Week 5: Lumen

About :: Lumen: "Lumen is an independent 3rd party research project studying cease and desist letters concerning online content. We collect and analyze requests to remove material from the web. Our goals are to educate the public, to facilitate research about the different kinds of complaints and requests for removal--both legitimate and questionable--that are being sent to Internet publishers and service providers, and to provide as much transparency as possible about the “ecology” of such notices, in terms of who is sending them and why, and to what effect." 'via Blog this'

Transparency Report

Transparency Report: "Governments ask us to remove or review content for many reasons. Some requests allege defamation, while others claim that content violates local laws prohibiting hate speech or adult content. The laws surrounding these issues vary by country. Our teams assign each request a category, such as hate speech, obscenity, and defamation. Note that we did not begin providing reason data about the reason for the request until the December 2010 reporting period.

 Often times, government requests target political content and government criticism. Governments cite defamation, privacy, and even copyright laws in their attempts to remove political speech from our services. Our teams evaluate each request and review the content in context in order to determine whether or not content should be removed due to violation of local law or our content policies." 'via Blog this'

Week 5: Twitter Government TOS reports

Government TOS reports: "This section covers government requests to remove content that may violate Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS) under the following Twitter Rules categories: abusive behavior, copyright, promotion of terrorism, and trademark. It does not include legal requests, regardless of whether they resulted in a TOS violation, which will continue to be published in our Removal Requests report. As we take an objective approach to processing global Terms of Service reports, the fact that the reporters in these cases happened to be government officials had no bearing on whether any action was taken under our Rules." 'via Blog this'

Week 6: Twitter Removal requests

Removal requests: "The removal requests reflected in this section of the Transparency Report only include official legal process, such as court orders served on Twitter, and other legal requests that are specifically directed to our intake channels for law enforcement and other authorized reporters (“Legal Requests”). This section does not include requests, including those submitted by government officials, that are directed to our customer support team through our online support forms. More information about non-legal requests is available in the government TOS reports section." 'via Blog this'

Week 7 Privacy: Commissioners statement on Art29WP letter to WhatsApp

31-10-2017 Commissioners statement on Art 29 Working Party letter to WhatsApp. - Data Protection Commissioner - Ireland: "The DPC is continuing to engage directly with WhatsApp and Facebook Ireland in resolving the same issues. This engagement builds on the positive step that was taken by WhatsApp in August 2017 in launching its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), following extensive discussions with the DPC over several months. The DPC’s statement on these FAQs is available here, including the improved clarity and transparency now available to WhatsApp users on how their data is being shared and used:
August statement by Commissioner

 The DPC is also pleased that WhatsApp and Facebook Ireland have re-confirmed that the current data sharing suspension will continue during this ongoing engagement with the DPC, specifically related to data sharing for use by Facebook Ireland to present products and ads. This specific data sharing will not be activated for EU-based WhatsApp users until WhatsApp confirms the mechanism to enable this specific data sharing with the DPC.

 The DPC's engagement with WhatsApp and Facebook, and any outcomes arising from that engagement, are completely without prejudice to the actions of any other individual Data Protection Authority in relation to this matter or of the taskforce formed by the Article 29 Working Party to discuss this matter." 'via Blog this'

Week 5: Liability Why are websites being blocked in the UK?

Why are websites being blocked in the UK?: "Mobile and broadband Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have created filters to stop under 18s from seeing harmful content online.

Unfortunately, filters block many harmless websites by mistake - even sites that are aimed at children!

 Often website owners don't know that this is happening.

Around 3.5 million households have filters switched on, through choice, or by default. In addition, many mobile phone users have filters enabled as they are on by default.

We need people to use this tool to check and report sites that shouldn't be filtered. Not only will you be helping website owners, you will also increase transparency about filters by helping us to get a clearer picture about overblocking." 'via Blog this'

Week 6: CJEU Ruling on Internet Jurisdiction

SCL: CJEU Ruling on Internet Jurisdiction: "For the most part this seems like a rational decision based on the law, but not such a good ruling regarding the specifics of this case. It feels strange to give jurisdiction to a court in Estonia for a potential defamation occurring on a Swedish website, published in Swedish and dealing mostly with Swedish consumer issues, even if the company is based in Estonia. While it is understandable that the harm may occur where the person resides and conducts businesses, the harmful act itself took place in Sweden. The Court leaves this option open as well, the result being that, at least in principle, those affected by defamation (or other civil harm) could sue in both the country where they reside, and where they hold their centre of interest." 'via Blog this'