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Baby Brother's watching YOU

Ed Vaizey doesn't seem to have found many takers for his ideas about website blocking at ISP level. Very few commentators can see any way whatsoever that a single shared blocking scheme can fit the requirements of the whole family.

Perhaps he would be better off suggesting some more advanced networking architectures where multiple users can have individually tailored internet connections depending on their login.

But as for the shared scheme, it deserves nothing but derision.

Phantom on the Melon Farmers Forum asks:

If something like this is set up, who will be doing the filtering? Will the people doing the filtering really be sensible, reasonable people? Or will they be experts headhunted from the BBFC and various moral pressure groups?

Does anyone here think that such a new internet regime would conduct itself fairly and reasonably? Would their be a level playing ground, whereby melonfarmers could have a raunchy pic in an advert on its pages and it would get the same treatment as, say, Amazon? Are people absolutely certain that, the presence of advertisements to adult product sites would not be a wonderful excuse to close down access to sites such as melonfarmers?

People doing the filtering are invariably going to be a collection of the usual suspects.

Any idea of an appeal system will be pretty much a joke, as the whole undertaking will be so bogged down with the sheer scale of the task of finding all adult sites, that it will dedicate virtually no time to appeals.

Aside from that, appeals would be handled from the position of defending the credibility of the organisation. i.e. We must have been right, as we're the experts. Therefore the appeal must be unjustified.

The last thing Britain needs right now is another panel of self important experts on matters decent. Given that this government is supposed to be interested in cutting the number of quangos their desire to create yet another one, strains credulity.

More busy bodies with clip boards. More self appointed moral guardians. More high handed injustice in the name of protecting us all.

And a good point from the Guardian

Those are all great reasons not to waste untold millions of pounds either creating a government great firewall , or requiring ISPs to do the same. But here's the most important reason of all: it won't work.

Any think-of-the-children internet filter has a fundamental problem: if it's effective enough to actually block adult content, it will also be irritating enough that almost everyone will turn it off.

An effective filter would have to censor Flickr, which has a large amount of adult imagery. It has to censor every blogging platform: Tumblr, for example, has a whole swathe of porn blogs, and there are untold numbers of sex bloggers writing reams of explicit text. And it has to censor YouTube, particularly if 4chan decide to flood it with porn again. Facebook could probably be let through, thanks to its strong filtering policies – although right now, most mobile providers block it for under-18s anyway.

If an adult content filter allows those sites through, it fails. And if it blocks those sites, then hardly anyone will use it – and it fails.

And of course practical and monetary concerns from the ISP industry

See  article from  bbc.co.uk

In response to the government proposal, Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of the Ispa industry body, said:

Ispa firmly believes that controls on children's access to the internet should be managed by parents and carers with the tools ISPs provide, rather than being imposed top-down.

ISPs currently block child abuse content which is illegal and widely regarded as abhorrent. Blocking lawful pornography content is less clear cut, will lead to the blocking of access to legitimate content and is only effective in preventing inadvertent access.

Trefor Davies, chief technology officer at ISP Timico said:

Unfortunately, It's technically not possible to completely block this stuff

He said the sheer volume of pornographic material online and the number of ways that people access it, via the web, file-sharing networks, news groups, discussion boards and the like, made the job impossible.

While some proponents of a national pornographic filtering scheme cite the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) as an example of how such a scheme might work, Davies said it was not a good guide. Such a system would not work if it was used to deal with millions of porn sites, chat rooms and bulletin boards.

If we take this step it will not take very long to end up with an internet that's a walled garden of sites the governments is happy for you to see.

Shaun on the Melon Farmers Forum notes that even Daily Mail readers don't want it:

And what happens (politically) when censored connections still show porn?

You can bet your last dollar that the censorship will be tested to destruction by the zealots. When it fails (which I am sure it will) who will take the blame for the failure?

Remember, it will be tested to destruction because the material under test isn't illegal to seek out. No one DARE test the effectiveness of the online system of censorship of child porn because to do so, can easily make you a criminal. It isn't the case with adult porn is it?

Most people don't want your censorship Mr Minister. Read the responses in the Daily Mail here: Internet-pornography-Parents-allowed-block-sexual-imagery

The UK Government is push for ISPs to block internet pornography unless parents request it.

The biggest broadband providers, including BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, are being called to a meeting next month by Ed Vaizey, the communications minister, and will be asked to change how pornography gets into homes.

Instead of using parental controls to stop access to pornography - so-called opting out - the tap will be turned off at source. Adults will then have to opt in.

It follows the success of an operation by most British internet service providers (ISPs) to prevent people inadvertently viewing child porn websites. Ministers want companies to use similar technology to shut out adult pornography from children.

TalkTalk is already introducing a new free service early next year called bright feed, which allows people to control the internet so that all devices are automatically covered without the need to set up individual controls.

Homeowners can either specify which adult sites they want to receive or put a cinema-style classification on their feed to restrict what is received according to age ranges, such as U, 12 or 18.

Vaizey said: This is a very serious matter. I think it is very important that it's the ISPs that come up with solutions to protect children. I'm hoping they will get their acts together so we don't have to legislate, but we are keeping an eye on the situation and we will have a new communications bill in the next couple of years.

Claire Perry, the Tory MP for Devizes and a keen lobbyist for more restrictions, said: Unless we show leadership, the internet industry is not going to self-regulate. The minister has said he will get the ISPs together and say, 'Either you clean out your stables or we are going to do it for you'. There is this very uneasy sense for parents of children that we do not have to tolerate this Wild West approach. We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren't stumbling across things we don't want them to see.

Previously the Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA) has told MPs that such a blanket ban would be expensive and technically difficult to operate.

But Miranda Suit, co-founder of the political 'charity' Safermedia, which held a conference on internet porn at the Commons last month, said: Technically we know it can be done because the ISPs are already removing child porn after the government put pressure on them. In the past, internet porn was regarded as a moral issue or a matter of taste. Now it has become a mental health issue because we now know the damage it is causing. We are seeing perverse sexual behavior among children. Legislation is both justifiable and feasible.

The US air force has blocked employees from accessing the websites of the Guardian, the New York Times and other news organisations carrying the WikiLeaks US embassy cables.

At least 25 sites that have posted WikiLeaks files had been barred, said Major Toni Tones of the US air force's space command in Colorado. He siad this was on grounds of hosting inappropriate materials .

According to the Wall Street Journal, staff who attempt to access the blocked sites instead see an on-screen message saying: Access denied. Internet usage is logged and monitored.

The air force's move follows instructions by the government that staff should not access the cables.

Update: Twitter supporters under US pressure

12th January 2011. See  article from  guardian.co.uk

An Iceland MP who is also a former WikiLeaks volunteer says the US justice department has ordered Twitter to hand over her private messages.

Birgitta Jonsdottir, an MP for the Movement in Iceland, said on Twitter that the USA government wants to know about all my tweets. Do they realize I am a member of parliament in Iceland?

She said she was starting a legal fight to stop the US getting hold of her messages, after being told by Twitter that a subpoena had been issued. She wrote: department of justice are requesting twitter to provide the info – I got 10 days to stop it via legal process before twitter hands it over.

Credit card companies that prevented card-holders from donating money to WikiLeaks could have their operating licenses taken away in Iceland, according to members of the Icelandic Parliamentary General Committee.

Representatives from Mastercard and Visa were called before the committee to discuss their refusal to process donations to the website, reports Reykjavik Grapevine.

People wanted to know on what legal grounds the ban was taken, but no one could answer it, Robert Marshall, the chairman of the committee, said: They said this decision was taken by foreign sources.

The committee is seeking additional information from the credit card companies for proof that there was legal grounds for blocking the donations.

Marshall said the committee would seriously review the operating licenses of Visa and Mastercard in Iceland.

WikiLeaks' payment processor, the Icelandic company DataCell ehf, said it would take immediate legal action against the companies to make donations possible again.

A discussion thread on Amazon's Kindle Community forum notes that Amazon has begun removing some previously-published books or stories from its store, and from the Kindle archives.

Readers who have previously downloaded them to their Kindles can keep them there, but cannot re-download them (and will be refunded the price of purchase assuming Amazon can still find the purchase record).

