NUDITY FACEBOOK wethenipple protest over double standards

FOLLOW-UP RESOURCES: 

2020 MARCH: LIZZO ATTACKS TIKTOK FOR RACIST, BODY SHAMING CENSORSHIP (Guardian)

2020 OCTOBER INSTA ACCUSED OF CENSORING ONLY PLUS-SIZED WOMEN'S BODIES (Guardian)

While IPSO has an Editor's Code (though it had nothing to say about Page 3 & it's discrimination clause certainly doesn't impact sexist coverage) the web is a largely unregulated media (the so-called wild wild web).

Facebook, like Google (especially YouTube) and others to a lesser degree, is under fire from governments and pressure groups for its undermining of democracy and general lack of openness. Unlike the BBFC and IPSO these FAANGS giants (& smaller co's) keep their algorithms and rule books as closely guarded secrets, their information firewall occasionally breached by whistleblowers or research.

STORY: Guardian, JUNE 2019: Naked protesters condemn nipple censorship at Facebook headquarters.

The different treatment given to the male and female nipple is one case where the social media giants' policies are known. All are censorious of the female nipple, operating a stark double standard with the male nipple, though the effectiveness of this varies - Instagram and Facebook run algorithms to remove such images (including many cases, controversially, of breast feeding), while the likes of YouTube run ineffective age 'blocks'.

This has sparked multiple campaigns I've blogged on before, notably freethenipple. #wethenipple is another, enacting a smartly designed naked protest outside Facebook US offices - covering their nakedness with cutouts of male nipples.

The issue, as I've pointed out before, is complex. The gender binary is well established in law - women can be prosecuted for 'indecent exposure' for baring their nipples, men can't. Media coverage continues to normativize the sexualisation of the female nipple.

Such law (and media policies) is oblivious to the contemporary undermining of the gender binary through increasing visibility and prominence of queered identities, leading to an increase in gender-free toilets. Butler would approve - while some US states have passed laws (sparking cultural boycotts) banning trans people from using bathrooms of their asserted gender.

What isn't so ambiguous is the problematic nature of giants like Facebook, increasingly influential in shaping opinion and cultural views, having secretive unregulated rules on what they deem acceptable or unacceptable.

As weak, largely ineffective and lamentably limited (ownership? lack of pluralism?) as the Editor's Code is, it is at least transparent, with decisions explained (though no ruling is made if mediated) on their website, as are the BBFC's (in their case backed by regular research into public attitudes on swearing etc).

What isn't

SOCIAL MEDIA FAANGS 2019

Rather than posting multiple blogs, I'll gather new events/points in this hub post. The clear theme is an EU-led backlash against the wild west non-regulation of the web giants (FAANGS: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, Spotify), though US lawmakers won't necessarily be fooled by the millions being spent by FAANGS lobbyists to convince them this is a conspiracy against US business by a jealous EU which failed to produce companies/apps that appeal globally.

SOME FAQS/THEMES

Will there be statutory regulation?
Yes, its already happening: GDPR; Germany will enforce $20m fines if hate speech isn't removed within 24 hours, and it + France are leading the way on taxing the tax-dodging giants. Apple has already been forced by the EU to pay the Irish government €13bn in back-tax.

Will the FAANGS conglomerates be forced to break-up into smaller companies?
Probably, but the timescale is uncertain. EU pressure will be a factor, but it will be US regulators/politicians who ultimately decide if, like the film industry back in 1948 (Hollywood giants were forced to sell off their cinema holdings), they legally form monopolies and therefore competition + consumer protection law insists they must become smaller. The FAANGS are spending $millions to persuade US lawmakers that the EU are trying to undermine USA dominance, and that any attack on them is bad for the USA.

However, with deregulation being the long-term trend ever since Reagan back in 1980 (same for the UK from 1979 when Thatcher was elected, two very right-wing, 'free market' politicians), the film industry may actually see its anti-trust laws scrapped in 2019! Right-wing governments (eg Trump/Republicans, May/Tories) are reluctant to regulate the 'free market'.

The right-wing press may also be very free market, but they do frequently campaign for tighter regulation of other media (just not the press), which will add pressure to right-wing politicians to act.


