Venture Beat Reporter Abuses DMCA To Silence A Critic

Copyright

from the it's-about-ethics-in-dmca-takedowns dept

Remember when people kept insisting that the DMCA was never used for censorship? Yeah, about that. Last week, we were alerted to how a reporter from VentureBeat/Gamesbeat by the name of Jeffrey Grubb had sent a DMCA notice for screenshots on a tweet by Jake Magee, who tweets under the account PhoxelHQ. Magee had taken a few screenshots of an article by Grubb and put up a tweet criticizing it. This is quintessential fair use, whether or not you agreed with Magee.

Apparently Grubb wasn’t thrilled about Magee adding some commentary to Grubb’s game review, and did what any reasonable adult would do: run to the DMCA to shut up a critic:

I have a bunch of concerns about this — starting with the fact that unless VentureBeat gives its staffers their own copyrights, this is quite likely copyfraud, as the copyright would likely belong to VentureBeat, and Grubb is falsely claiming to be the copyright holder. I emailed VentureBeat to ask them who holds the copyright on its articles — the company or the journalists — and got no response. Ditto for my emailed question about whether or not they had any further comment on the situation.

Grubb’s response to all of this has been… bizarre to say the least. He first claimed that he filed the DMCA notice because the screenshots reproduced the article in full. But when Magee pointed out it was actually around 30% of the article, Grubb apologized but only for using the word “entire”, and not for the fraudulent DMCA filing. Separately, Grubb has repeatedly claimed he wouldn’t have sent the DMCA notice if Magee had provided a link to the original article.

While providing a link might have been nice and courteous, it is, in no way, required. The whole point of fair use is that it is, by it’s very nature, permissionless. If you needed permission, that would mean you need a license, and that by definition would mean it’s not fair use. The conditions on fair use are set by the law and not by the copyright holder. If the conditions were set by the copyright holder, there wouldn’t be any fair use at all (and, again, it’s not even clear that Grubb is the copyright holder here!).

What’s striking about the Twitter discussion back and forth between Grubb and Magee is just how much it’s clear that Grubb couldn’t care less that he abused the law to silence someone. He makes repeated flippant and jokey comments about Magee and Magee’s supporters, and his only apology was for falsely claiming that Magee posted the entire article.

If section 512(f) of the Copyright Act had any actual force, Grubb might actually be in some legal hot water for filing a bogus DMCA notice. Lucky for him, the courts have mostly rendered it entirely toothless. Still, it remains incredible how many people see the DMCA as a “censor this thing I don’t like” tool. Copyright is a tool for censorship, and you can argue that some of that censorship is completely reasonable and okay. But as a tool for censorship it is quite frequently abused. And this is just one more example. That it’s being done by a journalist for a well known publication is that much more troubling.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, criticism, dmca, fair use, free speech, jake magee, jeff grubb, takedowns
Companies: twitter, venturebeat

China Outlaws Telling The Truth About Communist Party 'Heroes And Martyrs'

Free Speech

from the no-one-does-Orwell-better dept

China’s participation in the world market tends to portray the country as far more open than it actually is. China’s does have some love for capitalism. Democracy, not so much. There’s not much participation in the marketplace of ideas, thanks to continuous, ever-increasing censorship measures.

Nothing’s going to change in the near future. The sitting president was just rewarded with the title appendage “for life,” thanks to a bought-in (and possibly bought) parliament stripping away term limits earlier this year. Chinese citizens have been rewarded for their enforced loyalty with a government-controlled internet experience and a scoring system that grants/strips perks based on a perverse “morality” algorithm.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, as the adage goes. The Chinese government is ensuring Cultural Revolution reruns by forcing the nation to forget inconvenient facts. A new law now makes it illegal to speak ill of the long-dead.

China’s Communist Party has always understood the importance of policing its history.

On Friday, it tightened the screws further with a new law banning the slander of “heroes and martyrs” — figures drawn from wartime propaganda said to have given their lives in defense of the Communist Party or the nation.

Chinese schoolchildren are taught about the heroic deeds of figures who fought against the Japanese during World War II, or who gave their lives for the Communist Party in the civil war with the Nationalists. Memorials to some of the most famous dot the country.

Now, it will be illegal to suggest that those tales might not be wholly factual.

