French Government Wants To Toss Far-Right Political Leader In Jail For Posting Images Of Terrorist Atrocities

from the headline-writers-already-busy-on-Le-Pen/the-Pen-variations dept

France's decision to inhibit free speech in response to local terrorist attacks has resulted in ridiculous applications of laws being written (and rewritten) on the fly. The current French president -- and supposed moderate -- wants to "ban" fake news and the French government has previously expressed a desire to censor websites for national security reasons. The attack on satirical publication Charlie Hebdo supposedly prompted French government officials to stand in solidarity with free speech. This show of unity was followed immediately by multiple arrests for violations of France's speech laws -- including the arrest of comedian for an anti-Semitic Facebook post and another for posting a video mocking dead policemen.

I'm not sure if this latest action is approaching the French speech law event horizon, but it says nothing good about the current state of speech protections in France.

[Marine] Le Pen, who lost to Emmanuel Macron in last year’s presidential vote, is facing charges of circulating “violent messages that incite terrorism or pornography or seriously harm human dignity”, and that can be viewed by a minor. The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (£66,000).

The pictures were posted a few weeks after the Paris terror attacks in November 2015, in which 130 people were killed.

Le Pen leads the far-right political party Front National. She tweeted these images in response to a journalist's comparison of her party to terrorists. This was meant to indicate her party wasn't actually involved in the execution and torture of political and religious enemies, unlike ISIS. It's an easy point to make and even easier to make badly, as Le Pen did.

The posting was questionable and in poor taste, but it certainly shouldn't be illegal. These are things that actually happened, perpetrated by actual terrorists. Preventing people from using these image in context does nothing to slow the spread of terrorism. All it does is turn contextual use of violent imagery into its own crime, wholly divorced from the criminal acts the law is supposed to be deterring.

It took the French government three years to get around to laying charges. Here's why:

The move by a judge in Nanterre on Thursday came after the national assembly voted in November to strip Le Pen of her parliamentary immunity over the three photos posted in 2015.

This decision could not have been made lightly. This sets precedent for the removal of immunity -- something most members would likely have wanted to leave undisturbed. That it was disturbed suggests the desire to punish Le Pen was greater than the desire to avoid being held accountable for similar actions in the future. It makes no difference to the court who it punishes for violations, but it will make a lot of difference to those who voted to strip immunity when the pendulum swings back the other way and the party in power starts handing out charges for saying the wrong things online.

Filed Under: france, free speech, marine le pen, violent images

China Briefly Bans The Letter 'N' On Social Media After Anger Over Plans To Make Xi Jinping 'Dictator For Life'

from the Winnie-the-Pooh-strikes-back dept

Last week, the Communist Party of China issued a short statement:

The Communist Party of China Central Committee proposed to remove the expression that the President and Vice-President of the People's Republic of China "shall serve no more than two consecutive terms" from the country's Constitution.

As analysts were quick to point out, that seemingly minor change effectively allows China's current leader, Xi Jinping. to become "dictator for life". It wasn't just Westerners who were taken aback by the unexpected boldness of the move. One of the leading China experts, Victor Mair, explained in a post on his Language Log blog:

for as long as I've been studying China and observing Chinese affairs, I've never witnessed so much opposition to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] as what I've been seeing and hearing during the last couple of days -- except for the months leading up to the Tiananmen Massacre of June 4, 1989.

But as he points out, the big difference between then and now is that today people can turn to the Internet to express their feelings. Naturally, that has led China's huge censorship machine to go into overdrive, leading to some really weird bans:

since the Roman alphabet is part of the Chinese writing system, it's only fair for letters to be subject to censorship the way Sinographs are. Comments like this Twitter thread show the letter N being censored on Weibo (a microblogging website that is one of the most popular social media platforms in China). This is probably out of fear on the part of the government that "N" = "n terms in office", where possibly n > 2

China Digital Times notes that the block on the letter "N" was only temporary, but that doesn't mean the censorship was eased. On the contrary. The same post lists dozens of words and phrases that are forbidden because they contain direct references or even just allusions to the move to make Xi Jinping's rule life-long. Here are some of the less obvious ones:

Winnie the Pooh -- Images of Winnie the Pooh have been used to mock Xi Jinping since as early as 2013. The animated bear continues to be sensitive in China. Weibo users shared a post from Disney's official account that showed Pooh hugging a large pot of honey along with the caption "find the thing you love and stick with it."