Are children (+ how they are monetised) a factor?
Absolutely!!!
Protection of children, arguably even more than protection of democracy, is a (the?) key driver behind media regulation. The age rating system (film, games), TV watershed, multiple clauses in the press industry's Editors' Code, much of the ASA's policymaking, all are dominated or even defined by protection of children. The ASA's ruling that apps must not contain gambling if they're accessible to kids is just the start of what promises to be a tough EU-led fightback against the non-regulated, wild west approach of the 'digital gangsters' of new media.

Phone hacking was a scandal to Guardian readers until the Milly Dowler case broke, and within weeks the highest-selling Sunday paper was closed and a multi-year formal commission (Leveson) was set up to investigate newspaper malpractice, while the self-regulator, PCC, scrapped itself and announced IPSO would replace it.

Expect Facebook and Google/YouTube's lax age controls to become a major issue.

The non-regulated monetising of freemium apps (Lara Croft Go, Kim Kardashian's Hollywood) and vlogging social influencers like Zoella is already facing restrictions.




2019 STORIES

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FACEBOOK + SOCIAL MEDIA TO GET STATUTORY REGULATION? UK MPs CALL FACEBOOK 'DIGITAL GANGSTERS'
Read more on the Feb 2019 'digital gangsters' statement + call for statutory regulation, which was quickly backed by the Labour party (but the Tories are unlikely to agree).

A 'digital gangster'? UK MPs are furious with Zuckerberg

Facebook (and Google/YouTube) are facing ever growing scrutiny over their (mis)use of user data and facilitation of anti-democratic forces (in US presidential election, Brexit vote, spreading of anti-vaccine ideas, etc). They have grown into vast global conglomerates with little or no formal regulation.

GDPR, laws passed within the EU to insist on minimal standards of privacy and registration of user data, was an early sign of this wild west era ending, though the lobbyists (PR, campaigners) employed by the FAANGS have successfully argued to US politicians that this is the EU trying to damage American business.

There remains the distinct possibility, though, that US regulators will get tough on them. Facebook is facing multi-billion fines for misuse of user data, which could lead to a re-think on regulation there.

FACEBOOK DEFAMATION if proven as publisher

Another front opens up on the growing backlash against the American social media behemoths...

The electioneering and data gathering scandal, EU data privacy laws (GDPR), the UK government apparently seeking tougher child protection, the press campaign to have Facebook (and Google) treated like publishers with the regulations that brings and to pay for their content...

Now comes an attack on their revenues, a defamation case brought by a businessman whose name was used in fake ads despite his attempts to get Facebook to take them down. The ad regulator, ASA, has no real sway here, it is once again Facebook self-regulating itself as it sees fit. There is a clear parallel with the recent Google scandal over its placing of racist, extreme right-wing ads.

The pressure grows to act on GAFA's protected status as American companies (the US safe haven laws) not governed by national regulation (never mind taxation!) in the many territories it operates in.

Martin Lewis sues Facebook over fake ads with his name https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/22/martin-lewis-sues-facebook-over-fake-ads-with-his-name?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

ANTITRUST REGULATION Should new media giants be broken up?

Google, Facebook not playing by the rules, News Corp tells ACCC

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/04/google-facebook-not-playing-by-the-rules-news-corp-tells-accc?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

TERMINOLOGY - very useful neologism/mnemonic below: GAFA...

UPDATE: MURDOCH'S FOX RAIDED BY EU ANTI-TRUST AUTHORITY OVER SPORTS RIGHTS
The Murdoch press enjoys a dominant market position in the UK with no hint of any regulatory action (unless left-wing Labour leader wins the next election) from government or the self-'regulator' IPSO. Yet his corporation's handling of sport rights once more sees clear evidence of the tough regulatory environment for broadcast media compared to 'print' media.
Guardian: 21st Century Fox's London office raided in market abuse inquiry.

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A useful primer, including a quote from Adam Smith, on the history of and current clamour for enforcement of antitrust laws.

In a nutshell these exist to combat market dominance by single companies (or colluding cartels), seen as to the detriment of customers.

Elliot, the Guardian Economics editor, references historical cases of oil, and 1980s action on AT+T (US equivalent of BT in the UK or Post in Luxembourg), but he could also have referenced action against a forerunner of the modern cinema big six, forced to vertically DE-integrate before gradual deregulation allowed this dominance to return.

Microsoft were desperate for Apple to survive during its 90s crises, as it helped put off antitrust action against them.

Elliot cites the GAFA crew, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, but Comcast and Disney also are worthy of such consideration as they clamber above even global media barons such as Murdoch, who faces Disney buying his film empire and Comcast his prized TV empire.