The rewriting of China’s history will require the involvement of everyone in the country. Beyond a long list of instructions for compulsory celebrations/commemorations at the local government level, there’s also plenty of censorship and compelled speech to be had. Here’s how the media will be used to burnish the reputation of “heroes” and “martyrs.” (All translations via China Law Translate)

Article 18: The departments of culture, press, radio and television, film, Internet information, and so forth, shall encourage and support the production and promotion of excellent literary and artistic works, and radio or television programs, and publications and with the subject of publicizing or carrying forward, the spirit of heroes and martyrs.

Article 19: Radio stations, television stations, newspaper and periodical publishing units, and Internet information service providers shall widely publicize the deeds and spirit of heroes and martyrs by playing or publishing works on the theme of heroes and martyrs, public service advertisements, and special columns.

And here’s what’s forbidden:

The names, likenesses, reputation, and honor of heroes and martyrs are protected by law. The names, likenesses,reputations and honor of heroes and martyrs must not be insulted, defamed, or violated through other means by any person, either in public places, online, or through radio, television, film or publications. The names and likenesses of heroes and martyrs must not be used, or covertly used, by any organization or individual for trademarks or commercial advertisements, damaging the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs.

And this is all tied together with a “see something, say something” program that mandates any attempted slurs of Communist martyrs must be reported to the government immediately and all efforts made to banish it from television screens, newspapers, and the web.

Even historical research must comply with the new law. If historians discover facts that conflict with the official narratives, the facts must go.

Yue Zhongming, a member of the standing committee, said at a news conference that although the law is not intended to restrict academic freedom, it does not give permission to harm the honor of the nation’s heroes.

“We often say there is no banned area of academic research, while there is a bottom line of law,” he said.

China’s history will be nothing more than propaganda. The rest of the world should call it what it is: self-serving bullshit, backed by men with guns doing the bidding of government with no moral compass.

Filed Under: censorship, china, free speech, heroes, martyrs, truth

War Of Words Between Anti-Vaxxers Results In An Unconstitutional Gag Order

Free Speech

from the even-assholes-have-rights dept

Eugene Volokh, the EFF, and several members of First Amendment Clinic students and professors have filed a brief in a case involving an unconstitutional and apparently permanent injunction against an anti-vaxxer. Oddly enough, this injunction is the result of a civil action brought by another anti-vaccination activist. The details leading up to this “shut up” order are a bit convoluted (and explained in full at the Volokh Conspiracy) but the short version is this:

Anti-vaccination activist Kimberly McCauley blogs about her efforts and experiences. This includes frequent mentions of her daughter, who is now apparently being harmed by the state’s vaccination requirements for students.

McCauley sued Matthew Phillips, a lawyer and another anti-vaccination activist. Apparently, Phillips believes McCauley isn’t as anti-vaccination as she could be and has criticized her on Facebook. Phillips has also mentioned McCauley’s daughter in his posts, but McCauley has put her daughter front-and-center in her anti-vaccination crusade.

While there is little doubt Phillips posts are antagonistic and filled with ridiculous conspiracy theories (the words “crisis actor” have been thrown around, along with accusations of shilling for pharmaceutical companies), it would appear the bulk of what he’s posted is still protected speech. McCauley’s full complaint can be read here and it details some disturbing trolling efforts by Phillips. This forms the basis of her request for a civil restraining order [PDF], which was granted, but demands nothing more than Phillips’ silence on the subject of McCauley in perpetuity.

The trial court ordered Todd Phillips not to “post photographs, videos, or information about [Kimberly McCauley] to any internet site and to remove the same from any internet site over which he has access or control.”

This is overbroad and a clear violation of the First Amendment, as Volokh argues in the brief [PDF]. It points out speech can be restricted for a handful of reasons, but this short order does more than deter future harassment. It effectively forbids Phillips from discussing any of his anti-vaccination efforts if they happen to include past (or future!) interactions with McCauley.

To be sure, there are some narrow categories of speech that can be restricted, such as libel and true threats of criminal conduct. And unwanted speech to a particular person can be restricted, which is why telephone harassment laws, for instance, are constitutional. But there is no general exception for opinions and accurate factual claims about a particular person. The injunction is thus an unconstitutional prior restraint.