The Emperor's Dream -- The title of a 1947 animated puppet film.

trust this woman is willing to be a vegetarian for the rest of her life -- Allusion to a meme inspired by the popular historical drama Empresses in the Palace. A screenshot of this line, being said by an empress as she pledges lifelong vegetarianism in return for the imminent death of the emperor, has been shared online.

Many activists received warnings not to make negative comments about the planned change. Some that did had their online accounts permanently disabled for daring to discuss the matter. The degree of censorship was so great that it led to people being "blank-screened", as Yuan Yang reported on Twitter:

Friend: *sighs, looking at her smartphone*

I've been "blank-screened."

Me: You've been what?

Friend: It's the word for when all the people you're following on Weibo (China's Twitter) have their accounts censored so your live feed is now a blank screen.

But as Techdirt has noted before, the Chinese online world has plenty of experience in circumventing censorship in clever ways. Here's a fine example of that, noted by Owen Churchill:

Durex in China reminding followers not to trust any advertising that isn't from their official accounts after "Two rounds just aren't enough" poster goes viral #XiJinping

The characters on the fake Durex ad are rather more explicit than "two rounds", which seems appropriate given what many people think Xi Jinping is doing to the Chinese people with this proposed change to the country's constitution.

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

Filed Under: censorship, china, internet, n, social media, the letter n, xi jinping

Stanford Professor Drops Stupid SLAPP Suit Against Critics; Still Mad Online

from the scientific-inquiry-shouldn't-happen-in-the-courtroom dept

Back in November, we wrote about a pure SLAPP lawsuit filed by Stanford professor Mark Jacobson against another scientist, Christopher Clack, and the National Academy of Sciences. Jacobson claimed that Clack and others defamed him by publishing a rebuttal of a paper that he and some others had published earlier. In other words, this was a standard kind of academic dispute, with different scientists taking different positions. Rather than continue to debate it in academic settings, Jacobson sued the critics. We went through all of the details of the case, and why it was so ridiculous in the original article, so we won't rehash that here. However, we will note that Jacobson has now dropped the case, but in doing so published an FAQ where he still insists that it was the proper thing to do in the first place:

That FAQ is basically a rant basically screaming "I was right and was right to sue and the people criticizing the lawsuit are wrong."

In our original post, we pointed out that Jacobson (based in California) was suing Clack (based in Colorado) in Washington DC. While that is where the National Academy of Sciences is based, we noted that this venue was almost certainly chosen because of a very troubling ruling in the CEI v. Mann case it made in early 2017 in another case involving a scientist suing a critic. As we noted, this was making DC a "good venue" for scientists seeking to sue over academic disputes. Indeed, Jacobson more or less admits this in his FAQ. Responding to the "question" of why the people he's suing aren't protected in their opinions under the First Amendment, Jacobson writes:

This case falls under Washington D.C. law, and a relevant similar case to this under D.C. law is Competitive Enterprise Institute versus Mann 150 A.3d 1213 (2016). The following excerpts from this case illustrate that false facts that defame individuals are not sheltered under the First Amendment...

That's a somewhat tortured reading of an already bad decision. The Supreme Court has already made it quite clear in multiple cases -- including US v. Alvarez -- that false statements can certainly be protected under the First Amendment.

Even when considering some instances of defamation and fraud, moreover, the Court has been careful to instruct that falsity alone may not suffice to bring the speech outside the First Amendment. The statement must be a knowing or reckless falsehood.

After going on for pages and pages about why he was totally right to file this lawsuit, he says he dismissed it because it would take a long time for the case to play out (why he didn't realize this in November when he sued is not explained):

It became clear, just like in the Mann case, which has been going on for 6 years, that it is possible there could be no end to this case for years, and both the time and cost would be enormous. Even if the motions for dismissal were defeated, the other side would appeal, and that alone would take 6-12 months if not more. Even if I won the appeal, that would be only the beginning. It would mean time-consuming discovery and depositions, followed by a trial. The result of the trial would likely be appealed, etc., etc.

