) decisions are subject to judicial review in the High Court. The Supreme Court's judgment is a major endorsement and affirmation of the rule of law in the UK. The decision guarantees that when the IPT gets the law wrong, its mistakes can be corrected.

Key point:

• UK Supreme Court rules that the UK spying tribunal - the IPT - cannot escape the oversight of the ordinary UK courts

The leading judgment of Lord Carnwath confirms the vital role of the courts in upholding the rule of law. The Government's reliance on an 'ouster clause' to try to remove the IPT from judicial review failed. The judgment confirms hundreds of years of legal precedent condemning attempts to remove important decisions from the oversight of the courts.

Privacy International's case stems from a 2016 decision by the IPT that the UK government may use sweeping 'general warrants' to engage in computer hacking of thousands or even millions of devices, without any approval from by a judge or reasonable grounds for suspicion. The Government argued that it would be lawful in principle to use a single warrant signed off by a Minister (not a judge) to hack every mobile phone in a UK city - and the IPT agreed with the Government.

Privacy International challenged the IPT's decision before the UK High Court. The Government argued that even if the IPT had got the law completely wrong, or had acted unfairly, the High Court had no power to correct the mistake. That question went all the way to the UK Supreme Court, and resulted in today's judgment.

In his judgment, Lord Carnwath wrote:

"The legal issue decided by the IPT is not only one of general public importance, but also has possible implications for legal rights and remedies going beyond the scope of the IPT's remit. Consistent application of the rule of law requires such an issue to be susceptible in appropriate cases to review by ordinary courts."

Caroline Wilson Palow, Privacy International's General Counsel, said:

"Today's judgment is a historic victory for the rule of law. It ensures that the UK intelligence agencies are subject to oversight by the ordinary UK courts.

Countries around the world are currently grappling with serious questions regarding what power should reside in each branch of government. Today's ruling is a welcome precedent for all of those countries, striking a reasonable balance between executive, legislative and judicial power.

Today's ruling paves the way for Privacy International's challenge to the UK Government's use of bulk computer hacking warrants. Our challenge has been delayed for years by the Government's persistent attempt to protect the IPT's decisions from scrutiny. We are heartened that our case will now go forward."

Simon Creighton, of Bhatt Murphy Solicitors who acted for Privacy International, said:

"Privacy International's tenacity in pursuing this case has provided an important check on the argument that security concerns should be allowed to override the rule of law. Secretive national security tribunals are no exception. The Supreme Court was concerned that no tribunal, however eminent its judges, should be able to develop its own "local law". Today's decision welcomes the IPT back from its legal island into the mainstream of British law."

Turkish TV has announced that they would not broadcast the NBA Western Conference Finals on Tuesday night because a Turkish NBA star and fierce critic of Turkish president Erdogan, Enes Kanter, plays for Portland Trailblazers.

The NBA final will also be banned if Portland Trailblazers get through.

The most infamous film ban in Ireland was of the classic Casablanca in 1942.

The officially neutral Ireland said it was Allied propaganda and felt sorry for the poor Nazis and how they were portrayed..

It was banned on March 19, 1942, for infringing on the Emergency Powers Order (EPO), preserving wartime neutrality in the way it portrayed Vichy France and Nazi Germany in a sinister light.

Soon after the end of the war in Europe the film was unbanned but passed with cuts on June 15, 1945, The cuts were to dialogue between Rick and Ilsa referring to their love affair. It seemed even talking about affairs was forbidden in Ireland.

Amazingly, even in 1974, the people of Ireland had to be saved from Casablanca. The censor passed it with one cut on July 16, 1974. RTÉ had asked about showing the film on TV -- it still required a dialogue cut to Ilsa expressing her love for Rick.

The obscenity trial over DH Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was a national sensation. The 1960 case was also a watershed moment in Britain's cultural history, when the legacy of Victorian morality was finally overtaken by the liberal attitudes of the Swinging Sixties.

Now that book -- complete with notes by his wife -- has been barred from export because of its cultural significance. The book sold for £56,250 last year and the new owner had planned to take it abroad. UK buyers now have until October to match that sum.

Sir Laurence Byrne and his wife Dorothy made annotations on the copy, marking out sexually explicit passages Sir Laurence Byrne and his wife Dorothy made annotations on the copy, marking out sexually explicit passages

Arts minister Michael Ellis said he hoped a buyer could be found in order to keep this important part of our nation's history in the UK.

But not to worry, this government is dreaming up lots of new censorship ideas, and no doubt this will lead to lots more trials and prosecutions, and historically significant censorship decisions.

The German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier opened the re:publica 2019 conference in Berlin last week with a speech about internet censorship. The World Socialist Web Site reported the speech:

With cynical references to Germany's Basic Law and the right to freedom of speech contained within it, Steinmeier called for new censorship measures and appealed to the major technology firms to enforce already existing guidelines more aggressively.

He stated, The upcoming 70th anniversary of the German Basic Law reminds us of a connection that pre-dates online and offline: liberty needs rules--and new liberties need new rules. Furthermore, freedom of opinion brings with it responsibility for opinion. He stressed that he knew there are already many rules, among which he mentioned the notorious Network Enforcement Law (Netz DG), but it will be necessary to argue over others.

He then added, Anyone who creates space for a political discussion with a platform bears responsibility for democracy, whether they like it or not. Therefore, democratic regulations are required, he continued. Steinmeier said that he felt this is now understood in Silicon Valley. After a lot of words and announcements, discussion forums, and photogenic appearances with politicians, it is now time for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Co. to finally acknowledge their responsibility for democracy, finally put it into practice.

Watching pornography on buses is to be banned, ministers have announced. Bus conductors and the police will be given powers to tackle those who watch sexual material on mobile phones and tablets.

Ministers are also drawing up plans for a national database of claimed harassment incidents. It will record incidents at work and in public places, and is likely to cover wolf-whistling and cat-calling as well as more serious incidents.

In addition, the Government is considering whether to launch a public health campaign warning of the effects of pornography -- modelled on smoking campaigns.

As of 15 July, people in the UK who try to access porn on the internet will be required to verify their age or identity online.

