The UK's Dubious Plan For Age-Based Porn Filters Begins On July 15

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the hurry-and-hide-the-naughty-bits dept

Undaunted by the fact that internet filters never actually seem to work, the UK continues its quest to censor the internet of all of its naughty bits.

The UK has long implemented porn filters in a bid to restrict anybody under the age of 18 from accessing such content. New age verification controls were also mandated as part of the Digital Economy Act of 2017. But as we’ve previously noted, the UK government has seen several fits and starts with its proposal as it desperately tries to convince the public and business sectors that the ham-fisted effort is going to actually work. This week the country formally announced that its filter proposal officially now has a start date: July 15.

According to the UK government, websites that fail to comply with the country’s age verification program face fines up to ?250,000, risk being taken offline, or may lose access to payment services:

“…commercial providers of online pornography will be required by law to carry out robust age-verification checks on users, to ensure that they are 18 or over. The move is backed by 88% of UK parents with children aged 7-17, who agree there should be robust age-verification controls in place to stop children seeing pornography online.

Websites that fail to implement age-verification technology face having payment services withdrawn or being blocked for UK users.”

In short, starting in July, should you want to view some porn, you’ll be redirected to a special subsite where you’ll be prompted for an email address and a password, before verifying your age using a driving license or a passport. There’s a few exceptions, including websites that aren’t selling access to porn and those that are simply engaging in “artistic” pursuits. Expecting the UK government to figure all of this out on the run should, at the very least, provide some entertainment value.

While this might make some people feel good, there’s still little hard data to suggest any of this is going to work, and more than a few hints it’s actually going to cause problems. The obvious risk of this data leaking out and being used nefariously is one concern. The other major problem is there are simply too many porn websites to effectively police, and the belief the UK government can police them all is arguably laughable. Meanwhile all it takes to avoid the restrictions is the use of a VPN or proxy to trick the website in question to think that you’re coming from another country.

Others note that the ban is likely to just drive many users looking for porn toward notably more seedy venues and workarounds:

“When you hire a bouncer to crack down on kids drinking in the local pub, you don?t get a sudden rise in homework. You get a surge in fake IDs and drinking in the park.

The porn block will do the same thing online, pushing kids towards streaming sites stuffed with malware, creepy subreddits, and places on the dark web that sell credit cards details ? because it seems as if this age verification system is going to use credit cards as its basis. It?s a classic case of driving legal behaviour underground, making it a whole lot dodgier than it was in the first place.”

Meanwhile there’s little data supporting the idea that porn filters in general even work, and plenty of data suggesting such filters routinely cause collateral damage. A joint-report published this week by digital rights advocates Open Rights Group (ORG) and Top10VPN VPN review portal noted the UK government already filters 760,000 websites with notable inaccuracy, leading to the routine inadvertent censorship of legitimate websites.

All in all the UK’s war on porn is a puritanical feel good measure that’s going to cause far more problems than it actually fixes. And in a few years it’s likely the UK will either retreat from the measure after it gets tired of playing a futile game of naughty-bit Whac-a-Mole, or will double down on the efforts while pretending the entire affair actually worked.

Filed Under: censorship, porn, porn filters, uk

Peachtree City Wants To Use Taxpayer Money To Sue Critics Of City Government

Defamation

from the can-someone-buy-them-a-Bill-of-Rights? dept

What is it with the state of Georgia and its attempts to stifle free speech and a free press? It’s the state that argues its official copy of the law is covered by copyright and cannot be posted online. The same state that is currently trying to regulate journalism by creating “ethical standards” they have to follow. The same state that is so bad in responding to public records law that an official was actually criminally charged for it?

The latest, as sent in by a few people, is that tonight, Peachtree City, a suburb of Atlanta, is voting on a laughably obviously unconstitutional provision that would allow city officials to file bogus SLAPP suits, using taxpayer funds, against critics. Really. Specifically, the proposal says that the city will provide “coverage for legal expenses when a City official has been defamed in a public media outlet or otherwise slandered or libeled to the public…” It does note that the defamation must be a “valid claim for defamation… under Georgia law.” So, one might argue that filing a bogus SLAPP suit wouldn’t be covered by this policy — but it’s unclear how that will work.

We see bogus defamation lawsuits filed all the time to censor critics, and as a public official, the bar to a successful defamation lawsuit is (for very good reasons) quite high. So, under this proposal, will the city officials have to pay back the city treasury if such a case is tossed out? One would hope that’s the case, but the text of the proposal has no language to that effect. The only language is has regarding reimbursement is that if the lawsuit is “settled in the City’s favor, the City shall seek reimbursement for the actual legal costs incurred in successful pursuit of the defamation ruling by the person or persons committing the defamation.”

