Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

June 1, 2016

Four Horsemen Of Internet Censorship + One

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 8:41 pm

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft back EU hate speech rules by Julia Fioretti and Foo Yun Chee.

From the post:

Facebook (FB.O), Twitter (TWTR.N), Google’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube and Microsoft (MSFT.O) on Tuesday agreed to an EU code of conduct to tackle online hate speech within 24 hours in Europe.

EU governments have been trying in recent months to get social platforms to crack down on rising online racism following the refugee crisis and terror attacks, with some even threatening action against the companies.

As part of the pledge agreed with the European Commission, the web giants will review the majority of valid requests for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to the content if necessary.

They will also strengthen their cooperation with civil society organizations who help flag hateful content when it goes online and promote “counter-narratives” to hate speech.
…
(original story dated 31 May 2016)

Reading the four horsemen of internet censorship, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft had joined with the EU to further censorship of the internet, I did try for due diligence.

I was able to find the original press release: European Commission and IT Companies announce Code of Conduct on illegal online hate speech

Along with the CODE OF CONDUCT ON COUNTERING ILLEGAL HATE SPEECH ONLINE, to take away some of the hand-waving about what is to be censored.

Not to mention the Framework Decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.

None of the co-conspirators in this league of censors seems to recall there are alternatives to affirmative censorship by the four horsemen of internet censorship plus the EU.

Consider this image from 1999 (assuming 3 months = 1 internet year, that’s 68 years ago in internet time):

pics-460

That image appeared in Paul Resnick’s PICS, Censorship, & Intellectual Freedom FAQ. For a variety of reasons, PICS failed, but the principle of filtering by the user, remains sound.

The major obstacle to PICS was the lack of labeling of content by content providers, who quite naturally don’t want any obstruction to the content they seek to deliver.

It’s reasonable to assume that would be the same today. Except that we don’t need to rely on content providers to label content in order to filter it.

You may have heard about the rapid advances in neural networks and deep learning. I suspect the four horsemen of internet censorship have but haven’t considered their use for user-side filtering of content.

Perhaps I’m deeply offended by some variation on “hate speech” (a euphemism for “speech I don’t like”) plus insults about Erdogan.

I rather doubt, at least at present, the four horsemen of internet censorship are going to protect me from the combination.

Or conjure up your own combination of speech from which you desire protection.

The sensible alternative to censorship is to empower users, not the four horsemen, not the EU nor anyone else, to filter their own content.

Let’s keep free speech and empower users, not the four horsemen of internet censorship in their bid to curry favor with the EU.

PS: The EU is always attempting to grow a cottage IT industry, creating adaptive deep learning censors for users is an open market for users who fear content.

May 25, 2016

Help Defend MuckRock And Your Right To Know!

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Journalism,News,Publishing,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 9:14 pm

A multinational demands to know who reads MuckRock and is suing to stop us from posting records about them by Michael Morisy.

Michael captures everything you need to know in his first paragraph:

A multinational owned by Toshiba is demanding MuckRock remove documents about them received under a public records act request, destroy any copies we have, and help identify MuckRock readers who saw them.
…

After skimming the petition and the two posted documents (Landis+Gyr Managed Services Report 2015 Final and Req 9_Security Overview), I feel like the man who remarked to George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life, “…you must mean two other trees,” taking George for being drunk. 😉

As far as I can tell, the posted documents contain no pricing information, no contact details, etc.

Do you disagree?

There are judges who insist that pleadings have some relationship to facts. Let’s hope that MuckRock draws one of those.

Do you wonder what other local governments are involved with Landis+Gyr?

There is a simple starting point: Landis+Gyr.

May 23, 2016

Breaking News: Europe != World

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 3:10 pm

Google’s appeal, described in GNI welcomes appeal to the global reach of “the right to be forgotten” by Ryan McChrystal, puts all of Europe on notice, despite centuries of Euro-centric education, publication, history writing and institutions:

Europe != World

From the post:

The Global Network Initiative welcomes the announcement that Google is appealing a French data protection authority ruling requiring the global take down of links to search information banned in France under Europe’s “right to be forgotten”.

We are concerned that the ruling, made by Commission Nationale de L’Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) in March, sets a disturbing precedent for the cause of an open and free Internet, and sends the message to other countries that they can force the banning of search results not just inside their own jurisdictions, but assert that jurisdiction across the globe.

Google began delisting search content in response to the Costeja ruling in July of 2014. Search links that are delisted in response to French citizens’ requests are removed from the local French domain (google.fr) as well as all of Europe. In early 2016 the company announced that it would further restrict access to links delisted in Europe by using geolocation technology to restrict access to the content on any Google Search domain when an individual searches from France. Despite this, the French authorities continue to demand global removal of these links from all Google search domains – regardless of from where in the world they are accessed.

“We are concerned about the impact of the CNIL order, which effectively allows the government of one country to dictate what the rest of the world is allowed to access online,” said GNI Board Chair Mark Stephens, CBE. “Enshrined in international law is the principle that one country cannot infringe upon the rights of citizens of another country,” he said.
…

Make no mistake, I am utterly a child of the West/Europe but all the more reason to resist its cultural and legal imperialism.

Differences in cultures, languages, legal systems, whether current or historical, enrich the human experience.

Censoring expression and in the “right to be forgotten” case, censoring history, or rather attempts to discover history, impoverishes it.

The “right to be forgotten” is ample evidence that Europeans need productive leisure pursuits.

Non-Europeans should suggest hobbies, sports, or activities to distract Europeans from search engine results and towards more creative activities.

Terrorism and Internet Censorship

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 10:24 am

Bold stance: Microsoft says terrorism is bad by Shaun Nichols.

From the post:

Microsoft is enacting a new policy to remove terrorist content from its consumer services.

The Redmond software giant said that the new terms and conditions for its hosted services will bar any content containing graphic violence or supporting material for any group considered a terrorist organization by the United Nations Sanctions List.

Additionally, Microsoft says that it will remove terrorist-related content from its Bing search engine whenever requested by government agencies and will try to display links promoting anti-terror non-government organizations when returning queries for terrorism-related search results.
…

Censorship on the Internet and sadly support for the same grows every week.

From the Microsoft announcement:

…
We believe it’s important that we ground our approach to this critical issue in central principles and values. We have a responsibility to run our various Internet services so that they are a tool to empower people, not to contribute, however indirectly, to terrible acts. We also have a responsibility to run our services in a way that respects timeless values such as privacy, freedom of expression and the right to access information. We’ve therefore carefully considered how to address terrorist content that may appear on our services without sacrificing the fundamental rights we all hold dear. Although Microsoft does not run any of the leading social networks or video-sharing sites, from time to time, terrorist content may be posted to or shared on our Microsoft-hosted consumer services. In light of this, we want to be transparent about our approach to combatting terrorist content.
…

I have doubts about the statement:

“We’ve therefore carefully considered how to address terrorist content that may appear on our services without sacrificing the fundamental rights we all hold dear.”