The new UK Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2018 law does not affect the Channel Islands but the States have not ruled out introducing their own regulations.

The UK Department for Censorship, Media and Sport said it was working closely with the Crown Dependencies to make the necessary arrangements for the extension of this legislation to the Channel Islands.

A spokeswoman for the States said they were monitoring the situation in the UK to inform our own policy development in this area.

Polish activist Elzbieta Podlesna has been arrested for 'offending' religious beliefs for possessing copies of a poster showing the religious characters of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus with rainbow halos.

Amnesty International's Regional Europe Researcher, Barbora Cernusakova, commented:

We are extremely concerned to hear that Elzbieta Podlesna, a Polish human rights activist, was arrested and detained for several hours on spurious charges upon her return to Poland from a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands with Amnesty International.

The posters had been posted around the town of Plock at the end of April. The posters depicted the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, one of the most highly revered icons in Poland.

Amnesty International said:

Given the lack of evidence of a crime here, we can only see that Elzbieta has been detained for her peaceful activism. Amnesty International calls on the Polish authorities to stop harassing peaceful protesters and activists in Poland, including by arbitrarily arresting people who stand up for their rights. Restricting activists from freely expressing their views in the country is unlawful and must stop immediately.

President Trump has threatened to monitor social-media sites for their censorship of American citizens. He was responding to Facebook permanently banning figures and organizations from the political right. Trump tweeted:

I am continuing to monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms. This is the United States of America -- and we have what's known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH! We are monitoring and watching, closely!!

On Thursday, Facebook announced it had permanently banned users including Louis Farrakhan, the founder of the Nation of Islam, along with far-right figures Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer and Alex Jones, the founder of Infowars. The tech giant removed their accounts, fan pages and affiliated groups on Facebook as well as its photo-sharing service Instagram, claiming that their presence on the social networking sites had become dangerous.

For his part, President Trump repeatedly has accused popular social-networking sites of exhibiting political bias, and threatened to regulate Silicon Valley in response. In a private meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey last month, Trump repeatedly raised his concerns that the company has removed some of his followers.

On Friday, Trump specifically tweeted he was surprised about Facebook's decision to ban Paul Joseph Watson, a YouTube personality who has served as editor-at-large of Infowars .

Update: Texas bill would allow state to sue social media companies like Facebook and Twitter that censor free speech

13th May 2019. See article from texastribune.org

A bill before the Texas Senate seeks to prevent social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter from censoring users based on their viewpoints. Supporters say it would protect the free exchange of ideas, but critics say the bill contradicts a federal law that allows social media platforms to regulate their own content.

The measure -- Senate Bill 2373 by state Sen. Bryan Hughes -- would hold social media platforms accountable for restricting users' speech based on personal opinions. Hughes said the bill applies to social media platforms that advertise themselves as unbiased but still censor users. The Senate State Affairs Committee unanimously approved the bill last week. The Texas Senate approved the bill on April 25 in an 18-12 vote. It now heads to the House.

A Florida man used a sticker on the rear window of his truck to announce his dating intentions.

Florida authorities did not see the funny side and arrested him for refusing to remove the sticker claimed to be obscene.

State prosecutors declared they were dropping the charges on Thursday after getting embarrassed as the story was picked up by multiple media outlets.

Now, the victim is threatening to sue the sheriff's office for violating his First Amendment rights.

A man investigated by police over a poem about transgenderism is launching a landmark High Court case to overhaul unfair police rules on hate crimes.

Harry Miller is to seek a judicial review of the hate crime guidelines followed by police forces across Britain, claiming they are unlawful because they inhibit freedom of expression.

He argues that the current guidance, published by the College of Policing in 2014, the body responsible for training officers, promotes the recording of incidents as hate crimes even when there is no evidence of hate beyond the opinion of an accuser.

Miller's legal team has highlighted a clause in the rules that state such incidents must be recorded by officers irrespective of any evidence to identify the hate element.

Miller is also challenging a decision by Humberside Police to record his re-tweeting of the poem as a hate incident -- despite officers concluding that no crime had been committed.

He was quizzed by Humberside Police in January after posting the verse about men who transition to be women, which included the lines: You're a man ... And we can tell the difference ... Your hormones are synthetic. He said he was dumbfounded by the exchange and furious when he found out that his sharing of the verse had been recorded as a hate incident.

Explaining his reasons for launching legal action, the businessman told the Mail on Sunday:

It is about the ability to have freedom of speech within the law and being allowed to have a debate without one group being able to call on the police to shut another group down.

Free speech is being closed down by a climate of fear and secrecy and the police are contributing to this Orwellian culture.

Facebook will create a privacy oversight committee as part of its recent agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), according to reports.

According to Politico, Facebook will appoint a government-approved committee to 'guide' the company on privacy matters. This committee will also consist of company board members.

The plans would also see Facebook chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg act as a designated compliance officer, meaning that he would be personally responsible and accountable for Facebook's privacy policies.

Last week, it was reported that Facebook could be slapped with a fine of up to $5 billion over its handling of user data and privacy. The FTC launched the investigation last March, following claims that Facebook allowed organisations, such as political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, to collect data from millions of users without their consent.

On Thursday, Danny Baker was sacked by BBC bosses for a tweet of a couple with a monkey tagged Royal baby leaves hospital.

The picture sparked 'outrage', with a few people branding it as racist because of Meghan's heritage. Baker quickly deleted it and described it as a stupid unthinking gag.

Scotland Yard said the force had received an allegation in relation to a tweet posted on May 8.

An allegation has been received by the Metropolitan Police Service on Thursday May 9 in relation to a tweet published on May 8.

As is routine, the allegation will be reviewed and assessed by specialist officers, the Met said.

Meanwhile the BBC wrote in response to a complaint:

Danny Baker, Radio 5 live, May 2019

We received complaints from some people unhappy with the image Danny Baker posted on his social media account , and also complaints from some who are unhappy that he will no longer be presenting on Radio 5 live.

BBC Response

Danny Baker's tweet was a serious error of judgment and goes against the BBC's values we aim to embody.