His second reason? He claims that filing the lawsuit has succeeded in making people aware that he thinks the article he's suing over is incorrect, even if it didn't lead to the correction he demanded:

Second, a main purpose of the lawsuit has been to correct defamation by correcting the scientific record through removing false facts that damaged my coauthors and my reputations. While I have not succeeded in having the scientific record in the C17 article corrected, I have brought the false claims to light so that at least some people reading C17 will be aware of the factually inaccurate statements.

As such, after weighing the pros and cons, I find that I have no more reason to fight this battle. I believe it is better use of my time continuing to help solving pressing climate and air pollution problems.

Yes. It has called attention to the fact that you disagree with claims in the other article. It has also called much more attention to the fact that you sued someone over an academic dispute. And, while Jacobson doesn't seem to think this is true, it seems like that alone may have a much bigger negative impact on his reputation than the article he's so upset about.

Meanwhile, Jacobson has continue to use Twitter to insist that it is "misinformed" to claim that this dispute should have remained in academic settings rather than court and to argue with lots and lots of people telling him that this whole lawsuit was a bad idea (or asking if he'll pay the legal costs of those he sued):

Once again, we need a federal anti-SLAPP law. Jacobson should agree, if he was legitimately concerned with how long all of this would take. A federal anti-SLAPP suit would have ended this case pretty quickly as well (though it might have forced Jacobson to pay the legal bills of those he sued).

Filed Under: anti-slapp, christopher clack, dc, defamation, mark jacobson, scientific debate, slapp
Companies: national academy of sciences

Judge Tells Coal Boss Bob Murray The Judicial Equivalent Of 'Eat Shit, Bob'

from the eat-shit,-bob dept

Remember Bob Murray? He's the Ohio-based coal mining CEO who threatened and then sued John Oliver and HBO over this fun episode of Oliver's show, Last Week Tonight, which discussed the ridiculousness of our President's focus on "coal jobs." However, it also spent a fair bit of time talking about Bob Murray, Murray Energy, and how his actions did not appear to support actual coal miners. A prominent part of the story features the phrase (originally written by a coal miner at Murray Energy as part of the process to void a bonus check) "Eat Shit, Bob."

As we noted, this was an obvious SLAPP suit with a bunch of ridiculous claims. On top of that, Murray and Murray Energy also sought an injunction silencing Oliver and HBO, which was classic prior restraint. There was some procedural back-and-forth as HBO sought to remove the case to federal court, which failed. State courts can be more of a crap shoot, but this was such an obvious SLAPP suit that it does not appear to have mattered at all.

On Friday, the judge sent a letter to the various parties which I would say is the judicial equivalent of telling Bob and his lawyers to "Eat Shit." The letter makes it clear that the judge is going to dismiss the case, and agrees entirely with the arguments HBO made in its motion to dismiss:

The Court adopts, with little exception, Defendants' arguments in support of their Motion regarding all issues addressed in the same.

This is not the official order, but that should be coming soon. The judge has asked HBO's lawyers to "prepare and forward a proposed Order, including findings of fact and conclusions of law supporting the Court's ruling. The same shall be forwarded within 20 days via email in Microsoft Word format to the Court..." and gives his own email address. Admittedly, that feels a little lazy on the part of the judge to basically ask the prevailing party to write his order, but I'm sure HBO's lawyers are thrilled with the opportunity to make sure it says exactly what they want. I've seen parties submit "proposed orders" before -- and have seen judge's sign off on them -- but don't recall seeing a judge so directly ask for such a proposed order.