If they had, “…carefully considered…,” the question they would not engage in censorship at all.

If you disagree, consider the United Nations Sanctions List, circa 1939:

CNi.001 Name: 1: Mao Zedong 2: Mao 3: na 4: na Name (original script) 毛泽东 Nationality: Chinese Passport no: na National Identification: na Address: China Listed on: January 1, 1927 Other information: Created the Southwest Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government. Skilled in-fighter with many internal rivals.

CNe.001 Name: Southwest Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government
Address: na Listed on: June 1, 1930 Other Information: na

Or the United Nations Sanctions List, circa 1800:

UKe.001 Name: Continental Congress 2: na 3: na 4: na
Address: British colonies, America Listed on: January 1, 1776 Other Information: Criminal association of traitors, former British military officers and opportunists.

UKi.001 Name: George Washington 2: na 3: na 4: na DOB: February 22, 1732 Nationality: UK Address: Virginia Listed on: January 1, 1775 Other information: Former colonel in British Army, skilled tactician, co-conspirator with other known traitors.

UKi.002 Name: Thomas Jefferson 2: “Tom” Jefferson 3: na 4: na DOB: April 13, 1743 Nationality: UK Address: Virginia Listed on: January 1, 1775 Other information: Propagandist of first order.

UKi.003 Name: Thomas Paine 2: “Tom” Paine 3: Thomas Pain 4: na DOB: January 29, 1737 Nationality: UK Address: various Listed on: January, 1774 Other information: Known associate of revolutionaries in American colonies of the UK, collaborator with French revolutionaries (1790’s), author of “Common Sense” and wanted for conviction on seditious libel (1792).

The question for Microsoft today is which of the publications and news reports from the revolution in China and/or the American Revolutionary War would they censor as supporting terrorists and/or terrorism?

With even a modicum of honesty, all will concede that acts of terrorism were committed both in China and in what is today known as the United States.

Unless you would censor Mao Zedong, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, then “terrorist” and “terrorism” offer no basis for censoring content.

In truth, “terrorist,” and “terrorism,” are labels for atrocities committed by others, nothing more.

Strive for a free and non-censored Internet.

Let history judge who was or wasn’t a terrorist and even then that changes over time.

May 22, 2016

Does social media have a censorship problem? (Only if “arbitrary and knee-jerk?”)

Filed under: Censorship,Fair Use,Free Speech — Patrick Durusau @ 9:28 pm

Does social media have a censorship problem? by Ryan McChrystal.

From the post:

…
It is for this reason that we should be concerned by content moderators. Worryingly, they often find themselves dealing with issues they have no expertise in. A lot of content takedown reported to Online Censorship is anti-terrorist content mistaken for terrorist content. “It potentially discourages those very people who are going to be speaking out against terrorism,” says York.

Facebook has 1.5 billion users, so small teams of poorly paid content moderators simply cannot give appropriate consideration to all flagged content against the secretive terms and conditions laid out by social media companies. The result is arbitrary and knee-jerk censorship.
…

Yes, social media has a censorship problem. But not only when they lack “expertise” but when they attempt censorship at all.

Ryan’s post (whether Ryan thinks this or not I don’t know) presumes two kinds of censorship:

Bad Censorship: arbitrary and knee-jerk

Good Censorship: guided by expertise in a subject area

Bad is the only category for censorship. (period, full stop)

Although social media companies are not government agencies and not bound by laws concerning free speech, Ryan’s recitals about Facebook censorship should give you pause.

Do you really want social media companies, whatever their intentions, not only censoring present content but obliterating comments history on a whim?

Being mindful that today you may agree with their decision but tomorrow may tell another tale.

Social media has a very serious censorship problem, mostly borne of the notion that social media companies should be the arbiters of social discourse.

I prefer the hazards and dangers of unfettered free speech over discussions bounded by the Joseph Goebbels imitators of a new age.

Suggestions for non-censoring or the least censoring social media platforms?

May 7, 2016

DIY – Chilling Free Speech

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech — Patrick Durusau @ 8:21 am

Homeland Security Wants To Subpoena Us Over A Clearly Hyperbolic Techdirt Comment by Mike Masnick.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has contacted Techdirt by phone and email asking where to send a subpoena and saying a subpoena was on the way for the identity of a commenter on Techdirt.

From Mike’s post:

Now, it’s entirely possible that there are more details here involving a legitimate investigation, but it’s difficult to believe that’s the case given the information we have to date. Also, we have not yet received the subpoena, just the phone calls and emails suggesting that it’s on its way. Normally, we’d wait for the details before publishing, but given a very similar situation involving commenters on the site Reason last year, which included a highly questionable and almost certainly unconstitutional gag order preventing Reason from speaking about it, we figured it would be worth posting about it before we’ve received any such thing.

While I appreciate Mike and Techdirt sounding the alarm about a possible subpoena, it is also distinctly possible that was the intended result of the contacts by DHS.

Not that Mike or Techdirt give a toss about the opinions held by DHS, but you can bet there are commenters and potential commenters who are quite so brave.

DHS and its unsavory companions in the government don’t have to seize newspapers, burn presses, or any of the overt things we usually associate with censorship.

They are much more insidious, not to mention cowardly.

The DHS avoids taking a chance a court might refuse its request for a subpoena but still creates a climate of fear for commenters at Techdirt.

Courts can’t rule on what is not presented to them and the DHS is well aware of that fact.

Which raises the interesting question: How often does DHS call or email about subpoenas and no subpoenas arrive? Is this, as I suspect, a systematic practice at DHS?

Question: Is anyone tracking DHS phone calls and emails about subpoenas? Where no subpoena arrives?

PS: I disagree that calling for violence, even in hyperbole, is in poor taste. People are condemned to death and worse every day in the polite language of privilege and power. It’s time we stopped having a double standard for privileged versus non-privileged violence.

May 5, 2016

Speak For Those Who Can’t Speak For Themselves

Filed under: Censorship,Government,Law — Patrick Durusau @ 3:48 pm

It’s no surprise the State of Texas has decided to violate the free speech rights of inmates in its prisons.

What’s violation of an inmate’s free speech rights when you are out of step with the civilized world on the death penalty?

Unlike the death penalty, which so far states are not practicing in secret, censorship of prisoner social media accounts is hidden from the public.

Make the public aware of prison censorship:

…
If you are managing a social media account on behalf of an inmate and suddenly find the account has been suspended or content otherwise removed, we urge you to submit a report to OnlineCensorship.org. The project, a collaboration between EFF and Visualizing Impact, draws on user-generated data to document how social media companies including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, and YouTube moderate content and the corresponding user experience when that occurs. (Report Inmate Social Media Takedowns to OnlineCensorship.org)
…

Who but the unjust fear cries for justice?

