WebProNews

Tag: censorship

  • Is Facebook Getting ‘Freedom Of Expression’ Right?

    Facebook has recently taken some heat over its approach to content on the social network that depicts, glorifies and/or trivializes violence against women. Groups like Women, Action and The Media, The Everyday Sexism Project, and no doubt countless other individuals, have had enough.

    The aforementioned groups wrote an open letter to Facebook about the issue, and Facebook responded this week, indicating that it is making immediate changes, but some feel Facebook is walking a fine line between enforcing community standards and stifling free speech.

    Do you think Facebook needs to make significant changes to how it handles offensive content? Let us know what you think in the comments.

    In the letter, the groups called upon Facebook to do three things, specifically:

    1. Recognize speech that trivializes or glorifies violence against girls and women as hate speech and make a commitment that you will not tolerate this content.

    2. Effectively train moderators to recognize and remove gender-based hate speech.

    3. Effectively train moderators to understand how online harassment differently affects women and men, in part due to the real-world pandemic of violence against women.

    “To this end, we are calling on Facebook users to contact advertisers whose ads on Facebook appear next to content that targets women for violence, to ask these companies to withdraw from advertising on Facebook until you take the above actions to ban gender-based hate speech on your site,” the letter said.

    The groups formed a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #FBrape.

    Women, Action & The Media have been sharing a number of examples of the kind of content they’re concerned about. There are indeed some vile displays. Here are a couple, including one Facebook refused to have removed because it “doesn’t violate Facebook’s Community Standard on graphic violence”.

    Facebook graphic violence

    Keep in mind that Facebook has had the following things removed: photos of exposed breasts, breastfeeding photos, photos of cartoon breasts, a woman’s elbows that resembled breasts, and as recently as this month, artwork depicting actress Bea Arthur’s breasts.

    On a sidenote, Pinterest is going to start allowing nudity (as long as it’s “artistic”).

    Also among the examples given are groups like “Rapist Community,” “Slapping hookers in the face with a shoe,” and “Punching Rihanna”.

    Facebook put out its own letter, in which Marne Levine, VP of Global Public Policy at Facebook wrote in direct response to the groups and their claims:

    We prohibit content deemed to be directly harmful, but allow content that is offensive or controversial. We define harmful content as anything organizing real world violence, theft, or property destruction, or that directly inflicts emotional distress on a specific private individual (e.g. bullying). A list of prohibited categories of content can be found in our Community Standards at www.facebook.com/communitystandards.

    In addition, our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (www.facebook.com/legal/terms) prohibits “hate speech.” While there is no universally accepted definition of hate speech, as a platform we define the term to mean direct and serious attacks on any protected category of people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or disease. We work hard to remove hate speech quickly, however there are instances of offensive content, including distasteful humor, that are not hate speech according to our definition. In these cases, we work to apply fair, thoughtful, and scalable policies. This approach allows us to continue defending the principles of freedom of self-expression on which Facebook is founded. We’ve also found that posting insensitive or cruel content often results in many more people denouncing it than supporting it on Facebook. That being said, we realize that our defense of freedom of expression should never be interpreted as license to bully, harass, abuse or threaten violence. We are committed to working to ensure that this does not happen within the Facebook community.

    Facebook has vowed to take some new steps, which it said would begin rolling out immediately.

    For one, Facebook said it will complete its review and update the guidelines its User Operations team uses to evaluate reports of violations of Community Standards on hate speech, while soliciting feedback from legal experts, representatives of the women’s coalition, and other groups. Secondly, it will update the training it gives to its teams that review and evaluate reports, again working with legal experts, the women’s coalition, and others.

    The company says it will establish more formal and direct lines of communications with representatives of women’s groups and others “to assure expedited treatment of content they believe violates” Facebook’s standards. Facebook also says it will encourage the Anti-Defamation League’s Anti-Cyberhate working group and other working groups to include representatives of the women’s coalition to “identify how to balance considerations of free expression, to undertake research on the effect of online hate speech on the online experiences of members of groups that have historically faced discrimination in society, and to evaluate progress on our collective objectives.”

    “We will increase the accountability of the creators of content that does not qualify as actionable hate speech but is cruel or insensitive by insisting that the authors stand behind the content they create,” says Levine. “A few months ago we began testing a new requirement that the creator of any content containing cruel and insensitive humor include his or her authentic identity for the content to remain on Facebook. As a result, if an individual decides to publicly share cruel and insensitive content, users can hold the author accountable and directly object to the content. We will continue to develop this policy based on the results so far, which indicate that it is helping create a better environment for Facebook users.”

    Since Facebook’s response, Women, Action, & The Media has put out a statement praising the company’s actions. “Facebook has already been a leader on the internet in addressing hate speech on its service,” it says. “We believe that this is the foundation for an effective working collaboration designed to confront gender-based hate speech effectively. Our mutual intent is to create safe spaces, both on and off-line. We see this as a vital and essential component to the valuable work that Facebook is doing to address cyber-bulling, harassment and real harm.”

    “We are hopeful that this moment will mark an historic transition in relation to media and women’s rights in which Facebook is acknowledged as a leader in fostering safer, genuinely inclusive online communities, setting industry precedents for others to follow,” the statement says. “We look forward to collaborating with these communities on actions both big and small until we live in a world that’s safe and just for women and girls, and for everyone.”

    Facebook is getting a lot of praise in general for its response, but some are worried about the freedom of speech implications. GigaOm senior writer Mathew Ingram, for example, asks, “Do we really want Facebook to decide what qualifies as hate speech and what doesn’t?”

    “The larger problem in making Facebook take this kind of content down, however, is that it forces the network to take an even more active role in determining which of the comments or photos or videos posted by its billion or so users deserve to be seen and which don’t,” he writes. “In other words, it gives Facebook even more of a licence to practice what amounts to censorship — something the company routinely (and legitimately) gets criticized for doing.”

    “It’s an increasingly slippery slope,” he says.

    There’s no question that Facebook has some terrible stuff on it. What else could you expect from a network that provides a home to over a billion people? But do Ingram and other who share this view have a valid point? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • Is Google Censoring Users Too Heavily?

    Is Google Censoring Users Too Heavily?

    Now that the chosen few have had time to play around for Google Glass for a bit, many are noticing some unexpected restrictions. Specifically, the voice-to-text system, which is the primary way to interact with the device, does not accept swearing.

    In other words, Google Glass will not let you say whatever you want, and if this is really the future of how we interact with the Internet on a daily basis, that could be a problem.

    Should Google be dictating what people can and cannot say? Let us know what you think in the comments.

    On the surface, this may not seem like a huge deal. Right now, only a few people even have the device, and there’s no telling if it will even be successful or simply just something we’ll all be laughing back at a few years from now. Either way, this is a Google product, and Google is how an incredibly large number of people retrieve information and communicate with others.

    This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Google get a little stricter on what is acceptable behavior from its users in recent memory. Late last year, Google stopped letting users disable SafeSearch in the US, making some queries less relevant as a result. Users were outraged, as shown by the comments we received on our coverage of the story. Earlier this year, we confirmed with Google that the changes had rolled out to more countries.