This would be so even if the injunction simply suppressed purely personal criticisms; but here, the injunction is broad enough to cover a wide range of political advocacy as well, such as:

Phillips’ writing a blog post that criticizes McCauley for her stance on vaccination laws, since any such criticism would necessarily include some “information about” McCauley.

Phillips’ creating a Facebook page for a political campaign that advertises his commitment to anti-vaccination principles by recounting his past exchanges with McCauley.

Phillips’ Tweeting about McCauley as an example of an anti-vaccination activist who has supposedly endangered her family through vaccination.

Phillips’ criticizing McCauley on a Facebook page for seeking this injunction.

Phillips’ criticizing the injunction online for preventing his speaking about McCauley, since such criticism would likewise have to include some information about McCauley.

Phillips’ posting on an anti-vaccination message board that he is subject to this order, and explaining McCauley’s rationale for getting the order, as a way of warning others about the possible consequences of their speech.

As is noted in the brief, speech that’s unpleasant to the target isn’t one of the narrow categories exempted from First Amendment protections. If McCauley finds statements libelous, she’s welcome to sue. If she feels the speech constitutes criminal harassment, she can look to law enforcement for solutions. But what the court should not do is engage in prior restraint, simply because the speech appears to have disturbed the person bringing the complaint.

The brief cites prior Supreme Court decisions upholding speech deployed to ostracize others or coerce people into actions via public shaming. This has been held to be protected even if the target of the speech is a private individual.

Likewise, the inclusion of a minor does not automatically deprive it of First Amendment protections. Certain speech about minors is outside Constitutional coverage (child porn, sexually-themed speech directed at a minor), but what’s covered here doesn’t fall into any of these exceptions. The brief notes several state courts have struck down cyberbullying laws, finding the restrictions enacted to be unconstitutional, even when this speech is directed at minors.

As Volokh sums up, the order expands past the margins of First Amendment exceptions to effectively silence a citizen engaged in subject of great interest to many members of the public.

The injunction in this case bars Phillips from talking about McCauley, his political adversary, in the context of a heated debate on a public matter. It limits his ability to publicly explain his disagreement with her. It limits his ability to argue that she ought not be trusted. Indeed, it even limits his ability to condemn the injunction itself and her role in asking for this injunction.

This isn’t about making sure unpleasant people with shitty debate skills can use Facebook to spread both ignorance and hate. It’s about the fact our nation’s free speech protections cover a whole lot of unpalatable speech. When courts blow calls on the First Amendment, bad things happen. They’re not excusable just because they happened to bad people.

Filed Under: anti-vaccer, injunction, kimberly mccauley, matthew phillips, prior restraint, vaccinations

UN Celebrates World Press Freedom Day By Suppressing Presentation Of Turkey Suppressing Press

Free Speech

from the hello,-ambassador-streisand! dept

Hey, everyone, today is World Press Freedom Day, which is a day created by the UN to “celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom,” to “assess the state of press freedom throughout the world” and to “defend the media from attacks on their independence.” Sounds good, right? So how is the UN itself celebrating World Press Freedom Day? Why, by refusing to allow a presentation to be heard that calls out Turkey for its suppression of press freedom.

For real.

The News Literacy Project — which, as the name suggests, seeks to increase new literacy among students — was all set to do a presentation at the UN’s Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) for World Press Freedom Day. However, just before the event, the UNAOC told NLP that it was “indefinitely postponing” their presentation unless references to the suppression of press freedoms in Turkey were removed. Really.

The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) indefinitely postponed an event at the U.N. tomorrow to observe World Press Freedom Day after the News Literacy Project (NLP) refused UNAOC?s request to remove references in our presentation to several countries where press freedom is limited.

The references are in videos from a new lesson on international press freedoms in our Checkology virtual classroom, which I was planning to introduce at the event. The videos include remarks, written for the lesson by NLP and presented by lesson host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson of NPR, about severe restrictions on press freedom in Turkey, Mexico and Egypt and comments by Russian and Pakistani journalists describing the challenges they face.

NLP submitted the presentation to UNAOC on Monday so it would be ready to be shared with the audience. A UNAOC official then asked us to delete the reference to Turkey ? which, along with Spain, had proposed the creation of UNAOC in 2005 ? and the official later insisted that NLP not share any of the video clips.