It has no provision for what happens when it turns out there wasn’t defamation and the city just wasted taxpayer funds suing critics who didn’t actually defame anyone.

It is already dubious that any public official should ever be suing critics — but to have taxpayers have to foot the bill for SLAPP suits is both deeply obnoxious and unconstitutional, that it seems perfect for Georgia.

The city manager, Jon Rorie, is quoted in a few different articles about this, basically making the same extraordinarily bad point

?I don?t think that someone should have the ability to come in and just said something, that I committed a crime, I don?t think it?s fair,? said Jon Rorie, the city manager of Peachtree City.

Right. And if it’s actually defamatory, then you can sue yourself. You don’t need taxpayer funds to go after someone.

In the other link (up above, towards the beginning of the article) Rorie gets even more ridiculous:

?It?s a brave, new world. It?s not about people criticizing. It?s about being defamed,? Rorie said, noting that such defamation could come from a newspaper or any media, including social media. ?People think they have the luxury of saying false things about people. No one has the right to say I (or anyone working or volunteering for the city) am corrupt and attack me publicly.?

Actually, Jon, you’re wrong. People absolutely do have the right to attack you (verbally) in public. And they can certainly make opinion-based statements, including arguing that actions are corrupt. To actually be defamation, they would need to be making false statements of fact, where they knew the statement was false (or recklessly disregarded the truth) and those statements had to actually harm your reputation. That doesn’t seem to be the standard Rorie is laying out here.

The journalist for the Citizen properly pointed out to Rorie that, even if this is all true, the bigger question is why should taxpayer funds go towards such lawsuits, and Rorie’s answer is telling:

Rorie was asked why use taxpayers dollars to sue an individual. Rorie responded, saying he did not know the answer to that question, adding that the topic is worth discussing in a public meeting and, hence, was put on the agenda.

Seems like the kind of thing you should think about before pushing such a resolution, no?

Filed Under: anti-slapp, defamation, georgia, jon rorie, peachtree city, public officials, slapp, taxpayer funds

Don't Force Web Platforms To Silence Innocent People

Say That Again

from the censorship-is-a-powerful-tool dept

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a hearing last week to discuss the spread of white nationalism, online and offline. The hearing tackled hard questions about how online platforms respond to extremism online and what role, if any, lawmakers should play. The desire for more aggressive moderation policies in the face of horrifying crimes is understandable, particularly in the wake of the recent massacre in New Zealand. But unfortunately, looking to Silicon Valley to be the speech police may do more harm than good.

When considering measures to discourage or filter out unwanted activity, platforms must consider how those mechanisms might be abused by bad actors. Similarly, when Congress considers regulating speech on online platforms, it must consider both the First Amendment implications and how its regulations might unintentionally encourage platforms to silence innocent people.

Again and again, we?ve seen attempts to more aggressively stamp out hate and extremism online backfire in colossal ways. We?ve seen state actors abuse flagging systems in order to silence their political enemies. We?ve seen platforms inadvertently censor the work of journalists and activists attempting to document human rights atrocities.

But there?s a lot platforms can do right now, starting with more transparency and visibility into platforms? moderation policies. Platforms ought to tell the public what types of unwanted content they are attempting to screen, how they do that screening, and what safeguards are in place to make sure that innocent people?especially those trying to document or respond to violence?aren?t also censored. Rep. Pramila Jayapal urged the witnesses from Google and Facebook to share not just better reports of content removals, but also internal policies and training materials for moderators.

Better transparency is not only crucial for helping to minimize the number of people silenced unintentionally; it?s also essential for those working to study and fight hate groups. As the Anti-Defamation League?s Eileen Hershenov noted:

To the tech companies, I would say that there is no definition of methodologies and measures and the impact. [?] We don?t have enough information and they don?t share the data [we need] to go against this radicalization and to counter it.

Along with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and several other organizations and experts, EFF endorses the Santa Clara Principles, a simple set of guidelines to help align platform moderation practices to human rights and civil liberties principles. The Principles ask platforms

• to be honest with the public about how many posts and accounts they remove,
• to give notice to users who?ve had something removed about what was removed, and under what rule, and
• to give those users a meaningful opportunity to appeal the decision.

Hershenov also cautioned lawmakers about the dangers of heavy-handed platform moderation, pointing out that social media offers a useful view for civil society and the public into how and where hate groups organize: ?We do have to be careful about whether in taking stuff off of the web where we can find it, we push things underground where neither law enforcement nor civil society can prevent and deradicalize.?

Before they try to pass laws to remove hate speech from the Internet, members of Congress should tread carefully. Such laws risk pushing platforms toward a more highly filtered Internet, silencing far more people than was intended. As Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in Matel v. Tam (PDF) in 2017, ?A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all.?

