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The UK government has unveiled its proposals to tackle so-called online harms. It wants to regulate social media through Ofcom, which currently regulates the media and the telecoms industry.

Under the proposals, Ofcom will be empowered to ensure that tech firms adopt a duty of care towards users, especially children. This is to protect users, first, from illegal content, such as child pornography, which Ofcom will require tech firms to remove; and second, from harmful but legal content. In the second case, Ofcom will require tech firms to be upfront about what behaviour is acceptable and unacceptable on their sites, in the shape of transparently enforced terms and conditions. So, if a social-media platform states that promoting self-harm is unacceptable, Ofcom is empowered to ensure that stipulation is enforced. In addition, all companies will need to ensure a higher level of protection for children, and take reasonable steps to protect them from inappropriate or harmful content.

Failure to comply with Ofcoms demands could, or so at least one report suggests, result in executives at offending companies receiving substantial fines or even prison sentences.

Full details about the legislation and the powers it entails will be released this spring. But make no mistake: even as it stands this plan is a serious threat to internet freedom.

For one thing, these proposals dont just encompass the internets social-media behemoths, such as Facebook. Ofcoms writ will run to all sites that provide services allowing the sharing of user-generated content or user interactions. That means if you run a pressure group, or a political website, and publish material or comments from users, then you are potentially in Ofcoms crosshairs.

Whats more, quite apart from demanding that tech firms take down illegal material, Ofcom will require all sites featuring user-generated content to ensure their own terms and conditions are enforced. That is quite a burden. First, all sites will be forced to draft terms and conditions, and conceive of thresholds for harmful but legal content. They will then also have to come up with processes and systems to deal with complaints and allow for redress. And then they will have to take responsibility for enforcing the terms and conditions or face the potential wrath of Ofcom.

Empowering Ofcom to enforce sites own regulation of harmful but legal content could be disastrous. And you can bet that there will be plenty of people and pressure groups itching to use this new state power to suppress discussions they would rather not see take place.

Yes, the plan states that safeguards for freedom of expression have been built in throughout the framework. Hence the freedom to publish harmful but legal content as long as its clearly permitted in a platforms terms and conditions. But unfortunately, even this freedom is qualified by the imperative to respect the rights of children, and the corresponding demand that companies ensure there is a higher level of protection for children. From this, it could follow that there will be removal-of-content orders aimed at legal discussions of, for example, the morality of suicide, or anti-vaccination, because they are deemed too harmful to children.

Besides, the line between legal and illegal speech is pretty fluid anyway. Despite former policeman Harry Millers minor victory over an over-intrusive Humberside Police last week, the catch-all prohibition in section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 on grossly offensive material online is open to interpretation. It still means that any pungent or forceful statement that happens to annoy some interest group or other could give Ofcom reason to think it criminal and demand removal.

For all home secretary Priti Patels talk of needing to tame the Wild West of the internet in order to protect our children, it is clear what we have here: a plan for worryingly sweeping restrictions on what we can say, or allow others to say, online not to mention an enormous increase in bureaucrats power to snoop.

It is not even clear that any of this will be very effective. Even Ofcom accepts that it can only realistically intervene in sites in the UK. Depending on how the government responds to criticisms already made of its proposals, we shall have to see whether its plans merely prompt controversial sites to move abroad, or even to some convenient offshore jurisdiction, like the Isle of Man. If this happens, there will be precious little Ofcom will be able to do about them even if what they say is truly criminal. Even by Ofcoms curious standards, that would be a spectacular own goal.

Andrew Tettenborn is a professor of commercial law and a former Cambridge admissions officer.

Picture by: Getty.

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This is state censorship of the internet - Spiked

A coalition of civil, political and human rights groups have penned an open letter to Apple, calling on the company to stop enabling censorship and surveillance in China.

As spotted by Phayul: the letter was signed by groups such as Tibet Action Institute, Free Tibet, Keep Taiwan Free and SumOfUs.

The letter, addressed directly to Phil Schiller, reads:

We are a coalition of civil, political, human rights, freedom of expression, corporate accountability, privacy, and digital security organizations, many of whom are longtime Apple users. Together we represent communities in the US and abroad gravely impacted by Apple's decisions with regard to the Chinese App Store and user information. We are writing to express our serious concerns over Apple's confirmed removal of applications from the iOS App Store in China, including 1,000+ Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and news apps like the New York Times and Quartz, as well as the transfer of Apple users' iCloud data to a Chinese state-run telecom company. Many of our organizations have submitted letters1 to CEO Tim Cook raising these concerns and have yet to receive any response. Given that Apple's removal of VPNs and news apps sets a blatant and unethical double standard for the Chinese App Store, we are now bringing our serious concerns directly to you, the head of the App Store.