The story whose removal sparked the discussion was an erotica title called Wicked Lovely by author Jess C. Scott. The tale dealt with incest, and involved a love scene between a 17 and an 18-year-old. However, Amazon would not tell Scott specifically what caused the removal of her novel. The only response she has received, after repeatedly trying to contact Amazon for more information, is a form letter.

In addition to Jess Scott, Selena Kitt and Esmerelda Green have also had books with an incest theme recently banned from the site. All of them, incidentally, high in the rankings and in visibility.

Selena also reports a print book missing, a title which she published through Amazon-owned Createspace.

Anti-censorship activists have attacked the websites of credit card giants Mastercard and Visa.

The attacks came after the Anonymous group pledged to pursue firms that have withdrawn services from Wikileaks.

Mastercard payments were disrupted but the firm said there was no impact on people's ability to use their cards.

Visa's website also experienced problems. The attacks came after both companies stopped processing payments to the whistle-blowing site.

Entries on the Twitter page of Operation Payback, the Anonymous campaign, said the Visa site had been taken down. Visa's website was later restored and spokesman Ted Carr said its processing network, which handles cardholder transactions, was working normally.

But in a day of fast-moving developments, the Anonymous Twitter page then went down, replaced by a message from Twitter saying the account had been suspended.

An Anonymous member told AFP news agency the group would extend their campaign to anyone with an anti-Wikileaks agenda .

PayPal, which has stopped processing donations to Wikileaks, has also been targeted. The firm claimed the Wikileaks' account had violated its terms of services. But PayPal's Osama Bedier told the Le Web conference

On 27 November the State Department, the US government, basically wrote a letter [to Wikileaks] saying that [its] activities were deemed illegal in the United States.

And as a result our policy group had to make the decision of suspending their account. It's honestly, just pretty straightforward from our perspective and there's not much more to it than that.

Anonymous is also helping to create hundreds of mirror sites for Wikileaks, after its US domain name provider withdrew its services.

Coldblood of Anonymous said that the group was beginning to wind down the DDoS attacks so that it could concentrate on using other methods which are more focused on supporting Wikileaks and making sure the Internet stays a free and open place .

A State Department official warned students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs this week that discussing WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger their employment prospects.

The official, a former student of the school, called the career services office of his alma mater to advise students not to post links to Wikileaks documents, nor to make comments on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

The school careers office passed on the message to students:

From: Office of Career Services

We received a call today from a SIPA alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance.

The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.

WikiLeaks received a boost when Switzerland rejected growing international calls to force the site off the internet.

The whistleblowers site, which has been publishing leaked US embassy cables, was forced to switch domain names to WikiLeaks.ch after the US host of its main website, WikiLeaks.org, pulled the plug following mounting political pressure.

The site's new Swiss registrar, Switch, today said there was no reason why it should be forced offline, despite demands from France and the US. Switch is a non-profit registrar set up by the Swiss government for all 1.5 million Swiss .ch domain names.

The Swiss Pirate Party, which registered the WikiLeaks.ch domain name earlier this year on behalf of the site, said Switch had reassured the party that it would not block the site.

Laurence Kaye, leader of the UK-based Pirate Party, tonight told the Guardian: International Pirate Parties now have an integral role in allowing access to WikiLeaks. I wish some of our other politicians had the same guts.We support the WikiLeaks project as access to information is the prerequisite for an informed and engaged democracy.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has accused U.S. diplomats of spreading gossip and slander after leaked State Department cables alleged corruption in his government and portrayed him as an Islamist.

He suggested the release of the trove of cables may be propaganda aimed at damaging relations between the United States and its allies.

The diplomatic messages at times show concerns that European Union candidate Turkey is shifting its allegiances from the West and Israel toward Iran and other Muslim countries since Erdogan took office in 2002.

Edelman's cables also portray Erdogan as an authoritarian, distrustful leader of his ruling AK Party and say that he believes God appointed him to lead Turkey.

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks said last night it would not to be gagged by the imprisonment of its founder, Julian Assange, after a judge refused him bail at a dramatic extradition hearing in London.

Assange who is wanted in Sweden over claims he 'sexually assaulted' two women, was in Wandsworth prison last night after district judge Howard Riddle claimed there was a risk he would fail to surrender if granted bail. Assange denies the allegations.

Despite Jemima Khan, former wife of Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan, the campaigning journalist John Pilger, the film director Ken Loach and others offering to stand surety totalling £180,000, the judge said the Australian Assange's weak community ties in the UK, and his means and ability to abscond, represented substantial grounds for refusing bail.

He was remanded until 14 December, when the case can be reviewed at the same court. His legal team said he would again apply for bail at that hearing.

Last night Kristinn Hrafnsson, a spokesman for WikiLeaks, confirmed it would continue publishing US diplomatic cables. In a statement he said: This will not stifle WikiLeaks. The release of the US embassy cables – the biggest leak in history – will still continue. We will not be gagged, either by judicial action or corporate censorship.

The refusal to grant Assange bail came on a day when increasing pressure was brought to bear in the US on companies and organisations with ties to WikiLeaks. As Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate's homeland security committee, urged businesses to sever their ties with the website, Visa suspended the payment of donations to the website through its credit card.

Michael Mukasey, a former US attorney general, said last night that American lawyers should try to extradite Assange to the US for betraying government secrets. Mukasey implied that the Swedish sexual accusations may only be a holding charge. When one is accused of a very serious crime, he said, it's common to hold him in respect of a lesser crime … while you assemble evidence of a second crime.

After the ruling – with supporters waving A4 printouts reading Character Assassination and Protect Free Speech – his solicitor, Mark Stephens, emerged from court to claim the prosecution was politically motivated and pledged WikiLeaks would not be cowed. Assange was entitled to a high court appeal, he said, adding the judge was impressed with the number of people prepared to stand up on his client's behalf. [Those supporters] were but the tip of the iceberg, he said. This is going to go viral. Many people believe Mr Assange to be innocent, myself included. Many people believe that this prosecution is politically motivated.

Assange was arrested by appointment at a London police station at 9.20am after a European arrest warrant was received by the Metropolitan police extradition unit. He appeared in court at 2pm, where he spoke to confirm his name and date of birth and to tell the court: I do not consent to my extradition.

Update: Britain not Sweden opposes bail

16th December 2010. Based on article from  guardian.co.uk

The decision to have Julian Assange sent to a London jail and kept there was taken by the British authorities and not by prosecutors in Sweden, as previously thought, the Guardian has learned.

The Crown Prosecution Service will go to the high court tomorrow to seek the reversal of a decision to free the WikiLeaks founder on bail, made yesterday by a judge at City of Westminster magistrates court.

It had been widely thought Sweden had made the decision to oppose bail, with the CPS acting merely as its representative. But today the Swedish prosecutor's office told the Guardian it had not got a view at all on bail and that Britain had made the decision to oppose bail.

Lawyers for Assange reacted to the news with shock and said CPS officials had told them this week it was Sweden which had asked them to ensure he was kept in prison.

Karin Rosander, director of communications for Sweden's prosecutor's office, told the Guardian: The decision was made by the British prosecutor. I got it confirmed by the CPS this morning that the decision to appeal the granting of bail was entirely a matter for the CPS. The Swedish prosecutors are not entitled to make decisions within Britain. It is entirely up to the British authorities to handle it.

Update: Bail granted

17th December 2010. bbc.co.uk  Based on article from  bbc.co.uk

The founder of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has vowed to continue my work and to protest my innocence after being freed on bail.

Mr Justice Ouseley ordered Assange be released on payment of £240,000 in cash and sureties and on condition he resides at an address in East Anglia.

Assange's solicitor, Mark Stephens, said after the court appearance the bail appeal was part of a continuing vendetta by the Swedes .

Assange is accused of having unprotected sex with a woman, identified only as Miss A, when she insisted he use a condom. He is also accused of the unlikely sounding offence of having unprotected sex with another woman, Miss W, while she was asleep.

The judge imposed strict bail conditions including wearing an electronic tag, reporting to police every day, observing a curfew and residing at a specified residence.

A full extradition hearing should normally take place within 21 days of the arrest. Mr Assange was arrested on 7 December, so this should be by 28 December. However, in such a high profile case, it is possible that a full extradition hearing will not take place for several months.

Update: Weak Case

6th February 2011. See  article from  telegraph.co.uk

Rape case against the WikiLeaks chief weak

Details in a police file of the rape case against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, reveal a series of apparent contradictions and inconsistencies in the evidence against him.

