Fracturing of and content censorship of the internet.

[Malaphax]

Long video but worth watching.

 

[kuhla]

I'm only 1/2 way in but to me, the existing copyright system is complete trash and can never work in our modern technological world where anything that can be displayed on a screen can be perfectly and instantly duplicated to infinity

[Malaphax]

It also gets weird because there's differences between copyright, trademark, fair use and other elements that all blend together in messy ways. 

Should Disney still hold control of Mickey Mouse, a character they made in 1928 (steamboat willy), but also still use as a mascot currently?  That seems reasonable, in the same way that a company logo should be protected so long as it's been in recent use. 
Should Disney be the sole owner and still control distribution of the original steamboat willy cartoon from 1928?  I'm fairly certain most people would agree that's excessive. 

The video presenter suggests a 50 year copyright period, which is fairly reasonable, that would mean even child actors/musicians would control their works into their 60's, and would effectively be akin to a copyright for the life of the original creator.  I'm mostly ok with that in theory, but I also think there needs to be more thought given to what constitutes fair use versus what's copyright infringement.  If I post a meme image/gif on this forum should a creator be allowed to charge me for it?  What if I do the same thing on a professional news site that makes money from ads?  What if message the meme in a group chat?  Stuff like that gets ugly, and there's no perfect system for it.  I think the transition to Patreon and other direct revenue systems that creators have begun pushing for is a better way of handling things on the internet, but there's always going to be someone that pushes limits and there needs to be recourse for smaller creators to remedy that. 

[kuhla]

article - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tech-regulation/france-to-force-web-giants-to-delete-some-illicit-content-within-the-hour-idUSKBN22P2JU

Quote

PARIS (Reuters) - Social networks and other online content providers will have to remove paedophile and terrorism-related content from their platforms within the hour or face a fine of up to 4% of their global revenue under a French law voted in on Wednesday.

For other “manifestly illicit” content, companies such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat will have 24 hours to remove it, according to the law, which sets up a specialized digital prosecutor at the courts and a government unit to observe hate speech online.
....

“If the site does not censure the content (for instance because the complaint was sent during the weekend or at night), then police can force Internet service providers to block the site everywhere in France,” it said.

.....

That seems like an unrealistic standard.

[Malaphax]

From my limited understanding of how certain social media platforms handle some of the requests they get from law enforcement (or user reports that trigger law enforcement notification), there is already a herculean effort by various moderators to police this type of content.  Facebook/Google/etc. doesn't want that type of content on their platform anymore than these politicians, it makes advertisers less likely to spend, which is the only real metric they care about. 

Setting a timer for this content is complete garbage, not just because it can be unrealistic, but because you run into issues like the new zealand mosque shooting where people were actively reposting the content - do you get a 1 hour timer for each post?  Also what constitutes terrorism?  Would footage of the french police clashing with yellow vest protestors count?  This seems like a backdoor to state censorship on private platforms, and while I think some of that already exists, it seems like many countries are starting to ask for access to ban content from private platforms.  The outright threat that if a platform doesn't censor content within 1 hour that local ISPs will be directed to block that website is absolute nonsense.  We've seen multiple countries try and block various social media and messaging platforms and at best they stifle some of the average people for a little bit until the smart kid on the street starts showing people how to use a VPN, or how to circumvent these onerous restrictions.  The UK was set to block pornography, that didn't end up happening because it was deemed nearly impossible, but somehow France thinks they can bully ISPs into blocking Facebook or Google (within an hour) because of some one-sided SLA they passed as law.  I suspect they're more focused on that juicy 4% revenue fine, and they'll just use this as justification to hit up the tech companies for more money. 

[kuhla]

source - https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/germany-tightens-online-hate-speech-rules-to-make-platforms-send-reports-straight-to-the-feds/?guccounter=1

 

Quote

While a French online hate speech law has just been derailed by the country’s top constitutional authority on freedom of expression grounds, Germany is beefing up hate speech rules — passing a provision that will require platforms to send suspected criminal content directly to the Federal police at the point it’s reported by a user.

The move is part of a wider push by the German government to tackle a rise in right wing extremism and hate crime — which it links to the spread of hate speech online.

Germany’s existing Network Enforcement Act (aka the NetzDG law) came into force in the country in 2017, putting an obligation on social network platforms to remote hate speech within set deadlines as tight as 24 hours for easy cases — with fines of up to €50M should they fail to comply.

Yesterday the parliament passed a reform which extends NetzDG by placing a reporting obligation on platforms which requires them to report certain types of “criminal content” to the Federal Criminal Police Office.
.....

Unrealistic standards.

[Malaphax]

Tiktok and WeChat new downloads in the US will be banned from 9/20/20 and a full ban of the app is scheduled on 11/20/20 - this applies to both Apple and Google's app stores. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/18/tiktok-wechat-ban-trump/

Oracle is desperately trying to get a deal together for tiktok, but that would require approval. 

I have zero love for tiktok / bytedance, but I think this heavy handed banning of apps is another bad sign for the current trade war.  It also sets a terrible precedent, which will almost certainly see further retaliation moving forward. 
There are some very low rumblings about the DOJ going after other brands with heavy Chinese investment - anything that Tencent owns large percentage of like Epic and Riot Games.  That becomes a stickier issue because these companies have large US presences, and were started as US companies that happened to accept major equity stake from Tencent.  If we start seeing more strict rules surrounding foreign ownership percentage caps or additional scrutiny similar to the existing Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) limits, we could see business relations between China and the US fall even further than they currently are. 