The letter highlights concerns such as Apple's "compliance with China's censorship and surveillance demands", which puts the App Store's actions "in direct contradiction" with its claim that "Privacy is a fundamental human right." It continues:

In reality, Apple's actions demonstrate that privacy is only a right for certain people. Since Apple removed VPNs from the App Store, iOS users in China have been left unable to easily protect their internet communications from pervasive surveillance. Apple's closed App Store ecosystem forces users who want to install banned applications to jailbreak their devices and give up the security measures that make Apple devices unique. Additionally, since relocating China's Apple iCloud data to mainland China, Apple has further ensured that hundreds of millions of people are forced to choose between allowing their data to be obtained without effective due process, or forgoing the online storage and backup measures your company has diligently developed.

The letter also mentions incidents such as the HKmap.live app, as well as the removal of the Taiwanese flag for users in Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China.

The letter concludes by asking that Apple meets with the group to discuss the concerns outlined, as well as asking that Apple pressure governments to be "specific, transparent, and consistent in their requirements". You can read the letter in its entirety here.

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Organizations pen letter to Apple calling on an end to censorship in China - iMore

A new study of World Bank data finds that aid disbursement to highly aid-dependent countries coincides with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centers. According to The Economist, the World Bank refused to release the study. Afterward, its chief economist resigned. Here is the full content of the allegedly-censored paper.

The World Bank Groupconsiders corruption a major challenge to its twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity for the poorest 40 percent of people in developing countries. On its website, the World Bank acknowledges that corruption is one of the main obstacles to development. However, according to a new study, World Bank aid actually fuels corruption: It is no surprise, then, that the World Bank allegedly tried to censor that paper.

In its latest issue, The Economist tied the abrupt resignation of World Bank chief economist Pinelopi (Penny) Goldberg with the story told in the paper Elite Capture of Foreign Aid: Evidence from Offshore Bank Accounts. One of that papers three authors, Bob Rijkers, is a World Bank economist. The other two are academics: Jorgen Juel Andersen (BI Norwegian Business School) and Niels Johannesen (University of Copenhagen).

This paper, The Economist writes,

passed an exacting internal review by other researchers in November. But, according to informed sources, publication was blocked by higher officials.

Today, Johannesen posted the most recent draft tohis personal website. It is not difficult to understand why World Bank executives were upset.

Anderssen, Johannesen, and Rijkers found that aid disbursements to highly aid-dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centers known for bank secrecy and private wealth management, but not in other financial centers. The most plausible explanation for this result is that local officials steal a significant part of development aid funds and hide that money in their personal offshore accounts.

The paper studies a sample of the 22 most aid-dependent countries, with average disbursements from the World Bank exceeding 2 percent of GDP: In quarters when a country receives aid equivalent to 1 percent of GDP, its deposits in havens increase by 3.4 percent relative to a country receiving no aid, but its deposits held in non-haven financial centers remain constant. The implied average leakage is around 7.5 percent: This means that for every $100 of development aid, $7.50 apparently becomes corruption profits, hidden in offshore financial centers.

The data the three authors use for their study all comes from the Bank of International Settlements and from the World Bank. The development aid that fuels corruption is actually money disbursed by two major World Bank institutions: the International Development Association and the Bank of Reconstruction and Development.

Countries that depend most on aid, like Afghanistan or Burkina Faso, are usually also the worst managed. According to the papers results, development aid might improve ordinary peoples lives and respond to their immediate needs, but it can also help local corrupt politicians amass personal wealth that can consolidate their power. If local politicians become richer and more powerful the more aid they receive, they will have no incentive to actually work to develop their country.

The most aid-dependent country in the world is Afghanistan: It receives 33.5 percent of its GDP in foreign aid, from different sources. The sum of Afghanistans deposits in the 17 countries the paper classifies as havens now totals $34 million.

Andersen, Johannesen, and Rijkerss paper raises multiple questions. The most serious is regarding the efficacy of the World Banks development aid projects and of its anti-corruption provisions: Apparently, they dont work very well.

The second question is on censorship and academic research. Powerful institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or the Federal Reserve have talented economists and virtually limitless resources for research: Their potential contribution to the advancing of economic knowledge cannot be underestimated. But employees clearly lack the independence and freedom that academics are supposed to have.

