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Summary: Nearly 10 years ago, Cleanfeed was designed to protect the British public from child abuse imagery. A decade later, the same system is used to enforce ISP blocks on file-sharing and Magnet-link websites like The Pirate Bay. How did the U.K. fall into censorship creep?

Censorship is a slippery slope.The United Kingdom: my home. Case in point:

Nearly five years ago, the U.K. pushed the Web censorship switch. Most U.K. residents didnt even notice. Designed by telecoms giant British Telecom (BT), Cleanfeed was used to filter out child abuse imagery, and did so with great success.

Users would not see a warning message or a startling warning about the content they had tried to orinadvertentlyaccessed. The page just wouldnt load.

In 2007, Home Office minister Vernon Coaker ordered all U.K. ISPs to subscribe to Cleanfeed to prevent access toscenes of sexual abuse and criminally obscene content.

And then things began to change.

The U.K.s anti-piracy legislation, the Digital Economy Act, was brought into law by a tiny minority of parliamentaryrepresentatives in 2010. In all fairness, it was only a matter of time.

But a series of delays means the law is yet to swing into full effect. Its three-strike system, designed to inform copyright infringers that repeated acts would lead to Internet disconnections, has been put on ice until 2014.

The United States followed in the U.K.s footsteps with the Stop Online Piracy Act, also known as SOPA. In a similar fashion to the Digital Economy Act, it would allow copyright holders to seek court injunctions against websites that enable or facilitate copyright infringement.

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'Censorship creep': Pirate Bay block will affect one-third of UK

Nearly 10 years ago, "Cleanfeed" was designed to protect the British public from child abuse imagery. A decade later, the same system is used to enforce ISP blocks on sites like The Pirate Bay. How did the U.K. fall into "censorship creep"?

Censorship is a slippery slope. The United Kingdom: my home. Case in point.

Most U.K. customers accessing The Pirate Bay will see this, or a similar message.

Nearly five years ago, the U.K. flipped the Web censorship switch. Most U.K. residents didn't even notice. Designed by telecommunications giant British Telecom (BT), "Cleanfeed" was used to filter out child abuse imagery, and it did so with great success.

Users would not see a notice or a startling warning about the content they had inadvertently accessed or had tried to reach. The page just wouldn't load.

In 2007, Home Office minister Vernon Coaker ordered all U.K. ISPs to subscribe to Cleanfeed to prevent access to scenes of sexual abuse and "criminally obscene" content.

And then things began to change.

The U.K.'s antipiracy legislation, the Digital Economy Act, was brought into law by a tiny minority of parliamentary representatives in 2010. In all fairness, it was only a matter of time.

But a series of delays means the law has yet to swing into full effect. Its "three-strikes" system, designed to inform copyright infringers that repeated acts would lead to Internet disconnections, has been put on ice until 2014.

The United States followed in the U.K.'s footsteps with the Stop Online Piracy Act, also known as SOPA. In a similar fashion to the Digital Economy Act, it would allow copyright holders to seek court injunctions against Web sites that "enable or facilitate copyright infringement."

See the article here:
'Censorship creep': Pirate Bay block will affect one-third of U.K.

15 June 2012 Last updated at 11:19 ET By Mario Cacciottolo BBC News

Argyll and Bute Council are in the news for falling foul of what's known as the Streisand Effect - the act of trying to suppress information but simply making it more widespread as a result.

Martha Payne, from Argyll, was writing about her school dinners on her NeverSeconds blog, taking pictures of them and offering ratings for their nutritional value.

But Argyll and Bute Council banned her from taking photos of her school's food, saying press coverage of the blog had led catering staff to fear for their jobs.

However, they reckoned without the Streisand Effect, which saw the photo ban make headline news in some of the nation's biggest media organisations and the story spiral into a much bigger one that it ever was before.

The furore forced the local authority to reverse the ban, with the leader issuing a statement to say there was "no place for censorship" on the council.

The story sums up the Streisand Effect, named after singer Barbra Streisand, which is an online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove information - a photo, video, story etc - results in the greater spread of the information in question.

Paul Armstrong, head of social for Mindshare, a global media network, says the Streisand Effect is a reminder to brands and celebrities about the effect groups, and individuals, can have on the internet in a very short space of time.

"People have an innate inquisitiveness. When this is mixed with a fear of missing out, feeling something is being hidden from them or that someone is overacting to something, it can cause individuals to react in undesired or mischievous ways that others then support.

"Mix this combination with a natural dislike for censorship and brands or individuals can have a recipe for disaster on their hands."