April 10, 2016

A Challenge for Wannabe LamdaConf 2016 Censors

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech — Patrick Durusau @ 10:46 am

LamdaConf 2016 has become the target of a long list of self-confessed censors, who have taken it upon themselves to object to the selection of Curtis Yarvin as a speaker at that conference.

Authors aren’t identified in the program listing.

Here’s the challenge to wannabe LamdaConf 2016 censors: Which of these talks promote racism, etc.? (You can see the full descriptions here. I omitted the prose in the interest of space.)

  • 4 Weird Tricks to Become a Better Functional Programmer
  • A Board Game Night with Geeks
  • All About a Fold
  • An Immutable State Machine
  • Coding Under Uncertainty
  • Dialyzer: Optimistic Type Checking for Erlang and Elixir
  • Discrete Time and Race Conditions
  • Exotic Functional Data Structures: Off-heap Functionally Persistent Fractal Trees
  • Extracting Useful Information from your Code Repository using F#
  • Functional Algebra for Middle School Students
  • Functional Programming is Overrated
  • Functional Programming: Destination or Origin?
  • Functional Reactive Programming for Natural User Interfaces
  • Functional Refactoring
  • Functional Relational Programming In UI Programming
  • Functional Web Programming: An Empirical Overview
  • How Environment and Experience Shape the Brain
  • How to Get Started with Functional Programming
  • How to Use Covariance and Contravariance to Build Flexible and Robust Programs
  • Interactive Tests and Documentation via QuickCheck-style Declarations
  • Make Your Own Lisp Interpreter in 10 Incremental Steps
  • Mastering Apache Spark
  • MTL Versus Free: Deathmatch!
  • Named and Typed Homoiconicity
  • No If’s, Cond’s, or Bool’s About It!
  • Panel: The Functional Front-End
  • Program Derivation for Functional Languages
  • Purely Functional Semantic and Syntax Expression Composition
  • Queries Inside Out: The Algorithms of your Relational Database in Clojure
  • RankNTypes Ain’t Rank at All
  • Real-World Gobbledygook
  • Servant – How to Create a Clean Web API
  • The Easy-Peasy-Lemon-Squeezy, Statically-Typed, Purely Functional Programming Workshop for All!
  • The Keys to Collaboration
  • The Missing Diamond of Scala Variance
  • The Next Great Functional Programming Language: Year 2
  • Type Kwon Do
  • Type Systems for Alchemy
  • Type-Level Hold’em: Encoding the Rules of Poker with Shapeless
  • Types for Ancient Greek
  • Typesafe Data Frames with Shapeless
  • Urbit: A Clean-Slate Functional Operating Stack
  • What Would Happen if REST Were Immutable?
  • Who Let Algebra Get Funky with my Data Types?
  • Witchcraft: Experiments Getting Higher-Order Abstractions into Elixir
  • Your Esoteric Benefactor: The Simple Richness of Lambda Calculus

Identify the objectionable talk(s) in your comments below.

As far as Curtis Yarvin, reflect on how your attempts at censorship have given a broader stage to his non-programming ideas. That’s all on you, not Yarvin.

Yet another illustration of why censorship is such a very bad idea. Always.

PS: As far as diversity, practicing diversity is far more effective than self-righteous denouncement of failure to practice diversity in others. Self-practice of diversity requires day to day effort.

April 4, 2016

Xindex – the voice of free expression

Filed under: Censorship,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 3:41 pm

Xindex – the voice of free expression

You can support Xindex by subscribing to the quarterly Index on Censorship magazine, donating to support Xindex, or volunteering (the volunteer link is broken, I have written to report it).

I support their work even though I differ from the Xindex on its recognition of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as legitimate limits on the right to free speech.

Those limits in Article 10 read:

“The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”

That’s a “load of tosh.”

Who do you think is protected by:

“…for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence….”

Can you say Panama Papers?

Information received and documents created “in confidence.” Yes?

One plausible reading of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights would leave us without disclosure of the Panama Papers.

I differ from Xindex there being any government limits on free speech (that’s why we have civil courts), but it remains a project that deserves your patronage and support.

March 31, 2016

Onlinecensorship.org Launches First Report (PDF)

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Social Media,Tweets,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 2:36 pm

Onlinecensorship.org Launches First Report (PDF).

Reposting:

Onlinecensorship.org is pleased to share our first report "Unfriending Censorship: Insights from four months of crowdsourced data on social media censorship." The report draws on data gathered directly from users between November 2015 and March 2016.

We asked users to send us reports when they had their content or accounts taken down on six social media platforms: Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. We have aggregated and analyzed the collected data across geography, platform, content type, and issue areas to highlight trends in social media censorship. All the information presented here is anonymized, with the exception of case study examples we obtained with prior approval by the user.

Here are some of the highlights:

  • This report covers 161 submissions from 26 countries, regarding content in eleven languages.
  • Facebook was the most frequently reported platform, and account suspensions were the most reported content type.
  • Nudity and false identity were the most frequent reasons given to users for the removal of their content.
  • Appeals seem to present a particular challenge. A majority of users (53%) did not appeal the takedown of their content, 50% of whom said they didn’t know how and 41.9% of whom said they didn’t expect a response. In only four cases was content restored, while in 50 the user didn’t get a response.
  • We received widespread reports that flagging is being used for censorship: 61.6% believed this was the cause of the content takedown.

While we introduced some measures to help us verify reports (such as giving respondents the opportunity to send us screenshots that support their claims), we did not work with the companies to obtain this data and thus cannot claim it is representative of all content takedowns or user experiences. Instead, it shows how a subset of the millions of social media users feel about how their content takedowns were handled, and the impact it has had on their lives.

The full report is available for download and distribution under Creative Commons licensing.

As the report itself notes, 161 reports across 6 social media platforms in 4 months isn’t a representative sample of censoring in social media.

Twitter alone brags about closing 125,000 ISIS accounts since mid-2015 (report dated 5 February 2016).

Closing ISIS accounts is clearly censorship of political speech, whatever hand waving and verbal gymnastics Twitter wants to employ to justify its practices. Including terms of service.

Censorship, on whatever basis, by whoever practiced, by whatever mechanism (including appeals), will always step on legitimate speech of some speakers.

The non-viewing of content has one and only one legitimate locus of control, a user’s browser for web content.

Browsers and/or web interfaces for Twitter, Facebook, etc., should enable users to block users, content by keywords, or even classifications offered by social media services.

Poof!

All need for collaboration with governments, issues of what content to censor, appeal processes, etc., suddenly disappear.

Enabling users to choose the content that will be displayed in their browsers empowers listeners as well as speakers, with prejudice towards none.

Yes?

March 24, 2016

2016 Freedom of Expression Awards shortlist

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 1:51 pm

Index unveils 2016 Freedom of Expression Awards shortlist.

From the post:

An Aleppo-based journalist training women to report on the crisis in war-torn Syria, an Indonesian comic who jokes about Islamic extremism and a 19-year-old campaigner against repression in Eritrea are among those shortlisted for the 2016 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards.