Assange faces extradition to Sweden on a European Arrest Warrant. He has not been charged but is wanted for further questioning.

Mark Stephens, Mr Assange's lawyer, said: This is the third time people have sought to prejudice the outcome of Julian Assange's case by leaking information.

Kirsty Brimelow, a barrister asked by Stephens to independently review the evidence against Assange, said: I do not consider that the evidence would reach the charge threshold in this country; let alone sustain a prosecution.

Update: Automatic Extradition

28th February 2011. See  article from  telegraph.co.uk

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has criticised the unjust European arrest warrant system after a judge ruled he should be extradited to Sweden to face sex offence charges.

The ruling against him came as a result of a European arrest warrant system run amok , he claimed.

He said: There was no consideration during this entire process as to the merit of the allegations made against me, no consideration or examination of even the complaints made in Sweden and of course we have always known we would appeal.

Launching into a criticism of the system, he said 95% of European arrest warrants were successful and he welcomed a pending review of UK extradition procedures due in June.

Update: Extradited

6th November 2011. See  article from  huffingtonpost.co.uk

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has lost his High Court bid to block extradition to Sweden, where he faces rape allegations.

Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Ouseley said that Assange must return to Sweden on a European arrest warrant to face rape and sexual assault allegations made by two Swedish women after a visit to Stockholm in August 2010.

The Australian could now be sent to Sweden within 10 days, unless as expected he decides to appeal the decision.

Update: Ecuador grants political asylum

17th August 2012. See  article from  guardian.co.uk

A major diplomatic row over the fate of the fugitive Julian Assange erupted after the WikiLeaks founder was offered political asylum by Ecuador to escape extradition from Britain over allegations of serious sexual assaults.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, responded by warning the Ecuadorean government that diplomatic immunity should not be used to harbour alleged criminals. He said Assange would be arrested if he leaves the embassy in London where he has lived for nearly two months.

Ecuador's decision has also angered the Swedish authorities, who wish to question Assange and the two women who claim he assaulted them during a trip to the country in 2010. Assange denies the assault claims and says he fears being sent on to the United States where he could face political persecution for releasing thousands of secret US cables.

Wikileaks has been disrupted after the company providing its domain name cut off its DNS service.

The website main domain name at wikileaks.org is no longer associated with the underlying IP address of  http://213.251.145.96/

EveryDNS.net claimed it had terminated services because Wikileaks.org had come under massive cyber attacks.

But Wikileaks has already reappeared using a Swiss web domains name wikileaks.ch . In a surprising twist, the .ch address is also hosted by EveryDNS.

Wikileaks has also used the micro-blogging site Twitter to urge its fans to redistribute its IP address so it can be viewed at any time.

Experts say it is likely that Wikileaks has done deals with lots of web hosting companies, although many are likely to back away from dealing with the controversial site in the light of recent web attacks.

In France, Industry Minister Eric Besson has called for a ban of Wikileaks on French servers. One of the mirror sites, Wikileaks.ch, is currently hosted on servers in France.

Paul Mutton, a security analyst at internet services firm Netcraft said using a Swiss domain could be Wikileaks anticipating the next line of attack - having its IP address de-registered: Moving to a non-US domain makes sense. Its previous domain was registered with a US company and as such has to work within US laws, with potential for the government to lean on it and get it suspended.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is currently reported to be staying at a secret address in the UK. In a question-and-answer session on the website of the Guardian newspaper, he said there had been threats against his life: We are taking the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able when dealing with a super power.

Wikileaks initially used the online store Amazon to host its site but the company ended the agreement on Wednesday - a move 'welcomed' by US officials. Amazon claimed that it had not removed Wikileaks because of a government inquiry. Instead it said Wikileaks had failed to adhere to its terms of service.

Meanwhile the press have been reporting that there is now some sort of international arrest warrant issued against Julian Assange on supposed rape charges.

But the Daily Mail has researched the Swedish cases and has found that they are very minor indeed. It seems that the 'crime' is sex by surprise, carrying a penalty of $715, and is related to condom use. See article from dailymail.co.uk

Update: Not So Pally

5th December 2010. Based on article from  guardian.co.uk

PayPal has frozen WikiLeaks' account in the latest action against the whistleblower website, which has been posting leaked US embassy cables online.

The decision by the online payment site – which WikiLeaks had used to raise funds for web hosting and other costs – has been announced with a posting on PayPal's blog.

PayPal said: PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal acceptable use policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We've notified the account holder of this action.

Update: Visa Denied

8th December 2010. Based on article from  observer.com

Mastercard and Visa have declared they are suspending payments to Wikileaks, effectively blocking their customers from donating to the organization.

As Jeff Jarvis points out over at HuffPo, I can use Visa and Mastercard to pay for porn and support anti-abortion fanatics, Prop 8 homophobic bigots, and the Ku Klux Klan. But I can't use them or PayPal to support Wikileaks, transparency, the First Amendment, and true government reform.

There is a difference, of course, between being an ideological outsider, or even a proponent of hate speech, and the #1 enemy of the state.

Update: Money is No Longer Safe in a Swiss Bank

9th December 2010. Based on article from  guardian.co.uk

The Swiss post office's bank, PostFinance, has frozen the accounts of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The whistle-blowing website says the freeze includes a defence fund and personal assets worth 31,000 euros.

Update: Bank of America Censors

19th December 2010. Based on article from  telegraph.co.uk

Bank of America has halted all transactions for WikiLeaks, joining other institutions that refuse to process payments for the website that has exposed a trove of US government cables.

Bank of America joins in the actions previously announced by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others and will not process transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for WikiLeaks, the largest US bank said in a statement.

This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments. [yeah yeah]

Update: Pipped by Apple

23rd December 2010. Based on article from  gamepolitics.com

The Wikileaks app has been censored by the iOS App Store because it 'violates the company's developer guidelines', Apple claimed.

The $1.99 WikiLeaks app was only up on the App Store for three days. The developer had promised to donate $1 from every sale to groups that support online democracy.

Apple's statement echo those of governments around the world who claim that Wikileak's activities put people's lives in danger.

Offsite: Mirror sites taken down

24th December 2010. See  article from  thetechherald.com

In at least three separate cases, sites hosting mirrors of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have been taken down due to pressure from the hosting provider. The reason for the takedowns is said to be severe violations of the host's Terms of Service (ToS), illegal activities, or the potential for DDoS attacks related to the mirror's contents.

The host in question, SiteGround, appears to be suspending the WikiLeaks mirrors on behalf of its upstream provider SoftLayer. In all three cases, SoftLayer reported domains hosting mirrored Cablegate content as being in violation of the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and ToS. As a result, SiteGround suspended the accounts and gave mixed reasons for doing so.

...Read the full article

Social networking site Facebook is to allow photographs of a woman who had surgery for breast cancer after it removed them from her profile.

The pictures of Anna Antell from Oxfordshire, were initially deemed to be nudity and taken down.

Facebook now says it supports her right to share her experience and the images of her post-op scars can be published.

Ms Antell, who said it was brilliant news , will again upload the images which she hopes will raise awareness. One of the pictures which was removed depicts Ms Antell covering one breast while showing the scar tissue of the removed breast.

She said: I think it is really good they have realised that it is a valid thing; me showing a bare shoulder and a scar is not offensive.

Update: Acquitted

14th March 2011. See  article from  bbc.co.uk

A breast cancer survivor's Facebook page has been blocked after she published a photo of her reconstructed breasts following her operation.

Melissa Tullett put the picture on the website after she had a double mastectomy. The social networking site blocked her page and removed the image because it said it broke its rules on nudity. Ms Tullett said she had only intended to offer encouragement to fellow breast cancer sufferers.

It was to show other women that after such an ordeal you can come out of it with your dignity and your womanhood again, and that it's not all frightening. They [Facebook] just told me that I'd uploaded a photo that violated their terms of use and that they were deleting the photo. But they didn't actually tell me they were disabling my account .

Ms Tullett's page has since been reactivated, but she has been told not to repost the picture.

A 15-year-old girl has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after allegedly burning an English-language version of the Qur'an – and then posting video footage of the act on Facebook.

The teenager, from the Sandwell district of Birmingham, was filmed on her school premises burning the book. Police have confirmed the incident was reported to the school and the video has since been removed.