Of course, all this is really doing is driving a hell of a lot more attention to (1) the suppression of press freedom in Turkey and (2) the out and out hypocrisy of the UN. We’ve certainly written a bunch about how Turkey has suppressed the media by throwing hundreds of journalists in jail and then calling them terrorists, and it has tried to export its journalist suppression elsewhere, including here in the US.

There are so many stories of Turkey throwing journalists in prison that it’s tough to keep track of them all. And, frankly, most people would have never known about NLP’s presentation, which only appears to mention Turkey’s journalism suppression in passing, had the UN not tried to silence them.

So, it would certainly appear that inadvertently, in trying to stifle any mention of press censorship and intimidation by the Turkish government, the UN has successfully gotten a lot more attention to Turkey’s attacks of press freedom. I guess that makes it a successful World Press Freedom Day… even if it also involved exposing the UN’s own weak backbone on the very topic it claims to be celebrating.

Filed Under: censorship, free speech, journalism, turkey, world press freedom day
Companies: national literacy project, un, united nations

German Politician Decries Censorship, Follows It Up By Suing Facebook To Have A Critical Comment Deleted

Free Speech

from the dirty-AfD-swine dept

Germany’s terrible speech laws continues to be tools for abuse and stupidity. A recently-enacted law holds service providers responsible for lingering “hate speech” to the tune of €50m per violation. Social media companies have shown a tendency to over-enforce, resulting in the preemptive removal of things even the badly-written law doesn’t consider criminally hateful.

Whatever damage social media companies are doing in order to steer clear of massive fines, politicians are compounding by using the law to target opponents and critics. Courthouse News Service reports a German court has indulged a politician’s hypocritical outrage to demand the disappearance of a critical, but hyperbolic, comment posted to Facebook.

A leading German nationalist politician has won a court injunction forcing Facebook to ensure a user’s slur against her can’t be seen in Germany.

In a post, a user had called Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, a “dirty Nazi swine” for reportedly opposing same-sex marriage.

Immediate blocking of the comment occurred in Germany, but Weidel’s lawyers complained it hadn’t been vanished hard enough, pointing out that German VPN users could still access the comment.

The court’s injunction would apparently force Facebook to delete the comment entirely, despite its legality nearly everywhere else in the world. Facebook’s only comment, via Reuters, was to note it had already blocked the content in Germany, which is all the law really requires.

This desperation to remove a comment referring to her as “dirty Nazi swine” is especially rich considering Weidel had previously complained about censorship of another AfD party member. The first collateral damage from the new hate speech law — which occurred less than three days into its existence — nuked a satirical magazine’s mocking of AfD leader Beatrix Van Storch’s anti-Muslim comments. Van Storch was blocked by both Facebook and Twitter for these comments, while the German law took down a satirical bystander. That prompted this response by Weidel and the AfD:

The AfD appears to want to make the new social media law a major issue by testing boundaries and provoking a response from social media companies and law enforcement authorities.

AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel wrote on Facebook and Twitter defending her party colleague and lamenting what she called the “censorship law,” while sharing the text of von Storch’s deleted tweet and repeating her complaints, while referring to “migrant mobs” instead of Muslim men specifically.

I guess Alice Weidel only dislikes government censorship when it targets speech she likes.

Filed Under: alice weidel, censorship, comments, criticism, germany, hate speech, social media

Malaysian 'Fake News' Law Claims Its First Victim

Free Speech

from the badmouthing-law-enforcement?-that's-a-jailin' dept

The Malaysian government got a jump on the rest of the world by being the first to actually enact a “fake news” law. The government had several hundred million good reasons to do so, most them residing in the prime minister’s bank account. Lawmakers cited concern for the public’s well-being, but critics noted the law was just an efficient way for the government to shut down reporting it doesn’t like.

The nation’s Ministry of Truth (a.k.a., the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission) cited free speech champion Donald Trump as the inspiration for this new censorship tool.

“Fake news has become a global phenomenon, but Malaysia is at the tip of the spear in trying to fight it with an anti-fake news law,” said Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, a senior official with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. “When the American president made ‘fake news’ into a buzzword, the world woke up.”

The law has already rung up its first arrest for “fake news.” And it’s someone who’s not even a Malaysian citizen.