Drawn from more than 400 crowdsourced nominations, the Index awards shortlist celebrates artists, writers, journalists and campaigners tackling censorship and fighting for freedom of expression. Many of the 20 shortlisted nominees are regularly targeted by authorities or by criminal and extremist groups for their work: some face regular death threats, others criminal prosecution.

Judges for this year’s awards are Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, pianist James Rhodes, tech entrepreneur Bindi Karia, Colombian journalist Maria Teresa Ronderos, human rights lawyer Kirsty Brimelow QC and Bahraini campaigner Nabeel Rajab.

“Censorship is not something that happens ‘somewhere else’,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship. “It occurs on a daily basis in every country, in every part of the world. The shortlist honours those who are among the bravest and most creative in tackling such threats.”

Awards are offered in four categories: journalism; arts; campaigning; and digital activism.
…

Spread the word about these awards and contribute to the defense of freedom of expression.

March 2, 2016

Muting users on Twitter – Achtung! State, DoD, Other US Censors

Filed under: Censorship,Government,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 5:12 pm

The Twitter Help Center has a great webpage titled: Muting users on Twitter.

From that page:

Mute is a feature that allows you to remove an account’s Tweets from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking that account. Muted accounts will not know that you’ve muted them and you can unmute them at any time. To access a list of accounts you have muted, visit your muted accounts settings on twitter.com or your app settings on Twitter for iOS or Android.
…

Instead of leaning on Twitter to close accounts, the State Department, Department of Defense and others can compile Twitter Mute Lists that have the Twitter accounts that any reasonable person should mute.

The Catholic News Service used to publish movie ratings in Our Sunday Visitor and while the rating system has changed since I last saw it (think 1960’s), it was a great way to pick out movies.

I think most ones I saw were either condemned or some similar category. 😉

A twitter mute list from State, DoD and others would save me time of searching for offensive content to view. I am sure that is true for others as well.

Oh, not to mention that people who are offended can choose to not view such content. Sorry, almost go carried away there.

How’s that for a solution to “propaganda” on Twitter? If it offends you, don’t look. Leave the rest of us the hell alone.

February 27, 2016

The Answer To Censors – Hand the Speaker a Larger Megaphone

Filed under: Censorship,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 8:03 pm

TheCthulhu tweeted yesterday:

cthulhusec-02

In case you are interested, the documents served on Twitter (in Turkish and English).

There is only one answer to censors – hand the censored speaker a larger megaphone.

Follow:

@YourAnonNews

@CryptOnymous

and for good measure:

@AnonyOps

OK, only slightly larger but every follower counts.

Are you going to increase the size of TheCthulhu‘s megaphone?

Is Conduct/Truth A Defense to Censorship?

Filed under: Censorship,Facebook,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 4:50 pm

While Twitter sets up its Platonic panel of censors (Plato’s Republic, Books 2/3)*, I am wondering if conduct/truth will be a defense to censorship for accounts that make positive posts about the Islamic State?

I ask because of a message suggesting accounts (Facebook?) might be suspended for posts following these rules:

  • Do no use foul language and try to not get in a fight with people
  • Do not write too much for people to read
  • Make your point easy as not everyone has the same knowledge as you about the Islamic state and/or Islam
  • Use a VPN…
  • Use an account that you don’t really need because this is like a martydom operation, your account will probably be banned
  • Post images supporting the Islamic state
  • Give positive facts about the Islamic state
  • Share Islamic state video’s that show the mercy and kindness of the Islamic state towards Muslims, and/or showing Muslim’s support towards the Islamic state. Or any videos that will attract people to the Islamic state
  • Prove rumors about the Islamic state false
  • Give convincing Islamic information about topics discussed like the legitimacy of the khilafa, killing civilians of the kuffar, the takfeer made on Arab rules, etc.
  • Or simply just post a short quick comment showing your support like “dawlat al Islam baqiaa” or anything else (make sure ppl can understand it
  • Remember to like all the comments you see that are supporting the Islamic state with all your accounts!

Posted (but not endorsed) by J. Faraday on 27 February 2016.

If we were to re-cast those as rule of conduct, non-Islamic State specific, where N is the issue under discussion:

  • Do no use foul language and try to not get in a fight with people
  • Do not write too much for people to read
  • Make your point easy [to understand] as not everyone has the same knowledge as you about N
  • Post images supporting N
  • Give positive facts about N
  • Share N videos that show the mercy and kindness of N, and/or showing A support towards N. Or any videos that will attract people to N
  • Prove rumors about N false
  • Give convincing N information about topics discussed
  • Or simply just post a short quick comment showing your support or anything else (make sure ppl can understand it
  • Remember to like all the comments you see that are supporting N with all your accounts!

Is there something objectionable about those rules when N = Islamic State?

As far as being truthful, say for example claims by the Islamic State that Arab governments are corrupt, we can’t use a corruption index that lists Qatar at #22 (Denmark is #1 as the least corrupt) and Saudi Arabia at #48, when Bloomberg lists Qatar and Saudi Arabia as scoring zero (0) on budget transparency.

There are more corrupt governments than Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the failed state of Somalia for example, and perhaps the Sudan. Still, I wouldn’t ban anyone for saying both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are cesspools of corruption. They don’t match the structural corruption in Washington, D.C. but it isn’t for lack of trying.

Here the question for Twitter’s Platonic guardians (Trust and Safety Council):

Can an account that follows the rules of behavior outlined above be banned for truthful posts?

I think we all know the answer but I’m interested in seeing if Twitter will admit to censoring factually truthful information.

* Someone very dear to me objected to my reference to Twitterists (sp?) as Stalinists. It was literary hyperbole and so not literally true. Perhaps “Platonic guardians” will be more palatable. Same outcome, just a different moniker.

February 24, 2016

Government enlists tech giants to fight ISIS messaging – Unethical Data Scientist Openings

Filed under: Censorship,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 9:17 pm

Government enlists tech giants to fight ISIS messaging by Jim Acosta.

From the post:

Seeking to bolster its effort to counter ISIS messaging on social media, the Obama administration is assembling something of a high-tech dream team to battle the terrorist group online.

At a meeting conducted at the Justice Department on Wednesday, executives from Apple, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, MTV and Buzzfeed offered their input to top counter intelligence officials, according to an industry source familiar with the meeting.

Nick Rasmussen, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the group the administration is making strides in combating ISIS on social media, where the terrorist army has inspired potential lone wolf assailants to carry out attacks

“We’ve seen more aggressive takedowns across social media platforms, which is a really good thing,” Rasmussen was quoted as saying by the source at the gathering.

Apple’s participation in the meeting is notable, given the high-tech firm’s clash with the administration over the company’s use of encryption to shield customers’ data on its popular smart phones.
…

Why does the government need tech giants in order to counter Islamic State messaging with the truth?