Either way, it's a pretty quick and complete win for Oliver and HBO. Of course, if West Virginia actually had an anti-SLAPP law (spoiler alert: it doesn't), then HBO could also make Murray pay their legal fees (including the fees they'll charge for drafting the order dismissing the case). But, unfortunately, that's not the case here. I'm still hoping that this now encourages Oliver to do an episode on anti-SLAPP laws, because it's a topic that could certainly use his brand of exploration. In the meantime, Oliver did very briefly address the issue on his show last night, saying that now was not the time to discuss or gloat as the dismissal was not yet final (though promising he would address it in the future). Of course, while he was saying that, the human-dressed-in-a-squirrel costume, better known as, Mr. Nutterbutter, held up a sign saying "Eat Shit, Bob!" HBO hasn't put this clip on its YouTube page for me to embed, but here's a screenshot:

Filed Under: anti-slapp, bob murray, defamation, eat shit bob, john oliver, mr. nutterbutter, slapp
Companies: hbo, murray energy

Section 230 Isn't About Facebook, It's About You

from the know-what-you've-got-before-it's-gone dept

Longtime Techdirt readers know how important Section 230 is for the Internet to work, as well as many of the reasons why the proposed SESTA bill threatens the operation of the law, and with it the operation of the Internet. But especially for people less familiar with the ins and outs of Section 230, as the law hangs in the balance, we want to take moment to explain why it's something that everyone should want to preserve.

These days a lot of people are upset with Facebook, along with many other of its fellow big Internet companies. Being upset with these companies can make it tempting to try to punish them with regulation that might hurt them. But it does no good to punish them with regulation that will end up hurting everyone – including you.

Yet that’s what the bill Congress is about to vote on will do. SESTA (or sometimes SESTA-FOSTA) would make changes that reduce the effectiveness of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. While a change to this law would certainly hurt the Facebooks of the world, it is not just the Facebooks that should care. You should too, and here's why.

Section 230 is a federal statute that says that people who use the Internet are responsible for how they use it—but only those people are, and not those who provide the services that make it possible for people to use the Internet in the first place. The reason it's important to have this law is because so many people – hundreds, thousands, millions, if not billions of people – use these services to say or do so many things on the Internet. Of course, the reality is, sometimes people use these Internet services to say or do dumb, awful, or even criminal things, and naturally we have lots of laws to punish these dumb, awful, or criminal things. But think about what it would mean for Internet service providers if all those laws that punish bad ways people use the Internet could be directed at them. Even for big companies like Facebook it would be impossibly expensive to have to defend themselves every time someone used their services in these unfortunate ways. Section 230 means that they don't have to, and that they can remain focused on providing Internet services for all the hundreds, thousands, millions, if not billions of people – including people like you – who use their services in good ways.

If, however, Section 230 stops effectively protecting these service providers, then they will have to start limiting how people can use their services because it will be too expensive to risk letting anyone use their services in potentially wrongful ways. And because it’s not possible for Internet service providers to correctly and accurately filter the sheer volume of content they intermediate, they will end up having to limit too much good content in order to make sure they don’t end up in trouble for having limited too little of the bad.

This inevitable censorship should matter to you even if you are not a Facebook user, because it won't just be Facebook that will be forced to censor how you use the Internet. Ever bought or sold something on line? Rented an apartment? Posted or watched a video? Found anything useful through a search engine? Your ability to speak, learn, buy, sell, complain, organize, or do anything else online depends on Internet services being able to depend on Section 230 to let you. It isn't just the big commercial services like Facebook who need Section 230, but Internet service providers of all sorts of shapes and sizes, including broadband ISPs, email providers, online marketplaces, consumer review sites, fan forums, online publications that host user comments… Section 230 even enables non-commercial sites like Wikipedia. As a giant collection of information other people have provided, if Section 230’s protection evaporates, then so will Wikipedia's ability to provide this valuable resource.

Diminishing Section 230's protection also not only affects your ability to use existing Internet services, but new ones too. There’s a reason so many Internet companies are based in the United States, where Section 230 has made it safe for start-ups to develop innovative services without fear of crippling liability, and then grow into successful businesses employing thousands. Particularly if you dislike Facebook you should fear a future without Section 230: big companies can afford to take some lumps, but without Section 230's protection good luck ever getting a new service that's any better.

And that's not all: weakening Section 230 not only hurts you by hurting Internet service providers; it also hurts you directly. Think about emails you forward. Comment threads you allow on Facebook posts. Tweets you retweet. These are all activities Section 230 can protect. After all, you're not the person who wrote the original emails, comments, or tweets, so why should you get in trouble if the original author said or did something dumb, awful, or even criminal in those emails, comments, or tweets? Section 230 makes many of the ordinary ways you use the Internet possible, but without it all bets are off.