Danny is a brilliant broadcaster , however he will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us on Radio 5 live.

Offsite Comment: His tweet was dumb, but the reaction to it is chilling

10th May 2019. See article from spiked-online.com By Brendan O'Neill

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the Singapore parliament's passage of legislation that will be used to stifle reporting and the dissemination of news, and called for the punitive measure's immediate repeal.

The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act , which was passed yesterday, gives all government ministers broad and arbitrary powers to demand corrections, remove content, and block webpages if they are deemed to be disseminating falsehoods against the public interest or to undermine public confidence in the government, both on public websites and within chat programs such as WhatsApp, according to news reports .

Violations of the law will be punishable with maximum 10-year jail terms and fines of up to $1 million Singapore dollars (US$735,000), according to those reports. The law was passed after a two-day debate and is expected to come into force in the next few week.

 Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asian representative said:

This law will give Singapore's ministers yet another tool to suppress and censor news that does not fit with the People's Action Party-dominated government's authoritarian narrative. Singapore's online media is already over-regulated and severely censored. The law should be dropped for the sake of press freedom.

Law Minister K. Shanmugam said censorship orders would be made mainly against technology companies that hosted the objectionable content, and that they would be able to challenge the government's take-down requests,.

Canadian animator Steve Angel recognizes the irony that his cartoon about censorship was, itself, censored.

Angel produced an animated sequence for the US CBS TV series The Good Fight , a legal drama that argue cases about the issues of the day.

The censored episode was based on a criticism of Chinese censorship, including Angel's animated sequence typically of around 90 seconds. The animation was censored and replaced with an 8s screen reading, CBS has censored this content.

In a statement, a CBS All Access spokesperson said after raising concerns about the animated short's subject matter, it had reached this creative solution with the show's producers.

Angel said he was disappointed adding:

There's the obvious irony of it, but at the same time, I think because it's pretty incendiary material, it wasn't a gigantic surprise.

Angel said he couldn't comment on the content of the segment, but The New Yorker reports the animation alludes to several subjects that have been banned online in China, including Winnie-the-Pooh, as the character was used in memes as a way to poke fun at Chinese President Xi Jinping. The magazine reports the clip featured the leader dressed as the cartoon bear, shaking his exposed bottom.

But according to the Hollywood Reporter , the segment began with a song that referenced China's decision to ban The Good Wife from internet video services in 2014 . It also alluded to how American studios remove content from international releases to avoid upsetting Chinese censors.

Channel 4 broadcast the show in the UK and have stated that it will show the episode n the same censored form as was shown in the US.

A few Emmerdale viewers were 'shocked' after Victoria Barton (Isabel Hodgins) was raped in last night's flashback episode by a stranger called Lee.

And some were so 'outraged' that they made official complaints about the pre-watershed scene.

TV censor Ofcom has confirmed that 39 complaints were made about the scene last night, according to metro.co.uk.

An Ofcom spokesperson told metro.co.uk:

We are assessing these complaints against our broadcasting rules, but are yet to decide whether or not to investigate.

There's a public health crisis in the US at the moment spreading amongst lawmakers who become afflicted by the notion that porn is a public health crisis.

Arizona's Senate has become the latest victim of the crisis. It passed a resolution claiming that:

Pornography perpetuates a sexually toxic environment that damages all areas of our society.

The measure, which carries no legal weight, was introduced by Republican Rep. Michelle Udall and was approved by the state House in February. It cleared the Senate in a 16-13 vote on Monday.

Montana was the previous state to have passed a similar resolution and Texas is currently considering something similar.

This list of states passing resolutions about porn crises now reads:

• Arkansas
• Arizona
• Florida
• Idaho
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Missouri
• Montana
• Oklahoma
• Pennsylvania
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Utah
• Virginia

The US Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has announced that he would be introducing a bill banning manipulative design features in video games with underage audiences, including the sale of loot boxes.

The legislation would prohibit the sale of loot boxes in games targeted at children under the age of 18. Games companies could also face penalties from the Federal Trade Commission if companies if they knowingly allow children to purchase these randomized crates.

Regulators would determine whether a game is targeted at minors by considering similar indicators that they already use under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Subject matter and the game's visual content would help regulators determine who the game is marketed toward. When a game is designed for kids, game developers shouldn't be allowed to monetize addiction.

Pay-to-win mechanics in games targeted at minors would also be outlawed under this legislation. This includes progression systems that encourage people to spend money to advance through a game's content at a faster pace.

Kelly McMahon is the new head of the MPAA's film ratings board, the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA).

The 46-year-old longtime corporate lawyer leads the small group of parents who anonymously assign ratings, ranging from G to NC-17, to hundreds of movies a year. She replaces Joan Graves, 77, who recently retired after 18 years as head of the ratings body.

McMahon, in her first interview since taking the helm, defended the ratings system, which she says has remained a reliable and essential tool for families navigating the multiplex. However, she says one of her first major goals is to reach out to parents, filmmakers and political groups -- including LGBTQ and religious organizations -- to hear their concerns.

She also wants to add more people to the rating board to ensure its decisions are representative of American consumers. The board currently employs only eight raters; McMahon wants to grow the board to 12. She also wants to address the once-common G (general audiences) rating, which has virtually disappeared from the industry.

A banner ad for Monopoly Casino, seen 7 February 2019 on the Mirror Online website, featured an image of the character Mr Monopoly and text which stated Monopoly Casino, SUPER MONOPOLY MONEY and PLAY NOW.

A complainant challenged whether the ad was likely to be of particular appeal to children.

Entertaining Play t/a Monopoly Casino did not believe the Mr Monopoly character was of particular appeal to children. They outlined that the character was depicted as shown since the inception of the Monopoly brand, with the character shown in traditional, adult attire. Monopoly Casino said that the character did not possess exaggerated features and did not mimic any style of cartoon character seen in current children's programming. The characterisation of Mr Monopoly as a traditionally dressed older gentleman was a conscious decision in recognition of the character's universal appeal. In relation to the ad's background, Monopoly Casino said that the colours used were not garish or overly vibrant and did not draw inspiration from youth culture.

Monopoly Casino highlighted that they had also taken actions to target the ad only to those aged over 18 years of age.