Salah Salem Saleh Sulaiman seems like an improbable purveyor of “fake news.”

He doesn’t run a troll farm or a website designed to spread propaganda. He’s not on a mission to destroy a politician or artist. He’s not even a journalist.

But this week, he was sentenced to a week in jail for a YouTube video he made, the first casualty of Malaysia’s “fake news” law.

[…]

Sulaiman, a Danish citizen of Yemeni descent, said he’d been in Malaysia for less than two weeks when he was arrested.

The video that resulted in a one-week jail sentence dealt with the shooting of a Hamas lecturer, supposedly by Israel’s spy agency. Sulaiman claimed it took an hour for an ambulance to arrive after he reported the shooting. The police claimed it only took them eight minutes for a patrol car to arrive. Two days after the video was posted, Sulaiman was arrested and charged with publishing “fake news.” His inability to pay a $2,500 fine has increased his sentence to one month.

There’s a difference between a police car and an ambulance, which may make the video technically correct. But that really shouldn’t matter. Even if his claims were false, there’s no way the government should have reacted with anything more than a statement denying Sulaiman’s claims. The new law allows the government to arrest and fine anyone who publishes anything the government disagrees with. Six months in jail and fines up to $128,000 are one hell of a chilling effect. All the government seemingly needs to do to make charges stick is deny allegations made by citizens — or in this case, a nonresident visitor who claims he did not know the government had recently outlawed ‘fake news.”

Those concerned about the state of speech protections around the world will view this as severely troubling. Those who actually have the power and desire to further restrict criticism and unfavorable reporting will see nothing but upsides for enacting legislation targeting “fake news.”

Filed Under: censorship, criticism, fake news, malaysia, police, salah salem saleh sulaiman

State Appeals Court Upholds Criminal Conviction For Twitter Harassment Targeting An Autistic Student

Free Speech

from the @-me-for-felony-charges dept

A tough case dealing with some horrendous behavior and a pretty broad reading of Minnesota’s harassment/stalking laws has resulted in a sustained conviction on felony charges against a minor. The state appeals court summarizes the events in its decision [PDF]:

In March 2016, high school students, W.K., B.L., and appellant A.J.B., discussed that M.B., a fellow student who had been diagnosed with autism and ADHD, had recently posted some tweets discussing girls at school. B.L. and A.J.B. told W.K. that they wanted to post materials on M.B.’s Twitter page to elicit a “negative response.” A.J.B. created a Twitter account with no identifying information called “Jeb Bush’s Guac Bowl.” A.J.B. then began tweeting messages tagging M.B.’s account over two to three hours, with several referring to autism. One post contained a sign saying “Autistic Children Play Here” with a caption reading “Meanwhile at [M.B.]’s Daycare.” Another post contained a checkerboard of images with M.B.’s face and a caption reading “Click the Autistic Child.” Another post encouraged M.B. to “try a new cologne called ‘Anthrax.’” One post encouraged M.B. to “consider suicide,” while another contained an image stating “Consider the following” with a picture of a person holding a Clorox Bleach bottle. A.J.B. also posted an image of Pepe the Frog, “a known hate symbol,” hanging by the neck on a rope.

Another fine example of man’s inhumanity to man: high school edition. Trash rando A.J.B. ended up with two misdemeanor charges and one felony stalking charge — the latter predicated on the victim’s disabilities. There are a few concerns with the resulting ruling, not to mention the events leading up to the criminal charges.

To begin with, the victim was not even aware of the tweets until a school administrator brought them to his attention. The administrator had presumably been tipped off by other students. This led to the victim expressing suicidal thoughts and an extreme reluctance to return to school.

This dovetails into the court’s weird interpretation of Twitter mechanics. This confusion over how Twitter operates may have played a part in upholding the charges and finding A.J.B.’s speech unprotected by the Constitution. Eric Goldman points out this misapprehension allows the court to bypass the student’s free speech defenses, one of which compared tweeting unpleasant messages was no different than “posting flyers on walls.”