Filed Under: cda 230, fosta, free speech, intermediary liability, platform regulation, section 230, sesta
Companies: facebook

Federal Court Shuts Down IMDb-Targeting 'Anti-Ageism' Law Permanently

from the blunt-end-for-stupid-law dept

In the annals of stupid legislation, California's attempt to fight ageism at Hollywood studios by targeting third-party websites and using the First Amendment as a doormat will secure a prominent place in infamy. Rising from the ashes of a failed lawsuit brought by an actress who claimed IMDb cost her untold amounts of wealth by publishing her age, the law basically said IMDb couldn't publish facts on its website. Those pushing the legislation included the Screen Actors Guild, which apparently doesn't have the spine to stand up to studios and target them for discriminating against actors and actresses.

Last year, IMDb secured a temporary injunction against the state of California, forbidding it from enforcing the law while the courts sorted out its constitutionality. That day has arrived. A federal court has declared the law unconstitutional and permanently blocked California from going after IMDb because Hollywood producers participate in discriminatory hiring. (h/t Jacob Gershman)

The decision [PDF] is short. It takes only six pages for the district court to destroy the state's arguments. First, it tells the state it's not going to apply a lower First Amendment standard of scrutiny to its awful law.

California and SAG-AFTRA provide no reason to apply a lower level of judicial scrutiny to the statute than was applied at the preliminary injunction stage. AB 1687 cannot properly be considered a regulation of voluntary commercial contracts rather than a speech restriction. Upon the request of a subscriber to IMDbPro, the law requires IMDb to remove age-related information from its public-facing website, IMDb.com, regardless of the source of the information on IMDb.com. The law expressly contemplates that it will impact not just information obtained pursuant to a contractual relationship, but also information provided by members of the public…

That's just the court's warm-up. It gets worse for the state from there.

[A]s California concedes, AB 1687 is not properly considered a generally applicable law; moreover, its effects on expression are far from incidental. AB 1687 is a direct restriction on speech. The law prohibits certain speakers from publishing certain truthful information – information that, in many instances, is supplied by members of the public – because of concerns that a third party might use that information to engage in illegal conduct.

The court also points out the targeted speech isn't commercial speech, which receives fewer Constitutional protections.

Nor can AB 1687 plausibly be characterized as a commercial speech restriction. The speech at issue is factual information about entertainment professionals, conveyed – at least on IMDb.com – in a manner unconnected to any commercial transaction… The fact that IMDb has a financial interest in people's reliance on IMDb.com for information doesn't transform the age-related information restricted by AB 1687 into commercial speech.

The court also has some choice words for the Screen Actors Guild, which really should have known better than to have supported this censorial garbage.

SAG-AFTRA contends that publication of facts about the ages of people in the entertainment industry can be banned because these facts "facilitate" age discrimination – an argument that, if successful, would enable states to forbid publication of virtually any fact. There is no support in controlling case law for the proposition that a state may ban publication of facts to impede a third party’s possible reliance on those facts to engage in discrimination.

If SAG really wants to do something about discrimination, it should use its collective weight to make changes in the studio system, rather than enable censorship and threaten the same protections that allow movies to be made without government interference.

It's a stupid law and the district court does everything but directly call it stupid during the course of its six-page decision. It points out the state has plenty of ways of curbing age discrimination that don't involve walking all over the First Amendment. The fact that previous legislative efforts have failed is no reason for the state to decide the publication of facts must be banned. The court also notes neither the state nor SAG have shown any causal link between IMDb's publication of actors' ages and age discrimination in Hollywood studios. Even if IMDb's publications make it "easier" for studio heads to discriminate (a point the court does not concede), the statutory remedy deployed by California would only force IMDb to remove age info at the request of subscribers, which means there would still be plenty of data available for studios to "misuse."

It's a resounding loss for both entities -- both of which should have known the law was destined for the federal court chopping block while it was still in its infancy. The fact the law even exists seems to indicate both the State of California and the Screen Actors Guild are too cowardly to confront Hollywood studio execs directly.

