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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

from the fighting-fires dept

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

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

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

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

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

Following Questionable Election, Honduran Government Debuts New Censorship Law

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

from the this-is-not-good dept

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Hampshire Court: First Amendment Says You Can Call A Patent Troll A Patent Troll

from the what-about-defamation-troll? dept

A New Hampshire state court has dismissed a defamation suit filed by a patent owner unhappy that it had been called a "patent troll." The court ruled [PDF] that the phrase "patent troll" and other rhetorical characterizations are not the type of factual statements that can be the basis of a defamation claim. While this is a fairly routine application of defamation law and the First Amendment, it is an important reminder that patent assertion entities – or "trolls" – are not shielded from criticism. Regardless of your view about the patent system, this is a victory for freedom of expression.

The case began back in December 2016 when patent assertion entity Automated Transactions, LLC ("ATL") and inventor David Barcelou filed a complaint [PDF] in New Hampshire Superior Court against 13 defendants, including banking associations, banks, law firms, lawyers, and a publisher. ATL and Barcelou claimed that all of the defendants criticized ATL's litigation in a way that was defamatory. The court summarizes describes the claims as follows:

The statements the plaintiffs allege are defamatory may be separated into two categories. The first consists of instances in which a defendant referred to a plaintiff as a "patent troll." The second is composed of characterizations of the plaintiffs' conduct as a "shakedown," "extortion," or "blackmail."

These statements were made in a variety of contexts. For example, ATL complained that the Credit Union National Association submitted testimony to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary [PDF] that referred to ATL as a "troll" and suggested that its business "might look like extortion." The plaintiffs also complained about an article in Crain's New York Business that referred to Barcelou as a "patent troll." The complaint alleges that the article included a photo of a troll that "paints Mr. Barcelou in a disparaging light, and is defamatory."

ATL had filed over 50 lawsuits against a variety of banks and credit unions claiming that their ATM machines infringed ATL's patents. ATL also sent many demand letters. Some in the banking industry complained that these suits and demands lacked merit. There was some support for this view. For example, in one case, the Federal Circuit ruled the several of ATL's asserted patent claims were invalid and that the defendants did not infringe. The defendants did not infringe because the patents were all directed to ATMs connected to the Internet and it was "undisputed" that the defendants' products "are not connected to the Internet and cannot be accessed over the Internet."

Given the scale of ATL's litigation, it is not surprising that it faced some criticism. Yet, the company responded to that criticism with a defamation suit. Fortunately, the court found the challenged statements to be protected opinion. Justice Brian T. Tucker explained:

[E]ach defendant used "patent troll" to characterize entities, including ATL, which engage in patent litigation tactics it viewed as abusive. And in each instance the defendant disclosed the facts that supported its description and made ATL, in the defendant's mind, a patent troll. As such, to the extent the defendants accused the plaintiffs of being a "patent troll," it was an opinion and not actionable.

The court went on to explain that "patent troll" is a term without a precise meaning that "doesn't enable the reader or hearer to know whether the label is true or false." The court notes that the term could encompass a broad range of activity (which some might see as beneficial, while others see it as harmful).

The court also ruled that challenged statements such as "shakedown" and comparisons to "blackmail" were non-actionable "rhetorical hyperbole." This is consistent with a long line of cases finding such language to be protected. Indeed, this is why John Oliver can call coal magnate Robert Murray a "geriatric Dr. Evil" and tell him to "eat shit." As the ACLU has put it, you can't sue people for being mean to you. Strongly expressed opinions, whether you find them childish or hilariously apt (or both), are part of living in a free society.

Justice Tucker's ruling is a comprehensive victory for the defendants and free speech. ATL and Barcelou believe they are noble actors seeking to vindicate property rights. The defendants believed that ATL's conduct made it an abusive patent troll. The First Amendment allows both opinions to be expressed.

Reposted from EFF's Deeplinks blog

Filed Under: david barcelou, defamation, extortion, first amendment, free speech, patent trolls
Companies: atl, automated transactions llc

More Governments Granting Themselves Extra Censorship Powers With 'Fake News' Laws

from the silence,-peasants! dept

Fake news is apparently everywhere. All over Europe, legislators and officials are trying to regulate content with "fake news" legislation and directives, as though the term could somehow be narrowly-defined enough that regulation could even have a positive effect. All these new laws and demands for cooperation from tech companies are sure to generate plenty of negative effects, not the least of which is these laws will become tools for censorship and a super-easy way to silence dissent.

It's not just a European thing. It's happening in nations around the world. Countries already known for heavy-handed control of the internet are using "fake news" to seize even more control of news outlets and communications platforms. Countries generally viewed as more generous with their rights are lining themselves up for authoritarian mission creep by setting themselves up as the final arbiter of real/fake news.

The EFF is reporting similar efforts are underway in Latin and South America.

In 2018, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica, among others, will undergo electoral processes involving their respective presidencies. These governments are beginning to exploit concerns over “fake news,” as though it were a novel phenomenon, in order to adopt proposals to increase state control over online communications and expand censorship and Internet surveillance. Such rhetoric glosses over the fact that propaganda from traditional Latin American media monopolies has long been the norm in the region, and that Internet companies have played a critical role in counterbalancing this power dynamic.