    Essentially, Google took away the filter that gave users more control over what they would see. That adult content is still out there, but Google made it harder to find, making users get more descriptive with their keywords.

    Here’s what they said about it: “We are not censoring any adult content, and want to show users exactly what they are looking for — but we aim not to show sexually-explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them. We use algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query. If you’re looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting — you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous. The image search settings work the same way as in web search.”

    Adult content is one thing. Now, they’re simply censoring speech. Given that users won’t be typing on Google Glass, they’re making it a great deal harder to say the words you actually want to say, whether you’re searching or trying to have a conversation with a friend.

    As Geek.com (who first reported on this) pointed out, this is also the case for Google’s voice feature on Android. In fact, it’s the same for the desktop voice search experience. Have you tried to voice search a dirty word from your computer lately? It looks something like this:

    Origin

    But it’s probably more likely that you would just type your query from your PC. On a smartphone, tablet or desktop computer, users can simply type what they actually want to say. Why does Google let you type it, but feel the need to censor it when you say it out loud? What’s the point? I’m sure you can imagine the outrage if Google started censoring what you type. What’s the difference? For a device like Glass, which relies on speech (as would a possibly forthcoming smart watch, I would imagine), the default experience is censored.

    One interesting angle to all of this is that Google is starting to draw criticism for having a “puritanical” approach to users, similar to that of Apple’s App Store, though you can still find plenty of adult-themed apps in Google Play.

    There’s no real consistency to Google’s censorship practices. It will be interesting to see if things change significantly in Google Play.

    I have to wonder if Microsoft is busy crafting its next “Scroogled” campaign. As we’ve seen, Bing sometimes goes out of its way to suggest particularly objectionable content (though it looks like they’ve cleaned up things a bit since the linked report was written).

    We’ve reached out to Google for comment on its voice censoring, and so far have not received a response.

    By the way, taking pictures in the shower with Google Glass is apparently okay.

    Is Google right to censor speech with its voice-to-text input? Would you be okay if they did the same thing with just text input? Is the fact that they don’t do this with text input a double standard? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Lead image: Google co-founder Sergey Brin wearing Google Glass on the subway.

  • Pakistan’s Mobiilink Offers Free Tweeting to Its Customers

    Whenever a country that has a history of internet censorship gains better access to one of the internet’s most important tools, it’s big news.

    And that’s exactly what has happened today. Starting today, Pakistan’s largest provider of cellular services has announced that its prepaid customers can tweet away – for free.

    “Data charges for accessing Twitter have been made ZERO for all Mobilink prepaid subscribers. Subscribers don’t require to subscribe to this offer since it is available for all prepaid subscribers by default,” says Mobilink.

    That means that users can tweet and retweet all they want without incurring any data charges. This removes one of the impediments from Pakistani Twitter users, who have faced state censorship of Twitter in the past.

    Back in May of 2012, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority shut off Twitter access for the entire country for approximately 8 hours following the circulation of content deemed blasphemous on the network. Some speculated that the move had less to do with the specific content and more to do with a simple test as to whether a state-wide blockage was feasible.

    As far as the rest of the internet goes, the Pakistani government has a history of censorship in the areas of so-called blasphemy and pornography. Recently, that censorship has moved to content that falls in the realm of political speech. In a country with this track record, free access to Twitter is a significant opportunity for its people – considering access remains open.

    There are some caveats to the deal. Mainly, tweets must be sent via mobile.twitter.com – not Twitter’s native apps.

    Also:

    “[G]oing on external links will result in data charging. Whenever a subscriber clicks on an external link, he will be shown a notification indicating that standard data charges apply to view the link. External link will be opened after subscriber’s consent only.”

    But for the purposes of simply communicating (being that all-important amateur reporter), this is a great thing for Pakistani tweeters.

  • Change.org: It’s Not Just Bloggers And Techies Who Will Miss Google Reader

    It didn’t take long after Google announced that it is killing off Google Reader to realize how much the product will be missed by quite a few people. Even the alternatives are having trouble keeping up with the demand from users.

    Various petitions were immediately started, including some at Change.org. One of them is already nearing 130,000 supporters. There seems to be a common misconception that only journalists, bloggers, and techies are really using RSS anyway, but as signatures on the petitions indicate, that’s not necessarily the case.

    “Looks like there’s a dark side to the Google Reader story,” a spokesperson from Change.org tells WebProNews. “People living under repressive regimes use the service to access information untouched by government censors. If Google Reader goes, they say, so will uncensored news and views from around the world.”

    We saw some reports to this effect last week, specifically about Iran, but, Change.org is sharing some interesting stats about its signatures. For example, 75% of Google Reader petition signatures on Change.org came from outside the U.S. 12% of signatures came from people living within countries that Reporters Without Borders and/or the OpenNet Initiative report have active internet censorship by government forces, the spokesperson says.

    “At least 2% of signatures came from people living in countries that Reporters Without Borders calls ‘Enemies of the Internet’ – a moniker earned ‘not just for their capacity to censor news and information online but also for their almost systematic repression of Internet users.’” she says.

    Here are a few sample comments from the biggest petition:

    “Google Reader is important as dinner to me. Since Great Fire Wall blocks infomations between China and others, Reader is the best way to get uncensored news.” – petition signer in China

    “I can’t read some livejournal without googlereader, because it’s forbbiden in my country.” – petition signer in Kazakhstan

    “Thats all I have in web world. through that I can use a lot of internet, I can have a little free internet, our government has banned a lot of sites, reader is our last chance…” – petition signer in Iran

    “I’m a chinese, I can get news which is not censored without google reader .So please don’t close it!” – petition signer in China

    “That’s the only possible way to read posts from blocked sites” – petition signer in Kazakhstan

    “Google reader is my only Internet, guys.” – petition signer in Belarus

    “Google Reader is essential for many Chinese Web users like me to circumvent Internet censorship here. Love the product. Please don’t let it go.” – petition signer in China

    “There was a time that reader was my only way to keep my self update with the censored internet of Iran.” – petition signer in Iran

    Feedly revealed on Friday that it had already signed up over 500,000 Google Reader users since Google made the announcement. And that was three days ago.

  • Vine Says Bye to Porn with Full Block of NSFW Tags, Removal of the “All Videos” Browsing Option

    Vine, Twitter’s hot new 6-second video app with a porn problem, no longer really has a porn problem.

    Yesterday afternoon, Vine began to block certain porn-related tag searches. Trying to search for #porn? Sorry, you’re out of luck. What about more specific tags like #dick, #ass, or #boobs? Yep, out of luck.

    But there were still a few workarounds. Mainly, some porn-related tags still existed – #NSFW and #pornvine, for instance.

    Now it appears that Vine has really cleaned house and purged most of the porn from the app. #NSFW is no longer accessible, and #pornvine is no more. Any tag search of any common sexual terms yields no tag results containing porn. It looks like Vine has made it much, much harder to find porn on the app.

    We also noticed that Vine has removed the ability to view “all videos” from the Explore tab. Now, you can only choose between SFW tags, “Editor’s Picks,” and “Popular Now.”