Oh, I forgot, the U.S. government wants to counter the truthful messages of the Islamic State with lies and false narratives of hope.

Is that too extreme?

Think about it. What do you think the changes are for regime change in say Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? UAE? Any other corrupt and oppressive Arab governments you care to name? Changes in any toady governments supported by the United States or Russia?

If you are going to spin narratives of “hope,” shouldn’t those be true narratives of hope? Or is it enough that false narratives of hope fit into U.S. plans to continue to be a colonial power in the Middle East?

I am hopeful that there are “ethical” data scientists, which seems to be a popular topic of discussion, if not practice these days. On that topic, see my post: Ethical Data Scientists: Will You Support A False Narrative – “Community of Hope?”.

February 15, 2016

Twitter Suspension Tracker

Filed under: Censorship,Tweets,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 2:36 pm

Twitter Suspension Tracker by Lee Johnstone.

From the about page:

This site (Twitter Suspension Monitor) was created to do one purpose, log and track suspended twitter accounts.

The system periodically checks marked suspended accounts for possible reactivation and remarks them accordingly. This allows the system to start tracking how many hours, days or even weeks and months a users twitter account got suspended for. Ontop of site submitted entrys Twitter Suspension Monitor also scrapes data directly from twitter in hope to find many more suspended accounts.
…

Not transparency but some reflected light on the Twitter account suspension process.

Tweets from suspended accounts disappear.

Stalin would have felt right at home with Twitter’s methods if not its ideology.

Here’s a photo of Stalin for the webpage of the Twitter Trust & Safety Council:

220px-CroppedStalin1943

Members of the Twitter Trust & Safety Council should use it as their twitter profile image. Enable all of us to identify Twitter censorship collaborators.

However urgent current hysteria, censors are judged only one way in history.

Is that what you want for your legacy? Twitter, same question.

February 5, 2016

Is Twitter A Global Town Censor? (Data Project)

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Government,Tweets,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 9:51 pm

Twitter Steps Up Efforts to Thwart Terrorists’ Tweets by Mike Isaac.

From the post:

For years, Twitter has positioned itself as a “global town square” that is open to discourse from all. And for years, extremist groups like the Islamic State have taken advantage of that stance, using Twitter as a place to spread their messages.

Twitter on Friday made clear that it was stepping up its fight to stem that tide. The social media company said it had suspended 125,000 Twitter accounts associated with extremism since the middle of 2015, the first time it has publicized the number of accounts it has suspended. Twitter also said it had expanded the teams that review reports of accounts connected to extremism, to remove the accounts more quickly.

“As the nature of the terrorist threat has changed, so has our ongoing work in this area,” Twitter said in a statement, adding that it “condemns the use of Twitter to promote terrorism.” The company said its collective moves had already produced results, “including an increase in account suspensions and this type of activity shifting off Twitter.”

The disclosure follows intensifying pressure on Twitter and other technology companies from the White House, presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton and government agencies to take more action to combat the digital practices of terrorist groups. The scrutiny has grown after mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., last year, because of concerns that radicalizations can be accelerated by extremist postings on the web and social media.
…

Just so you know what the Twitter rule is:

Violent threats (direct or indirect): You may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism. (The Twitter Rules)

Here’s your chance to engage in real data science and help decide the question if Twitter had changed from global town hall to global town censor.

Here’s the data gathering project:

Monitor all the Twitter streams for Republican and Democratic candidates for the U.S. presidency for tweets advocating violence/terrorism.

File requests with Twitter for those accounts to be replaced.

FYI: When you report a message (Reporting a Tweet or Direct Message for violations), it will disappear from Messages inbox.

You must copy every tweet you report (accounts disappear as well) if you want to keep a record of your report.

Keep track of your reports and the tweet you copied before reporting.

Post the record of your reports and the tweets reported, plus any response from Twitter.

Suggestions on how to format these reports?

Or would you rather not know what Twitter is deciding for you?

How much data needs to be collected to move onto part 2 of the project – data analysis?

Suggestions on who at Twitter to contact for a listing of the 125,000 accounts that were silenced along with the Twitter history for each one? (Or the entire history of silenced accounts at Twitter? Who gets censored by topic, race, gender, location, etc., are all open questions.)

That could change the Twitter process from a black box to having marginally more transparency. You would have to guess at why any particular account was silenced.

If Twitter wants to take credit for censoring public discourse then the least it can do is be honest about who was censored and what they were saying to be censored.

Yes?

February 2, 2016

Google to deliver wrong search results to would-be jihadis[, gays, unwed mothers, teenagers, Muslims

Filed under: Censorship,Government,Privacy,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 8:52 pm

Google to deliver wrong search results to would-be jihadis by David Barrett.

From the post:

Jihadi sympathisers who type extremism-related words into Google will be shown anti-radicalisation links instead, under a pilot scheme announced by the internet giant.

The new technology means people at risk of radicalisation will be presented with internet links which are the exact opposite of what they were searching for.

Dr Anthony House, a senior Google executive, revealed the pilot scheme in evidence to MPs scrutinising the role of internet companies in combating extremism.
…

It isn’t hard to see where this slippery road leads.

If any of the current Republican candidates are elected to the U.S. presidency, Google will:

Respond to gay sex or gay related searches with links for praying yourself straight.

Unwed mothers requesting abortion services will have their personal information forwarded to right-to-birth organizations and sent graphic anti-abortion images by email.

Teenagers seeking birth control advice will only see – Abstinence or Hell!

Muslims, well, unless Trump has deported all of them, will see anti-Muslim links.

Unlike bad decisions by government, Google can effectively implement demented schemes such as this one.

Censoring of search results to favor any side, policy, position, is just that censorship.

If you forfeit the rights of others, you have no claim to rights yourself.

Your call.

January 7, 2016

Twitter Fighting Censorship? (Man Bites Dog Story?)

Filed under: Censorship,Tweets,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 2:55 pm

Twitter sues Turkey over ‘terror propaganda’ fine

From the post:

Twitter has challenged Turkey in an Ankara court seeking to cancel a $50,000 fine for not removing content from its website, the social media site’s lawyer told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

Turkey temporarily banned access to Twitter several times in the past for failing to comply with requests to remove content. But the 150,000 lira ($50,000) fine imposed by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) was the first of its kind imposed by Turkish authorities on Twitter.

A Turkish official told Reuters news agency on Thursday that much of the material in question was related to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Ankara called “terrorist propaganda”.

Twitter, in its lawsuit, is arguing the fine goes against Turkish law and should be annulled, the official told Reuters.
…

Reading about Twitter opposing censorship is like seeing a news account about a man biting a dog. That really is news!

I say that because only a few months ago in Secretive Twitter Censorship Fairy Strikes Again!, I pointed to reports of Twitter silencing 10,000 Islamic State accounts on April 2nd of 2015. More censorship of Islamic State accounts followed but that’s an impressive total for one day.

