Internet Porn Censorship

Your data's safe with us

The Culture Secretary has vowed to end the Wild West for tech giants amid anger at claims data from Facebook users was harvested to be used by political campaigns.

Matt Hancock warned social media companies that they could be slapped with new rules and regulations to rein them in.

It comes amid fury at claims the Facebook data of around 50 million users was taken without their permission and used by Cambridge Analytica.

The firm played a key role in mapping out the behaviour of voters in the run-up to the 2016 US election and the EU referendum campaign earlier that year.

Tory MP Damian Collins, chairman of the Culture select committee, has said he wants to haul Mark Zuckerberg to Parliament to explain himself.

Hancock said:

Tech companies store the data of billions of people around the world - giving an unparalleled insight into the lives and thoughts of people. And they must do more to show they are storing the data responsibly.

Update: They'll have to put a price on his head if they want Zuckerberg hauled in front of a judge

28th March 2018. See article from theguardian.com

Mark Zuckerberg has turned down the request to appear in front of the a UK parliamentary committee for a good grilling. In response to the request, Facebook has suggested one of two executives could speak to parliament: Chris Cox, the company' chief product officer, who is in charge of the Facebook news feed, or Mike Schroepfer, the chief technology officer, who heads up the developer platform.

The Culture select committee chair, Damian Collins said:

It is absolutely astonishing that Mark Zuckerberg is not prepared to submit himself to questioning in front of a parliamentary or congressional hearing, given these are questions of fundamental importance and concern to his users, as well as to this inquiry. I would certainly urge him to think again if he has any care for people that use his company's services.

Update: Pulling the big data plug

29th March 2018. See article from reuters.com

Facebook said on Wednesday it would end its partnerships with several large data brokers who help advertisers target people on the social network. Facebook has for years given advertisers the option of targeting their ads based on data collected by companies such as Acxiom Corp and Experian PLC.

Facebook has also adjusted the privacy settings on its service, giving users control over their personal information in fewer taps. This move also reflects new European privacy laws soon to come in force.

Update: Facebook's listening

29th March 2018. See article from dailymail.co.uk

Christopher Wylie, the whistle blower who revealed lots of interesting stuff about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, has been speaking to Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee about what Facebook gets up to.

He told the committee that he believes the social media giant is able to decipher whether someone is out in a crowd of people, in the office or at home.

Asked by Conservative MP Damian Collins whether Facebook can listen to what people are saying to shape their advertising, Wylie said they use the smartphone app microphone for environmental purposes.

My understanding generally of how companies use it... not just Facebook, but generally other apps that pull audio, is for environmental context.

So if, for example, you have a television playing versus if you're in a busy place with a lot of people talking versus a work environment.

It's not to say they're listening to what you're saying. It's not natural language processing. That would be hard to scale.

It is interesting to note that he said companies don't listen into conversations because they can't for the moment. Butt he explanation is phrased such that they will listen to conversations just as soon as the technology allows.

Your data is safe with us. We will follow 'best practices', honest!

The BBFC has launched its public consultation about its arrangements for censoring porn on the internet.

The document was clearly written before the Cambridge Analytica data abuse scandal. The BBFC gullibility in accepting the word of age verification providers and porn websites, that they will look after your data, now rather jars with what we see going on in the real world.

After all European data protection laws allow extensive use of your data, and there are absolutely no laws governing what foreign websites can do with your identity data and porn browsing history.

I think that under the current arrangements, if a Russian website were to hand over identity data and porn browsing history straight over to the Kremlin dirty tricks department, then as long as under 18s would be prohibited, then the BBFC would have to approve that website's age verification arrangements.

Anyway there will be more debate on the subject over the coming month.

The BBFC writes:

Consultation on draft Guidance on Age-Verification Arrangements and draft Guidance on Ancillary Service Providers

Under section 14(1) of the Digital Economy Act 2017, all providers of online commercial pornographic services accessible from the UK will be required to carry age-verification controls to ensure that their content is not normally accessible to children.

This legislation is an important step in making the internet a safer place for children.

The BBFC was designated as the age-verification regulator under Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 on 21 February 2018.

Under section 25 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, the BBFC is required to publish two sets of Guidance: Guidance on Age-verification Arrangements and Guidance on Ancillary Service Providers .

The BBFC is now holding a public consultation on its draft Guidance on Age-Verification Arrangements and its draft Guidance on Ancillary Service Providers. The deadline for responses is the 23 April 2018 .

We will consider and publish responses before submitting final versions of the Guidance to the Secretary of State for approval. The Secretary of State is then required to lay the Guidance in parliament for formal approval. We support the government's decision to allow a period of up to three months after the Guidance is formally approved before the law comes into force, in order to give industry sufficient time to comply with the legislation.

Draft Guidance on Age-verification Arrangements

Under section 25 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, the BBFC is required to publish:

"guidance about the types of arrangements for making pornographic material available that the regulator will treat as complying with section 14(1)".