It is believed the girl was allegedly filmed setting the book alight while other pupils looked on. Two Facebook profiles have also been removed from the site.

It is understood that the group who published the version of the Qur'an that was set alight has visited the school to 'talk' to pupils.

Speaking about the latest incident in Birmingham, a spokesperson for West Midlands police said: A 15-year-old girl was arrested on Friday 19 November on suspicion of inciting religious hatred. She has been bailed pending further enquiries.

Paul Chambers is to appeal to the high court over conviction for his joke Twitter message about Robin Hood airport

Ben Emmerson QC, a senior human rights lawyer, will lead a three-strong legal team for Paul Chambers whose conviction in the so-called Twitter joke trial has become an international cause celebre.

Dismissed as a foolish prank by almost everyone involved, including police officers and airport security staff, the 140-character threat has landed Chambers, 27, with a criminal conviction and fines and costs totalling over £3,000.

He was originally convicted of menace by Doncaster magistrates this summer. The tweet read: Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!! . It was found in a routine web search by the airport and, although rated non credible , passed to South Yorkshire police.

Chambers appealed to Doncaster crown court last month. But Judge Jacqueline Davies, sitting with two magistrates, described the message as clearly menacing and ruled that Chambers, whom she described as an unimpressive witness , must have known that it might be taken seriously.  Davies said in her judgment: Anyone in this country in the present climate of terrorist threats, especially at airports, could not be unaware of the possible consequences. The message is menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed.

Twitter users angry at the conviction of a man who threatened to blow up an airport in a Twitter joke showed their support for him in their thousands, and thumbed their nose at the law by republishing the words that landed him in trouble.

Paul Chambers, a 27-year-old accountant yesterday lost his appeal against his conviction and £1,000 fine for a comment he made in jest when he was concerned he might miss a flight to Belfast.

Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!! he wrote in January.

Chambers was controversially prosecuted under a law aimed at nuisance calls – originally to protect female telephonists at the Post Office in the 1930s – rather than specific bomb hoax legislation, which requires stronger evidence of intent.

Civil liberties lawyers criticised his conviction as did the Twitter community, which reacted with a vengeance today to his failed appeal. Under the hashtag #IAmSpartacus – a reference to the film in which Spartacus's fellow gladiators show their solidarity with him by each proclaiming I am Spartacus – thousands of people have retweeted Chambers' original message. As a result of the show of support for Chambers the #IAmSpartacus was the second most popular worldwide subject being referred to on Twitter at the time of writing.

The 'judge' who rejected Chambers' appeal is unlikely to see the funny side of it, having dismissed his lawyers' arguments that he should not be punished for a foolish prank . 'Judge' Jacqueline Davies called the tweet menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed . She also ordered him to pay a further £2,000 legal bill for the latest proceedings.

Communications Act 2003

A disgraceful law that Burma, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and China would be proud of.

Thanks to eMark
See article from legislation.gov.uk

Section 127 Improper use of public electronic communications network

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he-

(a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
(b) causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

(2) A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he-

(a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,
(b) causes such a message to be sent; or
(c) persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.

(4) Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to anything done in the course of providing a programme service (within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (c. 42)).

Offsite Comment: The Menace of Section 127

15th November 2010. Based on article from  guardian.co.uk by Evan Harris

This law is rarely used, and indeed the Chambers case may be the first example of the menacing aspect being raised. As far as I can see, the term menacing is undefined in law while in contrast there is a reasonably high threshold for obscene or grossly offensive established in case law.

Whether a tweet referring to blowing up an airport or asking that someone be stoned to death is menacing or not critically depends on the context, including whether or not it was meant in jest or merely as a rhetorical flourish and whether it actually constituted a real menace rather than a potential one. It is to be expected that the judge in the Chambers case will explain in her written judgment why she considered the words to be a menace despite the context and explanation set out by the defence. It will be interesting to see whether she discusses context in her judgment at all.

I believe that to protect free expression of humour (however bad) on the internet there needs to be an amendment made to the law to ensure that menace convictions do not take place where messages are, in their context, not menacing and where in addition they have not been reasonably treated as such by those to whom they may be said to target. This will require primary legislation.

Perhaps Paul Chambers will take his case to the high court and win, which will set a precedent, and perhaps Gareth Compton will not be charged. But that is no longer satisfactory because it is likely that there will be more complaints to the police and that the police will continue to over-react. Either way, a change in the law is needed because the chill on irreverent expression on the internet will remain.

...read the full article

As reported in The Guardian's article Twitter joke trial: Paul Chambers loses appeal against conviction of November 11th 2010, Judge Jacqueline Davies stated that Paul Chambers tweet:

Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!

was menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed.

We the undersigned, as ordinary people, do not see it in that way and are not alarmed. Because the Judge's statement is factually incorrect, we believe the conviction should be overturned.

Sign the  petition

2708 signatures so far as of 13th November 2010

A man who posted a Twitter message threatening to blow up an airport is facing a £3,000 bill after losing an appeal against his conviction.

Paul Chambers said he acted in frustration after Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire was closed by snow.

The trainee accountant from Doncaster, who now lives in Northern Ireland, was found guilty in May of sending a menacing electronic communication.

A judge at Doncaster Crown Court refused to quash his conviction. He was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £2,600

After the hearing, actor and Twitter fan Stephen Fry tweeted that he would pay Chambers' fine: He tweeted: My offer still stands. Whatever they fine you, I'll pay.

Chambers's barrister had argued the conviction should be quashed because his tweet was not menacing .

The message Chambers sent to his 600 followers in the early hours of 6 January said: Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week... otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!

His counsel Stephen Ferguson told the appeal hearing that even the police officer investigating the case branded it a foolish comment posted on Twitter as a joke for only his close friends to see .

He said the prosecution had failed to prove his client had any intention to threaten anyone or that he thought there was any risk someone would interpret the tweet in this way.

TechCrunch reported that Amazon is selling an eBbook titled The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure . The book itself is a disgrace – a how-to guide for pedophiles. It includes, among other things, tips on how to get away with it and how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases by purchasing condom-like products for children too small to use actual condoms.

The story hit the internet and prompted Amazon.com to issue the statement:

Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.

For the moment the eBook remains available for sale and download.

Update: Removed

12th November 2010. Based on article from samueljscott.com

Amazon later removed the e-book in question from its store but has seemingly not commented further to the media on the matter.

Offsite: Arrested

21st December 2010. See  article from  telegraph.co.uk

A man who wrote a how-to guide for paedophiles was arrested and will be extradited to Polk County, Florida to face obscenity charges, after police there ordered a copy of the book that has generated online outrage.

Florida' obscenity law – a third-degree felony – prohibits the distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.

Legal experts questioned whether Greaves' right to free speech would come into play if there's a trial. If prosecutors can charge Greaves for shipping his book, they ask, what would prevent booksellers from facing prosecution for selling Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita,

Update: Convicted

11th April 2011. See  article from  bbc.co.uk

Phillip Greaves has been sentenced to two years' probation. He pleaded no contest to a charge of distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in harmful conduct. Greaves will serve the sentence in Colorado, his home state, and will not have to register as a sex offender.

Just ignore him!

A man who trawled the internet leaving reportedly obscene messages on tribute sites for dead people is facing jail after being brought to court under a rarely-used law.

Colm Coss found Facebook memorials to victims of high-profile tragedies around the world - and added comments said to be sexual slurs. His targets included a site dedicated to Jade Goody.

He was prosecuted under the Communications Act 2003, which governs all communications networks including internet, e-mail, mobile phone calls and text messages.

Coss  also posted comments about a car crash victim in Australia, and a dead baby in the U.S. Coss targeted the sites purely for his own amusement and to get a reaction, Manchester magistrates were told.

He was only caught when he sent residents on his street photos of himself saying he was an internet troll . The neighbours rang police. When Coss was arrested, he admitted the offence.

Matthew Siddall, prosecuting, said: The defendant told police that he finds the comments amusing. He said it causes reaction.

District Judge Khalid Qureshi told Coss: This crosses the custody threshold.

Coss was granted bail and will be sentenced later this month.

Update: Troll Jailed

30th October 2010. Based on article from  bbc.co.uk

An internet troll who posted obscene messages on Facebook sites set up in memory of dead people has been jailed. Colm Coss posted on a memorial page for Big Brother star Jade Goody and a tribute site to John Paul Massey, a Liverpool boy mauled to death by a dog.