The Mirror Online also said that age targeting could be applied to the ad so that it was not targeted at children. They did not believe the ad had appeal to children and they said that the ad included a label which stated 18+.

ASA Assessment: Complaint upheld

The CAP Code stated that gambling ads must not be likely to be of particular appeal to children or young persons, especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture. Gambling ads could not therefore appeal more to under-18s than they did to over-18s.

The ASA understood that Monopoly Casino had taken steps to target the ad only at those over 18 years of age. However, the steps taken could not ensure that under-18s were not exposed to the ad and we therefore considered whether it complied with the Code's requirement that gambling ads must not be of particular appeal to children.

The ad's branding referenced a regular edition of the board-game Monopoly, and included two red and white Monopoly logos. We considered that Monopoly was a family game generally played by or with children, and that under-18s would therefore recognise and find the ad's references to it appealing. In addition, the ad featured a prominent image of the Mr Monopoly character which had exaggerated features reminiscent of a children's cartoon, which meant the image would also be appealing to under-18s. Taking account of the ad as a whole, we considered that the use of the Monopoly logo and the depiction of the Mr Monopoly character meant that the ad was likely to appeal more to under-18s than to over-18s. We therefore concluded that the ad was of particular appeal to under-18s and breached the Code.

The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Entertaining Play Ltd t/a Monopoly Casino to ensure their ads for gambling products did not have particular appeal to those under18 years of age.

CTech giant Tencent has dropped the hugely popular mobile version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) in China after it was more or less banned by the government's game censors. It was not quite banned, just not allowed to earn any money.

But not to worry, Tencent has a similar title, Heping Jingying or Elite Force for Peace, with a few tweaks to smooth things with the censors. Charcaters do note beeleed, the minimum age for players has been raised to 16, and most importantly, it features heroic Chinese forces kicking ass.

Geopolitics might also have contributed to PUBG Mobile's rejection. Tencent licenses the game from South Korean company Bluehole, and Chinese authorities can be hostile to South Korean goods.

For Chinese gamers, though, the disruption should be minimal. Tencent is allowing users to port over characters from PUBG Mobile to Heping Jingying, and one analyst told Reuters that the new game was incredibly similar to the older title.

Lawyers for Facebook and Instagram have appeared in a Texas courtrooms attempting to dismiss two civil cases that accuse the social media sites of not protecting victims of sex trafficking.

The Facebook case involves a Houston woman who in October said the company's morally bankrupt corporate culture left her prey to a predatory pimp who drew her into sex trafficking as a child. The Instagram case involves a 14-year-old girl from Spring who said she was recruited, groomed and sold in 2018 by a man she met on the social media site.

Of course Facebook is only embroiled in this case because it supported Congress to pass an anti-trafficking amendment in April 2018. Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, collectively known as SESTA-FOSTA, this attempts to make it easier to prosecute owners and operators of websites that facilitate sex trafficking. This act removed the legal protection for websites that previously meant they couldn't be held responsible for the actions of its members.

After the Houston suit was filed, a Facebook spokesperson said human trafficking is not permitted on the site and staffers report all instances they're informed about to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Of course that simply isn't enough any more, and now they have to proactively stop their website from being used for criminal activity.

The impossibility of preventing such misuse has led to many websites pulling out of anything that may be related to people hooking up for sex, lest they are held responsible for something they couldn't possibly prevent.

But perhaps Facebook has enough money to pay for lawyers who can argue their way out of such hassles.

The Adult Performers Actors Guild is standing up for sex workers who are tired of being banned from Instagram with no explanation.

7th May 2019. See article from vice.com

In related news, adult performers are campaigning against being arbitrarily banned from their accounts by Facebook and Instagram. It seems likely that the social media companies are summarily ejecting users detected to have any connection with people getting together for sex.

As explained above, the social media companies are responsible for anything related to sex trafficking happening on their website. They practically aren't able to discern sex trafficking from consensual sex so the only protection available for internet companies is to ban anyone that might have a connection to sex.

This reality is clearly impacting those effected. A group of adult performers is starting to organize against Facebook and Instagram for removing their accounts without explanation. Around 200 performers and models have included their usernames in a letter to Facebook asking the network to address this issue.

Alana Evans, president of the Adult Performers Actors Guild (APAG), a union that advocates for adult industry professionals' rights, told Vice. There are performers who are being deleted, because they put up a picture of their freshly painted toenails

In an April 22 letter to Facebook, the Adult Performers Actors Guild's legal counsel James Felton wrote:

Over the course of the last several months, almost 200 adult performers have had their Instagrams accounts terminated without explanation. In fact, every day, additional performers reach out to us with their termination stories. In the large majority of instances, her was no nudity shown in the pictures. However, it appears that the accounts were terminated merely because of their status as an adult performer.

Effort to learn the reasons behind the termination have been futile. Performers are asked to send pictures of their names to try to verify that the accounts are actually theirs and not put up by frauds. Emails are sent and there is no reply.

Google is set to roll out a dashboard-like function in its Chrome browser to offer users more control in fending off tracking cookies, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

While Google's new tools are not expected to significantly curtail its ability to collect data itself, it would help the company press its sizable advantage over online-advertising rivals, the newspaper said .

Google has been working on the cookies plan for at least six years, in stops and starts, but accelerated the work after news broke last year that personal data of Facebook users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

The company is mostly targeting cookies installed by profit-seeking third parties, separate from the owner of the website a user is actively visiting, the Journal said.

Apple Inc in 2017 stopped majority of tracking cookies on its Safari browser by default and Mozilla Corp's Firefox did the same a year later.

The Siege of Tel Aviv by Hesh Kestin, a parody novel, had been pulled by its independent publisher, Dzanc Books after a Twitter lynch mob claimed the book to be Islamophobic and racist.

Kestin explained that the publisher had initially stood its ground against the Twitteridiots who attacked it, but later buckled under pressure.