The draft Guidance on Age-Verification Arrangements sets out the criteria by which the BBFC will assess that a person has met with the requirements of section 14(1) of the Act. The draft guidance outlines good practice, such as offering choice of age-verification solutions to consumers. It also includes information about the requirements that age-verification services and online pornography providers must adhere to under data protection legislation and the role and functions of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The draft guidance also sets out the BBFC's approach and powers in relation to online commercial pornographic services and considerations in terms of enforcement action.

Draft Guidance on Ancillary Service Providers

Under section 25 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, the BBFC is required to publish: "guidance for the purposes of section 21(1) and (5) about the circumstances in which it will treat services provided in the course of a business as enabling or facilitating the making available of pornographic material or extreme pornographic material".

The draft Guidance on Ancillary Service Providers includes a non-exhaustive list of classes of ancillary service provider that the BBFC will consider notifying under section 21 of the Act, such as social media and search engines. The draft guidance also sets out the BBFC's approach and powers in relation to online commercial pornographic services and considerations in terms of enforcement action.

How to respond to the consultation

We welcome views on the draft Guidance in particular in relation to the following questions:

Guidance on Age-Verification Arrangements

• Do you agree with the BBFC's Approach as set out in Chapter 2?

• Do you agree with the BBFC's Age-verification Standards set out in Chapter 3?

• Do you have any comments with regards to Chapter 4?

The BBFC will refer any comments regarding Chapter 4 to the Information Commissioner's Office for further consideration.

Draft Guidance on Ancillary Service Providers

• Do you agree with the BBFC's Approach as set out in Chapter 2?

• Do you agree with the classes of Ancillary Service Provider set out in Chapter 3?

Please submit all responses (making reference to specific sections of the guidance where relevant) and confidentiality forms as email attachments to:

DEA-consultation@bbfc.co.uk

The deadline for responses is 23 April 2018 .

We will consider and publish responses before submitting final versions of the Guidance to the Secretary of State for approval.

Update: Intentionally scary

31st March 2018. From Wake Me Up In Dreamland on twitter.com

The failure to ensure data privacy/ protection in the Age Ver legislation is wholely intentional. Its intended to scare people away from adult material as a precursor to even more web censorship in UK.

The Open Rights Group, Myles Jackman and Pandora Blake have done a magnificent job in highlighting the dangers of mandating that porn companies verify the age of their customers.

Worst case scenario

In the worst case scenario, foreign porn companies will demand official ID from porn viewers and then be able to maintain a database of the complete browsing history of those officially identified viewers.

And surely much to the alarm of the government and the newly appointed internet porn censors at the BBFC, then this worst case scenario seems to be the clear favourite to get implemented. In particular Mindgeek, with a near monopoly on free porn tube sites, is taking the lead with its Age ID scheme.

Now for some bizarre reason, the government saw no need for its age verification to offer any specific protection for porn viewers, beyond that offered by existing and upcoming data protection laws. Given some of the things that Google and Facebook do with personal data then it suggests that these laws are woefully inadequate for the context of porn viewing. For safety and national security reasons, data identifying porn users should be kept under total lock and key, and not used for any commercial reason whatsoever.

A big flaw

But there in lies the flaw of the law. The government is mandating that all websites, including those based abroad, should verify their users without specifying any data protection requirements beyond the law of the land. The flaw is that foreign websites are simply not obliged to respect British data protection laws.

So as a topical example, there would be nothing to prevent a Russian porn site (maybe not identifying itself as Russian) from requiring ID and then passing the ID and subsequent porn browsing history straight over to its dirty tricks department.

Anyway the government has made a total pigs ear of the concept with its conservative 'leave it to industry to find a solution' approach'. The porn industry simply does not have the safety and security of its customers at heart. Perhaps the government should have invested in its own solution first, at least the national security implications may have pushed it into at least considering user safety and security.

Where we are at

As mentioned above campaigners have done a fine job in identifying the dangers of the government plan and these have been picked up by practically all newspapers. These seem to have chimed with readers and the entire idea seems to be accepted as dangerous. In fact I haven't spotted anyone, not even 'the think of the children' charities pushing for 'let's just get on with it'. And so now its over to the authorities to try and convince people that they have a safe solution somewhere.

The Digital Policy Alliance

Perhaps as part of a propaganda campaign to win over the people, parliament's Digital Policy Alliance are just about to publish guidance on age verification policies. The alliance is a cross party group that includes, Merlin Hay, the Earl of Erroll, who made some good points about privacy concerns whilst the bill was being forced through the House of Lords.

He said that a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) numbered 1296 is due to be published on 19 March. This will set out for the age check providers what they should do and what records they keep.

The document is expected to include a discussion on the background to age verification, set out the rules in accordance with the Digital Economy Act, and give a detailed look at the technology, with annexes on anonymity and how the system should work.