He was jailed for 18 weeks for sending malicious communications .

He was charged under the Communications Act 2003, for sending malicious communications that were grossly offensive.

Chairwoman of the bench Pauline Salisbury said: You preyed on bereaved families who were suffering trauma and anxiety. We know you gained pleasure and you aren't sorry for what you did.

Offsite Comment: Do not jail the troll

Thanks to pbr
7th November 2010.  Based on article from  guardian.co.uk by Ally Fogg

However vile Colm Coss's online behaviour may have been, sending him to prison sets a dangerous precedent.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the prime objectives of the justice system were to protect physical wellbeing, integrity and property rights. With very little debate or awareness, we have slipped into a society where the justice system is equally concerned with protecting the intangible sensibilities of the individual. In that sense, this issue overlaps significantly with those around blasphemy and protection from religious insult. I can see no rational reason why causing severe, grievous offence to Jade Goody's admirers should be an imprisonable offence while causing severe, grievous offence to Christians or Muslims should be considered freedom of speech. It cannot be the role of the law to dictate which flavours of offence are reasonable and which are not. I cannot see any reason why an Islamic organisation, to take just one example, could not use this precedent to press charges against anyone who participated in the recent, juvenile Everybody Draw Mohammed Day that circulated online and grew in support on Facebook. And talking of pressing charges, is there anything to now stop Facebook UK or any other site host from dealing with persistent and egregious trolls by calling in the police and handing over IP addresses?

... Read the full article

Facebook is working with a gay-advocacy group to reduce the amount of hate speech and bullying on the online social hub.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said it reached out to Facebook last week after Internet bullies flooded a page set up to honor teens who recently killed themselves in response to anti-gay hate.

The page, set up by a Facebook user, asks supporters to wear purple next Wednesday in memory of the teenagers. Purple represents spirit in the rainbow flag that's the symbol of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

Facebook said that its policies prohibit hateful content and that it has systems in place to take down such posts as soon as possible. But the company also said it wants its users to be able to express unpopular opinions and as such must strike a careful balance between removing harmful content and letting people speak freely.

The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government.

Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist.

The apparent blacklisting came a few days after the Pentagon publicly expressed its anger at WikiLeaks and its founder, Australian citizen Julian Assange, for obtaining thousands of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, in one of the US army's biggest leaks of information. The documents caused a sensation when they were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and German magazine Der Spiegel, revealing hitherto unreported civilian casualties.

WikiLeaks defied Pentagon calls to return the war logs and destroy all copies. Instead, it has been reported that it intends to release an even larger cache of military documents, disclosing other abuses in Iraq.

Moneybookers moved against WikiLeaks on 13 August, according to the correspondence, less than a week after the Pentagon made public threats of reprisals against the organisation. Moneybookers wrote to Assange: Following an audit of your account by our security department, we must advise that your account has been closed … to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities.

A website set up to criticise Ryanair has been shut down by an internet censor on a technicality about earning the owner a small sum of money.

The founder of IHateRyanair.co.uk – whose strapline was The World's Most Hated Airline – was forced to surrender the web address after the budget carrier complained to the domain name dispute resolution service.

The UK internet domain controller Nominet, ruled that the stinging criticism and passenger horror stories published on the site were not sufficient grounds for it to be scrapped. I Hate Ryanair website ...HOWEVER... it ruled that a small profit made by Robert Tyler from sponsored links on the site meant he abused domain name rules.

Disgruntled passengers' comments have filled the pages of the website since it was set up three years ago by Tyler.

Ryanair complained that the site took unfair advantage of the brand's name and claimed it hosted damaging and defamatory articles including false comments about its safety, maintenance and operating standards.

It featured free links to rivals British Airways and Virgin Atlantic under the heading Sites we like . From January to May 2010 it also displayed commercial links to third party sites offering travel insurance and foreign currency, which earned Tyler a £322 profit.

Tyler argued that while Ryanair has some goodwill and reputation in legal terms, it has also built up substantial dissatisfaction over its services. It has become synonymous with trying to obtain maximum money from customers using unappealing revenue generating techniques, he added.

Nominet Adjudicator Jane Seager claimed the links to third party websites that earned Tyler money were problematic . [He] only earned money because of the traffic to the website, and such traffic must have been influenced by the domain name.

Tyler had effectively taken unfair advantage of Ryanair's rights in order to gain a financial advantage and therefore should forfeit the domain name, she said.

The website has now found a new home at www.IHateRyanair.org

The Libyan government has removed an adult-friendly link-shortening service from the web, saying that it fell foul of local laws.

It could have an impact on similar services registered in Libya.

The website vb.ly was revoked and the site taken offline by NIC.ly, the body that controls Libyan web addresses.

Co-founder of vb.ly Ben Metcalfe warned that other ly domains are being deregistered and removed without warning . We eventually discovered that the domain has been seized because the content of our website, in their opinion, fell outside of Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law.

URL shortening is a technique that allows users to significantly condense often long web addresses to more manageable and memorable links. The Libyan crackdown could come as a blow to other url shortening services such as bit.ly, which is particularly popular on Twitter where all messages have to be limited to 140 characters.

Alaeddin ElSharif from NIC.ly told vb.ly co-founder Violet Blue that a picture of her on the website had sparked the removal: I think you'll agree that a picture of a scantily clad lady with some bottle in her hand isn't what most would consider decent or family friendly.

A short film scripted by leading British comedy screenwriter Richard Curtis on behalf of the 10:10 environmental campaign achieved the dubious distinction of becoming one of the more short-lived propaganda tools designed to help save humanity after it was withdrawn following complaints about its graphic scenes of exploding climate change refuseniks.

The four-minute video was taken down from the 10:10 website and plans to distribute it to cinemas were ripped up after members of the public and key backers of the campaign, including the charity ActionAid, said they were appalled by its portrayal of zealous greenhouse gas activists using a red button to blow up reluctant supporters, such as the actress Gillian Anderson and former footballer David Ginola.

Fox News Psychologist Sees Red

Based on article from foxnews.com

A British television advertisement to promote the 10:10 climate change campaign to reduce carbon emissions has created a psychologically traumatizing series of commercials, which show how violent the environmental movement could become.

This series of advertisements is a window on the souls of Mr. Curtis, his partners and the 10:10 initiative. It defines them as a group that must believe, somewhere deep inside them, for real, that those who do not agree with their ideas should be annihilated. It discloses that they are so committed to their environmental/political beliefs that they might actually condone the murder of children and adults if it were to further their cause.

If this were a series of videos showing people being blown up for not believing in God, there would be a campaign to shut down the organization promulgating the videos. It would be a very healthy thing for a campaign to be launched to shut down the 10:10 initiative. We have names for mass murderers (at heart), posing as change agents: terrorists, Nazis and psychopaths. They're good names because they tell us what we might have to lose if we lose our right of free speech to the likes of the folks who made and distributed these videos.

Mr. Curtis and the 10:10 campaign have done psychological injury to anyone young who sees these ads, because it will be hard for that child to dismiss the association between speaking his or her mind and being butchered. If this man makes a film, I will not see it. If there is a campaign to shut down the organization with which he works, I will donate my money and time. If there's one thing we should have learned in our long history of defending liberty, it is to not doubt the presence of its enemies among us.

Google has lately found itself on the receiving end of criticism from privacy and transparency advocates. But with two new tools, Google is trying to convince them that the company is on their side.

Google has introduced a new tool called the Transparency Report. It publishes where and when Internet traffic to Google sites is blocked, and the blockages are annotated with details when possible. For instance, the tool shows that YouTube has been blocked in Iran since the disputed presidential election in June 2009.

The Transparency Report will also be the home for Google's government requests tool, a map that shows every time a government has asked Google to take down or hand over information, and what percentage of the time Google has complied. Google introduced it in April and updates it every six months. Government requests could be court orders to remove hateful content or a subpoena to pass along information about a Google user.

The transparency project was the brainchild of engineers during their 20 percent time, the time that Google allots for people to work on their own projects.

Google Explains

See Transparency Report from google.com

Transparency is a core value at Google. As a company we feel it is our responsibility to ensure that we maximize transparency around the flow of information related to our tools and services. We believe that more information means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.