From all reports, entirely at Twitter’s on initiative. Why Twitter decided to single out accounts that favor the Islamic State over those that favor the U.S. military isn’t clear. The U.S. military is carrying out daily bombing attacks in Iraq and Syria, something you can’t say about the Islamic State.

Now Twitter finds itself in the unhappy position of being an inadequate censor, a censor that violates the fundamental premise of being a common carrier, that is it is open to all opinions, fair and foul, and a censor that has failed a state that is even less tolerant of free speech than Twitter.

Despised by one side for censorship and loathed by the other for being an inadequate toady.

Not an enviable position.

Just my suggestion but Twitter needs to reach out to the telcos and others who provide international connectivity for phones and other services to Turkey.

A 24 to 72 hour black-out of all telecommunications, for banks, media, phone, internet, should give the Turkish government a taste of the economic disruption, to say nothing of disruption of government, that will follow future attempts to censor, fine or block any international common carrier.

The telcos and other have the power to bring outlandish actors such as the Turkish government to a rapid heel.

It’s time that power was put to use.

You see, no bombs, no boots on the ground, no lengthy and tiresome exchanges of blustering speeches, just a quick trip back to the 19th century to remind Turkey’s leaders how painful a longer visit could be.

December 31, 2015

A Greater Threat to the U.S. Than the Islamic State

Filed under: Censorship,Free Speech,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 11:43 am

Those Demanding Free Speech Limits to Fight ISIS Pose a Greater Threat to U.S. Than ISIS by Glenn Greenwald.

From the post:

In 2006 — years before ISIS replaced al Qaeda as the New and Unprecedentedly Evil Villain — Newt Gingrich gave a speech in New Hampshire in which, as he put it afterward, he “called for a serious debate about the First Amendment and how terrorists are abusing our rights — using them as they once used passenger jets — to threaten and kill Americans.” In that speech, Gingrich argued:

Either before we lose a city, or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up (terrorists’) capacity to use the internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech [protections] and to go after people who want to kill us — to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.

In a follow-up article titled “The First Amendment is Not a Suicide Pact,” Gingrich went even further, arguing that terrorists should be “subject to a totally different set of rules,” and called for an international convention to decide “on what activities will not be protected by free speech claims.”
…

Greenwald writes that limits on freedom of speech are not a historical nutty-idea from the past but are being raised by Cass Sunstein (Obama adviser) and Eric Posner (law professor).

Even the advocates of limits on free speech concede the legal system won’t, yet, accept limits on freedom of speech, that could change.

Imagine telling parents in the 1990’s that post-2010 that allowing strangers to fondle your genitals and those of your children were a prerequisite to air travel.

Who would have said then they would meekly line up like sheep to be intimately touched by strangers?

Or allow their children to be groped by strangers?

But both of those have come to pass. With nary a flicker of opposition from Congress.

Read Greenwald’s post in full and know that limits on freedom of speech, like restrictions on your right to travel (rejection of state driver licenses as identification), violation of your personal space (groping at airports), are not very far away at all.

December 27, 2015

China Pulls Alongside US in Race to No Privacy

Filed under: Censorship,Government,Privacy — Patrick Durusau @ 8:07 pm

China passes law requiring tech firms to hand over encryption keys by Mark Wilson.

From the post:

Apple may have said that it opposes the idea of weakening encryption and providing governments with backdoors into products, but things are rather different in China. The Chinese parliament has just passed a law that requires technology companies to comply with government requests for information, including handing over encryption keys.

Mark doesn’t provide a link to the text of the new law and I don’t read Chinese in any event. I will look for an English translation to pass onto you.

Reading from Mark’s summary, I assume “handing over encryption keys” puts China alongside the United States as far as breaking into iPhones.

Apple doesn’t have the encryption keys for later models of iPhones and therefore possesses nothing to be surrendered.

Now that China is even with the United States, who will take the lead in diminishing privacy is a toss-up. Not to be forgotten is France, with its ongoing “state of emergency.” Will that become a permanent state of emergency in 2016?

Five reasons why we must NOT censor ISIS propaganda [news]

Filed under: Censorship,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 4:08 pm

Five reasons why we must NOT censor ISIS propaganda by Dr. Azeem Ibrahim.

From the post:

First of all, censoring ISIS in this way is simply not feasible. We can very well demand that mainstream newspapers and TV news stations limit their coverage of these issues, but that would leave the entire field of discussion to the unregulated areas of the internet, the “blogosphere” and social media. ISIS would still dominate in these areas, except now we will have removed from the discourse those outlets that would be most capable to hold the ISIS narrative to scrutiny.

All of Dr. Ibrahim’s points are well taken but the ability to “…hold the ISIS narrative to scrutiny” is the most telling one.

In holding the Islamic State narrative to scrutiny, the West will learn some of that narrative is true.

Simon Cottee writes in Why It’s So Hard to Stop ISIS Propaganda:

…
The more immediate, but no less intractable, challenge is to change the reality on the ground in Syria and Iraq, so that ISIS’s narrative of Sunni Muslim persecution at the hands of the Assad regime and Iranian-backed Shiite militias commands less resonance among Sunnis. One problem in countering that narrative is that some of it happens to be true: Sunni Muslims are being persecuted in Syria and Iraq. This blunt empirical fact, just as much as ISIS’s success on the battlefield, and the rhetorical amplification and global dissemination of that success via ISIS propaganda, helps explain why ISIS has been so effective in recruiting so many foreign fighters to its cause.
…

A first step towards scrutiny of all narratives in the conflict with the Islamic State would be to stop referring to reports and/or news from the Islamic State as “propaganda.” It isn’t any more or less propaganda than the numerous direct and indirect reports placed at the direction of the United States government.

Yet, even traditionally skeptical news organizations, such as the New York Times, repeats government reports of the danger the United States faces from the Islamic State without question.

At best, the Islamic State may have 35,000 fighters in Syria/Iraq. Should a nuke-armed hyper-power with a military budget equal to the next nine (9) biggest spenders, more than a third of all military spending, be fearful of this ragged band of fighters?

To read the serious tone with which the New York Times reports the hand wringing and posturing from both Washington and the presidential campaign trail, you would think so. Instead of analysis and well-deserved mockery of those fearful positions, the Times reports them as “news.”

Censoring the narratives of the Islamic State and failing to question those of the United States, deprives the public, including young people, of an opportunity to reach their own evaluation of those narratives.

Small wonder they are all so mis-informed.

September 18, 2015

Tor relay turned back on after unanimous library vote

Filed under: Censorship,Privacy — Patrick Durusau @ 9:44 am

Tor relay turned back on after unanimous library vote by Lisa Vaas.

From the post:

Live free or die.

That, possibly the most well-known of US state mottos, is declared on vehicle license plates throughout the verdant, mountainous, cantankerous state of New Hampshire.