However the document will carry no authority and is not set to become an official British standard. He explained:

We can't put rules about data protection into the PAS... That is in the Data Protection Bill, he said. So we refer to them, but we can't mandate them inside this PAS -- but it's in there as 'you must obey the law'...

But of course Hay did not mention that Russian websites don't have to obey British data protection law.

And next the BBFC will have a crack at reducing people's fears

Elsewhere in the discussion, Hay suggested the British Board of Film and Internet Censorship could mandate that each site had to offer more than one age-verification provider, which would give consumers more choice.

Next the BBFC will have a crack at minimising people's fears about age verification. It will publish its own guidance document towards the end of the month, and launch a public consultation about it.

In a press release the DCMS describes its digital strategy including a delayed introduction of internet porn censorship. The press release states:

The Strategy also reflects the Government's ambition to make the internet safer for children by requiring age verification for access to commercial pornographic websites in the UK. In February, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was formally designated as the age verification regulator.

Our priority is to make the internet safer for children and we believe this is best achieved by taking time to get the implementation of the policy right. We will therefore allow time for the BBFC as regulator to undertake a public consultation on its draft guidance which will be launched later this month.

For the public and the industry to prepare for and comply with age verification, the Government will also ensure a period of up to three months after the BBFC guidance has been cleared by Parliament before the law comes into force. It is anticipated age verification will be enforceable by the end of the year.

The BBC writes:

A few weeks before a major change to the way in which UK viewers access online pornography, neither the government nor the appointed regulator has been able to provide details to the BBC about how it will work.

From April 2018, people accessing porn sites will have to prove they are aged 18 or over.

Both bodies said more information would be available soon.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was named by parliament as the regulator in December 2017. (But wasn't actually appointed until 21st February 2018. However the BBFC has been working on its censorship procedures for many months already but has refused to speak about this until formally appointed).

The porn industry has been left to develop its own age verification tools.

Prof Alan Woodward, cybersecurity expert at Surrey University, told the BBC this presented porn sites with a dilemma - needing to comply with the regulation but not wanting to make it difficult for their customers to access content. I can't imagine many porn-site visitors will be happy uploading copies of passports and driving licences to such a site. And, the site operators know that.

Although a majority are in favour of verifying age, it seems far fewer people in our survey would be happy to actually go through verification themselves. Only 19% said they'd be comfortable sharing information directly with an adult site, and just 11% would be comfortable handing details to a third party.

... Read the full article from broadbandgenie.co.uk

A Republican Virginia lawmaker has revived the nonsense idea to impose a state tax charge on every device sold to enable access to adult websites.

State Representative Dave LaRock's has introduced a bill misleadingly called the Human Trafficking Prevention Act, which would require Virginians to pay a $20 fee to unblock content on adult websites.

LaRock has track record of being anti-porn and anti-gay. He once tore down advertising for an adult bookstore and railed against recognition for a local LGBTQ pride month.

Opponents point out that the proposal amounts to a tax on media content and would violate the First Amendment. The Media Coalition, which tracks legislation involving the First Amendment, sees the bill as nothing more than a tax on content, which is unconstitutional, said executive director David Horowitz. People have a First Amendment right to access this content, and publishers have a First Amendment right to provide it.

Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said the organization just can't take the bill seriously.

Jerry Butler, a Golden Age porn actor who appeared in more than 500 adult movies in a career that spanned from 1981 to 1993, has died at the age of 58.

Butler entered the world of adult in 1981 after he answered an ad in Backstage magazine. Initially he auditioned for a non-sex role, but landed a sex role in the 1981 film Young, Wild and Wonderful . After being featured in the big-budget films Roommates in 1981 and In Love in 1983 for Chuck Vincent, he relocated to Los Angeles to act and perform full-time in adult pictures. His performance in In Love won him Hustler's Best Actor Award that year.

Butler created a stir in the industry when he published his autobiography Raw Talent in 1989. The title came from one of his best-known films, which told the story of a talented but struggling actor who gets sucked into making porn, winning the fame he craved, but losing himself along the way. His life story, as told to Robert Rimmer and Catherine Tavel, contained some unflattering details about his colleagues, and claimed there was widespread drug abuse in the industry.

And just a few examples from his filmography:

1993 Savannah Superstar (Video)
1992 Another Dirty Western (Video)
1992 Best Butte in the West (Video)
1989 Simply Irresistible (Video)
1988 Raw Talent III (Video)
1986 Hot Gun (Video)
1986 The Ginger Effect (Video)
1985 Wet, Wild & Wicked (Video)
1985 Cream Puff (Video)
1985 The Best Little Whorehouse in San Francisco (Video)
1984 Space Virgins (Video)
1984 Return to Alpha Blue (Video)
1983 Once Upon a Secretary (Video)
1983 Vixens in Heat (Video)