We've created an interactive map of Government Requests that shows the number of government inquiries for information about users and requests for Google to take down or censor content. We hope this step toward greater transparency will help in ongoing discussions about the appropriate scope and authority of government requests.

Our interactive Traffic graphs provide information about traffic to Google services around the world. Each graph shows historic traffic patterns for a given country/region and service. By illustrating outages, this tool visualizes disruptions in the free flow of information, whether it's a government blocking information or a cable being cut. We hope this raw data will help facilitate studies about service outages and disruptions.

UK censorship requests

Interesting to see that the UK is predictably high up the list of state censors. Second to none in terns of data requests and only behind Brazil and Libya in terms of blocking requests

1343 data requests.
48 removal requests, for a total of 232 items 62.5% of removal requests fully or partially complied with.

• Blogger
  • 1 court orders to remove content
  • 1 items requested to be removed
• Video
  • 3 court orders to remove content
  • 32 items requested to be removed
• Groups
  • 1 court orders to remove content
  • 1 items requested to be removed
• Web Search
  • 8 court orders to remove content
  • 144 items requested to be removed
• YouTube
  • 6 court orders to remove content
  • 29 non-court order requests to remove content
  • 54 items requested to be removed

The Web is buzzing about Google's latest advancement, Google Instant, which doesn't even wait for the user to click the search button after typing a query. It simply goes straight to the page by predicting what you will type, as you type it.

However, it's been discovered that the autocomplete excludes certain terms related to pornography, violence and hate speech, according to Google. The feature also happens to exclude the words bisexual and lesbian while allowing homosexual, gay, queer, dyke, transvestite, and transgender to be searchable instantly.

A petition at Change.org urges the search engine giant to reverse the censorship, as the terms are not exclusive to pornography.

Google's FAQ

Based on article from google.com

Q: If an offensive or lewd word is a fraction of my query, will Google push these results in front of me as I type?

A: As always, we provide options to filter the content you see in search. You can choose to set SafeSearch to filter out explicit content, and parents can lock SafeSearch to the strict setting. In addition, autocomplete excludes certain terms related to pornography, violence and hate speech.

We don't need a prudish and unaccountable watchdog to decide how products and services are presented to us.

The Lib-Con chancellor George Osborne has announced a bonfire of the quangos with a wide range of bureaucratic, regulatory bodies being scaled back or biting the dust. Even media and telecoms regulator Ofcom is facing significant cuts. One body bucking this trend, however, is the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which will be recruiting new staff to police vast swathes of the internet previously outside of the watchdog's remit.

For the ASA, the internet is better described as the Wild West Web .

This is now changing. Apparently, in response to a formal recommendation from a wide cross-section of UK industry , the ASA will now extend its coverage to all marketing communications emanating from the UK online, including advertising on Facebook and Twitter as well as the websites of companies and organisations of all sizes. Even members of the public could be censured online if it is found that they have been asked by companies to partake in marketing initiatives. It will be – in the words of ASA chairman Chris Smith - the most comprehensive approach to the regulation of advertising in website space anywhere in the world .

...Read the full article

A hostage drama in the Philippines on August 23, 2010 tested the patience and tolerance of the Philippine government, particularly newly installed President Benigno Noynoy Aquino III.

The hostage crisis and the alleged mishandling of the entire situation was seen by almost everyone which illicited various reactions. The question is, where will they air their grievances and disappointments? Where else but to use the world's most popular social networking site to date - Facebook.

President Aquino created his Facebook page to promote transparency, but now angry netizens and President Aquino detractors are flooding the page with negative comments, strong language and insults.

And because of the barrage of negative posts, President Benigno Aquino or whoever is in-charge of this page censored his Facebook page after users ignored an appeal to stop bashing the Philippine government.

His Facebook account is followed by 1.9 million readers.

US supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor has said the court is likely to have to rule on the issue of balancing national security and freedom of speech due to WikiLeaks posting a cache of US military records about the Afghan war.

Sotomayor said the incident, which has been condemned by the Pentagon, was likely to provoke legislation in Congress that would require judicial scrutiny.

Her comments came in response to a question about security and free speech by a student at Denver university. The judge said she could not answer because that question is very likely to come before me . She said the incident, and others, are going to provoke legislation that's already being discussed in Congress, and so some of it is going to come up before [the supreme court] .

Sotomayor said the balance between national security and free speech is a constant struggle in this society, between our security needs and our first amendment rights, and one that has existed throughout our history.

An ad, which depicted a marijuana leaf, began running on Aug. 7. Just over a week later, Facebook pulled it, saying the image violated its policy against promoting smoking.

Organizers at Just Say Now, a bipartisan coalition fighting to legalize and regulate marijuana just like alcohol, said they spent roughly $5,000 on the ads, which received about 38 million views in the week they ran.

Michael Whitney, the group's online campaign director, said Facebook's move is akin to striking a candidate's face from his posters while he's running for office. Marijuana legalization is on the ballot this November in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and South Dakota.

We are talking about free political speech, Whitney said. We aren't encouraging people to do anything illegal.

Facebook said they have no problem with Just Say Now advertising on its pages as long as it uses a different image, Andrew Noyes, the manager of Facebook's public policy communications, said in an e-mail to The New York Times.

The image of a marijuana leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies, he said, adding that Facebook does not permit images of drugs, drug paraphernalia or tobacco in any advertisements.

Just Say Now began its campaign earlier this month, arguing that legalizing marijuana would reduce crime at the border and could yield an additional $40 billion in revenue annually.

Update: Leaf claim just a fig leaf

26th September 2010. See  article from  fdlaction.firedoglake.com

After the social network banned our ads last month for showing a marijuana leaf, we decided to play by their rules and not show leafs in our ads. So we submitted ads to Facebook for our Just Say now store, but blurred out the pot leafs so you couldn't see the obviously offensive plant leaf.

Not good enough, said Facebook. Even though we complied with Facebook's censorship of pot leafs, all of our ads were rejected. And the rejection came with some blatantly false statements, and a harsh warning.

The content advertised by this ad is restricted per section 5 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines. We reserve the right to determine what advertising we accept, and will not allow the creation of any further Facebook Ads of this type. Ads for this product, service or site should not be resubmitted.

Facebook is making yet another political decision to ban Just Say Now from advertising our campaign for marijuana legalization on the social networking site.

A novel use of encryption by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks could challenge the legal system for years to come, according to an influential observer of the hacking community.

Emmanuel Goldstein, editor of 2600 The Hacker Quarterly magazine, made his comments in reference to an encrypted file recently posted on the Wikileaks site.

Some suspect the file - as yet unopened - contains further sensitive material. It has been reposted around the web and is available for anyone to download.

Wikileaks recently published 76,000 secret US military logs detailing military actions in Afghanistan; an act the US authorities described as highly irresponsible. The website now says it will release 15,000 further sensitive documents, once it has completed a review aimed at minimising the risk that the release could put people's lives in danger.

The release of the logs has led many to wonder what action the US might take against Wikileaks. Now it seems the site may be using encryption as insurance against legal and other threats to the information it holds.

The insurance.aes256 file has been posted alongside the already published leaked war logs and can be downloaded by anyone. Leaked video of July 2007 helicopter attack in Baghdad Some have speculated that the insurance file is another video

From the file name, it is believed that it has been encrypted using the AES256 algorithm - described as extremely strong by Professor Whitfield Diffie, of the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway University, London. Prof Diffie believes that AES256, which he says has been extensively studied could prove too tough even for US intelligence agencies to break.

While no-one knows what the insurance file contains, this has not prevented the contents becoming a matter of considerable speculation. Some suspect that the file contains a further leaked US military video, others that it is another tranche of US military logs - perhaps this time from Iraq. Or it could just be an imaginative bluff.

Facebook Places , which will launch in the US only at first, will allow users to check in at a location

Facebook app Facebook Places is a location based service allowing users to share their location. The new tool is bound to spark criticism from data privacy campaigners.

The feature allows users to check in at locations which will then be shared with their friends and Facebook network but it is likely to raise concerns over safety. Users will also be able to browse shops, clubs and nearby venues to see which friends are nearby, leading to concerns it could put individual's security at risk.