These governments aren't concerned about fake news, but they are concerned about their official narratives being countered by speech carried on platforms they can't directly control. Fake news legislation is an easy way to grant themselves the power they need to nuke content that contradicts government portrayals of events, incidents, and lawmaking efforts.

Brazil's take on regulating fake news is one of the worst. It not only turns the production or sharing of government-designated "fake news" into a crime, but also allows the government to directly target internet companies for content posted by their users. But efforts by other countries are equally awful.

After fraud accusations marred 2017 Honduras’ presidential elections, Honduras finds itself in a grave political crisis. Amidst the turbulence, a bill regulating online speech was introduced in the Honduran National Congress in February 2018. The bill, which was widely criticized by civil society, provides broad leeway for Internet companies to block Internet content in the name of protecting users from hate speech, discrimination, or insults. The bill compels companies to take down third-party content within 24 hours in order not to be fined or even find their services blocked.

So, "fake news" remains nothing more than a dodge. And a particularly handy one, at that. Evidence of foreign meddling in domestic elections is troubling, but the answer isn't to hand over more direct control of communications platforms to governments. All this does is further break up the internet into hundreds of fiefdoms with different rule sets, presided over by government officials who don't care for criticism, accountability, or transparency. The better governments will get worse and the terrible governments will become abominable. But every government that puts a law like this in place will eventually abuse it to shut down dissent, criticism, or other legitimate speech it has no business regulating.

Filed Under: censorship, fake news, free speech

Judge Blocks Iowa Town From Shutting Down Or Suing Resident Over His Critical Website

from the town-lawyer-scheduled-to-be-beaten-with-Bill-of-Rights dept

The government of a small town in Iowa has just received a slapdown from a US federal court. The public servants running Sibley, Iowa -- pop. ~3,000 -- decided it was going to eliminate one resident's First Amendment rights because he wouldn't stop telling people moving to Sibley might be a bad idea.

It all began with a meat byproduct processing plant that moved to the small town, creating jobs and a powerful stench. Resident Jeremy Harms approached the town government about the nasty smell several times, but was blown off repeatedly. News of the "blood plant's" unpleasant odor began making news around the state, but it was Harms' personal website that finally pushed the town into violating First Amendment rights. The town's lawyer sent Harms a legal threat, telling him to stop criticizing the town on his website and strongly suggesting he try to be more positive about the stinkhole he lived in.

Harms backed down and altered his website. But he also got in touch with the ACLU, which took up his case and sued the town over its rights violations. Less than month later, Harms is free to disparage his town and its so-called leadership. Federal judge Leonard T. Strand has granted a permanent injunction [PDF] against the town of Sibley, preventing it from silencing Harms in perpetuity.

Pursuant to the Joint Motion to enter a stipulated injunction, the Court hereby enters the following injunction:

1. An injunction permanently enjoining the City of Sibley and the named Defendants in their official capacities from directing Harms not to speak with reporters, threatening to bring a lawsuit, or actually bringing a lawsuit against the Plaintiff Harms for speaking with reporters or publishing www.shouldyoumovetosibleyia.com in its previous form or in any future form, including www.sibleystinks.com or any other successor websites that criticize the City of Sibley or the Defendants in the conduct of City business.

And that's not all. Not only can Harms restore his "should you move" site to its former, more caustic glory, he can get his other website (Sibley Stinks) up and running. On top of that, he's also going to be collecting from the town for his troubles, as Rox Laird reports for Courthouse News Service.

In addition to not demanding that Harms alter his website and threatening suit, the city agreed to provide training on the First Amendment to its staff, issue a written apology to Harms, and pay $20,475 in attorney fees and $6,500 in damages.

Whatever harm the city imagined might have come to Sibley, Iowa as a result of Harms' website, it likely didn't amount to the $27,000 it now owes Harms. Given that the site's best day of traffic netted roughly 2,000 visitors, it was hardly a cross-platform viral town destroyer. What did go viral was the town's heavy-handed, unconstitutional, completely inept response to justified criticism. Now Sibley's known for something other than blood plant stench. It's known for employing officious, censorial busybodies who seem to believe the only permissible speech is speech they like.

Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, iowa, jeremy harms, prior restraint, sibley

Quixotic Approaches To Circumventing Censorship, Using Books And Music

from the but-not-tilting-at-windmills dept

The topic of censorship crops up far too much here on Techdirt. Less common are stories about how to circumvent it. The two which follow are great examples of how human ingenuity is able to find unexpected ways to tackle this problem. The first story comes from Spain, and concerns a banned book. As the Guardian reports:

Nacho Carretero’s Fariña, an expose of drug trafficking in Galicia, was published in 2015, but publication and sales were halted last month after the former mayor of O Grove in Galicia, Jose Alfredo Bea Gondar, brought legal action against Carretero and his publisher, Libros del KO. Bea Gondar is suing over details in the book about his alleged involvement in drug shipping.