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: bias, cda 230, censorship, content moderation, free speech, house judiciary committee, section 230, social media

New Paper: Why Section 230 Is Better Than The First Amendment

Free Speech

from the they're-related dept

We’ve talked a lot over the years about the importance of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) in helping to create and enable the internet and all of the free speech on the internet. Expect us to continue to talk about it as it is increasingly under attack. Professor Eric Goldman has now released a short, and very worth reading, paper about Section 230, with the provocative title: Why Section 230 Is Better Than the First Amendment. The importance here is that many have argued that CDA 230 and the 1st Amendment go hand in hand. At times, in the past, I’ve argued that in a reasonable world we shouldn’t even need a CDA 230, because the proper application of liability should obviously be with the person posting the law-breaking content, rather than the platform hosting it. But, that was clearly talking about in an idealistic world that does not exist. Given the frequency of lots of people — plaintiffs, journalists, politicians, and more — going after platforms for actions of their users, CDA 230’s broad immunity is absolutely necessary if we’re to have free speech online. Goldman’s paper makes this clear:

If the First Amendment mirrors Section 230?s speech protections, narrowing Section 230 would be inconsequential. This Essay explains why that?s not the case. Section 230 provides defendants with more substantive and procedural benefits than the First Amendment does. Because the First Amendment does not backfill these benefits, reductions to Section 230?s scope pose serious risks to Internet speech.

Goldman’s paper lays out the argument very clearly (it’s very readable for an academic paper). He notes that Congress has passed many laws that are “speech enhancing” beyond the 1st Amendment, which are often designed to make sure that the 1st Amendment is actually useful, rather than illusory. For example, he discusses things like shield laws for journalists, anti-SLAPP laws, and the recent Consumer Review Fairness Act, that bars companies from banning consumer reviews. As Goldman notes, there are reasons to go beyond the 1st Amendment to better protect speech:

The justification for speech-enhancing statutes is clear when the laws extend the First Amendment. For example, anti-SLAPP laws and defamation retraction-demand statutes create procedural hurdles to speech-related lawsuits that the First Amendment does not require. The CRFA governs private vendor-customer contracts, which typically do not receive First Amendment scrutiny at all.

The key point that Goldman makes is that most of these laws provide procedural benefits. That is, what good are your free speech rights, if someone can abuse legal processes to silence you. The important elements of things like anti-SLAPP laws and CDA 230 are in how they stop bogus lawsuits early and at a lower cost point than the 1st Amendment alone.

Section 230(c)(1)?s early dismissals are valuable to defendants. They reduce the defendant?s out-of-pocket costs to defeat an unmeritorious claim. For smaller Internet services, defending a single protracted lawsuit may be financially ruinous. Also, complex litigation can divert substantial managerial and organizational attention and mindshare from maintaining or enhancing the service. Thus, the ability of a defendant to resolve a case on a motion to dismiss (and avoiding expensive discovery) protects small and low-revenue Internet services; which in turn enhances the richness and diversity of the Internet ecosystem.

But, of course, it’s not just about defeating bogus lawsuits. There are wider benefits to this procedural expeditiousness, including much better protection of free speech online than would happen otherwise:

Section 230(c)(1)?s early dismissals also benefit society in several ways. First, from a judicial economy standpoint, they save both parties from wasting valuable resources on doomed litigation. They also take meritless litigation off court dockets, freeing up the courts to handle other cases more carefully or quickly.

Second, Internet services rarely make a lot of money from any single item of third-party content, so they lack financial incentives to stand behind individual items. Also, the services often lack the facts sufficient to properly defend third-party content in court.

Accordingly, the most economically rational decision for most Internet services is to capitulate to any lawsuit over UGC?or avoid the lawsuit altogether by quickly removing third-party content in response to pre-litigation demands, without any investigation or pushback. This causes ?collateral censorship,? i.e., the proactive removal of legitimate content as a prophylactic way of reducing potential legal risk and the associated potential defense costs.

Unmeritorious quick removals are common in online copyright law,57 because the UGC copyright safe harbor58 is less defendant-favorable than Section 230.59 In contrast, Internet services routinely stand up to non-copyright legal threats, legal demands, and cease-and-desist letters targeting UGC?because Section 230 provides them legal certainty at a relatively low cost.

