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Green Party pushing for Facebook censorship in Austrian court case

By on May 8, 2017 in Censorship, Facebook, Free Information, Freedom of Speech

Facebook is having a hard time lately amid claims of fake news, political bias and sexism. The European Union considered legislation to encourage a more unified response to such postings and Germany supports fines for social networks that ignore hate speech. Similarly, today an Austrian appeals court ruled that Facebook must delete hate postings written about the leader of the country’s Green party — and not just in Austria.

The original case was filed by the Austrian political party last December around posts written by a fake profile that called MP Eva Glawischnig a “rotten traitor” and a “corrupt tramp.” The Green party alleges that Facebook had not removed the posts after several requests to do so.

Rotten traitor and corrupt tramp… Are such statements really across the red line nowadays?

Engadget: Austria orders Facebook to delete hate postings »

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Stephen Fry to be charged with blasphemy?

By on May 7, 2017 in Censorship, Civil rights, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech

This one will have our full attention.

Police in the Republic of Ireland have launched an investigation after a viewer claimed comments made by Stephen Fry on a TV show were blasphemous.

The alleged crime…

Fry said: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery? It’s not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”

He went on to say that Greek gods “didn’t present themselves as being all seeing, all wise, all beneficent”, adding “the god who created this universe, if it was created by god, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish”.

The law prohibits people from publishing or uttering “matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion”.

Really? Not even if it´s objectively true or scientifically proved? What does »grossly abusive« even mean? Exactly what? Who can predict the whats and the whys, when it comes to why people go bananas? What is »a substantial number«? 17, a lot or most?

And why shouldn’t we be allowed to criticize religion? It makes claims about how things should be done and organized in society – so, we must be allowed to criticize and even mock it.

BBC: Stephen Fry faces blasphemy probe after God comments »

Update, The Independent: Irish police drop Stephen Fry blasphemy investigation due to ‘lack of outraged people’ »

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EU AVMSD: It’s not censorship to censor legal content

By on April 27, 2017 in AVMSD, Big Brother, Censorship, Civil rights, EU, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Rule of law, social media

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

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German social media law under fire

By on April 21, 2017 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Germany, social media

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 »

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EU to regulate animated GIFs and morality of Youtube content

By on April 19, 2017 in Censorship, EU, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Internet

The current proposal, which proposes even more obligations on video-sharing platforms, is horribly contradictory and unclear. It does contain, however, a reasonable amount of comedy, which is an innovation for the EU institutions. For example, this legislation on “audiovisual” content covers, on the basis of Parliament compromise amendments, “a set of moving images”, which would cover, for example, an animated GIF. (…)

On a more serious note, the proposal requires badly defined video-sharing platforms to take measures to protect children from content that would harm their “physical, mental or moral development” (“moral” added by the Parliament to various new parts of the Directive). This involves measures to restrict (undefined) legal content.

EDRi on the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD): AVMS Directive – censorship by coercive comedy confusion »

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Facebook gearing up for French presidential elections

By on April 16, 2017 in Censorship, Democracy, disinformation, France, Free Information, Freedom of Speech

Facebook says it has targeted 30,000 fake accounts linked to France ahead of the country’s presidential election, as part of a worldwide effort against misinformation.

The company said Thursday it’s trying to “reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts.”

It said its efforts “enabled us to take action” against the French accounts and that it is removing sites with the highest traffic.

ABC News: Facebook targets 30,000 fake France accounts before election »

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A free and open society?

By on April 10, 2017 in Big Brother, Big Government, Censorship, Civil rights, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Human rights, War on Terror

Once again, a senseless terror attack.

Once again, politicians are telling us that we must stand up for a free and open society.

Of course we must. But do they?

Western democracy is slowly being hollowed out. It’s getting ever more secretive and less transparent. Power is being centralized and is moving further away from the people. It is getting ever more difficult to participate in and to scrutinize the decision-making process. Free citizens are being reduced to subordinates.

Civil and human rights are being eroded – e.g. when it comes to the rule of law and the right to privacy.

Free speech is being curbed, the Internet is being censored and people are being told what to think. The so-called fake news is being fought by trying to limit free information instead of giving people more, different sources.

Of course, terrorists and religious fanatics are very real threats to a free and open society. But so are our politicians.

/ HAX

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Freedom of expression under attack in Germany

By on April 6, 2017 in Big Brother, Censorship, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Germany, Rule of law, social media

Minister Maas has proposed the law which places a variety of obligations on the companies, in the apparent hope that this will lead profit-motivated companies to take over private censorship measures. Following years of deletions of perfectly legal content by, for example, Facebook, Minister Maas seems to believe that this will lead to outcomes that are appropriate in a democratic society based on the rule of law. (…)

Another addition to the draft law is a procedure to prohibit the distribution of pornography. The effects on group chats, such as WhatsApp which might also be affected by the law, depending on the scope, will be interesting as partially public exchanges of legal content such as pornography would suddenly become the focus of deletions. (…)

In total, 24 criminal offences have been added to the latest draft, including counterfeiting and fake news for the purpose of treason against the nation, defamation of the state and its symbols, as well as insults to the Federal President.

EDRi: Reckless social media law threatens freedom of expression in Germany »

Zerohedge: Germany Passes Bill To Fine FaceBook, Twitter Up To $50MM For “Fake News” »

Related, EU Observer: Germany calls for EU laws on hate speech and fake news »

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EU censorship of social media launched

By on April 6, 2017 in Censorship, Democracy, EU, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Rule of law, social media

A database set up jointly by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube aims to identify “terrorist and radicalising” content automatically and to remove it from these platforms. (…)

It appears that no research whatsoever has been done on the likely impact of this initiative, including no review mechanisms on its impact and no way of establishing whether the initiative has counter-productive effects. (…)

The role of judicial and law enforcement authorities in this process has, unsurprisingly, not been mentioned.

EDRi: Social media companies launch upload filter to combat “terrorism and extremism” »

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