    It’s important to note that Vine hasn’t amended their Terms of Service or anything. Technically, nudity and sexual content is still allowed on the service. But the restrictions on tag searches make it nearly impossible to find porn on the app. The old trick of spring-boarding from one NSFW tag search to another by clicking tags is no longer an option. I was able to upload a video with the #porn and #nsfw tags, but when I attempted to click them to find other content with those tags Vine told me they couldn’t load the posts.

    It looks like Vine and porn have ended their short relationship. At least their truly visible relationship.

    But that doesn’t mean that users can’t still upload explicit videos and share them to Twitter. But they’re going to be incredibly hard to find on the actual Vine app, unless someone is specifically looking for them by username. I was able to find porn by searching for specific user names, but that’s about it. No porn in the Editor’s picks, no porn in the “popular now” section.

    What Vine has done is make it pretty hard to just stumble upon porn when using the app.

  • Vine Starts Censoring Porn-Related Tag Searches

    In a move that’s hard to say wasn’t expected, Twitter’s new six-second video sharing app Vine has begun to filter out some porn-related searches.

    No longer can you search for the tags #porn, #boobs, #dick, #sex and many other NSFW tags.

    Oddly enough, you can still search for the #NSFW tag.

    Also available are more specific tags that contain plenty of nudity such as #pornvine, #dicks, and more. It appears that Vine is just beginning the process of censoring these types of tags. Before it’s said and done, it’s unlikely that any of these kinds of porn-related tags will remain. And Vine will probably censor any new porn tags as soon as they pop up.

    What users can do, however, is tag their Vine videos with these tags. Users can still access the tag pages by clicking on the tags under videos they do find. So there’s a workaround – for now. Still, many popular NSFW tags no longer appear when users try to explore them.

    It appears that there had already been a small change in Apple’s promotion of Vine inside the App Store which was conspicuously timed with this porn controversy.

    For more on the Vine-porn controversy, check out our in-depth writeup.

  • It’s Been a Good Year for Unnecessary Censorship [VIDEO]

    It’s Been a Good Year for Unnecessary Censorship [VIDEO]

    Every week, Jimmy Kimmel pays tribute gives a giant f**k you to the FCC with his segment “This Week in Unnecessary Censorship.” A well-placed bleep and a pixellation can make even the most innocent phrases sounds absolutely filthy, as is evidenced by the bit.

    And now that 2012 is winding down, Kimmel has just released the year-end wrap up of one of his best segments. Here it is, “This Year in Unnecessary Censorship”:

    In other news, I really need to start watching Judge Judy.

  • You Can Now See All The Erroneous DMCA Takedown Requests Google Gets

    Google does a lot of work for copyright holders in the US. Under the DMCA, Google has to delete infringing links from its search results. It used to be not such a bad job, but now the search giant is receiving over 12 million requests per month. All of those requests can’t be legitimate, right? A new tool from Google proves that to be the case.

    TorrentFreak reports that Google has quietly rolled out a new feature in its transparency reports that details how many false DMCA takedown requests it receives from copyright holders. Google details these false requests in a newly updated FAQ:

    From time to time, we may receive inaccurate or unjustified copyright removal requests for search results that clearly do not link to infringing content. An independent, third-party analysis of how frequently improper and abusive removal requests are submitted was conducted in 2006.

    Google then lists a number of examples of where copyright holders submitted false DMCA takedown requests. Here’s some of the better ones:

    A U.S. reporting organization working on behalf of a major movie studio requested removal of a movie review on a major newspaper website twice.

    An individual in the U.S. requested the removal of search results that link to court proceedings referencing her first and last name on the ground that her name was copyrightable.

    A driving school in the U.K. requested the removal of a competitor’s homepage from Search, on the grounds that the competitor had copied an alphabetized list of cities and regions where instruction was offered.

    None of these scenarios fell under DMCA regulations, and therefore Google did not remove them. These are just examples, but Google still receives erroneous DMCA takedown requests. Our own Web site, WebProNews.com, was subject to two false takedown requests at the hands of AMC over our coverage of The Walking Dead season 3 premier. Of course, the link was non-infringing as it linked to AMC’s own stream of the premier.

    DMCA takedown requests

    The takedown request levied at our site, and others, was most likely fueled by AMC looking for links that mentioned “The Walking Dead” and “free.” There’s no thought put into the suggestion that there may be legitimate free sources to watch these episodes. Strangely enough, none of the links were removed despite some links offering illegitimate copies of The Walking Dead.

    This latest offering from Google serves to make the DMCA takedown process more transparent, but it probably won’t have any effect on the amount of takedown requests sent by rightsholders. Current laws don’t enforce repercussions for those who send false takedown requests so there’s no reason for rightsholders to use caution. If laws ever do change, it’s almost guaranteed that the amount of takedown requests would drop to the few hundred thousand a month it was at in 2011.

  • Censoring The Internet Won’t Stop Terrorism

    Terrorists are on the Internet. It’s just a fact. Just like you and I, members of radical fringe groups use the Internet to communicate ideas and spread information. It’s hard to combat the message when it’s online due to the nature of the Internet, but some countries have proposed methods that outright censor anything that remotely looks like terrorism. A new report argues that such censorship methods won’t accomplish a thing.

    Do you think terrorism is a problem on the Internet? What should governments do to stop it? Let us know in the comments.

    The Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank in Washington D.C., issued a report on Wednesday called “Countering Online Radicalization in America.” The report issues a number of suggestions to lawmakers on how to curb the rise in terrorism online and off. The report features a number of common sense strategies that actually make a lot of sense.

    The BPC outlines it strategy in three sections – Reducing the supply, reducing the demand and exploiting cyberspace. The first, reducing the supply, says that current approaches to reducing radical content on the Internet is “neither feasible or desirable.” The group also says offers some basic recommendations on how to cut down on violent rhetoric:

    Government should refrain from establishing nationwide filtering systems.

    Government needs to retain its capability for aggressive takedowns of foreign-based websites but only use it when doing so is absolutely essential to stop a terrorist attack and/or prevent the loss of life.

    The circumstances and legal framework governing the use of cyber-attacks need to be clarified.

    Prosecutions against violent extremist Internet entrepreneurs need to weigh the chances of success against the unintended consequence of drawing attention to their ideas and propaganda.

    Government should accelerate the establishment of informal partnerships to assist large Internet companies in understanding national security threats as well as trends and patterns in terrorist propaganda and communication.

    Most of this is really good stuff. The last recommendation is the only one that raises some concern as the government has already tried it with CISPA. The bill contained too many privacy implications, however, for it to be a worthwhile cause. The establishment of informal partnerships is a far more desirable outcome.

    The second section, reducing the demand, goes with the idea that the Internet is a virtual “marketplace of ideas.” The thinking here is that governments and others can establish positive speech that will drown out any potential terroristic or radical speech that pops up online. The recommendations are as follows:

    Government, in partnership with community groups, needs to continue to expand programs and initiatives that create awareness and spread information about online radicalization among educators, parents, and communities.

    Government should serve as an enabler, bringing together the private sector, foundations, philanthropists, and community groups to build capacity and to help potentially credible messengers—such as mainstream groups, victims of terrorism, and other stakeholders—to become more effective at conveying their messages. The forthcoming Internet strategy should spell out what the government will do and how success will be measured.