(See Guardian article, Is it time to break up the tech giants such as Facebook?, for more on this)

The argument goes like this. Data is as vital to the modern digital economy as oil was a century ago. The tech giants have the same sort of monopoly power that Standard Oil once had (Google and Facebook accounted for two-thirds of online advertising spending in the US last year and Amazon was responsible for 75% of online book sales). Mark Zuckerberg might wear chinos rather than the top hat sported by Rockefeller but a robber baron is a robber baron. It is time for anti-trust legislation to be used to break up Facebook, Google and Amazon.

The charge sheet is a long one: the tech giants are exploiting their monopoly power to stifle competition; they are spreading fake news; their fantastically rich owners portray themselves as right-on yet go to a great deal of trouble to minimise their corporate tax bills; they are ripping the heart out of communities through the closure of bricks-and-mortar retailers. To the list can now be added (in Facebook’s case) the harvesting of the personal data of 50 million Americans and its use for political purposes. 

No question, Big Tech is more vulnerable to a backlash from Washington than it has ever been. Companies have outgrown management systems that were not designed for systemically important businesses and have used their market power to gobble up rivals. It is this charge – that the disruptive startup companies of yesteryear are today’s anti-capitalists – that creates the biggest risk of anti-trust action.

CONCENTRATION OF OWNERSHIP due to Google Facebook ad dominance

The newspaper industry has been based on ad revenue since the scrapping of stamp duty (tax) in 1851 led to a sharp increase in professionalism, with production (and distribution) costs exceeding revenue from cover price. As Curran and Seaton argue in great detail in Power Without Responsibility, this led to a mass closure of ‘radical press’ titles and consolidation and concentration of ownership by wealthy individuals who pursued right-wing agendas such as low business taxes and attacking trade unions/workers rights.

The modern-day online migration of ad revenue (one major consequence of disruption from digitisation, the other being the youth market almost disappearing as a paid-for print media market: steep circulation decline) is an important factor in any possible change to press regulation.

The industry is struggling for survival, so tougher regulation, especially that proposed by Impress, linked to the Royal Charter idea that Leveson proposed, which would see newspapers routinely charged for the legal fees of accusers even if their complaints were ultimately rejected, could result in mass closure and a further loss of pluralism.

Guardian: Newsquest targets Archant as newspaper consolidation gathers pace.

“Consolidation is inevitable,” Ashley Highfield, chief executive of Johnston Press, owner of the Scotsman and Yorkshire Post, said last week. “It’s the obvious and necessary road ahead and smaller publishers increasingly cannot survive without being part of bigger groups to bring economies of scale and shared content.”
Last year, Johnston Press, the UK’s second-biggest regional newspaper group, paid Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Evening Standard and Independent websites, £24m for national newspaper the i to bulk up the publisher’s scale. It also was one of a number of suitors, including Lebedev, to look at buying national freesheet Metro when DMGT, which owns the Daily Mail, tested market appetite for a sale.

Advertisement

The shift of readers away from printed newspapers, which have traditionally provided the bulk of revenues and profits through sales and advertising, has been profound over the last decade.
Total weekly regional newspaper circulation fell by half from 42m to 22m between 2009 and 2016 , with paid-for copies falling from 26m to 13.8m, according to Enders Analysis. Similarly, the national newspaper market has shrunk from selling 9.3m copies per day in 2009 to 5.2m last year.
On Tuesday, investors in Trinity Mirror, the publisher of the Mirror titles, will vote to approve a £200m takeover of Richard Desmond’s Express and Star titles as the national newspaper industry faces the same issue of the need to build scale to survive in the battle for advertising against the tech giants.
The impact on publishers’ bottom line has been further affected by lower rates for digital advertising, exacerbated by giants such as Facebook and Google hoovering up to 90% of all new ad money being spent online.
Since 2008, almost £800m in ad spend has been stripped from national newspapers, from £1.54bn in 2008 to £757m last year. The impact is even more stark in regional newspapers, which have seen ad revenue fall from £2bn in 2008 to £723m last year, according to figures from Group M.
“In order to survive, consolidation is key to compete with the online players and retain some share of digital advertising,” says Alice Pickthall, media analyst at Enders.
“As the digital market grows, publishers aren’t seeing a proportionate amount of share gain. Facebook has had an especially big impact on the local market. If a local business is offered a lovely shiny [presence] on Facebook who wouldn’t use it? The largest [traditional] players in the market will win, they will continue to pick up smaller publishers to maintain scale in a shrinking market.”