The book had earlier been endorsed by some big names including Stephen King who said it was scarier than anything he ever wrote, but also that:

An irrepressible sense of humor runs through it ... it's stuff like the cross-dressing pilot (my favorite character) and any number of deliciously absurd situations (the pink jets). It's the inevitable result of an eye that sees the funny side, even in horror. So few writers have that. This novel will cause talk and controversy. Most of all, it will be read.

The book's promotional material reads:

Iran leads five armies in a brutal victory over Israel, which ceases to exist. Within hours, its leaders are rounded up and murdered, the IDF is routed, and the country's six million Jews concentrated in Tel Aviv, which becomes a starving ghetto. While the US and the West sit by, Israel's enemies prepare to kill off the entire population.

On the eve of genocide, Tel Aviv makes one last attempt to save itself, as an Israeli businessman, a gangster, and a cross-dressing fighter pilot put together a daring plan to counterattack. Will it succeed?

It seems to have been the promotional material that was the basis for the Twitterstorm. Writer Nathan Goldman Goldman said that as soon as he read the marketing copy of the book -- he says he has not read the book in its entirety-- he knew the racist rhetoric it was implying.

Emmy Award-winning poet Tariq Luthun, who also engaged in the Twitter conversation, said that he doesn't know the writer's specific ideologies, but what he read in the description and the excerpt available online goes beyond Islamophobia.

Steve Gillis, co-founder of Dzanc Books, apologised.

If an error has been committed, it is not in our intent, but in the failure to consider how readers might perceive the novel. It was my own blindness, and reading the novel as a parody, which has me so troubled now.

The Saatchi Gallery in London has censored works featuring an Islamic declaration of faith after complaints from Muslim visitors who claimed the artworks were blasphemous.

The Gallery is hosting an exhibition of new material by the artist SKU featuring a variety of works. However, it decided to censor the two 'offending' paintings that incorporated the text of the shahada, juxtaposed with images of a partially nude women with the background of a stylised US flag .

SKU suggested that the works should remain on the gallery wall but be covered up with sheets. He told the Sunday Times that it seemed a respectful solution that enables a debate about freedom of expression versus the perceived right not to be offended.

The Saatchi Gallery told the newspaper it fully supported freedom of artistic expression ...[BUT]... The gallery also recognises the sincerity of the complaints made against these works and supported the artist's decision to cover them until the end of the exhibition.

Offsite Comment: We must have the right to blaspheme against Islam

See article from spiked-online.com by Brendan O'Neil

The Saatchi Gallery's covering up of two Islamophobic paintings is an outrage.

PlayerUnknown's Battleground is a 2017 South Korea Battle Royale by PUBG Corporation

On 11th APril 2019 Nepal Telecommunication Authority directed all ISPs to ban PlayerUnknown's Battleground, commonly known PUBG, following a court order to ban the game. The court claimed that the game was having a negative effect on the behaviour and study of children and youths.

But the Supreme Court of Nepal has now issued an interim order to the government to not ban the popular online game.

The court observed that PUBG was basically a game used by the general public for entertainment. Since press freedom and freedom of expression are guaranteed by the constitution, it is necessary to prove that such bans are just, fair and reasonable, and the actions of the authorities concerned are wise and logical, the bench stated in its order. The SC observed that the ban imposed by Kathmandu District Court on April 10 was not reasonable.

Memories of My Body is a 2018 Indonesia drama by Garin Nugroho.
Starring Muhammad Khan, Raditya Evandra and Rianto.

In Center Java Juno, a pre-teen abandoned by his father, joins a Lengger dance centre where men assume feminine appearances but the political and social upheaval in Indonesia forces him on the road, meeting remarkable people on his journey.

Muslim groups in Indonesia are calling for a ban on the film Memories of My Body, a drama from the country's best-known art house director, Garin Nugroho. The groups claim that the film is sexually deviant and promotes LGBT values.

The film depicts the story of a young man from a dance troupe that performs Lengger Lanang, a folk dance from central Java that is usually performed in pairs, and in which men often take both male and female roles.

Memories of My Body premiered in the Venice Film Festival's Horizon section, where it won the prize for best film. The success was repeated at several other festivals.

The film encountered problems in Indonesia following its release on April 18. After being given a 17+ rating by the censorship board (LSF), the film was given a 40-screen release.

In less than a week, the film was banned by local officials in regions including Depok and Palembang. Others called on the powerful assembly of Muslim elders known as the Indonesian Ulema Council to move against the film. Arovah Windiani, a spokeswoman for the council said that, from a moral perspective, the film should not be out there.

A backlash against the film was further fanned on social media. An online petition calling for Memories of My Body to be banned  gained 160,000 signatures.

On Monday, the Muslim elders' council demanded that the censorship board change the film's certification to 21+, and recommended that Nugroho re-edit the film to make its meaning less ambiguous.

Nugroho has refused to revise the film and told Variety that he opposes mob justice.

With screenings banned in five provinces, the film is now playing on just three screens across the country.

Update: Dancers attacked by a religious mob?

5th May 2019. See article from scmp.com

In related news a religious mob has attacked dancers at an Indonesian event.

Members of a Malay youth paramilitary organisation, justified the attack by claiming the dance was vulgar. They also said that the wearing of tight shirts by male dancers from Tanjungpura University who were dancing femininely was not compatible with Indonesian culture.

A university lecturer and three students fell victim to the mob as they were celebrating World Dance Day in the Indonesian city of Pontianak last week.

The EFF has written an impassioned article about the ineffectiveness of censorship of anti-vax information as a means of convincing people that vaccinations are the right things for their kids.

But before presenting the EFF case, I read a far more interesting article suggesting that the authorities are on totally the wrong track anyway. And that no amount of blocking anti-vax claims. or bombarding people with true information, is going to make any difference.

The article suggests that many anti-vaxers don't actually believe that vaccines cause autism anyway, so censorship of negative info and pushing of positive info won't work because people know that already. Thomas Baekdal explains:

What makes a parent decide not to vaccinate their kids? One reason might be an economic one. In the US (in particular), healthcare comes at a very high cost, and while there are ways to vaccinate kids cheaper (or even for free), people in the US are very afraid of engaging too much with the healthcare system.