    The government’s Internet strategy also needs to make clear what part of government will coordinate capacity building, engagement, and outreach efforts as well as what resources will be made available to support this task.

    The government should encourage school authorities to review and update their curricula on media literacy, consider violent extremism as part of their instruction on child-safety issues, and develop relevant training resources for teachers.

    Again, some of these suggestions could easily lead into government overreach, but a lot of it is pretty good. The last recommendation is especially relevant when children are being brought up on the Internet, but many of them are not being taught basic media literacy to tell the difference between radical extremism dressed up in colorful kid friendly art and an actual kid friendly site.

    The final section, exploiting cyberspace, is by far the most interesting. The report recommends that the US government not actively remove terrorists from the Internet, but rather use the Internet against them. The fact that these groups use the Internet opens up them up to exploitation on a massive scale that could potentially feed mountains of information to intelligence agencies on future plans, movement patterns and other identifying markers.

    That being said, the BPC gives the following recommendations on how to best gather data without affecting civilians:

    Government needs to review oversight procedures and clarify the legal framework under which domestic agencies are permitted to monitor, save, and analyze online communications.

    Government should increase the amount of online training offered to members of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including state and local agencies.

    Given the rapidly changing nature of the online environment, government needs to periodically review the scope, sophistication, and appropriateness of the regulatory framework that governs data gathering and analysis in cyberspace, as well as the technological tools and capabilities that are used for doing so.

    What do you think of the BPC’s recommendations? Should the US be fighting fire with fire, so to speak, when dealing with terrorists online? Let us know in the comments.

    All in all, the BPC’s report is easily the best Internet-related legislative recommendation to come out of Washington this year. It’s comprehensive, easy to understand and goes against the current trend of government agencies asking for more surveillance powers when such simple solutions would work just as well.

    Although the report is aimed at US lawmakers, delegates from around the world at this week’s ITU conference would be wise to take heed of these recommendations. Giving control of the Internet to a bunch of bureaucrats and letting them decide what should and should not be on the Internet isn’t going to magically rid the Internet of terrorism. Engaging these voices and exposing them as the hateful groups they are will align the public against them more strongly than a simple ban or erasure ever would.

    Members of Congress will likely bring more cybersecurity legislation to the table in 2013. It will be interesting to see if any of the recommendations from this report makes into any of the proposed bills. There are easy and effective ways to counter terrorism online, and you don’t have to censor the Internet or invade citizens’ privacy to do it.

    Can online terrorism be thwarted without making drastic changes to the Internet? Or must these drastic changes take place to protect others? Let us know in the comments.

  • This Photo of an Elbow Is Too Hot for Facebook

    In the past, we’ve been pretty critical of Facebook’s breast phobia (and its policies relating to nudity and content removal in general). As you may know, Facebook mostly outsources its policing of content. This, coupled with the sheer volume of content being uploaded to the site on a daily basis, makes for a flawed process that leads to plenty of errors.

    In the end, you have to cut Facebook some slack. Just think about how difficult the task of moderating all of that content must be. Of course, no amount of discerning eyes could adequately cycle through the billions and billions of links, photos, and videos shared each and every day. Facebook continues to rely heavily on user reporting, and its crew of moderators at multiple global offices have a tough job – mainly determining what content violates Facebook restrictions, however convoluted they may be.

    Having said that, it’s always funny when Facebook bans content that has no reason to be banned. The latest case involves this image, which features a nude women reclining in a bathtub.

    Except there’s no nudity or even any suggestion of sexual activity. Here’s the image:

    Did it fool you? Yes, what appears to be an exposed breast is actually just the woman’s elbow. Doesn’t matter, however, as Facebook removed the content anyway.

    The image was posted by the Theories of the deep understanding of things page, who decided to troll the social network in order to test its photo removal policy.

    “So, Here’s last night’s FB alertness test results: FB moderators can’t tell an elbow from a dangerous, filthy, uncanny and violent female breast>> no questions were asked and the post is down> Imagine our surprise >” they said in a post.

    Apparently, they set out to provoke Facebook and succeeded.

    Facebook’s current policy bans “Any obvious sexual activity, even if naked parts are hidden from view by hands, clothing or other objects. Cartoon/art included. Foreplay allowed (kissing, groping, etc.) even for same-sex individuals. Naked ‘private part,’ including females nipple bulges and naked butt cracks; male nipples are ok.” Arty nudity is OK, but breastfeeding images are still a no-go. It looks like elbows are on the no-post list as well.

    Like I said before, policing all of that content must be a nightmare. Back in September, Facebook mistakenly removed a New Yorker cartoon, which contained the most harmless depiction of female breasts imaginable (two black dots for nipples). After public outcry, Facebook made this statement:

    “Recently, we mistakenly blocked a cartoon as part of our efforts to keep the site safe for all and quickly worked to rectify the mistake as soon as we were notified. Facebook is a place where almost a billion people share click more than a trillion links a day. Our dedicated User Operations Team reviews millions of pieces of this content a day to help keep Facebook safe for all. Our policies are enforced by a team of reviewers in several offices across the globe. This team looks at hundreds of thousands of reports every week, and as you might expect, occasionally, we make a mistake and block a piece of content we shouldn’t have. We have already taken steps to prevent this from happening in the future and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.”

    In short, Facebook and its content moderators make mistakes. It’s inevitable. But a slight relaxing of the aforementioned content policies probably wouldn’t hurt. It would definitely result in less ridiculous removals like we see in this case. Then again, nobody wants Facebook to turn into YouPorn.

  • Google Products Blocked In China As Communist Party Selects Leaders

    Google saw its services blocked in China on Friday. GreatFire.org, which monitors Chinese Internet censorship, says it’s the first time since it started tracking it back in February of last year, that this has happened.

    The block reportedly includes google.com, mail.google.com, google-analytics.com, docs.google.com, drive.google.com, maps.google.com, play.google.com at least. Users can reportedly still access other country versions, such as google.co.uk.

    “The Communist Party of China is currently holding its 18th Party Congress in which new leaders of the party and the country are formally chosen,” the site reports. “The fact that Google is blocked now is surely no coincidence. The big question is whether it will be unblocked again once the congress is over. We will closely monitor developments.”

    TheNextWeb shares a statement from Google, which simply says, “We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end.”

    Google and China have had a turbulent relationship since at least early 2010, when Google threatened to pull out of the country, before ultimately redirecting Google.cn to its Hong Kong site. Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google had “softened” its tone on China, but a spokesperson told WebProNews at the time, “Our position on China remains unchanged,” and that the redirect would remain in place.

    Google has still maintained a presence in China, and has continued to operate other parts of its business (like Android) there.

  • Egypt Bans Online Porn, Some Fear It Could Go Further

    Censorship is a tricky subject. It’s especially bad when said censorship is taking a place in a country without proper protections for free speech and expression. One of those countries is Egypt where the government has just banned online porn. Some fear that the ban is just the beginning of a crackdown on other freedoms.

