#UK: PM Rishi Considers Ban of Children From Social Media

[world politics news]

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s U.K. government is studying a crackdown on social media access for children under the age of 16, including potential bans, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Ministers plan to begin a consultation as soon as January to gather evidence about the extent of potential harm to children from using social media, the sources said, asking not to be named. Another source said the plan may not be in the final draft of the rule.

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#CANADA: New Online Media Law Prompts Meta To Block News Sharing By Canadians

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Meta said it will follow through with a threat to block Canadians from sharing news on its platforms, after the federal government passed a law requiring digital firms to pay domestic media organizations for their content.

“We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” the parent company of Facebook said in a statement Thursday.

The law, known as the Online News Act, is one part of a broad and contentious effort by the Canadian government to regulate the digital sphere and circumscribe the power of tech giants. Another law passed this year compelling streaming platforms such as Netflix to promote Canadian content to users in Canada also drew criticism.

[FULL STORY HERE]

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#CANADA: Growing Opposition To Internet Censorship Bill

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The chorus of Canadians from all walks of life calling on the Senate to kill the Trudeau government’s Internet censorship bill is growing louder by the day.

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World Politics News is dedicated to raising Americans' knowledge of political events, elections, and legislation throughout the world.

#IRAN: Parliament Takes Up Bill To Cut Off Internet From The World

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Iranian members of parliament have pushed ahead a controversial bill that would essentially cut off most Iranians from the internet and hand over the country’s internet infrastructure to the armed forces.

On Feb. 22, a special parliamentary committee approved the general outline of the “Bill to Protect Users in Cyberspace,” first introduced three years ago. Last July, members of parliament attempted to push through the bill but decided to pull back after widespread criticism. 

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#CANADA: Google Urges Caution As Gov't Explores New Internet Curbs

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As Canadian MPs prepare to debate a wave of government proposals aimed at imposing new limits on web giant Google, a senior Google official is asking them not to go too far. Kent Walker, Google’s president and chief legal officer for worldwide affairs, said the firm is prepared for the new standards in a recent interview.

However, he warned that some of the offers currently broadcasting in Canada and other countries could have a significant negative impact on people’s online experiences.

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#AUSTRALIA: Gov't To Hold Online Platforms Responsible For Defamation

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Australia will introduce legislation to make social media giants provide details of users who post defamatory comments, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

The government has been looking at holding platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, responsible for defamatory material published on their sites and in September the country’s highest court ruled that publishers can be held liable for public comments on online forums.

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#VIETNAM: Man Gets 8-Year Jail Sentenced For Posting Gov't Criticism On Facebook

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A court in Vietnam has sentenced a man to eight years in prison after finding him guilty of uploading anti-state posts on his Facebook account, the security ministry said.

Despite sweeping economic reform and increasing openness to social change, Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party retains tight media censorship and tolerates little criticism.

Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong, 29, was charged with “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the state” at a one-day trial in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, the Ministry of Public Security said in a news release.

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#RUSSIA: Courts Fine Facebook, Twitter For "Banned Content"

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Russia has fined Facebook and Twitter for not deleting banned content, adding to a slew of penalties the government has imposed on foreign tech giants.

Russia has recently been tightening controls over U.S.-based tech companies and has accused them of interfering in parliamentary polls last month.

A court in Moscow slapped Facebook with five fines totaling 21 million rubles ($288,000), according to an official Telegram channel. The same court fined Twitter 5 million rubles.

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World Politics News is dedicated to raising Americans' knowledge of political events, elections, and legislation throughout the world.

#CHINA: Gov't Limits Children To Three Hours Of Online Gaming Per Week

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The Communist Chinese government has announced far-reaching restrictions on minors playing video games, a move that further exacerbates tensions between the powerful central government and its tech sector.

Under the new regulations unveiled by China’s National Press and Publication Administration Aug. 30, children under 18 will not be allowed to play video games from Monday through Thursday and only between 8pm and 9pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: A maximum of three hours a week. 

The policy only applies to online games and users will need to register using their real names and government identification.

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#CUBA: Cybersecurity Law Criticized As Way To Crack Down On Protests

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The Cuban government had published decrees spelling out its first cybersecurity law, which has been criticized as an attempt to limit political and civic freedoms on the island. 

The decrees, which lay out the Caribbean nation's laws against the use of social media or the internet to insult the state or stir up protests, were published in the Official Gazette weeks after Cuba saw the largest protests it has seen in recent years.

The protests were fed, in part, by messages on social media. 

[FULL STORY HERE]

World Politics News is dedicated to raising Americans' knowledge of political events, elections, and legislation throughout the world.

#CANADA: Senator Calls Internet Regulation Bill "Orwellian"

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Canada’s controversial Bill C-10 sends the country “down a rabbit hole on internet regulation,” according to Senator Michael MacDonald.

 The Nova Scotia senator, who is the Conservative chair of the Senate communications committee overseeing the bill, goes as far as to call the bill ‘Orwellian,’ reports Blacklock’s Reporter.

Bill C-10 would allow the CRTC regulate privately-viewed YouTube videos as they do with commercial broadcasters, with $15 million fines possible in some cases for violators.

The bill will not be taken up again by the Senate until the fall, because it has adjourned for the summer.

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#NIGERIA: Attorney General Likely Violated Twitter Ban

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Nigeria’s Attorney General Abubakar Malami, likely violated the nation's Twitter ban to deactivate his account this week.

