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Tumblr blocks tags for 'sensitive content' in order to stay on the App Store
Tumblr has restricted what its users can see on its iOS app in an effort to make sure it doesn't get kicked out of Apple's App Store again.
Facebook tests the ability to block certain words on your wall
If you're looking to keep certain content from ever appearing on your Facebook wall, there might be a feature in the pipeline for you. Computer science student Jane Manchun Wong discovered code on Facebook that appears to show the company is testing the ability to ban certain words, phrases and emoji from appearing on your personal timeline. Engadget reached out to Facebook for confirmation of the feature but has not received a response.
EA apologizes for censoring Colin Kaepernick’s name in ‘Madden 19’
EA has now apologized for removing Colin Kaepernick's name from a song included in the soundtrack of Madden 19. The game's soundtrack features the YG song "Big Bank," in which Big Sean says in a verse, "Feed me to the wolves, now I lead the pack and shit. You boys all cap, I'm more Colin Kaepernick." But in the soundtrack, Kaepernick's name is censored, a move that was called out yesterday on Twitter.
Cyberbullying nets '13 Reasons Why' mature rating in New Zealand
New Zealand has come out hard in its opposition to Netflix's series 13 Reasons Why. The high-school-focused show centering on a girl's suicide and its aftermath already has content warnings ahead of certain episodes, but a recent edict by New Zealand's Office of Film & Literature Classification rules that Netflix "will now be required to display a clear warning in respect to the series, as well as in respect to each episode." This comes after the country's 2015 ruling that makes cyberbullying a punishable offense. Furthermore, the series has received the region's first-ever RP18 rating, which means unless viewers are 18 or older, they should watch the show with an adult.
Twitter restores accounts and tweets previously blocked in Pakistan
Back in May, Pakistani authorities requested the removal of multiple tweets and Twitter accounts that were, according to them, blasphemous or unethical. Now, Twitter has now restored said content. In the social network's words: "We have reexamined the requests and, in the absence of additional clarifying information from Pakistani authorities, have determined that restoration of the previously withheld content is warranted. The content is now available again in Pakistan." The reversal of the block might answer critics that argued that the social network's current policy gave too much power to the already powerful -- allowing censorship from agencies and agents even if their country hasn't afforded them the right to do so. We've added the rest of Twitter's explanation after the break.
Twitter's blocking of 'blasphemous' content raises questions over its censorship policy
At first glance, Twitter's international policy on censorship seems reasonable. If the laws of a particular country require content to be locally blocked, then Twitter will adhere to that, deeming it to be a lesser evil than having the social network blocked in its entirety. This is what's just happened in Pakistan, where five requests from a government office have, for the first time, resulted in "blasphemous" and "unethical" tweets being blocked to Pakistani users -- including crude drawings of the Prophet Muhammad. This successfully avoided a repetition of what happened two years ago, when similar content temporarily led Pakistan to deploy a site-wan ban against twitter.com. However, critics say that, in practice, Twitter's policy isn't working fairly, because it's giving too much power to would-be censors who, even within their own countries, don't actually have any authority to block or delete content.
Saudi Arabia cracking down on local YouTube producers
Saudi Arabia's youngish population isn't crazy about local TV, so they've naturally turned to a substitute: YouTube. As a matter of fact, the country features three times the per-capita viewing as the US, to the point that Google reps conducted a roadshow teaching local producers how to make money. But according to the WSJ, authorities there aren't crazy about all that since they have no control over what gets posted on the "broadcast yourself" site. As a result, the kingdom is planning to regulate content produced in the country, with guidelines on alcohol, nudity and of course, wanton "drifting" videos (as shown below). It likely boils down to "security," though, as the nation has previously detained producers critical of the royal family. And that, unfortunately, is a movie we've seen before.
