According to the Code, the four companies do not need to check if the content they delete is illegal or not.
Quotes
Call for Facebook transparency
The letter called on Facebook to make publicly accessible its guidelines for censoring content. Specifically, the groups want Facebook to reveal the technical and policy details about the company’s internal system for handling censorship requests on individual pieces of content from law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and other government entities. It also urged Facebook to create a public appeal platform for users to contest content removals, institute a blanket policy of only turning over user data to governments when required to do so by the force of law, and undergo an external audit of its content- and data-sharing polices.
The Daily Dot: Over 70 activists groups call on Mark Zuckerberg to reveal Facebook’s censorship policies »
No, CETA is NOT approved yet
The European Parliament:
However, Parliament will still need to approve it before it can ultimately enter into force. The international trade committee is set to vote on the trade deal in December and then all MEPs will still have to vote on it during a plenary session. If approved, CETA could already enter into force next year.
Interesting… and a bit scary
Google Brain has created two artificial intelligences that evolved their own cryptographic algorithm to protect their messages from a third AI, which was trying to evolve its own method to crack the AI-generated crypto. The study was a success: the first two AIs learnt how to communicate securely from scratch.
Ars Technica: Google AI invents its own cryptographic algorithm; no one knows how it works »
UK to search engines: Stop illegal file sharing, or else…
Proposed amendments to the UK’s Digital Economy Bill have revealed a desire by some MPs to force search engines to tackle piracy. A new clause would require search engines to come to a voluntary arrangement with rightsholders, or face being forced into one by the government.
TorrentFreak: UK Considers Fines to Force Search Engines to Tackle Piracy »
Fingerprints are not passwords
Biometrics were never authentication tokens. They were identity tokens. Authentication tokens are secret and replaceable, and your fingerprints (your retina, your iris, and so on) are neither.
When you authenticate something even slightly sensitive with biometrics, you’re doing it wrong.
The right way to do it is to identify with biometrics, and then authenticate with a proper security token, which is secret.
Falkvinge: Once more, with passion: Fingerprints suck as passwords »
Rule of law or private censorship?
But what do we do when the same threats aren’t the result of a law or the practices of an individual company, but the result of a private industry agreement? For example, agreements between copyright holders and Internet companies that give copyright holders the ability to effectively delete users’ content from the Internet, and agreements on other topics such as hateful speech and terrorism that can be used to stifle lawful speech. Unlike laws, such agreements (sometimes also called codes, standard, principles, or guidelines) aren’t developed with public input or accountability. As a result, users who are affected by them are often completely unaware that they even exist.
EFF: Shadow Regulation: the Back-Room Threat to Digital Rights »
Italy opens for arbitrary net censorship
This specific measure will have two consequences: unilateral and arbitrary censorship of content, and a huge power for and pressure on platforms to act without any form of neutral examination. The consequences are unpredictable.
EDRi: Censorship in Italy: Child protection is the excuse again »
ECB vs. Bitcoin
The European Central Bank wants EU lawmakers to tighten proposed new rules on digital currencies such as bitcoin, fearing they might one day weaken its own control over money supply in the euro zone.
Reuters: ECB urges EU to curb virtual money on fear of losing control »
No shit, Sherlock…
The investigatory powers tribunal, which is the only court that hears complaints against MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, said the security services operated secret regimes to collect vast amounts of personal communications data, tracking individual phone and web use and large datasets of confidential personal information, without adequate safeguards or supervision for more than 10 years.
The Guardian: UK security agencies unlawfully collected data for 17 years, court rules »