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free speech » Digital Age Defense

The PayPal Problem – a comment on intermediary liability

 Analysis/commentary, Intermediary liability, Regulating speech  1 Response »
Feb 292012
 

PayPal recently made news for implementing a policy denying its payment processing services to publications including obscene content.  There are several things objectionable about this policy, including the lack of any clear way of delineating what content would qualify as “obscene,” and its overall censorious impact.

But I’m not entirely sure that PayPal is necessarily the appropriate target for criticism of this policy.  It may be, to the extent that it is a truly discretionary policy PayPal has voluntarily chosen to pursue.  If it could just as easily chosen not to pursue it it can be fairly criticized for the choice it did make.  For this policy is not as simple as banning certain objectively horrible content 100% of all people would agree should be stricken from the face of the earth.  After all, there *is* no objectively horrible content 100% of all people would agree is objectionable.  Instead this policy has the effect of denying market opportunities to all sorts of writers producing all sorts of valid content, even if some people may not happen to like it.  And it does this not just by denying particular publications access to its services but by forcing electronic publishers to overcensor all the works they publish lest PayPal services be shut off to their entire businesses. Continue reading »

Bangladeshi faces sedition charge over Facebook post

 Examples, Regulating speech  No Responses »
Jan 232012
 

Agence-France Press is reporting that a Bangladeshi high court has ordered police to prosecute Jahangirnagar University teacher Ruhul Khandakar for sedition as a result of a comment made on Facebook. The comment, since deleted, was “[Famous Bangladeshi filmmaker] Tareq Masud died as a result of government giving licence to unqualified drivers. Many die, why does not [Prime Minister] Sheikh Hasina die?”

He was also sentenced to six months in jail for contempt of court after he failed to respond to repeated summonses to explain a Facebook posting. The article reports Khandakar has been studying in Australia and these proceedings happened without him.

It also cites a local lawyer saying that this is the first time a Bangladeshi has been ordered to be jailed and tried for sedition over comments made on a social networking site.

Quicklinks 1/21/2012

 Quicklinks  No Responses »
Jan 212012
 

Various recent news:

India continues to flirt with web censorship

 Examples, Intermediary liability, Regulating speech  No Responses »
Jan 132012
 

Last month Kapil Sibal, acting telecommunications minister for India, floated the proposition that social networks actively filter all content appearing on their systems.  Now comes news that a judge in New Delhi also thinks web censorship appropriate.  From the New York Times:

The comments of the judge, Suresh Kait, came in response to a lawsuit, filed by a private citizen in the capital, New Delhi. The suit demands that Internet companies screen content before it is posted on sites like Facebook, Google or Yahoo, that might offend the religious sentiments of Indians. A related criminal case accuses the companies — 21 in all — of violating an Indian law that applies to books, pamphlets and other material that is deemed to “deprave or corrupt.”

A trial court in New Delhi on Friday ordered that summons be served in the criminal case to officials at all 21 companies at their foreign headquarters’ addresses.

…

Google and Facebook refused to comment on the case, except to say they had filed a motion in the New Delhi High Court to dismiss the criminal case.

Their motion will be considered on Monday. Continue reading »

Quicklinks 1/7/2012

 Quicklinks  No Responses »
Jan 072012
 

Other interesting items from this past week (or so):

Watching the watchers

 Examples, Regulating speech  No Responses »
Jan 062012
 

Public photography is an issue that frequently appears on this site because it’s a real example of technology-enabled speech that all too often authorities try to prevent.  These attempts are often egregious and never balanced out by whatever policy reasons are ostensibly behind them.  But they are particularly odorous when these prohibitions are enforced on people using photography to record the power of the police.

What’s especially insidious is the logic so often used for it, that recording people acting in public — or, more specifically, agents of the state acting in public under the color of the authority granted by the state — might somehow violate a privacy interest. Continue reading »

Canada creating “spam reporting centre”

 Examples, Other regulation  No Responses »
Jan 062012
 

The Vancouver Sun is reporting that the Canadian government is setting up a $700,000 annual-operating budget “spam reporting centre” for people to report their unsolicited communications.

Dubbed “The Freezer,” the new centre will accept unsolicited electronic messages forwarded by individuals, businesses and organizations in Canada, including spam, malware (malicious software), spyware, short message services (SMS), and false and misleading representations involving the use of any means of telecommunications, according to Industry Canada.

…

The Freezer is to field reports and complaints of spam and related electronic threats and collect information that’s either voluntarily provided or publicly available. The information could then be used as evidence of potential violations and assist enforcement agencies in levying fines or other penalties.

Continue reading »

Quicklinks 12/31/11

 Quicklinks  No Responses »
Dec 312011
 

From this past week:

Continue reading »

Tweeting DUI checkpoints

 Examples, Regulating speech  No Responses »
Dec 252011
 

Bruce Carton at Legal Blog Watch notes a difference of opinion from police in Canada regarding the propriety of tweeting the location of DUI checkpoints.

The Edmonton police believe it abets drunk driving and thus shouldn’t be done. Citing a CBC article on the subject:

“Putting lives in danger based on the fact that you want to have more followers on your Twitter account is pretty disappointing,” said checkstop co-ordinator Const. Ian Brooks.

…

Brooks is asking people to consider how they would feel if a drunk driver who avoided a checkstop ended up causing a collision that hurt someone.

“Maybe that one time that we would have actually picked them up and prevented something in the future, maybe that’s enabling them to commit further offences and to put everyone in jeopardy,” Brooks said.

According to the CBC, Calgary police also disfavor the practice.

“We don’t see any value in warning people in advance of how to avoid that detection,” he said. “We want them caught and we want them off the streets.”

The police in Regina share the same view. On the other hand, the police in Saskatoon have no problem with it.

Alyson Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Saskatoon police, said it will be OK if people who see a check-point share that information on Twitter.

“As a service, there is no point in ignoring the fact that people are going to spread the word amongst their friends,” Edwards told CBC News Wednesday.’

She said one goal of their check-point program is get get people to think about the consequences of drinking and driving, before they head out.

She said people who are drinking may think twice about driving, if they know officers are out.

The article about the Edmonton police quotes Doug King, an associate professor of justice studies at Calgary’s Mount Royal University as saying there was no law against such tweets.

“God forbid, you tweeted me and I got out on the road and killed someone and I was impaired, there would be no way that you could be held responsible for my actions.”

Canadian lawyer escapes disciplinary charge for online postings

 Examples, Regulating speech  No Responses »
Dec 242011
 

Canadian lawyer Antonin Pribetic reports that for the past six months he’s had to defend himself against a professional ethics charge made by an anonymous (at least to him) source who took offense to some of his tweets. That matter has now concluded that “no disciplinary proceedings should [...] be initiated as a result of this complaint and that this matter should be closed.”

For any lawyer to face a formal complaint from a governing law society or bar association is professionally worrisome and emotionally taxing. The fact that the complaint is subjectively frivolous is irrelevant; until the bar complaint is formally dismissed and the file is officially closed, your professional and personal life remains in turmoil.

You can imagine the amount of time it took for me to respond to numerous letters from the Law Society requesting explanations, clarifications and re-clarifications; all valuable time that I will never get back. The distraction was unnecessary and a disservice to the Law Society’s regulatory mandate.

Admittedly, the Twitter complaint weighed heavily on my mind , as well as my heart. The price of expressing strong opinions and speaking out against social media fraud is having a large bulls-eye painted on my back.

(h/t Rick Horowitz)

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