A media investigation showed that a Twitter account can’t be deactivated unless you have access to the app, meaning Malami must have logged in to deactivate it, violating the law.

The Nigerian government banned Twitter nationwide last Friday after the App deleted a controversial comment made by President Muhammadu Buhari, in which he made reference to the Nigerian Civil War, which many Nigerians described as distasteful. 

Despite the threat of prosecution, many Nigerians have been using Virtual Private Networks to access Twitter.

[FULL STORY HERE]

World Politics News is dedicated to raising Americans' knowledge of political events, elections, and legislation throughout the world.

#NIGERIA: Nation Blocks Twitter After President's Tweet Deleted

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The Nigerian government says it has "indefinitely suspended" Twitter's operations in the country, the Ministry of Information and Culture announced in a statement on Friday.

"The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria," it read.

The suspension comes two days after Twitter deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari that was widely perceived as offensive.

An estimated 39 million Nigerians use Twitter.

[FULL STORY HERE]

World Politics News is dedicated to raising Americans' knowledge of political events, elections, and legislation throughout the world.

#CANADA: Gov't Moves To Regulate User Content On Social Media

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The Liberal Party-dominated House of Commons has cleared the way for the federal government to regulate video content on internet social media, such as YouTube, the same way it regulates national broadcasting, under a new amendment updating the Broadcasting Act.

Critics denounced the move to give the country’s broadcast regulator the ability to oversee user-generated content, and said it amounted to an attack on the free expression of Canadians, particularly in light of Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s recent plans to give Ottawa power to order take-downs of online content it deems objectionable.

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#POLAND: Bill Would Fine Social Media Giants For Removing Content Legal In Poland

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Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro has announced a legal initiative aimed at enabling internet users to file complaints against the removal of online posts as well as the creation of a special court for freedom of speech.

Ziobro said the aim of the bill is to give internet users the feeling that their rights are protected and that their posts cannot be arbitrarily removed from online platforms.

Under its provisions, social media services can be fined if they remove content or block accounts if the content on them does not break Polish law.

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#AUSTRALIA: Chinese-Owned Chat App Censors Prime Minister's Post

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Chinese social media app WeChat has censored a post by Australia's prime minister in the midst of a deepening diplomatic feud, raising concerns about Beijing's ability to export censorship overseas through technology groups.

The platform, which is owned by Chinese technology company Tencent, removed a post by Scott Morrison that contained a conciliatory message for the Chinese Australian community during a period of intense diplomatic tension between Canberra and Beijing.

The incident followed Australia's furious reaction to a Twitter post by a Chinese diplomat this week, which falsely depicted an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child, a reference to a war crimes inquiry.

[FULL STORY HERE]

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#SOLOMONISLANDS: Cabinet Votes To Ban Facebook

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The Cabinet of the Solomon Islands has agreed to ban Facebook, citing a need for stricter cybercrime legislation and regulation.

The Communications Minister, Peter Shanel Agovaka, confirmed the decision to the Solomon Times newspaper, saying public misuse of the platform was the main concern.

He said country was lacking legislation on internet usage and cybercrime which was particularly worrying when it came to what children were accessing and being exposed to.

[FULL STORY HERE]

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#RUSSIA: Websites Banned, Censored, For Showing "Disrespect" To Russian Constitution, "State Symbols"

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Information showing disrespect to Russia, its society and official state symbols has been deleted from 79 websites, according to a state censorship agency, Roskomnadzor.

After the enactment of the law protecting Russia’s state symbols earlier this year, the agency received 45 claims against 85 Internet pages from the Prosecutor General’s Office, the most part of which (70%) related to the insults of Russia’s Constitution, flag and emblem.

To the date, four URLs have been blocked, banned information has been removed from 79 URLs and removal of the information from 2 websites is expected, the statement reads.

The law, signed by Pres. Putin in March, blocks websites containing defamatory information insulting Russia's society, state symbols and state bodies into law. The law stipulates fines from 30,000 rubles (about $455) to 100,000 rubles ($1,500). In case the offence is committed for the second time, it is to be punishable with fines from 100,000 rubles to 200,000 rubles ($1,500 – 3,000), or administrative detention for up to 15 days. Repeated violations are to be punished with fines ranging from 200,000 rubles to 300,000 rubles ($3,000 – 4,500), or administrative detention for the same term.

[FULL STORY HERE]

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#POLAND: Ruling Party Hints It May Not Fully Implement New EU Copyright Law; "Stifles" Freedom Of Speech

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The leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party has hinted that the government will not fully implement the EU’s new copyright reform law, saying it stifles freedom of speech.

Speaking at a convention in the northern city of Gdańsk on Saturday, Jaroslaw Kacznski said his conservative ruling party would strive to defend the rights of internet users in Poland after the controversial new rules were voted through by the EU Parliament. Kacznski said the newly approved EU Copyright Directive would be brought into Polish law - by the Law and Justice Party of which he is head - "in such a way that the freedom of the internet is preserved."

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#EU: Critics Say New European Copyright Law Endangers Internet Freedom

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Amid widespread protests, online and off, the European Union approved a controversial new copyright directive on Tuesday. The legislation is intended to give copyright holders more control over their work, but critics say it could hand more power to tech giants, stifle the free flow of information, and even prevent memes from being shared online.

European Parliament passed the copyright directive in a vote with 348 votes in favor, 274 against, and 36 abstentions. The new guidelines are the EU’s first major update to its copyright laws since 2001.

[FULL STORY HERE]

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