True to that in-your-face independence, on Tuesday evening, in the New Hampshire town of Lebanon, the Lebanon Libraries board unanimously seized freedom and privacy by flipping the bird to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its grudge against the Tor network.

Dozens of community members had come to the meeting to chime in on whether the Kilton Public Library should go ahead with a project to set up a Tor relay: a project that was shelved after a DHS agent reached out to warn New Hampshire police – or, as some classify it, spread FUD – that Tor shields criminals.

Boston librarian Alison Macrina, the mastermind behind the Library Freedom Project (LFP) and its plan to install exit nodes in libraries in collaboration with the Tor Project, said in an article on Slate (co-authored with digital rights activist April Glaser) that the unanimous vote to reinstate the library’s Tor relay was greeted with enthusiasm:

When library director Sean Fleming declared that the relay would go back online, a huge round of applause rang out. The citizens of Lebanon fought to protect privacy and intellectual freedom from the Department of Homeland Security’s intimidation tactics - and they won.

…

One bright spot of news in the flood of paranoid reports concerning terrorism and government demands for greater surveillance of everyone.

If you aren’t running Tor you should be.

Privacy is everyone’s concern.

September 11, 2015

Stand by your Library!

Filed under: Censorship,Library — Patrick Durusau @ 1:14 pm

First Library to Support Anonymous Internet Browsing Effort Stops After DHS Email by Julia Angwin.

From the post:

In July, the Kilton Public Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire, was the first library in the country to become part of the anonymous Web surfing service Tor. The library allowed Tor users around the world to bounce their Internet traffic through the library, thus masking users’ locations.

Soon after state authorities received an email about it from an agent at the Department of Homeland Security.

“The Department of Homeland Security got in touch with our Police Department,” said Sean Fleming, the library director of the Lebanon Public Libraries.

After a meeting at which local police and city officials discussed how Tor could be exploited by criminals, the library pulled the plug on the project.

“Right now we’re on pause,” said Fleming. “We really weren’t anticipating that there would be any controversy at all.”

He said that the library board of trustees will vote on whether to turn the service back on at its meeting on Sept. 15.

See Julia’s post for the details but this was just the first library in what was planned to be a series of public libraries across the United States offering Tor. An article about that plan in ArsTechnica tipped off law enforcement before nationwide Tor services could be established.

The public statements by law enforcement sound reasonable, need all the issues on the table, etc., but make no mistake, this is an effort to cripple making the Tor service far more effective than it is today.

There isn’t any middle ground where citizens can have privacy and yet criminals can be prevented from having privacy. After all, unless and until you are convicted in a court of law, you are a citizen, not a criminal.

There is a certain cost to the presumption of innocence and that cost has been present since the Constiution was adopted. Guilty people may go free or perhaps not even be caught because of your rights under the U.S. Constitution.

If you are in Lebanon, New Hampshire, attend the library supervisor’s meeting and voice support for Tor!

If you can’t make the meeting, ask your library for Tor. (See the ArsTechnica post for more details on the project.)

September 4, 2015

The Enemies of Books

Filed under: Books,Censorship — Patrick Durusau @ 8:11 pm

The Enemies of Books by William Blades.

Published in 1888, The Enemies of Books reflects the biases and prejudices of its time, much as our literature transparently carries forward our biases and prejudices.

A valuable reminder in these censorship happy times that knowledge has long be deemed dangerous.

See in particular Chapter 5 Ignorance and Bigotry.

The suppression of “terrorist” literature, from tweets to websites, certainly falls under bigotry and possibly ignorance as well.

Extremist literature of all kinds is heavily repetitive and while it may be exciting to look at what has been forbidden, the thrill wears off fairly quickly. Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw, once admitted in an interview that after about a year of Screw, if you were paying attention, you would notice the same story lines starting to circle back around.

If that’s a problem with sex, it isn’t hard to imagine that political issues discussed with no nuance, no depth of analysis, no sense of history, but simply “I’m right and X must die!” gets old pretty quickly.

If you believe U.S. reports on Osama bin Lauden, even bin Laden wasn’t on a steady diet of hate literature but had Western materials as well as soft porn.

If the would-be-censors would stop wasting funds on trying to censor social media and the Internet, perhaps they could find the time for historical, nuanced and deep analysis of current issues to publish in an attractive manner.

Censors don’t think and they don’t want you to either.

Let’s disappoint them together!

August 31, 2015

Self-Censorship and Terrorism (Hosting Taliban material)

Filed under: Censorship,Government,Library — Patrick Durusau @ 4:53 pm

British Library declines Taliban archive over terror law fears

From the BBC:

The British Library has declined to store a large collection of Taliban-related documents because of concerns regarding terrorism laws.

The collection, related to the Afghan Taliban, includes official newspapers, maps and radio broadcasts.

Academics have criticised the decision saying it would be a valuable resource to understand the ongoing insurgency in Afghanistan.

The library said it feared it could be in breach of counter-terrorism laws.

It said it had been legally advised not to make the material accessible.

…

The Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006 make it an offence to “collect material which could be used by a person committing or preparing for an act of terrorism” and criminalise the “circulation of terrorist publications”.

The Home Office declined to comment saying it was a matter for library.

Of course the Home Office has no comment. The more it can bully people and institutions into self-censorship the better.

A number of academics have pointed out the absurdity of the decision. But there is some risk and most institutions are “risk adverse,” which also explains why governments tremble at the thought “terrorist publications.”

While governments and some libraries try to outdo each other in terms of timidity, the rest of us should be willing to take that risk. Take that risk for freedom of inquiry and the sharing of knowledge. Putting a finger in the eye of timid governments and institutions strikes me as a good reason as well.

No promises but perhaps individuals offering to and hosting parts of the Taliban collection will shame timid institutions into hosting it and similar collections (like the alleged torrents of pro-Islamic State tweets).

I am willing to host some material from the Taliban archive. It doesn’t have to be the interesting parts (which everyone will want).

Are you?

PS: No, I’m not a Taliban sympathizer, at least in so far as I understand what the Taliban represents. I am deeply committed to enabling others to reach their own conclusions based on evidence about the Taliban and others. We might agree and we might not. That is one of the exciting (government drones read “dangerous”) aspects of intellectual freedom.

August 28, 2015

Conspiring with Non-Indicted Co-Conspirators

Filed under: Censorship,Government,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 9:25 am

Arizona Man Charged with Providing Material Support to ISIL.

It is now dangerous to share social media contact information with others.

In a recent padding of the FBI statistics on terrorism:

…
In August 2014, a 24-year-old New York City resident (CC-1) learned via social media that El Gammal had posted social media comments that supported ISIL. Minutes later, CC-1 contacted El Gammal. Over the next several months, CC-1 and El Gammal continued corresponding over the Internet, although CC-1 deleted many of these exchanges.