And, of course, if everyone had to rely on using the First Amendment to defend such lawsuits, it would be a lot more time consuming and a lot more expensive:

Unlike Section 230, Constitutional litigation is rarely quick or cheap. In particular, courts are reluctant to resolve Constitutional arguments on motions to dismiss. Further, Constitutional doctrines often raise sufficient factual questions that courts wait until summary judgment (or later) before disposing of an unmeritorious case. Thus, Internet services will expect it to cost less to defend UGC via Section 230 than the First Amendment, which makes the services more willing to stand up for their users. And if Section 230 and the First Amendment both equally dictate defense wins, society as a whole benefits from reaching that result as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Importantly, Goldman points out that this kind of protection probably helps marginalized communities protect their speech the most. This is partly why it’s so annoying that so many people seeking to attack CDA 230 lately have been claiming to do so on behalf of marginalized communities.

The services? Section 230-aided commitment to their UGC especially benefits content from marginalized communities. Not only are marginalized voices more likely to be targeted by people in positions of power, but Internet services are less likely to worry about the consequences of removing content from marginalized communities. Compared to the First Amendment, Section 230 helps keep online the most ?at risk? legitimate content.

I’ve seen some critics of CDA 230 already criticizing Goldman’s paper, not on substance (because, how could they), but by misrepresenting it as suggesting that CDA 230 somehow supersedes the 1st Amendment. That’s not what he’s saying at all. What he argues — clearly, carefully, and with great detail — is that the procedural benefits of CDA 230 are vast and immense and are not simply replicated by the 1st Amendment should Congress continue to chip away at CDA 230.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, cda 230, civil procedure, eric goldman, free speech, procedures, section 230, speech enhancing

John Oliver Has Famous Actors Act Out The Deposition Richard Sackler Is Trying To Hide

Free Speech

from the public-records dept

One of the issues that we’ve discussed quite a bit on Techdirt over the years is the lengths that some people want to go to to hide court records and important public documents. The main story on this past weekend’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver tackled this issue in relation to Richard Sackler, the former chairman and president of Purdue Pharma, the company that developed and promoted Oxycontin. Much of the episode focused on questionable things said or done by Sackler, but towards the end, Oliver notes that Sackler has done an amazing job hiding from public scrutiny. There are very few pictures of him even online and no real videos they could find.

Most of the Sackler family has done its very best to avoid publicly talking about the marketing of Oxycontin, or the astounding mess it has created for the world (though, some members of the family have recently been complaining about guilt by association). However, a few years ago, in a lawsuit over the marketing of Oxycontin, Richard Sackler was forced to give a deposition in the case, which has been held under seal.

Somehow, ProPublica was able to get its hands on the transcript of the deposition and published it back in February. Since then the family has been fighting against the release of the actual video recording of Sackler’s deposition. There is tremendous public interest in this as Oliver explains in the video above, and ProPublica wrote about upon the release of the document:

As part of the settlement, the Kentucky attorney general agreed to destroy its copies of 17 million pages of documents produced during the eight-year legal battle with Purdue. But some of the same documents remained in a sealed file in a rural eastern Kentucky courthouse. STAT filed a motion in 2016 asking the judge in that case to make the documents public, and he ordered the unsealing of those documents, including the Sackler deposition.

?The court sees no higher value than the public (via the media) having access to these discovery materials so that the public can see the facts for themselves,? Pike Circuit Court Judge Steven Combs ruled in May 2016.

Purdue appealed the ruling to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which upheld it in December 2018. The company then asked the state Supreme Court to review that decision.

ProPublica also notes that this “is believed to be the only time a member of the Sackler family has been questioned under oath about the illegal marketing of OxyContin and what family members knew about it.” That’s why the transcript is so important.

However, as Oliver notes, the Sacklers have continued to fight the release of the video and various other documents related to the case — so to “help out,” he brought together a group of talented actors to act out parts of the deposition and put them up on the website SacklerGallery.com — a nod to the fact that the Sacklers have been getting lots of museums to name galleries and wings and other things after them. The actors include Bryan Cranston, Michael Keaton, Richard Kind, and Michael K. Williams. I’ll leave it to John Oliver in the video above to explain why each of them are used, because it’s truly wonderful.

Filed Under: bryan cranston, court documents, deposition, john oliver, michael keaton, michael williams, richard kind, richard sackler
Companies: purdue pharma

Devin Nunes Admits That His Bogus Defamation Lawsuits Are Really About Phishing For Journalists' Sources

Journalism

from the slapp-suits dept

We have already talked about how the two separate defamation lawsuits Devin Nunes has filed against critics and journalists are bullshit SLAPP suits designed to intimidate and attack protected speech. But now Nunes himself has gone even further, admitting out loud that his intent with at least the second lawsuit, against the Fresno Bee, is to force the newspaper to give up its sources:

?I am absolutely sure that they do not want this to get to discovery so that we find out who their sources are,? Nunes told Fox & Friends. ?Somebody gave them the phony information that the National Rifle Association was involved with Russian collusion. Somebody gave them the phony information that Cohen was in Prague when he wasn?t.?