The alleged censorship of the paper on foreign aid and corruption lasted only a few days because one of the authors decided to post it on his personal website. Johannesen is a tenured professor at the University of Copenhagen, so he is independent of the World Bank. However, every choice comes with a price: He has relied upon World Bank data for many of his projects, and now he has put himself at risk of retaliation from top World Bank officials who will likely oppose the visibility of the paper.

International institutions, like private corporations, have what economists need to do research: data. The credibility of research, and the enduring process of the scientific pursuit of knowledge, are seriously damaged if only flattering results are published and troubling findings are hidden or silenced.

Papergate, as it is now called on Twitter, proves that no censorship is possible if at least one of the people who know the secret is free to speak.

The censorship chain is as fragile as its weakest link. A few hours after Johannesen published the draft paper on his personal website, the World Bank also published the final version of the study as Policy Research Working Paper 9150.

The ProMarket blog is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visitProMarket Blog Policy.

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The World Bank's "Papergate": Censorship Is Not the Best Way to Stop Development Aid From Fueling Corruption - - ProMarket

A report published by tech.co on Wednesday ranks and categorizes the countries with the highest internet censorship. Among the reports most salient findings:

The data were ranked based the content that citizens can access, the illegality of privacy tools such as virtual private networks, as well as monitoring policies and limitations on freedom of expression.

Turkmenistan was perhaps a surprising top pick for this list, if only for its absence from most world news. Yet it earned its spot at the top for several reasons.

Turkmentelecom, which is government-controlled, is the only internet provider in the country. It has used this chokehold to block access to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Politically motivated disappearances of online publishers are common.

Senators Tom Udall, D-N.M., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., introduced the Tribal Digital Divide Act of 2020 on Tuesday to accelerate the deployment of broadband services to Native American communities.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, less than half of households on tribal lands have access to fixed broadband service. This billattemptsto address that by implementing the following:

Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar expressed some ideas on how to expand broadband access at the Moving America Forward forum in Las Vegas this Sunday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

There are always ways, some of which include creating incentives that would penalize the states for not being more accepting of government-driven public-owned broadband. She also suggested preemption.

A precursor to either of these methods, however, is the collection of a new and accurate broadband map, as a whole bunch of money is going where it shouldnt. Klobuchar related how northern communities in her state of Minnesota which can see Canada from [its] porch have flocked to resorts across the border because of superior broadband.

Some have even switched to Canadian broadband, she mentioned.

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Broadband Roundup: Global Internet Censorship, Tribal Divide, Klobuchar on the Broadband Stump - BroadbandBreakfast.com

Last month INHOPE, a global trade association of child abuse reporting hotlines, rejected a joint call from Prostasia Foundation, the National Coalition Against Censorship, Article 19, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, that its members should stop treating cartoons as if they were images of child sexual abuse. As our joint letter pointed out, INHOPE's conflation of offensive artwork with actual abuse images has resulted in the misdirection of police resources against artists and fans predominantly LGBTQ+ people and women rather than towards the apprehension of those who abuse real children.

INHOPE is not a child protection organization, but an industry association for organizations and agencies that provide censorship services to government and private industry. Its Articles of Association are surprisingly explicit about this: its objective is to "facilitate and promote the work of INHOPE Member Hotlines, whose work is to eradicate illegal content, primarily child sexual abuse material, on the internet" [emphasis added].

It executes this mission by collecting personal information of those who share images that are reported to it (which can include a name, email address, phone number, and IP address), and sharing this information among its member hotlines and with police. Again, it is explicit about this, acknowledging that its "core business revolves around the exchange of sensitive data." INHOPE members have actively lobbied to weaken European privacy rules so that they can maintain these data collection practices, while refusing to accept a compromise allowing continued scanning for actual child abuse images.

Such data collection is clearly justifiable when it is limited to actual sexual abuse images. But INHOPE's data collection isn't limited to this. It siphons up reports of all manner of reports that its members declare to be illegal in their country, and (with one exception mentioned below) gives them another "once-over" to determine whether they are illegal worldwide, only in the reporting or hosting country, or not at all, before forwarding them to INTERPOL. Even if this assessment leads to a determination that the images are lawful, INHOPE doesn't delete them. Inexplicably, it instead classifies them as "Other Child-Related Content," retains them in a database, and sends them to law enforcement for what it describes as "documentation purposes."

