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A disgruntled agency worker has revealed Facebook's rules for blocking offensive content - and while 'crushed heads' are fine, female nipples aren't.

Moroccan-born  worker Amine Derkaoui was employed by oDesk to filter out offensive comment from Facebook, but released the policy to gossip site Gawker when he'd finally had enough of being paid $1 per hour.

It makes entertaining reading. On the banned list are 'naked private parts including female nipple bulges and naked butt cracks; male nipples are OK'.

Also out are 'blatant (obvious depiction of camel toes and moose knuckles' and 'images of drunk and unconscious peiple, or speeping people with things drawn on their faces'.

School fight videos are okay, though, as long as the video hasn't been posted to continue tormenting the person targeted in the video'. Deep flesh wounds are fine, as are 'excessive blood', and even crushed heads - 'as long as no insides are showing'.

Earwax is out; snot is fine.

California-based oDesk is an agency offering remote freelance workers, and provides content moderation services to Google, Wikipedia and AOL as well as Facebook.

Derkaoui told Gawker that around 50 people from developing countries worked from home on the Facebook account, for just $1 per hour plus commission.
 

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Facebook censorship rulebook leaked

NEW YORK (AP) — A global coalition against censorship is needed to protect online journalists and bloggers who are being targeted by repressive governments, a leading advocacy group said Tuesday.

At least 46 journalists died around the world in 2011, the Committee to Protect Journalists said, an increase from the estimate it released in December. Seven journalists were killed in Pakistan, where 29 journalists have been killed in the past five years.

Freelancers, bloggers and citizen journalists like those reporting in the Middle East have few resources to defend themselves against censorship and attacks, the CPJ said. Authoritarian states are buying communications surveillance equipment from Western manufacturers and using it to monitor and target journalists and bloggers, the group said.

The report cited people in Syria who smuggled video footage to reporters across the world and were consequently tracked and tortured by government authorities after their Facebook accounts were hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, a government-sponsored hacking group.

The New York-based group said the number of deaths while covering dangerous assignments, such as street protests, reached the highest level since 1992. Most of the deaths were in the Middle East and North Africa, where 19 journalists died last year, most while covering the Arab world uprisings.

One third of those killed were freelance journalists, more than double the proportion that freelancers have constituted over the years.

Nine online journalists were killed for their work, including Mexican reporter Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro, whose decapitated body was found with a note saying she had been killed for reporting news on social media websites. Her death was the ?rst documented by CPJ that was directly tied to journalism published on social media.

The committee found that 179 journalists were imprisoned as of Dec. 1, an increase driven by widespread imprisonment across the Middle East and North Africa. About half of those work primarily online, the committee said.

The highest number of jailed journalists was in Iran, where 42 reporters were behind bars.

While the Internet and social media has helped democratize the dissemination of information, the nature of such newsgathering leaves journalists especially vulnerable to censorship and retaliation, the CPJ said in its annual survey. There are few legal mechanisms to fight censorship on an international level, the group said.

The CPJ said governments, the business community and human rights organizations must urge intergovernmental groups to create a legal framework to adjudicate press freedom cases at the international level.

In 2010, CPJ hired its ?rst Internet advocacy coordinator to act as a liaison between Silicon Valley and the journalists who depend on their products — "not only to get the news out, but also to protect them and their sources from physical harm," the report said.

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NY group: Online journalists censored, attacked

Mexico: where journalists have protested against rising violence against reporters

Copyright: Knight Foundation on Flickr. Some rights reserved The executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for a "global coalition" between media, governments, business sectors and "civil society organisations" against censorship.

In the press freedom organisation's annual Attacks on the Press report, which documents the "media conditions" across more than 100 countries, Simon refers to "the next information revolution", where those keen to restrict the press have learnt "that maintaining a viable censorship regime is even more urgent in the information age."

He adds: "The reality is that there are few effective legal mechanisms to fight censorship on an international level."
 
In response he called for "the many constituencies that have a stake in ensuring the free flow of information" to work together to form a "global coalition against censorship".

This coalition would include the business sector, for example, which has "operations and supply chains spread throughout the world".

"Navigating political unrest, environmental disaster, and other disruptions is crucial – and it cannot be done effectively when key information is censored."

Others to join the coalition should include governments and groups "with a global agenda", in particular "human rights and environmental organisations", according to Simon.

"The key is to mobilise the many constituencies that have a stake in ensuring the free flow of information – civil society and advocacy groups, businesses, governments, and intergovernmental organisations – and build a global coalition against censorship.

After all, an attack on an Egyptian, Pakistani, or Mexican journalist inhibits the ability of people around the world to receive the information that journalist would have providedJoel Simon, executive director, CPJ"While the ability to seek and receive information is an individual human right, there is a collective interest in ensuring that information flows freely. After all, an attack on an Egyptian, Pakistani, or Mexican journalist inhibits the ability of people around the world to receive the information that journalist would have provided."