Twitter warned by Indian government to kibosh inflammatory tweets
India's in the midst of a security crisis and has asked Twitter to curtail "inflammatory messages" or prepare to face legal action, according to the Times of India. The country has shut down numerous websites, while Google and Facebook have already pledged to remove any threatening content. Officials reportedly said that Twitter "failed to cooperate" in efforts to curb messages or help the government find their source, despite an earlier pledge by the social network to censor content when a country demanded it. Indian ISPs have started blocking the service's accounts, according to TNW, but not Twitter itself, as the site first reported. In any case, the country still has a long way to go to catch the censorship leader.
French Supreme Court orders Google to censor piracy related terms in Instant search and Autocomplete
The French Supreme Court has handed down a ruling that Google must censor terms such as "torrent," "RapidShare," and other phrases that could be related to illegal file sharing. The decision was in response to a case brought by SNEP, a French music industry group, requesting that Google be forced to censor its results and be held accountable for facilitating piracy. The court ruled that the Mountain View company couldn't be held responsible for people's decision to click through to sites containing illegal material. But it reversed a lower court decision, demanding that related terms be removed from its autocomplete database to making finding such content more difficult. Google was understandably disappointed by the ruling, especially since the company already actively blocks some piracy related search terms. But, that apparently wasn't enough for the SNEP. Check out the ruling itself at the more coverage link.
Twitter Transparency Report shows DMCA and government actions: US is biggest busybody
Twitter dispatched its first biannual Transparency Report -- revealing government requests for user info and content holdback along with DMCA takedown notices -- which spotlights the US as the most active by far. The company claimed it was aroused to action by Google, which has been doing it for the last two years and recently added copyright takedowns to its own reports. So far, Twitter says that while most nations requested user data 10 times or fewer, the US government made 679 such appeals, more than the entire rest of the world combined. It also showed how often it obeyed -- 75 percent of the time in the US; much less elsewhere -- and said that affected users are always notified unless the company is prohibited from doing so. As we also noted with Google's reports, DMCA takedowns were by far the most numerous requests, with 3,378 total affecting 5,874 users, and 599 offending items actually pulled (38 percent). Those appeals aren't broken down by company like Mountain View's, but if you think that Usher photo mashup you're using as an avatar might be a problem, check the source to see all the data.
Google reveals government censorship requests are on the rise
Google's updated its transparency report to show how many times governments worldwide sought to censor search results, drop YouTube videos or look at user data in the second half of last year. Each request is logged and detailed, with the most filings coming from the US, UK and India. The requests varied from censoring a video where a Canadian citizen creatively destroyed his passport (not complied with) through to blogs promoting hate speech and violence (complied with). Mountain View's list makes for interesting reading, but it's not all bad news: where videos were merely critical or satirical of the local authorities, the search giant refused to pull 'em, respecting private citizens right to free speech in a great majority of cases.
Frogster responds to community uproar over European TERA changes
European TERA fans have been up in arms lately due to decisions on behalf of the game's European publisher, Frogster, to remove a notable amount of the game's mature content in hopes of receiving a PEGI 12 rating. Today, the game's lead community manager, Raven, took to the forums to explain the logic behind some of these decisions and to elaborate on what players can expect moving forward. The post begins with an apology for the lack of transparency in the matter of removing the blood effect slider from the game without mention; it goes on to promise that "the gore slider will be back with the original three different graduations and blood will still be spread on the ground during combat," though it's important to note that the feature will be patched back in shortly after launch. Raven also clarifies the reasons behind some of the changes made to the childlike Elin, stating that the changes were made "not to comply with a demand from any official board, but because those characters in particular could have attracted to the game a population of unsavoury users, and it is part of [Frogster's] responsibility to protect [TERA's] younger audiences from them." As far as the changes made to other character models (such as the reduction of female breast size and some changes that made certain pieces of armor less revealing) are concerned, Raven points out that those changes are present in all versions of the game, including the Korean version, so it's not a case of the game's being censored purely for Western audiences. To get the full details and put forth your tuppence on the matter, just head on over to the official TERA EU forums.