Here’s the video of him saying that:

So, first of all, the issue with the NRA and Michael Cohen aren’t even the subject of the lawsuit he’s filed, so that’s a bizarre thing to raise unless the intent of the lawsuit is purely performative for an idiotic base who wants to build up some big conspiracy. Second, he’s flat out admitting that the intent of his lawsuit is an attack on basic press freedoms like source protection. Remember, this is a Congressman who has sworn to uphold the Constitution, and that includes the 1st Amendment he is attacking with these lawsuits.

Furthermore, in the video Nunes suggests he’s not done yet, saying “we’re actually going to go after several media outlets.” Apparently, he’s decided going to war with the First Amendment is a good idea. Also in the video, Nunes claims that he sued Twitter for shadow-banning him, which (1) it did not do, and (2) it legally could if it wanted to, and (3) the shadow-banning, while talked about in the lawsuit, is not actually part of any of the actual claims in the lawsuit.

More and more this appears to be lawsuit-as-performance, allowing Nunes to rile up a base by pretending to take on critics and the media. And that’s exactly what the 1st Amendment does not allow — especially from a public, elected official. The fact that Nunes chose to file these cases in Virginia state court, with its much weaker anti-SLAPP laws, rather than in California’s courts (where he, the Fresno Bee, and Twitter, all are) suggests that even he knows these cases wouldn’t survive a true anti-SLAPP test. But now that he’s out and out admitting that the point of the lawsuits is to go on a journalistic source fishing expedition (even over stories totally unrelated to the one about him) certainly seems to confirm how much Nunes is focused on spitting on the First Amendment that he’s sworn to protect.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, anti-slapp, defamation, devin nunes, fishing expedition, free speech, journalism, slapp, source protection, sources

There Are Many Reasons To Be Concerned About The Impact On Press Freedoms In The Assange Indictment

Free Speech

from the normal-journalistic-activity dept

Yesterday, we wrote a bit about the Julian Assange indictment, noting that it was focused on CFAA and conspiracy arguments, rather than (what many people expected) Espionage Act claims. The CFAA charge of trying to help hack a hashed CIA password that Assange instructed Chelsea Manning to supply does raise some real legal questions. However, as we noted, there were still some significant press freedom concerns linked to the case (and we fully expect those concerns to grow as the inevitable superseding indictment is released).

Among the many concerns are that from what’s in the initial indictment, it appears that the DOJ is, in fact, presenting perfectly normal, reasonable and legal, steps that many journalists take to cultivate and protect sources, and using that as evidence of the “conspiracy” here. From the indictment:

It was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning used the “Jabber” online chat service to collaborate on the acquisition and dissemination of the classified records, and to enter into the agreement to crack the password stored on the United States Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network.

It was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning took measures to conceal Manning as the source of the disclosure of classified records to WikiLeaks, including removing usernames from the disclosed information and deleting chat logs between Assange and Manning.

It was part of the conspiracy that Assange encouraged Manning to provide information and records from departments and agencies of the United States.

It was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning used a special folder on a cloud drop box of WikiLeaks to transmit classified records containing information related to the national defense of the United States.

Again, the CFAA claims of a failed attempt to actually crack a password seem like they could be problematic for Assange (even if the maximum sentence for such things is less than Assange has already spent locked up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London). That goes beyond standard journalism practices. But basically everything else described above as evidence of the “conspiracy” are very standard journalistic practices around cultivating and protecting sources.

Many press freedom organizations are reasonably worried. The Freedom of the Press Foundation put out the following statement:

For years, the Obama administration considered indicting WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, before rightly concluding it could not do so without encroaching on core press freedoms. Now almost nine years in, the Trump administration has used the same information to manufacture a flimsy and pretextual indictment involving a ?conspiracy? to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?based entirely on alleged conversations between a journalist and source. While the Trump administration has so far not attempted to explicitly declare the act of publishing illegal, a core part of its argument would criminalize many common journalist-source interactions that reporters rely on all the time. Requesting more documents from a source, using an encrypted chat messenger, or trying to keep a source?s identity anonymous are not crimes; they are vital to the journalistic process. Whether or not you like Assange, the charge against him is a serious press freedom threat and should be vigorously protested by all those who care about the First Amendment.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is similarly concerned about the same issues:

“The potential implications for press freedom of this allegation of conspiracy between publisher and source are deeply troubling,” said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “With this prosecution of Julian Assange, the U.S. government could set out broad legal arguments about journalists soliciting information or interacting with sources that could have chilling consequences for investigative reporting and the publication of information of public interest.”