LEVESON buried as government goes for Google

UPDATE: Former Labour Leader Ed Miliband (or 'Red Ed' as the right-wing red-tops would have it of this very 'centrist', at least politician who opposes Jeremy Corbyn's left-wing policies) has called for Leveson2 to happen.

Great quote on IPSO - he wasn't impressed when the Mail branded his father a traitor. He tweeted and gave media interviews to counter that rather than trying IPSO.

The Leveson inquiry must be completed. The victims of phone-hacking deserve nothing less

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/08/victims-phone-hacking-leveson-inquiry?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

UPDATE2 A vote could back Impress as the compulsory regulator, and another make papers pay legal costs whether they win or lose any case.  

Government faces possible defeat on press regulation votes

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/08/government-facing-possible-defeat-in-press-regulation-votes?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Nor can we take comfort from the response to Leveson part one. The press declined to set up the kind of independent regulator that both Leveson and parliament wanted to see. Instead we have Ipso, a toothless organisation that, despite bold promises, has yet to impose a single fine or deliver a single equal prominence front-page correction in a national paper. There are also significant issues around the lack of rules or redress around much of the news on social media.

Greenslade's view that the press inquiry announced by UK PM May marks the death, or at least the long-term parking (surely a Labour victory would see Leveson resurrected?) of Leveson2 seems about right.

His Guardian column is occasional rather than daily these days but always worth looking out for. As a former national newspaper editor himself he reliably skewers the realities of this cantankerous industry and it's billionaire figureheads, gladhanded as they are by regimes of a non-socialist bent.

Interesting that the press' extreme aversion to political scrutiny means it mostly failed to imbue May with lavish praise for meeting a long-term demand, an inquiry into the leeching of the new media titans of press content and finance.

This is, nonetheless, a strong sign of the press' continuing current grip over their ideologically matched right-wing Tory government. Obvious echoes here of the timid burial of Calcutt2 nearly 30 years ago when a declining Tory government took years to respond to Calcutt's demand for a new review, as agreed in his original report, when he noted that press behaviour had not substantially altered, then quietly announced there would be no such review.

Here's a snippet:

For years, they have been calling for something to be done about Google and Facebook, arguing that both steal their content while luring away their advertisers. The result has been falling profits for “old media” and consequent closures of regional and local titles accompanied by a sizeable reduction in the number of journalists, rightly described by May as “a hollowing-out of newsrooms”.

This is hardly a new story, and there has been plenty of political lobbying from publishing organisations in order to persuade the government that their industry’s decline requires attention.

These pleas for action have been couched in terms of a warning that the nation is in danger of losing its “free press”, which, to quote the Daily Mail, therefore represents an “insidious threat to British democracy”. A free press, eh? Would that be the press owned and controlled by rich men – yes, men – or profiteering conglomerates that have been propagandists for a “free market” and opposed all regulatory intervention?

Would that be the free press that has traditionally championed business competition and praised the virtue of technological innovation in other industries where jobs have been wiped out?

It was noticeable that May also ignored such ironies when contending that the decline of newspapers is “dangerous for our democracy” and that the loss of “trusted and credible news sources” makes us “vulnerable to news which is untrustworthy”.

Given that untrustworthy news has been the stock in trade of national titles like the Mail for generations it was hard not to laugh at her disingenuousness.

Guardian: Is May’s press inquiry just a way of putting Leveson 2 on the back burner?

SOCIAL MEDIA MPs consider law to make Facebook etc liable in abuse cases

Again, newspaper owners are campaigning for the likes of Facebook (which profits from their content while passing back minimal revenue; is sucking vital ad revenue away from them; changes their newsfeed algorithms periodically, often losing newspapers large proportions of online readers as a result with no means for them to protest or influence this)
Guardian: Make Facebook liable for content, says report on UK election intimidation.

Theresa May should consider the introduction of two new laws to deter the intimidation of MPs during elections and force social media firms to monitor illegal content, an influential committee has said.