So as journalists, we need to focus on that instead, because it's highly likely that many people who make this decision do so because they worry about their financial future. In other words, not wanting to vaccinate their kids might be an excuse that they cling to because of financial concerns.

Perhaps it is the same with denying climate change. Perhaps it is not the belief in the science of climate change that is the reason for denial. Perhaps it is more that people find the solutions unpalatable. Perhaps they don't want to support climate change measures simply because they don't fancy being forced to become vegetarian and don't want to be priced off the road by green taxes.

Anyway the EFF have been considering the difficulties faced by social media companies trying to convince anti-vaxers by censorship and by force feeding them 'the correct information'. The EFF writes:

With measles cases on the rise for the first time in decades and anti-vaccine (or anti-vax) memes spreading like wildfire on social media, a number of companies--including Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, and GoFundMe --recently banned anti-vax posts.

But censorship cannot be the only answer to disinformation online. The anti-vax trend is a bigger problem than censorship can solve. And when tech companies ban an entire category of content like this, they have a history of overcorrecting and censoring accurate, useful speech --or, even worse, reinforcing misinformation with their policies. That's why platforms that adopt categorical bans must follow the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation to ensure that users are notified when and about why their content has been removed, and that they have the opportunity to appeal.

Many intermediaries already act as censors of users' posts, comments, and accounts , and the rules that govern what users can and cannot say grow more complex with every year. But removing entire categories of speech from a platform does little to solve the underlying problems.

Tech companies and online platforms have other ways to address the rapid spread of disinformation, including addressing the algorithmic megaphone at the heart of the problem and giving users control over their own feeds.

Anti-vax information is able to thrive online in part because it exists in a data void in which available information about vaccines online is limited, non-existent, or deeply problematic. Because the merit of vaccines has long been considered a decided issue, there is little recent scientific literature or educational material to take on the current mountains of disinformation. Thus, someone searching for recent literature on vaccines will likely find more anti-vax content than empirical medical research supporting vaccines.

Censoring anti-vax disinformation won't address this problem. Even attempts at the impossible task of wiping anti-vax disinformation from the Internet entirely will put it beyond the reach of researchers, public health professionals, and others who need to be able to study it and understand how it spreads.

In a worst-case scenario, well-intentioned bans on anti-vax content could actually make this problem worse. Facebook, for example, has over-adjusted in the past to the detriment of legitimate educational health content: A ban on overly suggestive or sexually provocative ads also caught the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy in its net.

Platforms must address one of the root causes behind disinformation's spread online: the algorithms that decide what content users see and when. And they should start by empowering users with more individualized tools that let them understand and control the information they see.

Algorithms like Facebook's Newsfeed or Twitter's timeline makes decisions about which news items, ads, and user-generated content to promote and which to hide. That kind of curation can play an amplifying role for some types of incendiary content, despite the efforts of platforms like Facebook to tweak their algorithms to disincentivize or downrank it. Features designed to help people find content they'll like can too easily funnel them into a rabbit hole of disinformation .

That's why platforms should examine the parts of their infrastructure that are acting as a megaphone for dangerous content and address that root cause of the problem rather than censoring users.

The most important parts of the puzzle here are transparency and openness. Transparency about how a platform's algorithms work, and tools to allow users to open up and create their own feeds, are critical for wider understanding of algorithmic curation, the kind of content it can incentivize, and the consequences it can have. Recent transparency improvements in this area from Facebook are encouraging, but don't go far enough.

Users shouldn't be held hostage to a platform's proprietary algorithm. Instead of serving everyone one algorithm to rule them all and giving users just a few opportunities to tweak it, platforms should open up their APIs to allow users to create their own filtering rules for their own algorithms. News outlets, educational institutions, community groups, and individuals should all be able to create their own feeds, allowing users to choose who they trust to curate their information and share their preferences with their communities.

Censorship by tech giants must be rare and well-justified . So when a company does adopt a categorical ban, we should ask: Can the company explain what makes that category exceptional? Are the rules to define its boundaries clear and predictable, and are they backed up by consistent data? Under what conditions will other speech that challenges established consensus be removed?

Beyond the technical nuts and bolts of banning a category of speech, disinformation also poses ethical challenges to social media platforms. What responsibility does a company have to prevent the spread of disinformation on its platforms? Who decides what does or does not qualify as misleading or inaccurate? Who is tasked with testing and validating the potential bias of those decisions?

The BBFC has re-iterated that its Age Verification certification scheme does not allow for personal data to be used for another purpose beyond age verification. In particular age verification should not be coupled with electronic wallets.

Presumably this is intended to prevent personal date identifying porn users to be dangerously stored in databases use for other purposes.

In passing, this suggests that there may be commercial issues as age verification systems for porn may not be reusable for age verification for social media usage or identity verification required for online gambling. I suspect that several AV providers are only interested in porn as a way to get established for social media age verification.

This BBFC warning may be of particular interest to users of the porn site xHamster. The preferred AV option for that website is the electronic wallet 1Account.

The BBFC write in a press release:

The Age-verification Regulator under the UK's Digital Economy Act, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), has advised age-verification providers that they will not be certified under the Age-verification Certificate (AVC) if they use a digital wallet in their solution.

The AVC is a voluntary, non-statutory scheme that has been designed specifically to ensure age-verification providers maintain high standards of privacy and data security. The AVC will ensure data minimisation, and that there is no handover of personal information used to verify an individual is over 18 between certified age-verification providers and commercial pornography services. The only data that should be shared between a certified AV provider and an adult website is a token or flag indicating that the consumer has either passed or failed age-verification.

Murray Perkins, Policy Director for the BBFC, said:

A consumer should be able to consider that their engagement with an age-verification provider is something temporary.

In order to preserve consumer confidence in age-verification and the AVC, it was not considered appropriate to allow certified AV providers to offer other services to consumers, for example by way of marketing or by the creation of a digital wallet. The AVC is necessarily robust in order to allow consumers a high level of confidence in the age-verification solutions they choose to use.

Accredited providers will be indicated by the BBFC's green AV symbol, which is what consumers should look out for. Details of the independent assessment will also be published on the BBFC's age-verification website, ageverificationregulator.com, so consumers can make an informed choice between age-verification providers.