The court’s technological description of @tweeting is… garbled. It recounts evidence that “the act of tagging someone means that the messages are ‘on their wall. Anyone can see it but [the poster is] just making sure that the [tagged] person sees it.’” The reference to “their wall” in this passage is confusing. I cannot appear in someone else’s Twitter timeline unless they retweet me, whereas in Facebook and LinkedIn, my posts can show up on other people’s walls (at least in some cases) just by including their name in my post. Furthermore, AJB’s barrage of @tweets would NOT appear in AJB’s main newsfeed (as opposed to the “tweets and replies” option), and and would not seen by most readers, if the @ reference was the tweet’s first character; and none of MB’s followers would have seen AJB’s tweets unless they were also followers of AJB. Plus, MB would see the @tweets only if MB hadn’t blocked AJB and only if MB looks in the notifications area (which not everyone does). There’s a lot of technological complexity about how content appears on Twitter that the court glossed over.

As Goldman notes, blocking accounts is one remedy that doesn’t involve law enforcement. It’s of limited utility, considering new accounts can be created in a manner of minutes, but Twitter does give users some tools to deal with harassment and other unwanted interactions.

Second, this could have been handled by the school, rather than turning it into a criminal case. The school was the entity that brought the tweets to the attention of the student and a case could be made the harassment interfered with M.B.’s ability to continue attending school. While this education interference would have engaged school policies and discipline, this would not be without its own problems. Doing so would effectively punish someone for acts committed off-campus, which would raise its own Constitutional concerns.

The law itself is no help. It’s written broadly enough the court finds it easy to criminalize otherwise-protected speech.

Per this court’s interpretation, it’s criminal stalking in Minnesota to send two or more @tweets to a person knowing they would cause the person to “feel frightened, threatened, oppressed, persecuted, or intimidated.” The Minnesota criminal harassment statute is equally dubious, applying when a person sends two or more @tweets “with the intent to abuse, disturb, or cause distress.”

As Goldman notes, many of us are subjected to “criminal” behavior every day on the platform. Perhaps some of us even engage in it, as “causing distress” may mean little more than vehemently disagreeing with someone’s statements, views, political/religious preferences, etc.

There are a lot of free speech implications in play. The court threads the needle, but not in a helpful way. In order to find A.J.B.’s speech unprotected, it seizes on A.J.B.’s “targeting” of the autistic student by “tagging” him in the tweets.

The law is bad and the court is reading the law as the legislators wrote it. This could also be the way the legislators intended it to be read, rationalizing that no prosecutor would move forward with questionable charges predicated on a broadly-written law with an absurdly low bar for engagement (two tweets). Legislators either don’t know or don’t care that prosecutorial discretion means pursuing ridiculous prosecutions and overcharging defendants. It almost never means refusing to move forward with questionable cases. If the ruling is bad, it’s because the law invites bad rulings. The fact that the court doesn’t understand how Twitter works only makes it worse.

Filed Under: free speech, harassment, minnesota, social media, tweeting
Companies: twitter

Michael Cohen Drops Ridiculous Lawsuit Against Buzzfeed After Buzzfeed Sought Stormy Daniels' Details

Free Speech

from the fighting-fires dept

Donald Trump’s long time lawyer, Michael Cohen has been in a bit of hot water of late. As you no doubt heard, the FBI raided Cohen’s office and home seeking a bunch of information, some of which related to the $130,000 he paid to adult performer Stormy Daniels. Already there have been a few court appearances in which Cohen (and Donald Trump) have sought to suppress some of what’s been seized, but that doesn’t seem to be going too well. At the same time, Cohen is still fighting Daniels in court, which also doesn’t seem to be going too well.

Given all of that, it’s not too surprising that Cohen has decided to dismiss his ridiculous lawsuit against Buzzfeed for publishing the Christopher Steele dossier. As we pointed out, that lawsuit was going nowhere, because it sought to hold Buzzfeed liable for content created by someone else (oh, and that leaves out that much of what Cohen claimed was defamatory may actually have been true.

And while many are suggesting Cohen dropped that lawsuit because the other lawsuits are a much bigger priority, there may be another important reason as well. As we noted last month, through a somewhat complex set of circumstances, the lawsuit against Buzzfeed may have resulted in Cohen having to reveal the details he’s been avoiding concerning Stormy Daniels. That’s because Buzzfeed was claiming that Cohen’s interactions with Daniels were relevant to its case, and it was likely to seek that information as part of the case moving forward.