What we see with Facebook is a massive learning curve. Every time they make a change, consumers scramble to figure out the privacy settings, said Rainey Reitman, spokeswoman for Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in the US. Location data is tied to people's safety – if people know where you are, they know where you're not. Your location data is some of the most sensitive data we have. I expect we'll see from the get-go people who don't understand how to control the privacy settings.

The service will launch in the US only at first. Reitman said users should be particularly judicious about who they accept as friends, and be aware that even information shared with an intimate network could be copied and pasted elsewhere. Don't post anything online you wouldn't want to get out publicly to anyone.

Yang said protections include notifying a user as soon as they are tagged at a place, and offering a complete opt-out of places tags. Users under 18 can only share location with their immediate friends network and their real-time location will only be seen by friends at the same location.

Critics will note that once a user decides to check in at a location, the primary location setting is switched on by default, which means any places tags automatically being shared with immediate friends. But the service does offer a range of protections and controls including the option to detag locations, notifications if friends add your location and the option to disable Places entirely.

Widespread smartphone take-up has allowed location services such as Foursquare and Gowalla to flourish. Facebook has been watching the development of these services, which are setting up a steady stream of promotions and prizes with venues and retailers to reward loyal customers who check in regularly.

Initially available as an update to Facebook's app for Apple iPhone, updated apps for BlackBerry, Android and other handsets are expected in the next few months. A version will also launch for the UK.

Facebook, the social networking site, has pledged to develop new security measures to combat a growing surge in cyber bullying and abuse by strangers.

Engineers at Facebook are reportedly working on new systems to fight the trend of trolling , where anonymous online users bombard victims with offensive messages or abuse.

Reports have claimed a growing number of tribute pages had been targeted including those in memory of the Cumbria shootings victims and soldiers who died in Afghanistan.

At present users can only manually delete abusive messages. But in efforts to combat the growing trend, Facebook officials said they were working on new systems that automatically delete abuse.

Administrators of such sites will also be given new advice on how to cope with trolls and be given access to the new tools.

A Facebook spokesman said that: Users who send lots of messages to non-friends, for example, or whose friend requests are rejected at a high rate, are marked as suspect. We've built extensive grey lists that prevent users from signing up with names commonly associated with fake accounts.

Through the reporting process our team is also able to identify additional accounts using the same IP address so it is possible in certain situations to proactively remove multiple fake accounts.

GoTopLess.org is calling for a public protest after an image at the organization's Facebook page depicting the Statue of Liberty with bare breasts was removed by Facebook staff. The disputed image was a photo of a painting by GoTopless member Donna Grabow.

The incident began when GoTopLess president Nadine Gary received an e-mail from Facebook staff on July 18 explaining the reason for the photo's removal. It read, in part:

You uploaded a picture to 'NEW YORK National Go Topless Day: A March for Women's Equal Rights! AUG 22 that violates our Terms of Use, and this picture has been removed. Facebook does not allow photos that attack an individual or group, or that contain nudity, drug use, violence, or other violations of the Terms of Use.

Brigitte Boisselier said:

I'm asking all my friends on Facebook and those who believe in equal rights for men and women to post the picture that was taken down, Boisselier said. Some frustrated individuals can't see a nipple without freaking out or feeling offended, but we've already had enough discrimination against the female body. I'm asking all women on Facebook to stand for equal topless rights by posting this photo to their own pages. And I'm also asking all men who can appreciate a female body without feeling guilty to do the same.

The female chest is beautiful and children shouldn't be told it's sinful to look at it. That sort of repression causes frustration and guilt that they will experience as adults, which is such a ridiculous waste. Bare female breasts are seen on all European beaches at this time of year, but as far as I know, incidence of rape and other sexually violent incidents is lower in Europe than in America.

Artist Grabow agrees that Facebook's action was discriminatory and wrong.

Censorship of this painting denies freedom of speech and expression and reflects American prudishness, she said. What's funny is that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French government, and all the French people I know smile when they see this feminized painting. In fact, Europeans just laugh when they learn that Facebook is censoring innocent images like this one. After all, images of nude statues are displayed everywhere else without protest, including in school books.

Wikileaks has been urged by human rights groups to censor previously secret files on the Afghanistan war to protect civilians who have worked alongside the US and other foreign forces from reprisals.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and three other groups have sent a series of emails to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange calling for the names of Afghan civilians to be removed from the 77,000 classified military documents published by the online whistle-blower last month, and from any documents disclosed in the future.

Nader Nadery, of the commission said: There was no consideration about civilian lives , noting a rise in assassinations of Afghan civilians seen as government collaborators.

The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, the Open Society Institute and the International Crisis Group have also been involved in exchanges about the released documents.

A WikiLeaks spokesman said the group had requested help from NATO to check the files prior to publication to ensure the lives of civilians were not put at risk: For this reason, we conveyed a request to the White House prior to the publication, asking that the International Security Assistance Force provide us with reviewers, he said. That request remains open. However, the Pentagon has stated that it is not interested in 'harm minimization' and has not contacted us, directly, or indirectly to discuss this offer.

Blogetery.com, a little-known WordPress platform used by more than 70,000 blogs, was shut down by its Web hosting company more than a week ago and nobody seems willing to say why or who is responsible.

BurstNet, the Web-hosting company, informed Blogetery's operator that service was terminated at the request of some law enforcement agency but wouldn't say which one. As for the reason, BurstNet hasn't made that clear either. In an e-mail to Blogetery's operator, BurstNet managers did say that they had little choice but to terminate service.

Please note that this was not a typical case in which suspension and notification would be the norm, BurstNet wrote to Blogetery's operator. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.

Initially commentators suspected that perhaps file sharing issues were behind the take down but this was denied.  In an interview, a BurstNet spokesman declined to identify the law enforcement agency that ordered Blogetery shut down or provide the reason but did say that it had nothing to do with copyright violations.

BurstNet hinted at something more serious in a forum article from webhostingtalk.com .

In repose to a refund request and a dump of Blogetery data, BurstNet wrote: [This] should be the least of his concerns. Simply put: We cannot give him his data nor can we provide any other details. By stating this, most would recognize that something serious is afoot.

Update: Inspire

20th July 2010. Based on article from  news.cnet.com

More details are surfacing about why Blogetery.com, a blogging platform that claimed to service more than 70,000 blogs, was mysteriously booted from the Internet by its Web-hosting company.

The site was shut down after FBI agents informed executives of Burst.net, Blogetery's Web host, late on July 9 that links to al-Qaeda materials were found on Blogetery's servers, Joe Marr, chief technology officer for Burst.net, told CNET. Sources close to the investigation say that included in those materials were the names of American citizens targeted for assassination by al-Qaeda. Messages from Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the terrorist organization, as well as bomb-making tips, were also allegedly found on the server.

A source with knowledge of the investigation said that the material allegedly found on Blogetery's server is connected to an online magazine called Inspire , which debuted recently. Numerous news outlets reported over the past weekend that Inspire is designed to help recruit new members to al-Qaeda. According to Fox News, the title of one article was Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.

Citing intelligence sources, Fox reported that Khan is Web savvy and his magazine represents al-Qaeda's most ambitious terrorist recruitment tool to date.

Coca-Cola has been forced to pull an internet campaign after parents accused the company of using hardcore pornographic references to target children on Facebook.

A Facebook promotion for Dr Pepper, part of the Coca-Cola drinks range, posted a reference to a notorious pornographic film on the wall of an underage girl.

As part of the promotion, users allowed the company to hijack their Facebook status box, posting apparently embarrassing messages under their names.

More than 160,000 people signed up for the hoax statuses, which included: Lost my special blankie. How will I go sleepies? and What's wrong with peeing in the shower?

But the marketing drive backfired when a parent complained that her 14-year-old daughter's hijacked status claimed that she had watched a hardcore pornographic film which is notorious for the obscene practices it depicts. The status referred to the film by name, and the mother said she was particularly distressed after finding that her daughter had subsequently searched for it on the internet.

[The reference is to 'Two Girls One Cup' which is an extreme scat thing. It seems quite well known in the social networking world, more as a foil for reaction than any hint of the real thing. Eg there are YouTube videos of people watching the unseen porn video and reacting nauseously. This information seems to have been omitted from the newspaper articles on the story].

Rickman wrote on the parents' networking site Mumsnet: I am absolutely fizzing with rage and disgust, and want a full apology and explanation. Other Mumsnet users reacted furiously to news of the disgusting promotion, and praised Rickman for bringing it to light.