In the midst of these communications, in October 2014, El Gammal traveled to Manhattan, New York, where CC-1 was enrolled in college, and contacted and met with CC-1. While in New York City, El Gammal also contacted another co-conspirator (CC-2), who lived in Turkey, about CC-1’s plans to travel to the Middle East. El Gammal later provided CC-1 with social media contact information for CC-2. Thereafter, El Gammal and CC-2 had multiple social media exchanges about CC-1 traveling to the Middle East. In addition, CC-1 began communicating with CC-2, introducing himself as a friend of “Gammal’s.”

In late January 2015, CC-1 abruptly left New York City for Istanbul. After CC-1 arrived in Turkey, El Gammal continued to communicate with him over the Internet, providing advice on traveling toward Syria and on meeting with CC-2. After CC-1 arrived in Syria, he received military-type training from ISIL between early February and at least early May 2015.

On May 7, 2015, CC-1 reported to El Gammal that “everything [was] going according to plan.”
…

There is a big jump between sharing social media contact information with someone going overseas, even to Turkey, and what the lay summary calls:

…assisting a New York college student to travel to Syria to obtain military training from ISIL…

Hardly.

You and I might talk about the government of the United States, among other things, but sharing social media contacts of people living in the D.C. area doesn’t make me a co-conspirator in some future unlawful act you commit.

In the FBI’s view:

“As alleged, Gammal helped a college student in New York receive terrorist training in Syria through a contact in Turkey, in order to support ISIL,” said Assistant Director in Charge Rodriguez. “These relationships were allegedly made and solidified through the internet while Gammal was in Arizona. This is another example of how social media is utilized for nefarious and criminal purposes around the world.

That’s an absurdity wrapped in a paranoid imagination.

Gammal could have just as well provided a cellphone number for CC2. Would that make cellphones the origin of “nefarious and criminal purposes around the world?”

The Islamic State is and has been a distasteful organization with questionable tactics. However, much of its stature in the world is due to the hyping of the organization by the FBI and others.

Want to see ISIS diminished? Stop treating it as a serious adversary, which it’s not. People will fairly quickly lose interest when it is no long front page news.

August 27, 2015

Twitter Doubles Down on Censorship

Filed under: Censorship,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 8:32 pm

Twitter muzzles Politwoops politician-tracking accounts by Lisa Vaas.

From the post:

When Twitter killed embarrassing-political-tweet archive Politwoops in June, the site’s founders probably looked to the 30 other countries where it was running and said, well, it might just be a matter of time before those are strangled in the crib.

Consider them strangled.

Twitter told the Open State Foundation on Friday that it had suspended API access to Diplotwoops and all remaining Politwoops sites in those 30 countries.
…

Part of Twitter’s explanation reads as follows:

Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable? No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user’s voice.

Do you wonder if Twitter will use that justification when the NSA comes knocking?

I have to imagine that Twitter comes down on the side of the my-edited-history folks of the EU and recently the UK.

I find the idea that digital records will shift under our feet far more terrifying than tweets being “immutable and irrevocable.”

You?

August 24, 2015

Popcorn Time Information Banned in Denmark

Filed under: Censorship — Patrick Durusau @ 10:33 am

Not content to prosecute actual copyright violators, Denmark is prosecuting people who spread information about software that can violate copyrights.

That right! Information, not links to pirated content, not the software, just information about the software.

Police Arrest Men For Spreading Popcorn Time Information.

From the post:

…
While arrests of file-sharers and those running sites that closely facilitate infringement are nothing new, this week’s arrests appear to go way beyond anything seen before. The two men are not connected to the development of Popcorn Time and have not been offering copyrighted content for download.

Both sites were information resources, offering recent news on Popcorn Time related developments, guides, FAQ sections and tips on how to use the software.

…

Both men stand accused of distributing knowledge and guides on how to obtain illegal content online and are reported to have confessed.
…

I wonder what “confessed” means under these circumstances? Confessed to providing up-to-date and useful information on Popcorn Time? That’s hardly a crime by any stretch of the imagination.

I realize there is a real shortage of crime in Denmark, http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/profiles/Denmark/Crime:

denmark-crime

but that’s no excuse to get overly inventive with regard to intellectual property crimes.

Before I forget:

Those looking for a clearer (and live) idea of what the site looked like before it was taken down should check out getpopcorntime.co.uk, which was previously promoted by PopcornTime.dk as an English language version of their site.

Whenever you encounter banned sites or information, be sure to pass the banned information along.

Censorship has no legitimate role on the Internet. If you don’t want to see particular content, don’t look. What other people choose to look at is their business and none of yours.

Child porn is the oft-cited example for censorship on the Internet. I agree it is evil, etc., but why concentrate on people sharing child porn? Shouldn’t the police be seeking the people making child porn?

Makes you wonder doesn’t it? Are the police ineffectually swatting (sorry) at the distribution of child porn and ignoring the real crimes of making child porn?

With modern day image recognition, you have to wonder why the police aren’t identifying more children in child porn? Or are they so wedded to ineffectual but budget supporting techniques that they haven’t considered the alternatives?

I am far more sympathetic to the use of technology to catch the producers of child porn than to state functionaries attempting to suppress the free interchange of information on the Internet.

August 21, 2015

Pandering for Complaints

Filed under: Censorship,Government — Patrick Durusau @ 4:51 pm

Yesterday I mentioned that the UK has joined the ranks of censors of Google and is attempting to fine tune search results for a given name. Censorship of Google Spreads to the UK.

Today, Simon Rice of the Information Commissioner’s Office, posted: Personal data in leaked datasets is still personal data.

Simon starts off by mentioning the Ashley Madison data dumps and then says:

Anyone in the UK who might download, collect or otherwise process the leaked data needs to be aware they could be taking on data protection responsibilities defined in the UK’s Data Protection Act.

Similarly, seeking to identify an individual from a leaked dataset will be an intrusion into their private life and could also lead to a breach of the DPA.

Individuals will have a range of personal reasons for having created an account with particular online services (or even had an account created without their knowledge) and any publication of further personal data without their consent can cause them significant damage or distress.

It’s worth noting too that any individual or organisation seeking to rely on the journalism exemption should be reminded that this is not a blanket exemption to the DPA and be encouraged to read our detailed guide on how the DPA applies to journalism.
…

Talk about chilling free speech. You shouldn’t even look to see if the data is genuine. Just don’t look!

You could let your “betters” in the professional press tell you what they want you to know, but I suspect you are brighter than that. What are the press motives behind what you see and what you don’t?

To make matters even worse, Simon closes with a solicitation for complaints:

If you find your personal data being published online then you have a right to go to that publisher and request that the information is removed. This applies equally to information being shared on social media. If the publisher is based in the UK and fails to remove your information you can complain to the ICO.

I don’t have a lot of extra webspace but if you get a complaint from the ICO, I’m willing to host whatever data I can. It won’t be much so don’t get too excited about free space.

We all need to step up and offer storage space for content censored by the UK and others.

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