Fore reference, long term investment between China and the US has fallen to a 9 year low and it doesn't look like that will change soon.  Even the economists are starting to making noise about how the lessening of economic ties increases the probability of military conflict. 

 

[Malaphax]

So streaming copyrighted content is now a felony.  That got crammed into the massive 5593 page omnibus spending/COVID relief bill. 

Since the bill was delivered to most members of congress in the evening and they were given approximately 2 hours to read it before voting, most members were either unaware of some of the awful riders stuck into the bill or were put in a position where they had to vote yes to try and provide some desperately needed relief to many americans. 

Here's a link to the EFF's initial take on the bill.  I suspect we'll be hearing more about other fun tidbits that were passed into law over the next few days and weeks. 

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/we-have-one-day-tell-congress-not-bankrupt-internet-users

[kuhla]

There are so many things about this that are infuriating. The short lead-time on the bill, the mountains of crap that was included in it, this one particular completely unrealistic-to-enforce measure regarding copyright, the laughable $600 check, etc.

[Malaphax]

Tom Scott doing another really solid video discussing how sponsorship/advertising disclosure is incredibly inconsistent across internet platforms vs traditional media.  He also puts forward a somewhat scary thought that if someone tried hard to fight some of the strict internet advertising rules in the US courts they would probably win, in part due to the broad freedoms granted by the first amendment.  He argues that traditional media should play by the same rules as internet media. 

Sorry if this is offtopic or if I seems like i"m shilling Tom Scott, I tend to enjoy his videos and when he does more in-depth content like this I find them well researched and quite interesting. 

[kuhla]

YOU MUST CONSUME

(joke)

I know this thread started focusing on governments "fracturing" the internet into regions but with many corporations the conversation is really not that different. What is to stop Disney or Facebook from having their own "walled garden"? Promoting the products they approve of?

[Jedi2155]

While we can't stop content hosting sites to stop walling off their gardens StarLink does at least have the potential to  bypass a lot of the great firewalls of their country. China / Russia etc.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/russia-may-fine-citizens-who-use-spacexs-starlink-internet-service/

[kuhla]

34 minutes ago, Jedi2155 said:

While we can't stop content hosting sites to stop walling off their gardens StarLink does at least have the potential to  bypass a lot of the great firewalls of their country. China / Russia etc.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/russia-may-fine-citizens-who-use-spacexs-starlink-internet-service/

It will be interesting to see how these countries respond to cheaper options like StarLink.

[Jedi2155]

2 minutes ago, kuhla said:

It will be interesting to see how these countries respond to cheaper options like StarLink.

One of interesting things was that Russia was planning on spending 20 billion for 600 satellites and if they all move to starlink already they'd lose all that revenue.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/02/15/why-russia-is-terrified-of-spacex-and-starlink/

 

[kuhla]

So what is a blunt force trauma option here? Any satellite service needs a dish. Tell cops if they see a dish on a roof to crosscheck against government membership list for "Sphere". Not on the list and not a VIP? Take the dish down, beat and then fine the homeowners. I imagine the tech savy folks will have to fall back on private or home spun-up VPN services.

[Jedi2155]

Just now, kuhla said:

So what is a blunt force trauma option here? Any satellite service needs a dish. Tell cops if they see a dish on a roof to crosscheck against government membership list for "Sphere". Not on the list and not a VIP? Take the dish down, beat and then fine the homeowners. I imagine the tech savy folks will have to fall back on private or home spun-up VPN services.

The main thing is that Starlink is for rural areas. You can probably get away with using a long time in places like Siberia....can't send me to the Gulag....if i'm already there! But really there isn't a good solution for this except to hide the dish when authorities come. 

[kuhla]

3 minutes ago, Jedi2155 said:

....for this except to hide the dish when authorities come. 

Maybe something like this?

 

 

But then why make this overly complicated. Membership requires payment. They only have to follow the money. Anyone making payment to business XYZ gets flagged. So the next question is will StarLink allow for people to join "anonymously" and pay with things like bitcoin?

Then you could also play the game of identification by omission. A house has a bunch of computers? Netflix membership? But no accounts with the local ISP? Highly suspicious. Target for raid.

[Malaphax]

I sincerely doubt that Russia or China will allow starlink connections amongst the bulk of it's citizens.  They'll do exactly what kuhla mentioned, they'll criminalize satellite dishes if you don't have proper authorization.  They'll track payments and bank records to follow the money to determine if you're trying to circumvent these restrictions.  Overly restrictive countries have cracked down on VPN services and encrypted messaging services before and this won't be any different. 

I think starlink has a better chance of being useful for other applications - provide internet access to international shipping vessels, or extremely rural areas, allow for NGOs and aid groups to keep contact in undeveloped parts of the world. 
That's the real user base of starlink - not Russian or Chinese citizens. 

[Malaphax]

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-56462390

Quote

The City of London police's Intellectual Property Crime Unit says using the Sci-Hub website could "pose a threat" to students' personal data.

The police are concerned that users of the "Russia-based website" could have information taken and misused online.

"Students should be aware that accessing such websites is illegal, as it hosts stolen intellectual property," said Det Insp Kevin Ives.

Oh no, people are getting access to academic papers that are often created with public funding and locked behind a paywall - that's terrible.

Citizens should abstain from accessing material like that because it cuts into our profits... I mean these nefarious websites could have viruses or steal your login credentials. 

[kuhla]

I have seen people talk about how that problem has become so bad that they really advocate reaching out directly to the authors of the research articles because they can and will often share a copy with them for free. Feels similar in many ways to the shady college textbook industry.