The independent Committee on Standards in Public Life, which advises the prime minister on ethics, has called for the introduction within a year of a new specific offence in electoral law to halt widespread abuse when voters go to the polls.
The watchdog will recommend another law to shift the liability for illegal content on to social media firms such as Facebook and Google, a legal change which will be easier once Britain leaves the European Union.
Both changes form part of the hard-hitting conclusions of an inquiry into intimidation experienced by parliamentary candidates in this year’s election campaign.
Other recommendations include:

• Social media firms should make decisions quickly to take down intimidatory content.

• Political parties should, by December 2018, draw up a joint code of conduct on intimidatory behaviour during election campaigns.
  
• The National Police Chiefs’ Council should ensure that police are trained to investigate offences committed through social media.
  
• Ministers should bring forward rules so that council candidates will no longer be required to release their home addresses.

FUTURE WEB 2.0 Facebook Google to be declared publishers?

The newspaper industry have been campaigning for this for some time - but I wouldn't hold your breath; Facebook alone has 1 of the biggest lobbying teams/spend of any global corporation (and boosted it significantly as soon as the Capita/election influence scandal hit hard in March/April 2018).

Guardian: Ofcom chair raises prospect of regulation for Google and Facebook.

UPDATE: The Culture Minister - in the same week he fiercely opposed Leveson2 and tougher press regulation (but actually seems to have proposed statutory regulation by the back door...), he's announced plans for new legislation to regulate social media, including a levy to pay for more monitoring.

UK government plans new legislation to tame internet's 'wild west'

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/19/uk-government-plans-new-laws-tackle-internet-wild-west?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

MPs say social media must face fines as publishers

MPs are adding their voice to the slowly growing pressure for the social media giants to face regulation equivalent to the traditional media industries. With convergence (a newspaper is now as much a website, app, radio, TV as it is a print medium!), it seems hard to justify the social media firms escaping regulation - unless we adopt a laissez faire, ultra free market approach and scrap or radically reduce ALL media regulation (deregulate).

NB: The Home Affairs Committee is made of backbench MPs from all parties, NOT government ministers; its job is to scrutinise the work of government and to make recommendations in that policy area - just as the DCMS (Department of Culture, Media + Sport) has the Culture Select Committee scrutinising its work (they were very critical of the PCC while the government ignored or even praised it!).

Social media companies are putting profit before safety and should face fines of tens of millions of pounds for failing to remove extremist and hate crime material promptly from their websites, MPs have said.The largest and richest technology firms are “shamefully far” from taking action to tackle illegal and dangerous content, according to a report by the Commons home affairs committee.The inquiry, launched last year following the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox by a far-right gunman, concludes that social media multinationals are more concerned with commercial risks than public protection. Swift action is taken to remove content found to infringe copyright rules, the MPs note, but a “laissez-faire” approach is adopted when it involves hateful or illegal content.Referring to Google’s failure to prevent paid advertising from reputable companies appearing next to YouTube videos posted by extremists, the committee’s report said: “One of the world’s largest companies has profited from hatred and has allowed itself to be a platform from which extremists have generated revenue.”In Germany, the report points out, the justice ministry has proposed imposing financial penalties of up to €50m on social media companies that are slow to remove illegal content. 

Social media firms must face heavy fines over extremist content – MPs.

Walled, walled web and hidden censorship

The notion of the wild, wild web gets ever weaker. Regulation of the web is largely privatised, down to the whims and ideology of sites.

We should think of the walled, walled web, especially Facebook, but the policies of major social media, which seek to keep users in and on their site as long as possible, thus sucking out maximum data and advertising revenue, are the major de facto web regulator - and their supposed commitment to free speech is every bit as sincere as the press's.

That means any state regulation of them is baaaad, an attack on freedom of speech - and let's not use the t-word please...

The wild, wild web persists when it comes to tax avoidance, an issue with several of the billionaire press barons too. The industries have in common neo-liberal, fundamentalist free market owners. There is a current fightback in Europe, with several states pursuing legal cases against Google and its use of internal billing to minimise declared profit and focus this in low tax Ireland.

Contrastingly, Facebook and Instagram freak at the (female) nipple (helping to inspire the #freethenipple campaign), and in this case seem to have worked to undermine the meme protesting across a controversial rape sentencing in America, protecting the privileged (the censoring itself having gone viral, they've now said this was a technical glitch and will stop).

Interesting point on privacy - held up for private citizens but not for those in the public eye or on matters of public record.

This in the week when the EU-mandated right to forget saw Axl Rose apply for a takedown of prominent Axl is fat meme images.