    The EFF reports that Egypt’s Prosector General, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, ordered an online porn ban on Wednesday. Mahmoud is using a three-year-old ruling from Egypt’s administrative court that said “freedom of expression and public rights should be restricted by maintaining the fundamentals of religion, morality and patriotism.”

    The first thing to go under this ruling will be porn, but what’s to follow? The court ruling is too broad and can be used to block numerous forms of speech just because it goes against the ruling party’s views on religion or morality. It’s particularly worrisome in Egypt as the country is trying to transition away from the Mubarak regime to a more democratic government that claims to respect the rights of all citizens, regardless of their views.

    The EFF says that Egypt could go one of two ways with the ban. The country go just go all out and ban every porn site that it finds. This would require a rather expensive and extensive filtering system that Egypt might not be able to afford at the moment.

    The other option is that porn ban opponents take the ruling to the high courts. The courts might throw out the ruling, or they might uphold it. It’s hard to tell what will happen in Egypt at the moment due to numerous parties from many different walks of life all vying to have their voice heard.

    Regardless of what happens, the EFF is right in that Egyptian citizens will most likely turn to VPNs and Tor for the time being. These services were used during the Arab Spring in Egypt to protect the identities of bloggers and social media users who were using the Internet to spread information to the outside world. Now these same services will be used to protect the identities of those who only want to use the Internet as they see fit.

  • Twitter Now Shows You When It’s Yanked a Tweet for DMCA

    Twitter has just made a significant change in their privacy policy that they say will increase transparency across the site. Now, instead of removing tweets flagged with a DMCA copyright notice, they are simply “withholding” them.

    Twitter will normally respond to DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) requests that involve the “use of a copyrighted image as an profile photo, header photo, or background, allegations concerning the unauthorized use of a copyrighted image uploaded through our photo hosting service, or Tweets containing links to allegedly infringing materials.”

    Once a takedown request has been filed, Twitter notifies the user and gives them the ability to file a counter-notice to dispute the copyright claim. None of this has changed. What has changed is how the rest of Twitter will see these particular tweets:

    “In an effort to be as transparent as possible regarding the removal or restriction of access to user-posted content, we clearly mark withheld Tweets and media to indicate to viewers when content has been withheld (examples below). We also send a copy of each DMCA notification and counter-notice that we process to Chilling Effects, where they are posted to a public-facing website (with your personal information removed),” says Twitter in its Help Center.

    That is a pretty big shift from how Twitter used to handle removed tweets. In the past, these tweets would just vanish without a trace. Now, even though the content of the tweet will be removed, users will at least be able to see that there was in fact a tweet there at some point and it fell victim to a copyright claim.

    Here’s how a tweet (with an infringing link) will look when withdrawn:

    And here’s the look for withdrawn tweets featuring media:

    Earlier this year, Twitter reported 4,410 DMCA takedown requests for 2011.

  • Twitter Blocks Neo-Nazi Account in Germany, Marking First Use of Local Censorship Policy

    Twitter Blocks Neo-Nazi Account in Germany, Marking First Use of Local Censorship Policy

    As of right now, there are tweets floating around that everyone in the world can access except the residents of a single country – and it was Twitter’s doing.

    In a move of local censorship, Twitter has apparently blocked German users from accessing the tweets of an account said to belong to a neo-Nazi group.

    According to the New York Times, Twitter has blocked the account @hannoverticker, wich belongs to the group Besseres Hannover. In English, that translates to “Better Hannover.” German authorities had requested that Twitter simply block the account entirely, but Twitter has apparently acted upon their self-expressed ability to censor content locally without affecting the content globally.

    Should Twitter (and other sites like Facebook and Google) act as policemen for their content? What, if anything should be censored? Is any censorship a slippery slope to more censorship? Let us know what you think in the comments.

    Back in 2004, a German appeals court upheld a ban on web sites disseminating neo-Nazi information.

    This marks the first time that Twitter has used this controversial measure. Here’s what Twitter General Counsel Alex Macgillivray had to say in a tweet:

    Twitter gave itself the ability to locally censor content on their site back in January. Here’s what they had to say about the new policy:

    Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.

    We haven’t yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld.

    This was seen as a modification, if not a clear reversal of Twitter’s firmly-held beliefs on free expression. Before, Twitter had stated that “our position on freedom of expression carries with it a mandate to protect our users’ right to speak freely and preserve their ability to contest having their private information revealed.”

    Responding to criticism of the policy, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said that users shouldn’t worry about it.

    “It will simply allow the company to transparently deal with valid government requests to remove certain content,” he said. He also added that there had been “no change in our stance or attitude or policy with respect to content on Twitter.”

    Users from other parts of the world can still view the account and its tweets. Although blocking the account in Germany is better than simply deleting the account, I’m sure that many Twitter users and activists will see this as a loss for free speech.

    It’s important to note that this is only the first time that Twitter has used their newly-given powers of local censorship. Twitter has banned content on a global scale before, at the behest of governments. Back in February, Twitter removed a parody account of French president Nicolas Sarkozy after receiving requests from people closely tied to his camp. They defended this act of censorship by claiming that the account violated Twitter’s policy on fake and parody accounts – mainly that the account didn’t contain enough identifiers signaling its status as fake.

    Of course, we noted that there are dozens of parody accounts out there that have been up and running for years – many of which fail to provide much information distinguishing them from the real persons.

    Also, this comes on the heels of news that Twitter is under fire in France over an anti-Semitic hashtag. In that case, anti-racism groups say that they may pursue legal action against the social media company. Twitter has seen its share of hastag-related quandaries, for example a massive backlash against one particular tag, #reasonstobeatyourgirlfriend. In that case (and in many others) Twitter has employed a hands-off policy.

    And it’s not just Twitter that has dealt with requests for censorship from specific countries. In August, Indian officials asked Facebook to remove content from its site that they claimed sparked a mass panic and exodus of tens of thousands of people from cities in the northeast part of the country. Apparently, it was rumors of some sort of violence in the area that sent people fleeing. In that case, Facebook gave its rote response of “we will only remove content that specifically violates our terms.”

    But Facebook doesn’t always take that route. Back in March of 2011, Israel’s Minister of Diplomacy called on Facebook to promptly shut down a page called Third Palestinian Intifada. Facebook eventually took that page down, as the concluded that it did in fact violate their terms (it incited violence). More recently, Australians asked Facebook to remove pages that targeted the country’s Aborigine population. Facebook also complied with that request.

    Google, of course, gets hundreds of takedown requests from governments every year. One of the most recent and highly-publicized examples came from Brazil, when the company refused to take down what a Brazilian judge deemed “derogatory” YouTube videos of a local political candidate. After a scuffle between Google’s Brazilian head Fabio Coelho and the law, Google finally caved an took down the “offending” videos. But on the flip side, Google has refused to take down the infamous “Innocence of Muslims” video that sparked violent protests across much of the Middle East.

    The point is, web censorship is tricky and is not always handled in the exact same way by companies.

    Twitter’s policy is different than most other properties because it allows them to block certain content locally, but not globally. Do you think that local censorship is a better alternative that simply removing the content altogether? Being a private company, Twitter has the right to do this. But should they?

    Or is the limitation of free speech unacceptable, even when it comes to hate speech that a country has deemed illegal? Let us know in the comments.