The Standard for the AVC imposes limits on the use of data collected for the purpose of age-verification, and sets out requirements for data minimisation.

The AVC Standard has been developed by the BBFC and NCC Group - who are experts in cyber security and data protection - in cooperation with industry, with the support of government, including the National Cyber Security Centre and Chief Scientific Advisors, and in consultation with the Information Commissioner's Office. In order to be certified, AV Providers will undergo an on-site audit as well as a penetration test.

Further announcements will be made on AV Providers' certification under the scheme ahead of entry into force on July 15.

Twitter has bannedTommy Robinson and Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin's campaign accounts

Both had already had their personal accounts banned from the platform - but now their campaign accounts are also suspended.

Benjamin, a vlogger who calls himself Sargon of Akkad, was banned from Twitter in 2017 whilst Robinson was permanently banned in March 2018.

In a tweet from the party's official account, Ukip said:

Official UKIP MEP Campaign account @CarlUkip, of which Carl Benjamin has no access to has been suspended from Twitter. This is election interference, and UKIP will get to the bottom of this.

And Ukip defended Benjamin as a YouTube entertainer fighting political correctness - before telling the Mirror: He will remain on the UKIP ticket.

Offsite Comment: Twitter's outrageous meddling in British democracy

4th May 2019. See article from spiked-online.com by Brendan O'Neill

Twitter's outrageous meddling in British democracy

In banning Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin, Twitter is behaving like a corporate dictator.

Verizon Communications is looking to sell Tumblr, the free blogging platform it acquired when it bought Yahoo in 2015.

Any deal is unlikely to be for a price anywhere near the $1.1 billion that Yahoo paid for Tumblr back in 2013. Yahoo wrote down the website's value by $230 million three years later, and Tumblr's popularity has faded in recent years.

Tumblr took a major hit in the first quarter of the year after it banned Not Safe For Work content from its platform. Its daily visitors dropped by 30% between December 2018 and March 2019, according to the Verge .

Following the news, Pornhub has shown an interesting in acquiring Tumblr. Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said in an email to BuzzFeed News that the porn-streaming giant is extremely interested in buying Tumblr, the once uniquely horny hub for young women and queer people that banned adult content last December to the disappointment of many of its users.

Price said that restoring Tumblr's NSFW edge would be central to their acquisition of it, were it to actually happen.

The BBC says a rap song broadcast on Asian Network and Radio 1 did not meet its editorial standards and will not be played again.

The track, Chaabian Boyz by Frenzo Harami, has been accused of glamorising sexual exploitation, for lyrics which refer to profiting from a prostitution ring. Harami rapped:

I got 20 white girls... laying on their backs for P [money]

The song received limited plays on late-night shows hosted by Kan D Man and Bobby Friction, who described it as proper grimy, grimy, grimy. Although it was edited to remove swearing, the rest of the lyrical content apparently went unchecked.

In a statement, the BBC said:

A version of the track which did not meet our editorial standards was played on Asian Network produced shows, in error.

The song will not be played on any future shows.

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt declared that the Russian government-owned propaganda channel RT to be a weapon of disinformation in a speech to mark World Press Freedom Day.

The UK government is particularly annoyed at the channel for repeatedly deflecting blame from Russia for the poisoning attack in Salisbury.

Hunt noted that the Kremlin came up with over 40 separate narratives to explain that incident which RT broadcast to the world.

The foreign secretary said it remained a matter for Ofcom to independently decide whether the station should be closed down. At the end of last year RT was found guilty of seven breaches of the British broadcasting code in relation to programmes broadcast in the aftermath of the Salisbury novichok poisoning .

TV censor Ofcom has yet to announce sanctions for the breaches of the code.

It seems bizarre that the government should let the TV censor determine sanctions when these could have serious diplomatic consequences. Surely it is the government that should be leading the censorship of interference by a foreign power.

Hunt seems to have been doing a bit of anti-British propaganda himself. In a press release ahead of the speech he seemed to suggest that Britain and the west have fragile democracies. In the news release Hunt states:

Russia in the last decade very disappointingly seemed to have embarked on a foreign policy where their principal aim is to sow confusion and division and destabilise fragile democracies.

New Zealand's major media organisations have pledged not to mention white supremacist ideology when covering the trial of the man charged with killing 50 people at two mosques. The five organisations that signed the agreement said they were aware that accused gunman Brenton Tarrant might try to use the trial as a platform to promote white supremacist or terrorist views.

The organisations said the commitment extended excluding coverage of Tarrant's manifesto and any symbolic images. That clause came after Tarrant made a hand gesture at his first court appearance, which is sometimes associated with white supremacists.

The trial will likely get underway next year.

Russia took another step toward government control over the internet on Thursday, as lawmakers approved a bill that will open the door to sweeping censorship.

The legislation is designed to route web traffic through servers controlled by Roskomnadzor, the state communications censor, increasing its power to control information and block messaging or other applications.

It also provides for Russia to create its own system of domain names that would allow the internet to continue operating within the country, even if it were cut off from the global web.

The bill is expected to receive final approval before the end of the month. Once signed into law by Putin, the bulk of it will go into effect on Nov. 1.

Update: Signed into law

2nd May 2019. See article from washingtonpost.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a measure expands government censorship control over the Russian internet.

The law, signed Wednesday, requires ISPs to install equipment to route Russian internet traffic through servers in the country. Proponents said it is a defense measure in case the United States or other hostile powers cut off the internet for Russia.

Based on the results of an investigation by Privacy International, one of Europe's key data protection authorities has opened an inquiry into Quantcast, a major player in the online tracking industry.

The Irish Data Protection Commission has now opened statutory inquiry into Quantcast International Limited. The organisation writes:

Since the application of the GDPR significant concerns have been raised by individuals and privacy advocates concerning the conduct of technology companies operating in the online advertising sector and their compliance with the GDPR. Arising from a submission to the Data Protection Commission by Privacy International, a statutory inquiry pursuant to section 110 of the Data Protection Action 2018 has been commenced in respect of Quantcast International Limited. The purpose of the inquiry is to establish whether the company's processing and aggregating of personal data for the purposes of profiling and utilising the profiles generated for targeted advertising is in compliance with the relevant provisions of the GDPR. The GDPR principle of transparency and retention practices will also be examined.