See this Distractify post for more.

FAIR USAGE Google to fight takedowns as unfair cop

Huge, huge issue for both regulators and the media companies they regulate: what to do about new media platforms that often undermine established practices and laws, not least copyright law.

For a student seeking hits for their film or video work, or just getting a handle on the complex realities of the modern film or music industries, you need to know the arguments and battles that rage around YouTube and others' practices...

After a series of skirmishes with established media and others the company said it was “offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedowns”. 

Google’s move comes after privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully defended Stephanie Lenz, a mother whose 29-second video of her son dancing to Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy had been removed from YouTube after Universal Music issued a DMCA notice ordering it to be taken down. 

“With approval of the video creators, we’ll keep the videos live on YouTube in the US, feature them in the YouTube Copyright Center as strong examples of fair use, and cover the cost of any copyright lawsuits brought against them,” Fred von Lohmann, Google’s copyright legal director, wrote on the Google blog.

Google offers legal support to some YouTube users in copyright battles.

FILM WEB PIRACY Contrast protest over MPAA with UK ISP Torrent bans

Quite a contrast...

In the US a combination of mass (including street) protest and tech-corporate lobbying (including paying for ads) stymied an attempt, led by Hollywood/MPAA, to make it easy to isolate websites accused of copyright infringement.

Move on 3 years and the likes of Google have swiftly jumped on a new attempt by the MPAA to bring this in by the back door - this time they're focussed on one site, MovieTube, but succeeding in cutting it off would establish the principle.

Here in the UK we have no triple democratic lock (House, Senate, Supreme Court in the US), just a supine Lords to check the power of a Commons which the PM can operate as an "elective dictatorship" (Lord Hailsham's infamous phrase, then attacking a 1970s Labour government) when a single party has an overall majority.

Here, ISPs already block a wide range of websites which serve as search engines for Torrents (a means of linking with multiple users globally to download often copyrighted material).

PM Cameron, to the delight of the likes of the Mail (which loves media regulation or censorship ... just as long as its not of the Press), is pressing ahead with proposals to enforce age ratings on music videos online, to make every online adult to state whether they're opting in or out to adult material (always a difficult definition), and have already enforced a ban on a wide range of adult categories.

Against the backdrop of an overwhelmingly right-wing press, traditionally in favour of conservative, censorial campaigns (so long as it doesn't impact their businesses), there's been little protest here - at least, little that the public might hear about through the mainstream media.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo claim MPAA is trying to resurrect Sopa.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo have accused US film studios of attempting to resurrect the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa), which was defeated in Congress in 2012. 

The US technology companies joined together to file a brief (pdf) with New York courts urging judges to strike down a preliminary injunction filed by six film studios of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which calls for a blockade of the alleged piracy site Movietube.  

Sony, Universal, Warner Bros, Disney and Paramount are seeking to remove Movietube from the internet and stop internet companies linking to or providing services to the site, including search engines and social networks. 

“Plaintiffs’ effort to bind the entire Internet to a sweeping preliminary injunction is impermissible. It violates basic principles of due process ... [and] ignores the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which specifically limits the injunctive relief that can be imposed on online service providers in copyright cases,” the technology companies write in the amicus brief. 

They state that they do not condone the use of their services for copyright infringement and that they work with rights holders to tackle issues, but that the “proposed injunction is legally impermissible and would have serious consequences for the entire online community”.

WEB Right to be Forgotten attacked by BBC

Julian Powles makes a difficult argument well - defending the "right to be forgotten" created by an EU ruling against Google in Spain that gives EU citizens the right to ask Google (and other search engines) to effectively hide hits/results that highlight from their past they do not want seen.

He points out that this includes people whose names bring up crimes ... that they were acquitted of, but you don't get that info in the top results, just the more sensational coverage of the accusations.

There are clashing principles here, both enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights:

• freedom of speech
• right to privacy; a private life

Why the BBC is wrong to republish ‘right to be forgotten’ links.

DEREGULATION GLOBALISATION Robert Bork + why EU tackles Google monopoly when US doesn't

I was aware of Robert Bork, but couldn't have pinned down his relevance to the media (de)regulation issue before I'd read this excellent article by John Naughton, intriguing enough to interrupt a time out in the fading sunshine!