Coca-Cola has since apologised and announced an investigation into its promotion procedures. Executives said they had approved the offending message without realising its true meaning.

Sydney jeweller Victoria Buckley has lashed out at Midwest American puritanism on Facebook after the social networking site threatened action against her for having pictures of nude porcelain dolls on her fan page.

The dolls are pictured posing with the jeweller's products and feature in posters that form part of Buckley's visual merchandising displays in her George Street store windows.

Buckley was bombarded by warnings from Facebook, which said the pictures of the dolls constituted inappropriate content and breached the site's terms of service. The high-end porcelain figures show little more than nipples.

The frustrated Buckley told Jeweller: It just takes one click from one Midwest American puritan and the whole [online marketing campaign] gets taken down. Facebook has removed the offending images from her fan page, but Buckley has posted them on a new Facebook group called Save Ophelia - exquisite doll censored by Facebook .

Buckley told Jeweller: I don't care if they close this group down but I do care if they close my fan page down.

On the Save Ophelia page, she says: I feel I have a right to photograph my jewellery with Ophelia [the doll] as I see fit. Facebook disagrees with this, because, even if hundreds of people appreciate what you do, it only takes ONE complaint to have the whole thing taken down.

Update: Facebook Apologies

12th July 2010. Based on article from smh.com.au

A Sydney jeweller has castigated Facebook for its opaque and arbitrary moderation system after the site apologised for censoring her images of a nude porcelain doll posing with her works.

The social networking site admitted that it had made a mistake in removing Victoria Buckley's photos, after last week sending her several warning notices for publishing inappropriate content and erasing both censored and uncensored versions of the image from Facebook.

We've investigated this further and determined that we made a mistake in removing these photos, Facebook said in a statement: Our User Operations team reviews thousands of reported photos a day and may occasionally remove something that doesn't actually violate our policies. This is what happened here. And while we believe the doll would benefit from clothing to protect her fair skin, we apologise for the mistake and encourage Victoria Buckley Jewellery to upload these photos again if they so choose.

Anyone looking for the website SpinProfiles – uncovering the dark corners of PR and raising questions about lobbying – will have had a harder time finding it recently. And why? Because it was virtually shut down by its web firm, 1&1 Internet.

And why did that happen? Because it posted what has become a controversial profile of Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, rightwing thinktanker and son of the famed journalist Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens didn't like it. More than that, he didn't like the location. SpinProfiles and sister site Spinwatch are run by Professor David Miller, who also has a site called Neocon Europe. Hitchens says that his profile appeared on that site in pretty unsavoury company, and thus he didn't want to be featured on any website owned by Prof Miller.

He asked for the profile to be taken down – but here's the thing: he doesn't say anything in it was defamatory, and furthermore he says he never sought to have the site shut down. 1&1 took it upon themselves to remove the site after Spinwatch refused to remove my profile, Hitchens told us.

1&1 says it acted within the agreed rules following complaints to protect its legal position. But the upshot is that a site came down because someone featured there raised an objection. Even the complainant didn't ask for that.

So much for the brave new world.

Reply: Spinwatch must offer right of reply

15th July 2010. See  article from  guardian.co.uk by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens

David Miller's Spinwatch websites exploit free speech and those profiled, as I was, should be able to disassociate themselves

On Cif last week, David Miller wrote a piece complaining that I had his website, SpinProfiles, shut down. As his article argues, he does indeed have the right to free speech, but this is not a one-way street, and the people who his projects target have a right to object to witch-hunts and harassment.

...Read the full article

Lebanon's president, Michel Sleiman, may have more than 60,000 Facebook fans, but it took the opinions of just three people for things to get unfriendly. The three  were arrested for allegedly defaming the president on the social networking website.

There is currently no specific law governing the publication of online content in Lebanon. People can – and do – say what they want across a variety of networking sites. However, it is a crime to criticise the president of the republic, as his position supposedly represents the entire country. Knock Sleiman and you knock Lebanon.

The barbs, some of which were reposted on Sleiman's official page, were not particularly caustic. You're worth my foot, as one commenter wrote, is hardly a fierce indictment of Sleiman's presidency. Similarly, you're like a snake; all you do is from under the table, should not ruffle a man hardened by a career spent in the Lebanese army. If these are the worst jibes he has to endure, Sleiman can consider his political life charmed. The accusation that Sleiman was the king of racism and sectarianism probably grated harder.

The three young men have now been charged but released on bail.

The arrests are the first to be linked to online comments and while it was a state prosecutor who initiated the judicial proceedings, the president has been kept abreast of all developments. Sleiman, who after all has the power of pardon, said he could not allow such comments to go unpunished, labelling them an abuse of freedom .

Elaine Miller says she can't understand how the image of a woman's panty-clad ass can be considered offensive, but Facebook pulled the photo and sent her a warning.

I don't think much of censorship, says Miller, a leatherdyke who hosts a variety of BDSM events for queen women in Vancouver.

Miller says Facebook pulled the photo announcing a Bride of Pride play party, then sent her an online warning explaining how she had violated the site's terms of use.

Facebook does not allow photos that attack an individual or group or that contain nudity, drug use, violence or other violations of terms of use, the message informed her.

This policy is enforced in order to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users, including the many children who use the site, the message added.

When asked to explain why this particular photo was removed, a Facebook spokesperson told Xtra: We literally have dozens of content standards, and respond to user reports of inappropriate content. We have a policy against nudity and in such cases, have removed photos that have been flagged to us by Facebook users. The particular photo in question exposes the naked buttocks of a female and violates our terms for appropriate content. When flagged, all reports are closely reviewed and action is taken if photos are deemed offensive.

ISPA, the Internet Service Providers’ Association, has announced the finalists for the 2010 Internet Hero and Internet Villain awards.

The highly-prized Internet Hero award is bestowed upon an organisation or individual who has made a significant contribution to the Internet industry in the past year, whilst the dreaded title of Internet Villain recognises those that ISPA feels have had a negative impact upon the sector.

The winners of the two special awards will be selected from the finalists based on votes by members of the ISPA Council. They will be announced, along with the winners of the twelve other ISPA awards, at a glittering awards ceremony hosted at the London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square on Thursday 8th July.

Internet Hero – sponsored by Eclipse Internet

• Bridget Fox - For organising a grass roots challenge to the Digital Economy Bill
• Data.gov.uk - for showing the value of datasets and how the public can utilise government information
• Tom Watson MP, and all those who showed up to vote against the DE Bill, for their informed opposition to the Bill
• Zip It, Block It, Flag It campaign - for focusing on internet safety for parents and young children
• 38 Degrees Campaign - for mobilising public opposition to the Digital Economy Bill

Internet Villain

• ACS Law - for their aggressive, heavy-handed approach to targeting alleged copyright infringement via P2P networks
• The European Commission and the Council of Ministers - for conducting ACTA negotiations in a secretive manner and for failing to engage with stakeholders on an issue that is of vital importance for Europe's digital economy
• Lord Clement-Jones - for introducing amendment 120a to the Digital Economy Bill without sufficient research or understanding of the consequences
• Lord Mandelson - for ignoring principles of better regulation to amend an open consultation following lobbying from an interest group
• UK Parliament - for allowing the Digital Economy Bill to pass through the Commons without proper debate

An Irish Labour MEP has called for intervention and regulation by the EU for websites like Facebook, which she believes are addictive and hazardous to mental health.

The minister, Nessa Childers, who is also a psychotherapist, said that since the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified, the EU now has increased powers to legislate when there is a threat to public health in Europe .

She claimed that millions of Europeans are at risk of becoming addicted to these kinds of websites, particularly Facebook, which has over 400,000 Irish users alone.

Childers said that visiting Facebook causes intermittent reinforcement , which means that connecting with virtual friends, receiving notices and messages, etc. gives users an unpredictable high, similar to gambling and makes them feel the need to expand to fill an increasingly empty internal world creating a vicious circle. In other words, people are living virtual lives instead of real ones, using social networking to escape the pains and struggles of everyday existence.

Childers said that as a psychotherapist she has seen an increase in addiction to internet pornography, which has ruined lives, and that action is needed at international level from the EU to properly take on the disturbing trend of addiction to sites such as Facebook which are responsible for all sorts of problematic behaviour .

Childers failed to mention exactly what kind of regulations are needed though.