Finally, the court calls the state and SAG out for being so jacked up about punishing IMDb that they can't even recognize the sort of discrimination they're dealing with.

Although the previously-discussed flaws in the statute are more than enough to strike it down, one final point bears mention. The defendants seem to misunderstand the problem they hope to address through AB 1687. The legislative materials repeatedly cite an article discussing "[t]he commonplace practice of casting a much younger female against a much older male" and lamenting the significant underrepresentation of women in leading roles and in directors' chairs. The defendants describe this as a problem of "age discrimination." While that may be accurate on some level, at root it is far more a problem of sex discrimination. Movie producers don't typically refuse to cast an actor as a leading man because he's too old for the leading woman; it is the prospective leading woman who can't get the part unless she's much younger than the leading man. TV networks don't typically jettison male news anchors because they are perceived as too old; it is the female anchors whose success is often dependent on their youth. This is not so much because the entertainment industry has a problem with older people per se. Rather, it's a manifestation of the industry's insistence on objectifying women, overvaluing their looks while devaluing everything else. The defendants barely acknowledge this, much less explain how a law preventing one company from posting age-related information on one website could discourage the entertainment industry from continuing to objectify and devalue women. If the government is going to attempt to restrict speech, it should at least develop a clearer understanding of the problem it's trying to solve.

That's some fine bench-slapping. Hopefully, it will deter the state and its SAG helpers from rushing back to the legislative halls to take another stab at crafting more First Amendment-violating stupidity.

Filed Under: ageism, ages, anti-slapp, california, free speech, hollywood, imdb, slapp
Companies: amazon, imdb

Trump Blames School Shootings On Violent Video Games, Movies; Suggests We Need Some Sort Of Rating System For Them

from the to-paraphrase-Cole-Porter,-'Well,-Can-You-Even!' dept

When a mass shooting occurs, politicians leap into the void with plenty of ideas of how to fix it. They can't -- or won't -- fix it, but they're more than willing to sacrifice other Constitutional amendments to keep the Second Amendment intact. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevins was the first to fill the void with garbage following the latest school shooting by blaming violent video games, despite there being no evidence linking violent acts to violent video games.

Now it's Donald Trump blaming school shootings on the First Amendment. During a discussion with Florida legislators (video here), Trump suggested doing something we've been doing for years.

Speaking to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump said: ‘I’m hearing more and more people seeing the level of violence in video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts ‘

'And then you go the further step, and that’s the movies. You see these movies, and they’re so violent a kid is able to see the movie if sex isn’t involved, but killing is involved, and maybe we need to put a rating system for that.'

It appears Trump is suggesting video games and movies need a rating system. I honestly don't know where to go with this. Video games have had a rating system -- one adopted and enforced voluntarily by developers -- for nearly a quarter-century now. Movies have had ratings for more than 50 years, and that rating system has been revised a couple of times to allow for a more granular breakdown of possibly offensive content.

These are not new ideas. But these are our President's ideas -- ones that carry a faint whiff of impending government censorship. Imposing further restrictions on "violent" media isn't going to solve an ongoing violence problem, but it will allow legislators (and sitting presidents) to pretend they did something useful.

Whether or not you agree the Second Amendment guarantees the right to load up on powerful weapons, any advocate of Constitutional rights would do well to remember they're a bundle, not a la carte offerings. Trump is a fierce advocate of the Second Amendment but doesn't seem to care much for the First Amendment. (Or the Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment… unless it's him or one of his being accused of criminal activity.)

So, if you want an intact Second Amendment, you'd better leave the rest of the rights alone. This is stupid, kneejerk... well, it's definitely not "thinking." This sort of thing suggests no active firing of synapses. Instead, it suggests the primordial survival instincts of a politician who views rights as privileges and is willing to harm those not immediately beneficial to him. Politicians like Trump and Governor Bevins are quick to blame things they don't understand or don't participate in. This allows them to feel like they're taking action without risking anything that's meaningful to them. It's crass, stupid, short-sighted, and ultimately, it's a sign of weakness. It takes no backbone to sacrifice things you don't care about.

Filed Under: donald trump, first amendment, free speech, guns, movie ratings, ratings, school shooting, second amendment, video game ratings, video games