Images reported by NCMEC, the American hotline, undergo even less vetting. Despite being an INHOPE member, NCMEC doesn't utilize the services of INHOPE analysts, but directly shares reported images and associated personal information with law enforcement agencies around the world. According to Swiss authorities, up to 90% of these images are later found to be lawful.

INHOPE chose to mischaracterize our call as being grounded in a misunderstanding of the fact that some countries do prohibit artistic sexual representations of minors by law. But our letter explicitly acknowledged that fact, by calling on INHOPE to establish a policy for its members that "artistic images should not be added to image hash lists that INHOPE members maintain, and should not be reported to authorities, unless required by the law where the hotline operates [emphasis added].

There are indeed some countries in which lawmakers do ill-advisedly use the same laws to criminalize the dissemination of offensive art as they use to prohibit the image-based abuse of real children. But the risks of an international organization allowing national authorities to act as gatekeepers of the images that it it treats as child abuse and reports to INTERPOL should be obvious.

For example, Canada's overbroad child pornography laws have recently drawn public attention over the much-criticised prosecution of an author and publisher for a novel that includes a brief scene of child sexual abuse in its retelling of the story of Hansel and Gretel. The Canadian Center for Child Protection, one of only two INHOPE members that proactively searches for illegal material, was responsible for the arrest of a a 17 girl for posting artwork to her blog, when it reported her to authorities in Costa Rica where such artwork is also illegal.

In other countries where cartoon images are illegal, criminal laws are used to disproportionately target and criminalize LGBTQ+ people and women. An example given in our letter was the case of a Russian trans woman who was arrested over cartoon images and sentenced to imprisonment in a men's prison.

Russia's INHOPE member the Friendly Runet Foundation encourages people to report if they are "exasperated by the on-line materials transgressing morality," and boasts that it was "created at the direct participation and works in close partnership with the Department "K" of the Russian ministry of Interior." This terminology, and the hotline's association with the ministry that criminalized "gay propaganda," is understood by Russian citizens as an attack on LGBTQ+ people's speech. It is noted that no LGBTQ+ representatives are included on INHOPE's Advisory Board.

INHOPE can't do anything, directly, about unjust national laws that conflate artistic images with child abuse. INHOPE and its members also can't do much to prevent conservative members of the public from reporting non-actionable content (although one member has taken steps to address this problem). That's why we are directly targeting the public with our "Don't report it, block it information campaign, to stem such false reports at the source.

But what INHOPE can do is to decide what to do with reports that it receives about artistic content. Passing them to law enforcement authorities, using a censorship and surveillance infrastructure that was established to deal with real images of child sexual abuse, isn't its only option here. Neither is it necessary to place those who share such images in the crosshairs of police, especially in countries that have unjust laws or repressive governments.

In 2019, we held a seminar with Internet companies and experts to discuss more proportionate ways of dealing with content such as child nudity, child modeling, and artistic images, that doesn't rise to the legal of child abuse, but which can still be triggering or offensive, or harmful when shared in the wrong context. Through a multi-stakeholder process, this resulted in the development of a set of principles for sexual content moderation and child protection that were launched at last year's Internet Governance Forum.

INHOPE already has a Code of Practice that its members are required to comply with. To be clear, some INHOPE members already do have good practices, and Britain's Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is one of these: although cartoon images are unlawful in the United Kingdom and the IWF is mandated to accept reports about them, it doesn't include these reports in its hash lists of abuse images, nor share them with foreign police. Our joint letter invited INHOPE to take the opportunity to amend its Code of Practice to apply similar standards to its other members. Its decision not to consider this doesn't reflect well on the organization.

Internet reporting hotlines are selling a product to law enforcement authorities: a censorship service for which actual images of child abuse are only the selling point. This can be a lucrative gig; NCMEC alone received $33 million from the United States government in 2018. Therefore, as a business proposition, it makes sense for INHOPE and its members to ask few questions about the scope of the censorship services their governments call upon them to provide. Conversely, since almost no federal money is being allocated towards abuse prevention, there is little incentive for them to invest in prevention interventions that could reduce abuse in the long run.

But these perverse incentives are leading it down a dangerous path. It's time for us to call this censorship cartel to account, and to demand that it consider the human rights of the innocent people who are being hurt by its approach. The plain fact is that INHOPE doesn't represent the voices of experts who work on child sexual abuse prevention, it represents the law enforcement sector. By refusing to curtail its activities to place the censorship of artistic images outside its remit, INHOPE has lost the moral authority that provides the only justification for its sweeping and dangerous powers.

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It's Time to Curtail the Censorship Industry Cartel - CircleID