The House of Lords saw a pre-legislation debate about the governments Online Harms white paper. Peers from all parties queued up to add their praise for internet censorship. And don't even think that maybe the LibDems may be a little more appreciative of free speech and a little less in favour of state censorship. Don't dream! all the lords that spoke were gagging for it...censorship that is.

And support for the internet censorship in the white paper wasn't enough. Many of the speakers presumed to add on their own pet ideas for even more censorship.

I did spot one piece of information that was new to me. It seems that the IWF have extended their remit to include cartoon child porn as material they work against.

Elspeth Howe said during the debate:

I am very pleased that, since the debates at the end of last year, the Internet Watch Foundation has adopted a new non-photographic images policy and URL block list, so that websites that contain these images can be blocked by IWF members. It allows for network blocking of non-photographic images to be applied to filtering solutions, and it can prevent pages containing non-photographic images being shown in online search engine results. In 2017, 3,471 reports of alleged non-photographic images of child sexual abuse were made to the IWF; the figure for 2018 was double that, at 7,091 alleged reports. The new IWF policy was introduced only in February, so it is early days to see whether this will be a success. The IWF is unable to remove content unless that content originates in the UK, which of course is rare. The IWF offers this list on a voluntary basis, not a statutory basis as would occur under the Digital Economy Act. Can the Minister please keep the House informed about the success of the new policy and, if necessary, address the loopholes in the legislative proposal arising from this White Paper?

Anyway read the full debate from hansard.parliament.uk

Are you UK internet censorship ready? NordVPN

The ASA has banned an advert for the extra security provided by VPNs in response to 9 complainants objecting to the characterisation of the internet as dangerous place full of hackers and fraudsters.

It is not as if the claims are 'offensive' or anything, so these are unlikely to be complaints from the public. One has to suspect that the authorities really don't want people to get interested in VPNs lest they evade website blocking and internet surveillance.

Anyway the ASA writes:

A TV ad for NordVPN seen on 9 January 2019. The ad began with a man walking down a train cubicle. Text on screen appeared that stated Name: John Smith. A man's voice then said, Look it's me, giving out my credit card details. The ad then showed the man handing his credit card to passengers on the train. On-screen text appeared that stated Credit card number 1143 0569 7821 9901. CVV/CVC 987. The ad then cut to another shot of the man showing other passengers his phone. The man's voice said, Sharing my password with strangers. On-screen text stated Password: John123. The ad then cut to a shot of the man taking a photo of himself with a computer generated character. The man's voice said, Being hackers' best friend. The ad then cut to the man looking down the corridor of the carriage as three computer generated characters walked towards him. The man's voice then said, Your sensitive online data is just as open to snoopers on public WiFi. The man then pulled out his phone, which showed his security details again. The voice said, Connect to Nord VPN. Help protect your privacy and enjoy advanced internet security. On-screen text stated Advanced security. 6 devices. 30-day money-back guarantee. The ad cut to show the computer generated characters disappear as the man appeared to use the NordVPN app on his phone.

Nine complainants challenged whether the ad exaggerated the extent to which users were at risk from data theft without their service. Response

ASA Assessment: Complaints Upheld

The ASA noted that the ad showed the character John Smith walking around a train, handing out personal information including credit card details and passwords to passengers while he stated he was being hackers' best friend. The character then said Your sensitive online data is just as open to snoopers on public WiFi. Based on that, we considered consumers would understand that use of public WiFi connections would make them immediately vulnerable to hacking or phishing attempts by virtue of using those connections. Therefore NordVPN needed to demonstrate that using public networks posed such a risk.

With regards to the software, we acknowledged that the product was designed to add an additional layer of encryption beyond the HTTPS encryption which already existed on public WiFi connections to provide greater security from threats on public networks.

We noted the explanations from NordVPN and Clearcast that public networks presented security risks and that the use of HTTPS encryption, which was noticeable from the use of a padlock in a user's internet browser, did not in all circumstances indicate that a connection was completely secure.

However, while we acknowledged that such data threats could exist we considered the overwhelming impression created by the ad was that public networks were inherently insecure and that access to them was akin to handing out security information voluntarily. As acknowledged by NordVPN, we understood that HTTPS did provide encryption to protect user data so therefore, while data threats existed, data was protected by a significant layer of security.

Therefore, because the ad created the impression that users were at significant risk from data theft, when that was not the case, we concluded it was misleading.

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Tefincom SA t/a NordVPN not to exaggerate the risk of data theft without using their service.

Avengers: Endgame is a 2019 USA action Sci-Fi fantasy by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.
Starring Brie Larson, Robert Downey Jr and Karen Gillan.

The grave course of events set in motion by Thanos that wiped out half the universe and fractured the Avengers ranks compels the remaining Avengers to take one final stand in Marvel Studios' grand conclusion to twenty-two films, Avengers: Endgame.

The Russian release of Avengers: Endgame features some tweaked dialogue in an early scene to straighten out Marvel's first gay character. The censorship was intended to avoid conflicts with Russia's ban on so-called gay propaganda.

[ Spoilers! hover or click text below]

Early in the movie, one of the two Russo brothers plays a gay character who attends a support group with Steve Rogers (Captain America). The scene is brief but it marks the first time an openly gay character has appeared in a Marvel film. The gay character says:

So, I went on a date the other day. First time in five years. He cried as they were serving the salad. [...] But I'm seeing him again tomorrow.

In the dubbed Russian version, Joe Russo's character says:

I was recently at dinner. First time in five years. [...] He cried over a plate of salad. [...] Tomorrow I'm meeting him again.

Netherlands-based publishing house Brill recently ended its distribution agreement with a Chinese state-run publisher, after the latter was found to have censored out a paper submitted to one of its journals

In a statement published on its website on April 25, Brill announced it would no longer partner with China's Higher Education Press to distribute four of its journals to customers outside China, effective in 2020.

The Dutch publishing house didn't provide an explanation for its decision.