The news hook is that the EU have announced an investigation into Google's practices, giving them 10 weeks to respond to an accusation of monopolistic strategy. Naughton highlights the stark contrast with the US, where the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), faced with the same data as the EU's competition commissioner (the US actually passed it on!), decided not to take a case ... despite several staff apparently arguing they should.

This is where Naughton draws on the writings and influence of Robert Bork, one of the foremost theorists of the neoliberal, deregulatory ideology that has slowly gained hegemony since the New Right movements of Thatcherism and Reaganomics took hold in the early 1980s.

DIGITISATION GLOBALISATION Is Guardian now an AMERICAN paper?

Unique charitable ownership (Scott Trust) guarantees a future?

[UPDATE: Points from new article on Guardian linking up with several other media brands to jointly sell online display advertising added below the line]

This has been coming for some time, and reflects the globalising impact of ongoing digitisation. As well as highlighting investment in video content, American offices and ad sales staff to sell US-targeted ads (I already frequently see US ads within the Android Guardian app!), and detailing the wider corporate strategy, the central role of the US audience is made abundantly clear. We have to ask several questions here:

• Can a US/world-facing paper be properly regulated by UK media regulators?
• Lets not forget that the Guardian continues to boycott IPSO (at the time of writing)
• Does a separate press regulator make sense when convergence is essentially making the Guardian into an online TV producer as well as written/photographic news provider? Furthermore...
• Okay, the Guardian at a mere £1bn net worth is not on the scale of Murdoch et al, but nonetheless it does own other media interests - why is there still so little focus on cross-media ownership?
• Is it feasible that under pressure to please its US (and other nationalities) readers the Guardian won't shift its editorial style or approach on the US? Where might this leave British readers/users?
• Given the near-absence of any 'left-wing' within mainstream US politics, could this signal a further threat to pluralism within the UK press market?
• There are more positive issues too - the Guardian has built up a considerable record in recent years of collaborating on major, expensive projects with French, German, American and other papers, and this could enhance the prospects for more of this. Globalisation meant that the UK government's rather clumsy attempts to silence the Snowden reportage (physically smashing a Guardian PC received widespread mockery and contempt) was doomed to failure.

Make particular note of the 2nd paragraph below [article in full]:

So much for 'wild wild web': US gov spies on big sites

If you use YouTube, Apple, Google, Facebook (and more) - can there many who doesn't use one of these? - be aware that the US secret services directly copy every bit of data they generate/receive.
So much for the 'wild, wild web', out of control, anarchic and above regulation.

The Guardian splashed on this and other stories in a major series of features on 7.6.13. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data, part of this series.

EU Article 8 Right to Privacy + online issues

Its not just the press that raises issues around the right to privacy, enshrined in European law:

Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. [source: Wiki]

ISPs and sites such as Google face huge pressures to store and pass on user data to governments and law enforcement agencies, and the UK is no exception, notwithstanding our supposedly high standards of democratic freedoms. Our governments, politicians and media routinely condemn 'authoritarian' regimes for snooping on their citizens and restricting freedom of expression, but how well does the UK's reputation stand up when scrutinised?

There are many examples of powers given to police and politicians to access our individual online footprints, including on social media and email, and no likelihood of anything but ongoing pressure (not least from the right-wing press, outraged as they are by any attempt to regulate the press as an attack on democratic values) to increase this. We're seeing this in April 2013 with the Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May attempting to pass new legislation granting government and police the right to access any part of 'suspects' online history, requiring the creation of a database of simply colossal scale:

May has fought hard for the legislation, designed to fill a growing gap in the ability of the police and security services to access records of the web and social media activity of serious criminals and terrorists.
The deputy prime minister sent the original legislation – the draft communications data bill – back to the drawing board after insisting it was first scrutinised by a committee MPs and peers.
The committee's withering verdict described it as "overkill", complained it "trampled on the privacy of British citizens" and said its cost estimates were "fanciful and misleading". They did however agree that new legislation was needed to plug the gap caused by rapid changes in technology.
The revised proposals tabled by May offered significant concessions but did not include movement on access to blogs or everyone's history of their use of websites or social media, or on requiring British phone and internet companies to intercept data from overseas providers. They proved insufficient to persuade Clegg to sign up to them.
Both parties campaigned on general election promises to roll back the surveillance state ... [source: Guardian]

I'll add links to previous posts on SOPA etc later.