  • Google Caves, Will Block Contested YouTube Video in Brazil

    After running out of appeal options, Google’s Director in Brazil Fabio Coelho has announced that Google will in fact block access to certain disputed videos in the country.

    Coelho had a pretty personal stake in the drama that played out over the last few days. Earlier this week, a Brazilian judge ordered his arrest after Google failed to removed the videos, which the court claimed defamed a local mayoral candidate dring election season. Originally, Google held that they were not responsible for the content of the videos posted to YouTube, saying:

    “Google is appealing the court’s decision to remove a video from YouTube because, as a platform, we are not responsible for the content uploaded to our site.”

    But those appeals hit a roadblock, and Google has decided to block the “offending” videos.

    Coelho has posted a lengthy statement on the decision, in which he speaks regretfully on the decision.

    “Late last night, we learned that our final legal appeal has been denied and so now we have no choice but to block the video in Brazil. We are deeply disappointed that we have never had the full opportunity to argue in court that these were legitimate free speech videos and should remain available in Brazil,” he says.

    Here’s the full statement:

    You may have read articles in the press over the last couple of weeks about YouTube videos in Brazil. Given all the interest, we wanted to explain what has happened, and why. First of all some basic principles about the service. Our goal is for YouTube to be a community that everyone can enjoy, as well as a platform for free speech around the world. This can cause real challenges, because what is OK in one country may be offensive or even illegal in another.

    So we have clear community guidelines about the kind of videos that are unacceptable–and when they are flagged, we review and if necessary remove them. If a video is illegal in a particular country–and we have a local version of the service there, as in Brazil–we will restrict access to it, after receiving a valid court order or government complaint. Because we are deeply committed to free expression, we often push back on requests that we do not believe are valid. For example, we were recently in court in the US arguing that videos were perfectly legitimate and should stay on YouTube.

    Now for what’s happened in Brazil. As usual during an election season, we have had a lot of court orders to remove videos that are critical of political candidates. As always, we have reviewed them all– and pushed back on the many legal complaints that we believe are invalid. For example, last week, we appealed a court order to remove videos from YouTube. While we were waiting for that appeal to be heard, an arrest warrant was issued for me as country director of Google Brazil.

    Late last night, we learned that our final legal appeal has been denied and so now we have no choice but to block the video in Brazil. We are deeply disappointed that we have never had the full opportunity to argue in court that these were legitimate free speech videos and should remain available in Brazil.

    Despite all this, we will continue to campaign for free expression globally—not just because it’s a key tenet of free societies, but also because more information generally means more choice, more power, more economic opportunity and more freedom for people. As Article 19 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

    Ironically, the user who published one of the videos has now removed it and closed their account– showing just what a chilling effect these episodes can have on free speech.

    Sadly, I guess we have to score one for censorship. Bad on you, Brazil.

  • India Calls on Facebook to Remove “Inflammatory” Content

    Another day, another call for Facebook to remove content.

    This time it comes from officials in India, who claim that content hosted on Facebook has led to a mass panic and exodus of tens of thousands of people from cities in the northeast part of the country. According to the Wall Street Journal, the content that sparked the panic contained rumors that there would be some sort of an attack in retaliation for violence that has rocked the northeastern state of Assam.

    The violence in that area has already resulted in more than 78 deaths.

    Facebook confirmed to the WSJ that they have been made aware of the requests and are working on a response.

    “Facebook will remove content which breaches our terms,” they said. They called on users to help flag content, so they can quickly review and remove any of it that violates their Statement on Rights and Responsibilities. The SSR states that content cannot “bully, intimidate, or harass any user.” Also, content will be removed if it “is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”

    So whether or not the offending pages are removed will come down to that. They must incite violence or harass or intimidate. And if the pages advocated any sort of violent retaliation, it’s likely that they will in fact be removed by Facebook.

    Of course, India has already done what they can and blocked over 245 pages that contained the “inflammatory and hateful” content. But they’re calling on Facebook, Twitter, and Google to expedite the process. By the way, Google has also said that they’re on the case.

    Facebook is no stranger to content removal requests. In March of 2011, Israel’s Minister of Public Diplomacy joined the calls for the company to remove a page called Third Palestinian Intifada. Facebook eventually did, as the page clearly proposed violence against an ethnic population. Facebook also recently removed a page targeting Australian Aborigines after a public outcry.

    But Facebook is honest when they give everyone the “if it violates our terms” bit. A page being simply offensive is not enough to warrant a takedown, according to the company. Take for instance the plethora of pages that popped up following the Denver Theater Massacre either supporting alleged shooter James Holmes or making jokes about the victims. Facebook refused to remove many of them, saying they were “incredibly distasteful,” but they didn’t violate their terms.

  • New York Times Debuts New Chinese Language Website

    One of the benefits to China being an emerging market in the world is that there is now the possibility to gain access to 1.6 billion new customers. The New York Times, with its lagging subscriber base, is trying to do just that when they launched a Chinese language version of their site at cn.nytimes.com. They just have to hope that China’s “Great Firewall” doesn’t block them out.

    The biggest problem about having a Chinese language website is that you have to worry about the possibility of the Chinese government trying to shut you down. To combat this the New York Times Chinese service will be hosted on servers overseas, meaning that it does not have to abide by Chinese censorship directives. China is famous for heavily censoring what their citizens read. The Guardian tried to do this same thing in 2009 and was shut down after a couple of months.

    Before you start to worry about the New York Times starting to write propaganda or bending to the strict censorship, their paper is already available to read in China on their regular English website. Joseph Kahn, the paper’s foreign editor said that Chinese government occasionally blocked certain articles from nytimes.com, but that “We’re not tailoring it to the demands of the Chinese government,” he said. “China operates a very vigorous firewall. We have no control over that. We hope and expect that Chinese officials will welcome what we’re doing.”

    The site will feature around 30 articles a day on national, foreign and arts topics, in addition to editorials. Kahn said that two-thirds of the content would be translated from New York Times articles and one-third would be written by Chinese editors and local freelance journalists. I guess we will find out pretty soon if they will be shut down.

  • Miami Heat Owner Sues Google to Be Less Google-able

    paidContent reports that Ranaan Katz, a minority owner of the recently-crowned NBA champs Miami Heat, is suing Google because the search engine has refused to take down a photo of Katz that he isn’t particularly fond of.

    So what uncouth activity is Katz doing in the photograph? Nothing. Well, nothing more than what just about everybody else in the world has been caught doing before in a photograph: momentarily sticking his tongue out during an unaware moment.

    These types of photos are actually pretty common when photographers are working live events. For some reason, people just stick their tongue out a lot, usually before they speak or pronounce the “th” sound or maybe they just have some mildly dry lips. As these things go, the photo of Katz certainly could have been a lot worse. But it’s not. Everybody has their clothes on and nobody’s doing anything lewd or depraved. It’s just a silly photo of a tongue sticking out of a mouth.

