Category: Big Brother
Big Brother is not amused
The annual German Big Brother Awards were bestowed by EDRi member Digitalcourage on 5 May 2017 in Bielefeld, Germany. The event drew much media attention, as one of the awardees threatened the organiser with legal action. (…)
The awardee in the “Politics” category was the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB). Imams at DİTİB – with ties to the Turkish government and its secret service MİT – are said to have conducted political espionage on DİTİB members and visitors, exposing them to persecution by the Turkish state.
EDRi » BBA Germany 2017: Espionage, threats, tracking, provoking cyber wars »
UK: AI to decide who gets bail
Get arrested in Durham, England, and artificial intelligence could help decide whether you’re held in custody or sent home—but it’s not yet clear if the algorithm is more accurate than police officers when it comes to assessing whether someone is likely to reoffend.
So, basically, if someone will be detained or not is to be decided by the behavior of others.
Vice Motherboard: An AI Will Decide Which Criminals in the UK Get Bail »
US to demand social media handles (for some) when applying for visa
US demands to get access to some travelers social media handles has been in force at border controls for some time now. The latest is that this also will apply at visa applications, but still not for all.
Affected applicants would have to provide their social media handles and platforms used during the previous five years, and divulge all phone numbers and email addresses used during that period. U.S. consular officials would not seek social media passwords, and would not try to breach any privacy controls on applicants’ accounts, according to the department’s notice.
Phys.org: US to seek social media details from certain visa applicants »
The Global War on Cash
We highly recommend this infographic: The Global War on Cash »
Snowden & Doctorow on the future
Turkey blocks Wikipedia
This morning, Turkey decided to censor the entire Wikipedia in all its editions. Work is ongoing by local activists to establish the exact technical scope.
Falkvinge: Wikipedia censored from the Internet in Turkey: Government rejects the world’s reality and substitutes its own »
EU AVMSD: It’s not censorship to censor legal content
The EU is in the process of updating the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD).
As one could expect, this opens the floodgates when it comes to regulating and censoring content such as video (and even animated GIF:s) on a number of platforms. This includes otherwise legal content.
Today the EU E-Commerce Directive gives service providers and platforms some reasonable protection. EDRi explains…
That Directive protects freedom of expression by ensuring that internet companies are not unduly incentivised to delete content. It does so by limiting liability to situations where they fail to act diligently upon receipt of a notice of the illegality of the content in question.
But with the revised AVMSD things might change…
The Council and the Parliament want a wide variety of content to be regulated – anything that (based on the wisdom of the provider, in the first instance) might impact the physical, mental and moral development of minors. At the same time, video-sharing and (some) social media platforms are expected to restrict content that is an “incitement to violence or hatred” by reference, for example, to sex, racial or ethnic origin, disability, age, or sexual orientation.
The content that the providers will be required to regulate is not, or not necessarily, illegal. As a result, it is argued that this privatised regulation of freedom of expression does not breach the E-Commerce Directive, because the obligation is to regulate content. In short, restriction of legal content is not a breach of rules that cover illegal content.
So… according to EU logic, it’s not censorship if you censor legal content?
The Council also wants video-sharing and social media platforms to regulate live-streamed video.
This revision is turning into a mess. And for once it’s not the copyright industry that is pushing the changes. It’s politicians – aiming to regulate what you can or cannot say (or even joke about).
If this becomes law, platforms like Youtube and Facebook will have to introduce new terms and conditions narrowing down the scope of what is acceptable for users to upload. Doing so, they most certainly will be overly cautious – to stay on the safe side when it comes to EU regulation.
It all boils down to the EU – once again – pushing private companies to use their terms and conditions to limit in other ways legal free speech.
EDRi: AVMS Directive: It isn’t censorship if the content is mostly legal, right? »
/ HAX
German social media law under fire
Professor Schulz criticises the fact that the draft law covers a range of different types of offences, making it difficult to assess its necessity as a means of restricting freedom of speech. More damningly, he points to the key assumptions on which the law is based, arguing that they have been abandoned “for a long time”. Furthermore, he argues that “there are many effective ways of addressing fake news or hateful speech” that should be [implicitly, were not] taken into account to minimise potential negative effects on freedom of speech”.
EDRi: German Social Media law – sharp criticism from leading legal expert »
GNI: Proposed German Legislation Threatens Free Expression Around the World »
EDRi on data mining
Did Donald Trump become president because he hired the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which uses profiling and micro-targeting in political elections? Some say yes, many say no. But what we know is that we are subjected to extensive personalised commercial and political messaging on the basis of data, including metadata, collected and used without our awareness and consent. It can result in changes in our behaviour, at least to some extent.
EDRi: Data mining for profit and election result – how predictable are we? »