The Knight First Amendment Center also raises similar concerns:

?The indictment and the Justice Department?s press release treat everyday journalistic practices as part of a criminal conspiracy. Whether the government will be able to establish a violation of the hacking statute remains to be seen, but it?s very troubling that the indictment sweeps in activities that are not just lawful but essential to press freedom?activities like cultivating sources, protecting sources? identities, and communicating with sources securely.?

EFF is also concerned:

While the indictment of Julian Assange centers on an alleged attempt to break a password?an attempt that was not apparently successful?it is still, at root, an attack on the publication of leaked material and the most recent act in an almost decade-long effort to punish a whistleblower and the publisher of her leaked material. Several parts of the indictment describe very common journalistic behavior, like using cloud storage or knowingly receiving classified information or redacting identifying information about a source. Other parts make common free software tools like Linux and Jabber seem suspect. And while we are relieved that the government has not chosen to include publication-based charges today, if Assange is indeed extradited, the government can issue superseding indictments. It should not do so. Leaks are a vital part of the free flow of information that is essential to our democracy. Reporting on leaked materials, including reporting on classified information, is an essential role of American journalism.

So, yes, the DOJ could have gone farther and did not. But the very fact that it has spent all this time and the best thing it could come up with to charge Assange was an alleged attempt to hack a password, is pretty weak. The attempt to puff even that up into a “conspiracy” by describing common journalistic practices is a real worry, as is anything the DOJ later decides to throw on the pile with future charges.

Filed Under: cfaa, conspiracy, doj, free speech, indictment, journalism, julian assange, source protection
Companies: wikileaks

Grandstanding GOP Senators Continue To Mislead About Social Media Bias, Demand A 'Fairness Doctrine' For The Internet

Free Speech

from the stop-it dept

We’ve talked for a while about the sheer silliness of (mainly) Republican politicians whining about supposed “anti-conservative bias” on social media platforms. As we’ve pointed out, the actual evidence hasn’t shown any evidence of bias. The random anecdotal examples of badly moderated content have mostly just shown how difficult it is to do content moderation at scale. The “bad” moderation decisions impact lots of folks across the political spectrum — it’s just that some grandstanding Republicans like to engage in confirmation bias (the only actual bias that seems to be occurring here) to suggest the moderation mistakes are politically motivated. We’ve pointed out multiple times now that crying wolf on this issue is not a good look for conservatives — on multiple levels.

Beyond the fact that the evidence seems to disprove the claims of bias (oh, and yet another study has shown no evidence of bias), for years these very same Republicans kept attacking the idea of the “fairness doctrine,” which was an FCC rule in place for a few decades, demanding “equal representation” of political views on the public airwaves. It hasn’t been in place for a while, but for a few years, this same group of Republicans grandstanded about false claims that Democrats were trying to bring it back. And yet, what they seem to be demanding now is the return of the fairness doctrine, but in an even more ridiculous way. Rather than on the public airwaves — where at the very least there was some legitimate claim to the government being able to set some conditions — these Senators now seem to want to force private companies to run businesses the way they want them to. What a bunch of hypocrites.

And the largest of the hypocrites is Senator Ted Cruz, who has continued to repeat this myth, holding multiple hearings on the topic, including a new one yesterday, with representatives from Facebook and Twitter in attendance. Someone from Google was supposed to be there but (get this), Ted Cruz rejected the Google witness, likely after discovering that Google was sending a former Ted Cruz staffer, who would have done a nice job debunking his former boss’s nonsense. Kinda ironic, in a hearing on platforms supposedly blocking conservatives from speaking, the Senate itself decided to block a conservative from speaking.

Most of the hearing went pretty much as planned, with the usual nonsense. Cruz, once again, misrepresented the nature of Section 230 of the CDA and also made noises about changing it. He also threatened other attacks on social media companies, including antitrust. The big “gotcha” moment that some in the press have picked up on was particularly dumb. Cruz rolled out an anti-abortion quote from Mother Theresa that had been used in an ad on Twitter that was apparently blocked, and demanded that Twitter and Facebook execs answer “is this hate speech?”.

That, of course, misses the point massively. As Twitter’s representative on the panel, Carlos Monje Jr. noted, the tweet was caught in an automated system review, but that the advertiser behind it remains as an advertiser in good standing on the platform — and he also noted that advertisements on both sides of the abortion debate had been blocked at times on Twitter, which makes total sense, given the strong emotions and controversy felt around that issue. But the bigger point is trotting out a single example is nonsense. It’s grandstanding. As we’ve discussed time and time again, content moderation is an arena of massive gray space, rather than black and white. There are tons of judgment calls, and much of it depends on what it is the platform is actually trying to accomplish. Some platforms don’t want controversial content. Some platforms don’t want “hate” speech. But what falls into those categories is an open question and in a free market system (the kind Republicans used to claim they supported), we let the companies decide for themselves.