    Google has become ensnared in Katz’s lawsuit because the company refused to remove the photo after Google was sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice. The photo appears to have made its internet debut on a website called RK Associates, a blog that is critical of Katz’s real estate business in Miami. Katz is suing the blogger, as well, who is named as Irina Chevaldina. This makes the second time that Katz has sued the blogger within the past year.

    paidContent re-posted the photo and although I think WPN could probably share the photo, too, under the protection of copyright’s fair use law, we’ve opted not to include the photo since it’s unclear as to what the original source of the photo is and, really, nobody wants to get sued around here. However, the photo is still up on KA Associate’s blog post if you’d like to see how not-very-scandalous the boring photo is.

    Katz joins a gallery of dubious crusaders who have brought legal action against Google because the company refused to remove some kind of content that, while not exactly death-threatening or directly harassing, does represent a person in an unflattering position or situation. In the United States, none are more famous for bringing attention to his Google problem quite like Rick Santorum has done. Although Santorum only asked Google to help him with his Google problem and never resorted to legal action, such was not the case with Max Mosley, who actually spent quite a bit of money in the United Kingdon’s courts trying to get the search engine to remove a video from YouTube that depicted Mosley attending a Nazi-themed S&M orgy.

    If Katz had limited his lawsuit to the blogger, the ordeal may have remained relatively quiet. However, by including Google in his lawsuit to have the picture removed, the story has immediately been escalated to the national (if not global) level and now Katz is likely to experience that lovely phenomenon known as the Streisand Effect before realizing that his tongue-flapping picture won’t be disappearing from the internet.

  • Nine-Year-Old Food Blogger Too Much To Handle For UK Council

    UPDATE: Council head Roddy McCuish has told the BBC that he “instructed senior officials to lift the ban immediately.” Score one for duh.

    ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Apparently, the one-girl truth squad known as 9-year-old Martha was too much to handle for some local UK school officials. The Argyll and Bute Council has cracked down on her blog NeverSeconds, in which Martha chronicled her daily meals at her local primary school, by disallowing photos inside the school cafeteria.

    The food blog, which had previously received 2 million hits (closer to 3 million, now that it has been shut down), has been running since early May. Every day, Martha would post pictures of her school lunch complete with commentary and an official breakdown of the meal using a few standard metrics like number of mouthfuls, health rating, price, and pieces of hair.

    After reading through many of the posts, it’s clear that Martha is concerned about the quality of some of her meals. But she’s not overly critical and rarely even makes negative comments on the food – she simply presents it to be judged – a minimalist food blogger of sorts.

    It’s interesting reading through her blog, because if you take it at its word, it appears that the hundreds of thousands of hits it received was actually working to affect change in the school district. For instance, check out this entry from May 25th:

    It happened today! As we lined up for lunch we were officially told that we are all allowed as much salad, fruit and bread as we want and that we had always been able to…..well my friends and I never knew that. It must have been a well kept secret. Everyone is really happy about the news now. We can have fruit and a dessert, fruit if you have a starter and both salad and veg! It’s much clearer.

    And this one from June 6th:

    Since my blog became well read we have had a special visitor at school who wears a white coat and hair net. She looks at my food when I am walking away from the queue. I think she stays there and looks at everyone’s and then she looks at what goes in the bin when serving has finished. Not much went in the bin today!

    Apparently, little Martha was creating a bit of a stir…

    But just yesterday evening, Martha (or VEG as she calls herelf on the blog) signed off:

    This morning in maths I got taken out of class by my head teacher and taken to her office. I was told that I could not take any more photos of my school dinners because of a headline in a newspaper today.

    I only write my blog not newspapers and I am sad I am no longer allowed to take photos. I will miss sharing and rating my school dinners and I’ll miss seeing the dinners you send me too. I don’t think I will be able to finish raising enough money for a kitchen for Mary’s Meals either.

    Goodbye,
    VEG

    Her dad came on to clarify that it wasn’t the school that banned VEG’s photography, but the Argyll and Bute Council.

    They later responded:

    Argyll and Bute Council wholly refutes the unwarranted attacks on its schools catering service which culminated in national press headlines which have led catering staff to fear for their jobs. The Council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the ‘never seconds’ blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils however this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing. In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.

    Distress and harm. Huh.

    It appears that there is one bright spot from the blog ban. All of this publicity has boosted donations to Mary’s Meals, a charity that Martha is affiliated with. Mary’s Meals is an “international movement that sets up school feeding projects in communities where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education.” On the donation site JustGiving, Martha set up a page with a goal of garnering £7,000. As of right now, donations have hit £24,684.

  • Censored Blogger: “People Need to Know the Truth”

    For a man who’s been diagnosed with diabetes, you’d never guess that about Steven Cooksey. His life choices fly directly in the face of the American Diabetes Association’s recommendations for people living with the disease. He maintains a no-grain/low-carbohydrate diet, commonly known as the Paleo diet, and as a result is in fantastic health. Incredibly, because of his dietary decisions, Cooksey no longer requires insulin injections (on his website, he states that before adopting the Paleo diet he was taking four insulin shots a day). With those kind of seemingly miraculous results, it’s no surprise that Cooksey wanted to share his story and hopefully help others with what he’s learned through his own research and experience. Steve Cooksey, Before & After Transition

    While trying to help others, Cooksey also has no problem making his disagreements with the ADA known. However, little did he know that by blogging about his success in maintaining his diabetes with the Paleo diet while also lambasting the ADA for its dietary policies would lead to him becoming a target for government censorship.

    How do you feel about the government trying to regulate speech on the internet? Should it keeps its paws off of the internet or is some mediation needed from the government? Chime in with your comments.

    His website, Diabetes-Warrior.net, features several nutritional recommendations as well as many pointed critiques about the ADA’s policies. In a recent post, he rips the ADA and details how he maintained a steady blood sugar without following any of the agency’s guidelines.

    It’s not as if Cooksey is doing anything fanatically radical. Food and diets are probably one of the most blogged about subjects throughout the internet. Dissent also abounds on the internet, and so the combination of dissent and diet shouldn’t really be cause for legal intimidation from the government. Disturbingly, that would not be the case for Cooksey.

    He suspects he was chosen as a target by the ADA and its government cohorts because he doesn’t shirk from passionately criticizing the organization. “I do feel like I’ve been singled out, I really do,” he said. “The Paleo diet movement is really growing. I’m sure there’s hundreds of Paleo blogs out there, but here’s the thing: there’s not many that call the ADA drug-pushers or grain-pushers. I have utter disdain for those organizations.”

    It was that unwavering disdain for the ADA that likely earned him the censor-happy attention of the organization. Earlier this year, Cooksey spoke out against an ADA supporter at a diabetes seminar and, if his website is any indication, it’s not hard to imagine he probably didn’t mince his words. Shortly after the event, though, he received a notice from the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition informing him that, because he was blogging about his positive experience with the Paleo diet and offering up advice to readers and acquaintances, he was illegally giving dietary advice without a proper license.

    After making some changes to his site, the content of his blog has since been deemed within “substantial accordance” of the law, but the specific law the Board is supposedly enforcing is a hoary law that leaves innumerable questions unanswered. I mean, this is the internet. People blog about their diets and foods they like, they share advice about diets, they consult with each other for new ideas. It’s not like Cooksey was doing anything illegal or causing anybody harm and the Paleo diet isn’t exactly uncommon these days.