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The Streisand Effect: When censorship backfires

Today in books and publishing: Fighting censorship of a book about lesbian moms; Israel fights against book discounts; where are the stay-at-home dads in kids' books; you will covet this book-tent.

Censorship of a picture book. Debate continues over In Our Mothers' House, a book by Patricia Polacco about a lesbian couple that was put behind checkout counters in elementary libraries in Utah's Davis School District. (The book now require a parent's permission slip to be checked out.)The Kids' Right to Read Project, which is a combined effort of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, wrote to Superintendent Bryan Bowles, as did the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah earlier this week, to say that restricting access to the book"diminishes the education value of the library whose primary role is to allow students to make choices according to their own interests, experiences, and family values" and is likely unconstitutional.

"Federal courts have consistently concluded that the First Amendment protects student access to books in their school libraries, free from limits based on the administrations disagreement with the viewpoints expressed in the books," said John Mejia, legal director of the ACLU of Utah.

"From what we know of the districts removal of the book, we have serious concerns that the district may have fallen short of these protections."

A committee of seven teachers, administrators, and parents voted (6-1) to keep the book off shelves on April 30 because, they said, it didn't align with curriculum standards, "because state law dictates that curriculum cannot advocate homosexuality."A librarian cast the lone no vote. Bowles has reportedly been in conversations with the ACLU. On the up side, remember what happens with censored books? They tend toonly get more popular. [Salt Lake Tribune]

Elsewhere: Why so few stay-at-home dads in kids' books? [The Globe and Mail]

Israeli authors are fighting against book discounts offered by the county's two main bookstore chains, Steimatzky and Tzomet Sfarim,"claiming the price slashing [as low as $6 a book as opposed to catalogue prices ranging $15 or $20] has cut into their royalties." They've gotten Netanyahu and government ministers to support them, and "the parliament is expected to approve a bill enshrining the limits." In France, Germany, and Mexico, similar laws have been passed. [Fox News]

Y.A. appeal for urban youth.Hoping to get more kids to read, Saddleback Educational Publishing is banking on the Urban Flip Book seriesby Stephanie Perry Moore, who co-wrote the boy's books in the series with her husband, former NFL player Derrick Moore. The series is about high school cheerleaders and football players (it's inspired byFriday Night Lights)and is written at a third-grade reading level. "'Many of our struggling learners are African American, Latino, ethnically diverse, so it's important to connect with all of them and show them there are books about them, about the families they're a part of, the friends they have, the environments they're used to,' said [Saddleback's Arianne] McHugh, whose company publishes 100 books each year for middle- and high-school students that marry tween and teen content with a first- to fourth-grade reading level, as well as supplemental educational material written at lower reading levels than the curriculum."[Los Angeles Times]

Google Play books are now available in Germany.That means Google's online bookstore is expandingit's also in Australia, Canada, Italy, the UK, and the U.S. Surely, there will be more. [Engadget]

Art with books: Here is some beautiful book carving byGuy Laramee. And here is the $769 book tentyou didn't even know you needed. You are welcome.

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The Censorship of a Book About Two Moms; Israel Battles Book Discounts

SELECTIVE CENSORSHIP- Study finds criticism is accepted well but any suggestion of collective action is a no-no

WHEN Barack Obama visited China in 2009, the American leader made it a point to publicly declare himself "a big supporter of non-censorship" and said that criticism made him a better president.

"I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," he said. "They can begin to think for themselves."

Implicit in his remarks was the assumption that Chinese censors try to stamp out criticisms of the government and Communist Party.

Well, a new study by Harvard University casts doubt on that supposition. The study, which investigated "the most extensive effort to selectively censor human expression ever implemented", declares that the purpose of the Chinese censorship programme "is not to suppress criticism of the state or the party".

Censorship of social media in China, it turns out, is by no means a blunt instrument. Instead, it is finely tuned, with censors across the country allowing critical viewpoints of the government and of government officials.

"Posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders and its policies are not more likely to be censored," the study, led by Professor Gary King of Harvard's department of government, concluded.

"Negative posts do not accidentally slip through a leaky or imperfect system. The evidence indicates that the censors have no intention of stopping them."

Even more surprisingly, the study concludes that the Chinese government is pretty evenhanded when it censors the Internet, deleting "views that are both supportive and critical of the state".

The primary goal of censorship, it turns out, is to restrict "the spread of information that may lead to collective action", even action that is not directed against the government or, indeed, is not overtly political.

Read the rest here:
Beijing works the Internet to its advantage