Thankfully, a bunch of conservative/Republican groups and commentators spoke out against Cruz’s nonsense as well. The group Americans for Prosperity put out a statement calling out Cruz’s nonsense:

… asking the government to police online speech ? either through direct action or by cajoling private firms ? sets a dangerous precedent that will undermine essential elements of free speech. Government regulation of digital speech won?t protect free speech. It will only increase the likelihood of government censorship.

?Tech companies have the freedom to run their businesses as they see fit, including setting standards for what user content they do and do not want to host, and Americans have the right to speak through alternative platforms or share their opinions elsewhere.

?Today?s largest tech platforms may have the means to manage the legal risk of administering an online speech code but smaller startups do not, so regulation intended to curtail the influence of large tech companies would only cement it.?

TechFreedom’s Berin Szoka didn’t mince words either:

?Mind-bogglingly, it?s conservatives who are now leading the charge to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine,? continued Sz?ka. ?Conservatives spent nearly 80 years crusading against government meddling in media. Yet now, they?re trying to subject website operators to essentially the same, hopelessly arbitrary standard of ?neutrality? they long opposed. They?ve twisted themselves into ideological pretzels by convincing themselves that Section 230 is some kind of special subsidy to ?Big Tech? and that the law has always required neutrality. Both claims are patently false. All websites that host user content need clear legal protections against broad liability for user content. Without such protections, the fear of being sued will shut down the smallest sites ? and, ironically, protect Big Tech from competition. But even the biggest sites will do less of the kind of content moderation that makes online communities and services usable. In the end, how they run their services will become subject to political pressure. Sadly, it already is, which seems to be the purpose of conservative fear-mongering on this issue.?

?The anecdotal examples of anti-conservative bias in content moderation just don?t hold up,? concluded Sz?ka. ?Cruz, Graham and other leading Republicans have repeatedly cited bogus examples of conservatives being ?censored.? Most exemplary is the brazenly false claim that now Sen. Marsha Blackburn was censored for her pro-life views. In fact, her Senate campaign launch video centered on the defamatory claim that Planned Parenthood was selling baby body parts. Neither this video nor her account were taken down by the major platforms; instead, they simply declined to allow her to pay to promote the video because it violated their terms of service. This isn?t censorship; it?s just ad companies preventing the abuse of their advertising systems. Sadly, the companies involved haven?t had the courage to debunk these claims clearly because of the vast political pressure wielded against them by lawmakers bent on partisan revenge. Their timidity should remind us all that the First Amendment bars bullying media companies just as much as explicit censorship.?

Indeed, during the hearing, Marsha Blackburn brought up the bogus ad controversy, saying: ?Should Twitter allow ads that denounce Planned Parenthood for selling baby body parts?? That’s a ridiculous question for a sitting Senator to ask. No one in Congress should be determining what ads are allowed or not allowed on any platform. And, again, Twitter did allow Blackburn’s video. It just said such an ad violated its policies (which it did, because it was nonsense).

Others have raised this point in the past as well. The Cato Institute last year questioned why Ted Cruz — a supposed conservative free marketer — seems so against property rights when it comes to the property rights of internet companies. It’s almost as if he’s a total hypocrite who believes in government intervention against companies he dislikes, but insists on no government intervention when it’s companies he does like. Remember, this is the same Ted Cruz who falsely attacked “net neutrality” as a government takeover of the internet.

And now he’s whining that the government needs to force neutrality on the internet.

How can anyone possibly take him seriously?

Filed Under: cda 230, conservative bias, fairness doctrine, grandstanding, section 230, senate, ted cruz

It's Fun To Laugh About Congressional Reps Suing A Satirical Internet Cow, But It's A Real Attack On Free Speech

Free Speech

from the we-need-an-anti-slapp-law-now dept

I originally wrote a draft of this post over the weekend, before Nunes, filed a second bullshit lawsuit against Liz Mair, but now that that has happened, it has become even more relevant. I’ve lightly updated the original text to include this new lawsuit.

Lots of folks laughed about Rep. Devin Nunes’ crazy lawsuit against a satirical cow on Twitter that mocked him, but much of the case is no laughing matter for those on the receiving end. While it is unlikely (but not impossible) that a court will let the case get far enough to unmask who is behind the satirical Twitter accounts, those individuals will still need to lawyer up. Also, while it gets ignored in much of the reporting on the case, there was one named defendant: political strategist/communications expert Liz Mair, who seemed to get sued for tweeting criticisms of Nunes.