In other words, dropping the Buzzfeed lawsuit (that he was going to lose anyway), Cohen wasn’t just ditching a distraction in the face of more important legal issues, he may be hoping to cut off at least one avenue for all the stuff he’s been trying to keep secret from becoming public. That doesn’t mean it won’t become public eventually. After all the DOJ has a bunch of it. But it does suggest that Cohen had more than one reason to drop the Buzzfeed lawsuit.

Filed Under: christopher steele, defamation, michael cohen, slapp, steele dossier, stormy daniels
Companies: buzzfeed

Following Questionable Election, Honduran Government Debuts New Censorship Law

Free Speech

from the securing-the-cyber-so-future-generations-can-waste-away-in-prison dept

The masterplan for censorship: follow up a highly-questionable election with a “cybersecurity” law granting the government power to shut down critics and dissenting views. That’s what’s happening in Honduras, following the reinstallation of Juan Orlando Hernandez as president following an election “filled with irregularities.”

The new law mandates the policing of “hate speech,” as defined by a government that would love to see its critics deprived of an online platform. Whatever the government declares to be hateful must be taken down within 24 hours. Failure triggers fines and third-party platforms will be held responsible for content created by users.

While the new law does not directly target the social media platforms, activists say: “In its current state, it requires any service or website that includes user-generated content to process complaints and remove “hate speech” or discriminatory content within 24 hours.”

“Should online intermediaries fail to do so, their services could be fined or blocked. The latest draft of the bill also creates a national cybersecurity committee to receive reports and relay them to websites and companies, and to develop policy strategies on issues ranging from cybercrime to hate speech and fake news,” Javier Pallero, Digital Rights activist focusing on the Latin American region explained, according to Access Now.

The threat of $50,000 fines and an impossible timeframe will likely result in proactive policing of content, resulting in removal of posts not covered by the law. Whatever social media companies don’t remove ahead of requests will be removed shortly after receiving demands from the Honduran government. Between the two, it’s unlikely much dissenting speech will survive. This will be especially effective against local providers and small companies without the legal manpower to fend off Honduran censorship attempts.

The so-called “cybersecurity” law won’t make anyone but the government more secure. Anti-government activists have been routinely targeted by the Honduran government, some of which have been jailed indefinitely in violation of Honduran due process laws. Others have experienced more direct physical attacks and/or undergone torture in an attempt to deter them from future criticism. This law does nothing more than attempt to turn social media companies into compliant partners of Honduran government abuse.

The few dissenting voices in Honduras have been amplified by social media platforms. This is what the law aims to take away. In addition to vague guidelines on hate speech, the government is also seeking to punish those who support opposition forces or express sympathy for victims of incarceration, torture, or government-ordained murder.

The law which would severely hamper the media’s work includes Article 335-B, under which journalists can be sentenced to eight years in prison for “defending, justifying, or glorifying” terrorism.

The proposed law has been heavily criticized by international human rights organizations, like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) which has warned the bill could be used to “sanction the work of human rights defenders.”

Murder isn’t an exaggeration. Since Hernandez’s reelection, 35 protesters have been killed by government forces and more than 1,000 have been detained. In addition, nighttime raids of alleged anti-government protesters by police forces have become routine, despite the country’s laws limiting warrant service to daylight hours.

Any law regulating speech should be examined closely to determine the motivating factor. In some cases, it’s more benign — a misguided attempt to solve a problem that can’t be solved through censorship. In other cases, the legislative wording may be benign, but the malicious intent all too apparent. That’s the case here and in several other countries, where terms like “cybersecurity,” “terrorism,” and “hate speech” have been thrown around as a smokescreen for targeted oppression of government critics.

Filed Under: censorship, cybersecurity, free speech, hate speech, honduras, juan orlando hernandez

How Government Pressure Has Turned Transparency Reports From Free Speech Celebrations To Censorship Celebrations

Free Speech

from the this-is-not-good dept

For many years now, various internet companies have released Transparency Reports. The practice was started by Google years back (oddly, Google itself fails me in finding its original trasnparency report). Soon many other internet companies followed suit, and, while it took them a while, the telcos eventually joined in as well. Google’s own Transparency Report site lists out a bunch of other companies that now issue such reports:

We’ve celebrated many of these transparency reports over the years, often demonstrating the excesses of attempts to stifle and censor speech or violate users privacy, and in how these reports often create incentives for these organizations to push back against those demands. Yet, in an interesting article over at Politico, a former Google policy manager warns that the purpose of these platforms is being flipped on its head, and that they’re now being used to show how much these platforms are willing to censor:

Fast forward a decade and democracies are now agonizing over fake news and terrorist propaganda. Earlier this month, the European Commission published a new recommendation demanding that internet companies remove extremist and other objectionable content flagged to them in less than an hour ? or face legislation forcing them to do so. The Commission also endorsed transparency reports as a way to demonstrate how they are complying with the law.

