Two years on from the April 2019 Online Harms White Paper, the government has published its draft Online Safety Bill. It is a hefty beast: 133 pages and 141 sections. It raises a slew of questions, not least around press and journalistic material and the newly-coined “content of democratic importance”. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Category: Internet (Page 1 of 17)
Earlier this month, Facebook’s Oversight Board upheld the decision to ban someone from its site. The “someone” in question happened to be Donald Trump, but that has no bearing on this article. I want to examine the debate that rages over the principle of social media sites being able to ban anyone at all from their platforms. Continue reading
In the recently released Freedom House Freedom Report, India has been demoted to ‘Partly Free’ from the ‘Free’ category. Civil liberties and free expression have seen a slow but steady breakdown in India over the last few years. A particularly disturbing trend is the silencing of voices through targeted prosecutions of activists, students, academics, protestors, and journalists. Continue reading
The German legislature has finalised a legislative process which aims to fight online hate speech and hate crime. The bill, drafted in 2020, was not signed by the federal president, because it contained similar provisions to a law that had been found unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court a month earlier. Continue reading
The Federal Court has found Google misled some users about personal location data collected through Android devices for two years, from January 2017 to December 2018. Continue reading
Never before in human history, have those in charge of carrying public information to billions of people across the planet, been left unregulated. The closest example of large scale information carriers are telephone companies and TV news stations, both of which operate under licences, which prohibit discrimination or selection of their users. Certainly not a selection, which is based on race or on political affiliation. Continue reading
The row over Section 59 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is reminiscent of a backwater pond that has lain undisturbed for years. Then someone decides to poke a stick in it and all manner of noxious fumes are released. Continue reading
The concept of “surveillance capitalism” – coined by academic Shoshana Zuboff in 2014 – has been the subject of a number of Inforrm posts. For example, “Explainer: what is surveillance capitalism and how does it shape our economy?” – Donell Holloway and “Our “data self” explained. A brief journey into Surveillance Capitalism” – Nataly Tedone. Continue reading
Hate is a scourge of the Internet, inflicting harm on people who are targeted and – when left unchallenged – raising fundamental questions about social justice and equality. Continue reading
I am a huge fan of transparency about platform content moderation. I’ve considered it a top policy priority for years, and written about it in detail (with Paddy Leerssen, who also wrote this great piece about recommendation algorithms and transparency). I sincerely believe that without it, we are unlikely to correctly diagnose current problems or arrive at wise legal solutions. Continue reading
Recent Judgments
© 2021 Inforrm's Blog
Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