UK government control of web: YouTube

The supposed free-for-all, uncontrollable nature of the web is used by media owners to argue for looser regulation: why should their business be stymied by regulations which web operations can ignore? This line of argument was made frequently when the super-injunctions, especially that over Ryan Giggs, were leading the headlines in 2011: Twitter users galore were naming Giggs but papers and TV were legally prevented from doing so. (Since then, of course, there have been a number of cases of Twitter users being jailed, one example being for racial abuse of footballers)

The idea that the web is free from government control is something of a myth however; you can click through either of the following for examples of stories about how our current government has managed to get YouTube to delete a range of videos that would be politically embarassing - I wonder what John Prescott (who just this week argued that the likes of Twitter have ushered in a golden age of citizen freedom, of freedom of expression) would make of this?

If the bloggers below are correct, is this any better than China, where the 'great firewall of China' sees web use strictly censored by a huge bureaucracy?

[source for below: http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/leveson-pressreform-tory-demand-u-tube.html]

In a frightening example of how the state is tightening its grip around the free Internet, it has emerged that You Tube is complying with thousands of requests from governments to censor and remove videos that show protests and other examples of citizens simply asserting their rights, while also deleting search terms by government mandate.....read more

http://theintelhub.com/2011/05/20/government-orders-you-tube-to-censor-protest-videos/

Cameron told GOOGLE to block search items on the Internet

http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/leveson-pressreform-government-ask.html

Cameron ordered armed police to threaten nurses and doctors during a NHS demonstration so he could pass the bill. Cameron censored the entire evenings events.

http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/leveson-pressreform-cameron-ordered.html

Net Neutrality + google and copyright

The regulation of the web is under discussion, with the role of copyright a key issue; see
"David Cameron's 'Google-model' vision for copyright under fire"
and http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google for more

The prospect of a 2-speed web, with ISPs choosing what to allow you fast access on (many UK ISPs for example are looking at slowing anyone downloading content from the iPlayer unless the BBC agrees to pay them fees), is growing, leading to debates on 'net neutrality'.

There are many linked stories at the two micro-sites below

• Technology
• Net neutrality

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/09/isps-outline-stance-net-neutrality

ISPs to outline stance on net neutrality

BT, Sky and Virgin Media to explain 'two-speed internet' policies at summit on net neutrality

• Dan Sabbagh and Josh Halliday
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 March 2011



 



Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee will attend the gov summit on net neutrality

BT, Sky and Virgin Media – along with the rest of Britain's leading internet service providers – will next week outline an industry-wide "code of practice" on how they explain controversial "two-speed internet" policies to customers. The group will make their announcement at a ministerial summit on net neutrality chaired by culture minister Ed Vaizey – which will also be attended by Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the web and a strong supporter of net neutrality – on 16 March. The ISPs plan to publish how they manage internet traffic – such as video viewing, music streaming and movie downloading – in comparison to their rivals. That will make clear if they throttle popular services such as the BBC's iPlayer to maintain capacity for all customers on their network. However, the companies – whose ranks also include the leading mobile operators – will not commit to a minimum service standard, even though some phone companies believe that "there should be a basic commitment to let people browse everything on the internet". The agreement follows a wide-ranging debate on "net neutrality" – whether ISPs should be allowed to charge content companies such as the BBC or Google for faster delivery to the nation's homes. BT, TalkTalk and others argue that ISPs should be free to strike deals for more efficient delivery. Under the plans, described as a "voluntary code of conduct" by people at the meeting, ISPs will be compelled to publish a "scorecard" of how they speed up and slow down traffic and for which companies. But internet providers will still be allowed to throttle public access to video and peer-to-peer services if they wish. The Broadband Stakeholders Group, which has been facilitating meetings with ISPs on traffic management since late last year, will publish a statement shortly after the meeting. ISPs hope the move will head off an enforced code of practice by the communications regulator Ofcom. Most ISPs manage traffic at peak times to enable faster speeds for their customers. The BBC has been in fights with ISPs over the amount of bandwidth used to stream its iPlayer service. In November, the corporation said it would introduce a "traffic light system" on the iPlayer, so that viewers could say whether their connection was being slowed down by providers. Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, publicly intervened in the net neutrality debate in January, saying an internet "fast lane" could undermine the corporation's responsibility to deliver programming to the nation's homes. "As the web becomes a vehicle for the transport of richer and richer content, the question of whether all content from all providers is treated equally by the networks becomes ever sharper," he said.