While the fake cow account got hundreds of thousands of new followers, Mair didn’t get quite the same bump. But she’s got even more crap to deal with in this case — as well as the second case that Nunes just filed. She’s now written a thoughtful post on just how totally fucked up it is that a sitting member of Congress would sue a critic for being mean to him on Twitter:

… it?s vitally important that the entire nation understands what this lawsuit is really about: A sitting member of the U.S. government, specifically, a congressman, is trying to stifle free speech ? mine, yours and every other American?s ? by using litigation as a cudgel to bully and intimidate.

The fact is, free speech is recognized and protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Framers correctly considered it a God-given right, an inherent freedom so important to the system of government they were establishing that they explicitly stated its existence straight at the outset of the Bill of Rights.

James Madison, fourth president of the United States, father of the Constitution and co-author of the Federalist Papers, famously commented that ?the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.? Nunes? lawsuit flips that notion entirely on its head.

There’s a good history lesson in the article that is worth clicking through to read, but a key point:

The plain fact is, Rep. Nunes? lawsuit constitutes a grave threat to the long recognized and respected civil liberties belonging to each of us, and indeed our system of governance writ large. Madison also said, ?All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.? He was right, as was British historian Lord Acton when he said, ?Power tends to corrupt.?

This is why Americans should scrutinize our public officials? political committee expenditures ? including those of leadership PACs ? voting records, public statements, financial interests, behavior and conduct. It?s what the Framers wanted, it is what the First Amendment guarantees a right to do, and it is sound policy to boot. True freedom and good, constitutional government are impossible to maintain unless each of us is able to question, research and review what our public officials do, based on publicly available information and interactions with them and their staff, and then engage in unimpeded, public debate about what we find. They work for us, not the other way round.

Mair will almost certainly win these cases, but as someone who has some experience on this front, the process she’s about to go through is painful. It is resource intensive, not just in legal fees, but in the utter distraction it creates for every other thing you do, not to mention the insane amount of time it takes to defend against such attacks on your free expression.

Mair doesn’t mention it in her piece, but the situation she’s facing is yet another reason why we need better anti-SLAPP laws, both individually within every state, as well as at the federal level. Of course, for it to happen at the federal level, we’d need Congress to get on board with a federal anti-SLAPP law, and I’m guessing that Devin Nunes is an automatic “no” vote.

Update: If you’re so inclined, Mair has set up a donation page which will go towards legal fees and (if more than that is covered) towards holding government officials accountable.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, anti-slapp, devin nunes, free speech, liz mair, slapp

Singapore Government Pushes Fake News Law Which Will Give It More Options To Shut Down Critics

Free Speech

from the legislating-the-news dept

Fake news laws aren’t harmless. They don’t protect the public. They’re useless. And they lend themselves to censorship. Given these factors, it’s tough to believe any of the proponents of fake news laws are proceeding in good faith but blinded by good intentions and fuzzy logic.

Anywhere they’ve been put in place, they’ve lead directly to governments taking action against political opponents, dissidents, and activists. Excuses are made about national security and protecting the public, but in the end, it’s the public that ends up short on protection.

Singapore’s new fake news bill is no exception. Legislators began pushing this bill last year, using their own fake news to claim the proposal had widespread support from the country’s residents. The committee behind the legislation heavily editorialized the feedback it received at a public hearing, presenting a vocal opponent’s comments as being supportive of instituting a fake news law.

Roughly a year later, the bill has materialized, according to the New York Times.

Singapore introduced draft legislation on Monday that it said would combat false or misleading information on the internet, but critics said the measure could be used as a cudgel against the government’s critics.

The legislation, called the Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill, would require websites to run corrections alongside “online falsehoods” and would “cut off profits” of sites that spread misinformation, among other measures, according to the Ministry of Law.

The bill is widely expected to become law in the coming weeks because it has support from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s People’s Action Party, which has a supermajority in Parliament

The bill can’t define “fake news” with any particularity. This all but ensures the law, if it passes, will be abused frequently. What’s being called fake news is anything that “reduces public confidence” or “incites hatred or ill will” between groups of people. So, yeah, this would cover a lot of what’s posted to social media, especially the “inciting ill will” part.

Supposedly, this new law won’t target criticism, satire, or parody. But that’s been said about similar laws, which have gone on to target criticism, satire, and parody. The government will decide what is or isn’t “truth” and enforce accordingly.

According to a draft of the bill, punishments for some violations could include fines of up to about $44,000 and a prison term of up to six years for individuals, or fines of up to about $738,000 in “any other case.”

This will be a welcome addition to the censorial toolkit Singapore’s government can wield against critics and opponents. As the New York Times article notes, Singapore bears a passing resemblance to a democracy thanks to its election process, but there has never been a change in power as a result of this process. The government already uses the country’s criminal defamation law to muffle criticism. This law won’t improve the current state of speech in Singapore. It will only make it worse.

Filed Under: censorship, criticism, fake news, free speech, politics, singapore