The coalition should work to call on "international organisations, including intergovernmental groups such as the Organization of American States and the Council of Europe, as well as the United Nations, to create a legal framework to ensure that press freedom and freedom of information are respected in practice", he added.

"Human rights and press freedom organisations should look for opportunities to adjudicate press freedom cases at the international level in order to build a body of global precedent."

In reference to the impact of the internet, he added that while the online world provides a platform for bloggers and citizen journalists to share information in countries where other communications are restricted, the fact is that many of them "work with few resources and little or no institutional support".

"Just as global citizens have a stake in ensuring that information flows freely, powerful forces – criminal organisations, militant groups, repressive governments – have enormous interest in controlling the news. Censorship within national borders disrupts the flow of information around the world.

"A global coalition against censorship needs to unite behind a simple idea: Censorship anywhere affects people everywhere. It can and should be abolished."

In the preface to the 462 page report, chairman of the CPJ Sandra Mims Rowe also refers to the need for greater protection, adding that "about half of the journalists imprisoned worldwide work primarily online".

"In much of the world, the enemies of free speech are monitoring journalists and bloggers, filtering online content, and attacking news websites."

She adds: "Supplementing the old fashioned beatings used to secure the names of colleagues and sources from journalists, the digital 'army' has employed the phishing of Facebook pages to dupe people into providing passwords and identities."

Now the press freedom group is working to "act as a bridge between Silicon Valley and the journalists who depend on their products".

Last year the CPJ's first internet advocacy coordinator Danny O'Brien brought together technologists and journalists to meet and discuss these issues, she reports.

"While the internet has provided the equivalent of a printing press to millions of people across the world, it has also broadened the power to shutter those presses. Technology is allowing journalists to slip the chains of censorship, but that new found freedom will be fleeting if not defended."

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CPJ calls for 'global coalition' against censorship

One week into his re-election campaign, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has already courted plenty of controversy.

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy

His "La France Forte" or "A strong France" campaign posters have been the subject of parody, with variations on the original of Sarkozy pictured with a tranquil sea behind him modified to include a capsized cruise ship — a reference to the sunken Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy — among the more notable.

Earlier this week his team appeared to have asked Twitter to close down four accounts linked to the spoof posters.

A member of Sarkozy’s team told French newspaper Le Monde that he had asked Twitter to remove the accounts, arguing that they could confusion as they used both Sarkozy’s first and last name.

The "#sarkocensure" hashtag has become one of the most popular in France, with many ridiculing Sarkozy who has in the past called for more regulation of the “Wild West” Internet.

For his visit to a Halal abattoir on Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras, some tweeters suggested he might dress up as Francois Hollande, his socialist challenger, to please the crowds.

An Ifop poll published on Sunday showed the French President trailing behind his socialist challenger, although the gap has narrowed. Twenty nine percent of those polled said they would vote for Hollande, while 27 would support Sarkozy. Right-wing Front National candidate Marine Le Pen was in third place with 17.5 percent of the vote.

But Sarkozy, undeterred, will have taken heart from economic data last week which showed the French economy managed to grow in the final quarter of 2011 — if only by 0.2 percent — contrary to that of many of its euro zone peers.

The euro zone as a whole saw a contraction of 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Focus on the Economy

Economists fear France will not be able to stay in the lead and that the figures should not offer too much hope that the economy might be more resilient to the periphery’s troubles than feared.

“Prospects for French exports are marred by fairly weak competitiveness and a reliance on trade within the euro-zone, while the previous consumer recovery has already stalled. And with the banking sector still highly exposed to Italy and the peripheral economies, we see France losing its lead before long,” analysts at Capital Economics said in a note.

They point out that with half of its exports going to other euro zone countries, and 40 percent of those to the southern and peripheral economies, the prospect of further sharp falls in demand there bodes very ill for French exporters.

“As the peripheral debt crisis worsens, French GDP is likely to fall sharply, particularly if Italy is dragged back in,” they said.

In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Jean Francois Copé, Secretary General of Sarkozy's center-right UMP party said France had to focus its attention on reducing the budget deficit and public spending.

“We have to change the growth model which was totally relying on public spending," Copé said.

He added that his party would scrap France's 35-hour working week.

Sarkozy will argue that his close cooperation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in fighting the euro zone debt crisis makes him the right man to navigate France through troubled waters.

At his first big rally in Marseille on Monday he sought to project the image of a strong and experienced leader who had helped France to escape what has befallen those in Greece.

The first round of the elections takes place on April 22. Until then, he has many a skeptical French voter to convince.

© 2012 CNBC.com

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Censorship and Parody in French Election Campaign

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