Twitter to begin 'reactively' censoring tweets in specific countries, still no love for China
It's no secret that certain countries have different views over freedom of expression on the internet, but this hasn't stopped Twitter's attempt to keep its service running in as many places as possible. In its latest blog post, the microblogging service announced that it'll begin "to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country" when required, in order to keep said content available to all users elsewhere (as opposed to blocking it globally). The withheld tweets will be marked accordingly while their authors get notified with reasons where possible, and internet legal rights monitor Chilling Effects will also post the relevant take-down notices on a dedicated page.This may seem like some form of censorship taking over Twitter, but the company only mentioned those of "historical or cultural reasons" like the ban of pro-Nazi content in France and Germany; so it's not clear whether Twitter will also handle similarly with tweets that potentially lead to events such as the UK riots last year. Even though Twitter didn't elaborate further for Reuters, there is one reassuring line in the post: "Some [countries] differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there."One such country is most likely China, and back at AsiaD in October, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told us that there's simply no way for his company to work with the Chinese government (you can watch him answering us at 38:17 in the video -- courtesy of All Things D -- after the break): "The unfortunate fact is we're just not allowed to compete in this market, and that's not up to us to change. The person to ask is trade experts between both governments, but at the end of the day we can't compete. They (Chinese microblogging platforms) can compete in our markets, and we're certainly interested in what that means for us... We would love to have a strong Twitter in China, but we'd need to be allowed to do that."There are obviously many factors that add up to this sour relationship, but the contradiction between China's strict internet monitoring policy and Twitter's core values is most likely the biggest obstacle. And of course, the Chinese government would favor its home-grown tech properties, anyway. That said, several months ago, one of the country's largest microblogging services Sina Weibo was criticized by the authorities for not censoring fast enough, so it's obvious that it'd be even trickier to work with a foreign company that sees things differently. Things are unlikely to change any time soon, or ever, unless China relaxes its policy.
UK Gov wants opt-in system for adult material, imagine a boot stamping on a trackpad, forever
Looks like Prime Minister David Cameron's not content with just shuttering the internet during social unrest (whilst condemning others who do the same). He's declared that four of the UK's biggest ISPs have entered into an opt-in system for adult material. The move is backed by the Mothers Union but has been flatly denied by the ISPs, who insist they're offering McAfee parental controls with new signups rather than Government-level web filtering. (Probably a massive let down to those eagerly waiting to delegate their parental responsibilities.) Of course, given the flaky nature of web filtering, any sanguine word that contained an expletive (the word "arsenal", for example) could be impossible to access until you had an awkward conversation with someone over the phone.
China tightens grip on VPN access amid pro-democracy protests, Gmail users also affected
If you've been struggling to get your dose of Facebook or Twitter in China recently, then you're probably one of the many Internet users who've had their VPN access -- either free or paid for -- blocked over the last two weeks or so. That's right, the notorious Great Firewall of China is still alive and well, and leaving proxy servers aside, VPN is pretty much the only way for keen netizens to access websites that are deemed too sensitive for their eyes; or to "leap over the wall," as they say. Alas, the recent pro-democracy protests didn't exactly do these guys any favor -- for one, their organizers used Twitter along with an overseas human rights website to gather protesters, and with the National People's Congress meetings that were about to take place (and wrapped up last night), it was no surprise that the government went tough on this little bypassing trick. To make matters worse, PC World is reporting that Gmail users are also affected by slow or limited access, despite the service previously being free from China's blacklist. We reached out to a handful of major VPN service providers, and they all confirmed a significant increase in the amount of blockage -- possibly by having their servers' PPTP IP addresses blocked -- over the last two weeks. One company even spotted the Chinese government subscribing to its paid service, only to work its way into the network to locate the company's PPTP server list, and then put them behind the firewall. Fortunately for some, the better-off companies had backup servers to rapidly resolve the problem, whereas the cheaper and free services were unable to dodge the bullet. This just goes to show that sometimes you get what you pay for. That said, with practically unlimited human hacking power at its disposal, it doesn't take much for the firewall to shut down everything heading its way. For the sake of our friends and expats there, let's just hope that the government will take things down a notch as soon as the storm calms.