    He also contests the claim that he was accepting payments for the advice he was sharing with people on his blog. “All of my information is free,” he said. “I got that information from other blogs and books. It’s just all consolidated on my site.”

    Cooksey disputes the claims of the NCBDN that he was in fact receiving some financial compensation. “They were raising hell because I was giving advice, advising, and counseling. They had an issue with the selling part, which was the biggest strength of the complaint filed against me.”

    “I’m not selling advice, I’m not,” he said. “I was just offering people help and some support.”

    Who knew helping out your familiars would land a guy with such heavy legal attention. Cooksey has since filed a lawsuit against the NCBDN alleging that they violated his right to free speech. However, the NCBDN will likely argue that they’re looking out for the good of the general public by limiting the amount of information Cooksey is allowed to share on his blog. Still, it’s not like he’s running a hitman service; it’s a diet blog.

    Sarah A. Downey, a legal analyst with Abine, doesn’t exactly see where Cooksey could possibly have been doing any harm to anyone. “It doesn’t seem here that he was getting paid to be a dietician,” she said. “The public safety argument is a good one, but you can’t just apply it wholesale.”

    Even in the event that Cooksey could have received compensation for his advice, Downey still isn’t sure that he’s doing anything wrong. “It would be a stretch of the definition of commercial speech,” she said.

    Still, whether Cooksey is able to successfully sue the NCBDN for violating his right to free speech, the ramifications of the attempt to censor the blog are already being felt. “My speech is more guarded now,” Cooksey admitted, referring to the tone he takes these days on his blog posts. “I’m not as direct in saying that you should eat like me. I think you should eat like me if your lifestyle requires you to take drugs, but I try not to say that diabetics should eat like me. But I try to stay clear of talking directly.”

    Although Cooksey’s taming of his diabetes makes his ability to share his experience a deeply personal mission, the legal issue extends well beyond the instance of one blog or one blogger. The case is a microcosm of the totality of freedom on the internet, the right for any of us to openly speak on the web without the fear of obstruction or a muzzle. Cooksey hopes that something positive will come from this saga. “Obviously the law firm [he’s being represented by The Institute for Justice] and I want to prevent the restrictions of freedom of speech.” He continued, “I also want to use this increased attention to highlight and bring to the forefront this problem in the diabetes industry.”

    Asked if he believed it was his constitutional right to blog freely about his opinions and nutrition, Cooksey makes a deliberate pause before replying succinctly, “Hell yes.” Apart from trying to challenge the information circulated by the ADA, Cooksey doesn’t neglect the greater importance emanating from his ordeal: freedom of speech. “We know that the government wants to grow its power over the people, and this may seem like a minor instance, but if I can help protect the encroachment of our freedom of speech.” He adds, “I welcome this opportunity and I would like to be a part of that.”

    Tell us what you think about Steve Cooksey’s story. Anybody out there had a similar experience with a blog you run? Do you think Cooksey has a pretty solid lawsuit against the NCBDN? Share your reactions below.

  • Diabetes Blogger Sues NC Agency for Censoring Site

    Dig, if you will, a picture: you’re a person with a remarkable story and you want to share it with others. This being 2012, the easiest and most effective way to share your message is through the very thing you’re reading right now: the internet. You start a blog, you post testimonial, you offer up opinions about some of the goings-on in the world as it relates to you and your story, and you even provide some feedback. Pretty standard, hm?

    You could probably go to Google’s homepage and type in any three random words in the search bar, click “I feel lucky,” and most likely find a blog that fits the above description. This is the internet, people blog, people opine, people compare stories as a way to learn more about the world or themselves. You’re making some productive use of your experience and opinions but, more importantly, you’re not making anybody else’s life inconvenient. You’re blogging. As things go, you could do much worse.

    That is, unless you happen to compose that blog in the state of North Carolina. The Tar Heel State recently sent a notice to one Steve Cooksey saying he wasn’t able to correspond with his blog readers about dietary choices and recommendations related to diabetes. It isn’t surprising that readers would look to discuss their diabetes with him because he himself is a diabetic but, through a radical diet change, was able to actually to get himself into a state of health where he no longer required multiple insulin shots per day yet still maintains a normal blood sugar level. However, because Cooksey was sharing advice from his experience and self-education through his blog, according to the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition, he was violating the law by giving dietary consultation without a license.

    The board initially sent Cooksey an annotated list of examples from his website where he supposedly broke the law by giving advice. Cooksey complied by ceasing his blog posts where he answers readers’ questions, making his disclaimer more prominent, and taking down his “diabetes support package links.”

    Although Cooksey agreed and revised the site so as to make it more law-compliant in the eyes of the NCBDN, he’s since filed a lawsuit against the state alleging that his rights to free speech have been violated.

    In a statement released by the NCBDN, its policies do state that no person without a state-approve license can provide something it calls “nutritional care services.” This befuddling and vague descriptor includes:

  • Assessing the nutritional needs of individuals and groups, and determining resources and constraints in the practice setting.
  • Establishing priorities, goals, and objectives that meet nutritional needs and are consistent with available resources and constraints.
  • Providing nutrition counseling in health and disease.
  • Developing, implementing, and managing nutrition care systems.

    • I mean, it’s not like he grabbed a stethoscope, put on a white coat and went around collecting blood samples from diabetics. The guy was blogging.

    As I said, Cooksey’s story is a remarkable one good on him for wanting to share his experience so that others might be inspired to try his method. He clearly states on his site (it’s all the way at the bottom in bold) that he’s not a doctor, dietician, or nutritionist; he’s just blogging to share his journey and, since he’s someone with some experience, readers are wont to ask for his input on certain topics. But should keeping a blog about your personal interests and experience, a blog that happens to attract people looking for more information about your experience and knowledge gained from that, be subject to censorship?

    It’s a small story with large implications because several parallels can be drawn across the internet where, like Cooksey’s situation, other sites might be found to be in violation of the NCBDN’s regulations. Is this claim that he was offering dietary consultation a matter of language choice? Had he chosen to couch his answers to readers’ inquiries in a more indirect manner, would that have circumvented any problems with the NCBDN? If that’s the case, then this really might be a farcical legal adventure the state of North Carolina has initiated.

    However, this is a specific law that isn’t native to the internet. It was passed as official law in 1991, years before the internet and many more years before any of us started to tap into the real communicative potential of the internet. The law couldn’t have anticipated that there would one day be blogs where non-professional but experienced people might share on the internet their examples about life changes they’ve enjoyed due to the choices they made. Even still, thinking pre-internet, what’s to distinguish between one blogger communicating to a reader some advice and somebody standing in a grocery store asking the stranger next to them if they think whole milk or skim milk is better for them? No government is going to outlaw that two-person communication in the dairy aisle, so why make the case on the internet just because the sources of the voices aren’t standing next to each other? More, this entire law undermines the very purpose for online forums existing; or, at least in this case, any online forum that deals with the communication of health or diet information.

    Sometimes these legal issues come around and you really have to wonder if the people who raised this whole stink, in this case the NCBDN, are even remotely familiar with how the internet works.