Indeed, Google and other big tech companies still publish transparency reports, but they now seem to serve a different purpose: to convince authorities in Europe and elsewhere that the internet giant is serious about cracking down on illegal content. The more takedowns it can show, the better.

If true, this is a pretty horrific result of something that should be a good thing: more transparency, more information sharing and more incentives to make sure that bogus attempts to stifle speech and invade people’s privacy are not enabled.

Part of the issue, of course, is the fact that governments have been increasingly putting pressure on internet platforms to take down speech, and blaming internet platforms for election results or policies they dislike. And the companies then feel the need to show the governments that they do take these “issues” seriously, by pointing to the content they do takedown. So, rather than alerting the public to all the stuff they don’t take down, the platforms are signalling to governments (and some in the public too, frankly) that they frequently take down content. And, unfortunately, that’s backfiring, as it’s making politicians (and some individuals) claim that this just proves the platforms aren’t censoring enough.

The pace of private sector censorship is astounding ? and it?s growing exponentially.

The article talks about how this is leading to censorship of important and useful content, such as the case where an exploration of the dangers of Holocaust revisionism got taken down because YouTube feared that a look into it might actually violate European laws against Holocaust revisionism. And, of course, such censorship machines are regularly abused by authoritarian governments:

Turkey demands that internet companies hire locals whose main task is to take calls from the government and then take down content. Russia reportedly is threatening to ban YouTube unless it takes down opposition videos. China?s Great Firewall already blocks almost all Western sites, and much domestic content.

Similarly, a recent report on how Facebook’s censorship of reports of ethnic cleansing in Burma are incredibly disturbing:

Rohingya activists?in Burma and in Western countries?tell The Daily Beast that Facebook has been removing their posts documenting the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya people in Burma (also known as Myanmar). They said their accounts are frequently suspended or taken down.

That article has many examples of the kind of content that Facebook is pulling down and notes that in Burma, people rely on Facebook much more than in some other countries:

Facebook is an essential platform in Burma; since the country?s infrastructure is underdeveloped, people rely on it the way Westerners rely on email. Experts often say that in Burma, Facebook is the internet?so having your account disabled can be devastating.

You can argue that there should be other systems for them to use, but the reality of the situation right now is they use Facebook, and Facebook is deleting reports of ethnic cleansing.

Having democratic governments turn around and enable more and more of this in the name of stopping “bad” speech is acting to support these kinds of crackdowns.

Indeed, as Europe is pushing for more and more use of platforms to censor, it’s important that someone gets them to understand how these plans almost inevitably backfire. Daphne Keller at Stanford recently submitted a comment to the EU about its plan, noting just how badly demands for censorship of “illegal content” can turn around and do serious harm.

Errors in platforms? CVE content removal and police reporting will foreseeably, systematically, and unfairly burden a particular group of Internet users: those speaking Arabic, discussing Middle Eastern politics, or talking about Islam. State-mandated monitoring will, in this way, exacerbate existing inequities in notice and takedown operations. Stories of discriminatory removal impact are already all too common. In 2017, over 70 social justice organizations wrote to Facebook identifying a pattern of disparate enforcement, saying that the platform applies its rules unfairly to remove more posts from minority speakers. This pattern will likely grow worse in the face of pressures such as those proposed in the Recommendation.

There are longer term implications of all of this, and plenty of reasons why we should be thinking about structuring the internet in better ways to protect against this form of censorship. But the short term reality remains, and people should be wary of calling for more platform-based censorship over “bad” content without recognizing the inevitable ways in which such policies are abused or misused to target the most vulnerable.

Filed Under: censorship, filtering, free speech, transparency reports