Google begins censoring autocomplete results for BitTorrent, RapidShare and other Big Media profanity
Tried searching for "BitTorrent," "RapidShare," "uTorrent," "MegaUpload" or even "Ubuntu torrent" lately? Good luck finding a Google domain that'll autocomplete those results for you. Presumably caving to pleading from the MPAA and / or RIAA, El Goog has quietly begun to censor the results it shows when typing the above terms. Needless to say, the aforesaid companies aren't too keen on the new procedures, and strangely enough, a number of other sites that would typically be grouped into this same category -- MediaFire, 4shared and HotFile -- remain on the cleared list. Hit the source link if you're looking for loads of responses from companies angered with Google's move, and feel free to reset your homepage to Bing, Yahoo or any other search engine who has yet to bend. You know, if you're feeling rebellious.
British government wants all porn filtered out of the web, all fun sucked out of life
You can't be surprised at developments like these when you elect a political party whose very name is Conservative, but it's still rather sad to hear that the current UK government is putting pressure on ISPs to "protect children" by universally blocking access to porn websites. It's not outright censorship, you'll be able to "opt in" and restore your freedom to explore adult content (or anything else that's been inadvertently blocked), though it's all a rather misguided effort in our eyes. Claire Perry, one of the leading voices behind this push, cites stats noting that 60 percent of nine- to 19-year olds have found pornography online, yet she fails to elaborate on what's been so traumatizing or debilitating about the experience -- or why violent content is getting a free pass. We still think good parenting -- say, by using the local controls built into your OS or search engine -- is a much cheaper option than some complex censorship wall, but that won't prevent the Conservatives from pursuing legislation over the next couple of years if broadband providers don't figure out blocking mechanisms of their own. For shame, Britain.
iMovie '11 Trailers feature won't let you spoof Universal trailers
Loyal tipster Tarik sent word that the iMovie '11 Trailers theme using a globe (very similar to the Universal Studios opener) won't allow you to use the word "Universal" in the title. He's currently testing other themes for similar censors, but it looks like Apple didn't want people spoofing Universal Studios trailers. Because I'm sure "Me and my dog go to the beach" could easily be confused with "Marley and Me,"* right? As you can see in the picture, Tarik tried to input Universal for the "studio name" field. iMovie detected this, and substituted the hyphens. Further, he reports you're able to use the string 'Universal' in other themes, just not in this one. Was this accommodation reached directly with Universal, perhaps to prevent any derailing of Universal's deal for distribution on iTunes and Apple TV? I doubt we'll ever know. Let us know in the comments if you find more examples of this. UPDATE: iMovie '11 won't let you write in the text string "Paramount" without the adding the hyphenations either. Image on the next page. *Yeah, I know "Marley and Me" is a 20th Century Fox production.
Internet content filters are human too, funnily enough
Algorithms can only take you so far when you want to minimize obscene content on your social networking site. As the amount of user-uploaded content has exploded in recent times, so has the need for web content screeners, whose job it is to peruse the millions of images we throw up to online hubs like Facebook and MySpace every day, and filter out the illicit and undesirable muck. Is it censorship or just keeping the internet from being overrun with distasteful content? Probably a little bit of both, but apparently what we haven't appreciated until now is just how taxing a job this is. One outsourcing company already offers counseling as a standard part of its benefits package, and an industry group set up by Congress has advised that all should be providing therapy to their image moderators. You heard that right, people, mods need love too! Hit the source for more.
EyePhone reference mysteriously disappears from online clips of Futurama
Remember how awesome and clever Futurama was the other night? Well, if you missed it, your chances to see it in its original form might be slowly dwindling. It seems that Comedy Central has wiped out the reference in the dialogue to the "EyePhone 2.0." So, while we don't have any conspiracy theories brewing about what happened, it's a pretty odd thing to scrub, and we figure there are two possibilities: either Comedy Central is trying to cover their <censored> on this one, or they got a late night email from... someone. Thankfully, nothing disappears on the internet, so you can check out both clips and see for yourself after the break. [Thanks, Henry L.]