To get around that ban, a new Web site has been created, Finding Fariña, which explains:

A digital tool searches and finds the 80,000 thousand words that make up "Fariña" within "Don Quijote", the most universal classic of Spanish literature, and then extracts them, one by one, so that you can read the forbidden story.

Because what they will never be able to censor your rights as a reader. Nor words. And least of all, "Don Quijote".

The site sifts through the classic Spanish text to find the words that are then recombined to form the forbidden book. You can click on any word in the book's online text to find the corresponding section of Don Quijote. Since Fariña contains words that did not exist in the early 17th century, when Cervantes wrote his novel, the Web site recreates them from fragments of words that are found within the work. That's quite important, since it means that Don Quijote can potentially be used to reconstitute any book, if necessary breaking down unusual words into fragments or even single letters. Equally, the same approach could be adopted for banned texts in other languages: all that is needed is some well-known public domain work that can be mined in the same way.

The other approach comes from Germany, but "The Uncensored Playlist," is being used in China, Egypt, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam to circumvent censorship in those nations:

While press freedom is not available in the worlds most oppressed societies -- global music streaming sites are.

Five acclaimed independent journalists from five countries suffering from strict government censorship teamed up with Musical Director Lucas Mayer to turn 10 articles that had previously been censored into 10 uncensored pop songs. These songs were then uploaded onto freely available music streaming sites. Allowing these stories to be slipped back into the countries where they had once been forbidden.

That is, censored information, written by local journalists, is set to music, and then added to playlists that are available on the main streaming platforms like Spotify, Deezer, and Apple Music. In addition, all the songs are freely available from the project's Web site, in both the original languages and in English.

Although neither method represents a foolproof anti-circumvention technique, or a serious challenge to the authorities concerned, they do underline that however bad the censorship, there is always a way around it.

Update: The Finding Fariña site has now been censored. So far, there's no sign of a mirror site being set up outside Spanish jurisdiction, which would seem the obvious response.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: censorship, china, circumvention, egypt, free speech, spain
Companies: spotify

Malaysian Government Pushes 'Fake News' Bill Aimed At Curb-Stomping Reporting About Its Corruption

from the STFU-citizens dept

Back in 2016, the Malaysian government pushed for broad censorship of an already tightly-controlled internet. The basis for this push was the government's inability to stop Malaysian media from reporting on government corruption. This reporting continued on platforms (and with news agencies) the government didn't directly control. To shut this down, the government decided to strip immunity from media platforms, making them directly responsible for user content. This allowed the government to control the narrative by going after service providers, rather than those publishing inconvenient facts.

The Malaysian government still hasn't been able to completely shut down critical reporting. Two years later, it's trying again, this time using an excuse provided by the newest US president: fake news.

Under the Anti-Fake News 2018 bill, anyone who publishes so-called fake news could face fines of up to 500,000 ringgit ($128,140), up to 10 years in jail, or both.

“The proposed Act seeks to safeguard the public against the proliferation of fake news whilst ensuring the right to freedom of speech and expression under the Federal Constitution is respected,” the government said in the bill.

The government defined fake news as “news, information, data and reports which is or are wholly or partly false” and included features, visuals and audio recordings.

The law, which covers digital publications and social media, would apply to offenders outside Malaysia, including foreigners, if Malaysia or a Malaysian citizen were affected.

The last part attempts to make this enforceable anywhere in the world, putting foreign service providers at risk of accruing fines for refusing to take down anything the government declares "fake news." The proposed bill has already been criticized by Amnesty International as being nothing more than a "blatant attempt to shield the government from peaceful criticism." The first part -- the contradictory claim that targeting news the government doesn't like somehow equates to a free speech protection -- is just knuckle-dragging dissembling from a government that knows the public doesn't believe its claptrap.

Even if the government's intentions are pure (which they certainly aren't), the term "fake news" is almost impossible to define. Outlandishly false "reporting" is rarely targeted. What's most commonly referred to as "fake news" is any reporting the party in power doesn't like. The same would be the case here, as one Malaysian government official helpfully explained:

A deputy minister was quoted in Malaysian media last week as saying that any news on 1MDB that had not been verified by the government was “fake”.

The bill is nothing more than a threat to dangle over the Malaysian public to deter further discussion of government corruption. The government already directly controls the mainstream media, so the addition of an "affecting Malaysian people" clause is there to give it the legal permission to demand removal of content worldwide. Service providers located in other countries should follow blogging platform Medium's example: when faced with demands to delete reporting on the magical appearance of $700 million in the Malaysian prime minister's bank account, the platform demanded proof of the government's claims that the report was false. When this failed to materialize, Medium left the content up and reiterated its support for investigative journalism.

This will likely become law in the near future. The party in power holds a significant majority in the Parliament. The country's corrupt government will give itself the tools it needs to punish citizens for attempting to hold it accountable. And the term "fake news" will continue to be abused by authoritarian governments to stifle dissent.

Filed Under: censorship, corruption, fake news, free speech, malaysia