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AAP had said that if an advertisement appears to be communal or obscene, then the government needs to take action against the person as per the law in existence.

In a democracy there cannot be pre-censorship, the Delhi High Court told the AAP government regarding its policy on display of advertisements on auto rickshaws on Thursday.

In a democracy it (pre-censorship) should not be done. What is the need for pre-censorship or prohibition of any political advertisement? How can you do it? A citizen can be political, a justices S Ravindra Bhat and Pratibha M Singh said.

AAPhad said that if an advertisement appears to be communal or obscene, then the government needs to take action against the person as per the law in existence.

The Delhi government, meanwhile, told the court that it is coming out with a new policy regarding display of advertisement on public service vehicles (PSVs) including auto rickshaws in which the prohibition against political ads would be removed. However, they also said that pre-censorship was required to which the court did not agree.

The bench listed the matter for hearing on August 9 giving time to the government to place its policy before the court.

It was hearing a PIL by filed by some auto unions against the then Delhi governments August 2014 policy on display of advertisements on PSVs, particularly the bar on political ads and the provision allowing pre-censorship.

The high court had in 2015 reserved its verdict in the matter, but had taken it up again last year as it wanted to know whether the government on its own would address the issues raised by the petitioners. However, since July 2016, the Delhi government had been seeking more time on each date for placing its revised advertisement policy before the court.

Earlier in September 2014, the high court in an order had raised three questions - whether political advertisements should be allowed on PSVs, the need for pre-censorship, and whether ads ought to be allowed only for vehicles having GPS and GPRS systems.

In June 2013, the then Delhi government had banned advertisements on PSVs after auto rickshaws started sporting AAP posters in the run-up to Delhi assembly elections. Thereafter, the high court had stayed the ban.

In May 2014, the city government had informed the court that it was in the process of finalising the general guidelines for allowing advertisements on PSVs and was awaiting approval of the Lt Governor.

On August 1, 2014, the government had placed before the court its latest guidelines for display of advertisements on PSVs, as per which ads containing political, ethnic, religious or sectarian text would not be permitted.

The policy also stated that advertisements cannot be displayed without prior approval of municipal bodies and would be allowed only for vehicles which have installed GPS/GPRS systems and was challenged in the PIL.

Continue reading here:
There cannot be pre-censorship in a democracy: Delhi HC - Hindustan Times

More foreign censorship is coming to American social media companies. Back in January, Facebook hinted it would be at least partially receptive to the government of Thailand's desire to be free from criticism. Fortunately, the Thailand government has been slightly more rational than, say, Austria's by not demanding offending content be removed everywhere. So far, it seems amenable to Facebook just preventing Thailand's citizens from seeing anything deemed insulting to their rulers (dead or alive).

The problem right now (at least in the minds of Thailand government officials) is that Facebook isn't making with the targeted censorship quickly enough.

The social media giant has been given until next Tuesday to remove more than 130 items from pages viewable in Thailand.

Facebook says it does consider requests from governments to block material, and will comply if it breaks local laws.

The "or else" part of the government's threat seems to be nonexistent at this point, although it probably involves cutting off citizens' access to Facebook entirely. The Thai government insists Facebook has been mostly cooperative, but is dragging its feet on the 100+ posts it has declared illegal under the country's "don't badmouth your authoritarian leaders" law.

It's disappointing to see Facebook agree, even partially, to act as a proxy censor for Thailand's government. While it's generally a good idea for social media companies to be somewhat responsive to local rules and regulations, there's very little to be gained by being an errand boy for a regime where insulting kings results in secret trials and 15-year jail sentences.

It must be noted that Facebook isn't the only US tech company working with the Thailand government to ensure its top officials remain unoffended. Google has also participated in proxy censorship. Last year, it reported it had complied with 85% of requests made under Thailand's lese majeste laws, although it did not explain whether this was location-based blocking or complete removal of the literally-offending posts.

Any form of tolerance for this only encourages further abuse. The country's cybersecurity laws are already being abused by the government, which has declared that merely communicating with foreign critics online violates the Computer Crime Act. Censors' requests for inches quickly stretch into miles. If either of these companies tries to reel in some of the censorious slack they've given Thailand's government, it will most likely be greeted with a complete blockade or ban of their services and sites. If that's going to be the inevitable result, why bother humoring these requests at all?

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Thailand Demands More Proxy Censorship From Facebook - Techdirt

Certain stealthy spacetime curiosities might be less hidden than thought, potentially exposing themselves to observers in some curved universes.

These oddities, known as singularities, are points in space where the standard laws of physics break down. Found at the centers of black holes, singularities are generally expected to be hidden from view, shielding the universe from their problematic properties. Now, scientists report in the May 5 Physical Review Letters that a singularity could be revealed in a hypothetical, saddle-shaped universe.

Previously, scientists found that singularities might not be concealed in hypothetical universes with more than three spatial dimensions. The new result marks the first time the possibility of such a naked singularity has been demonstrated in a three-dimensional universe. Thats extremely important, says physicist Gary Horowitz of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Horowitz, who was not involved with the new study, has conducted previous research that implied that a naked singularity could probably appear in such saddle-shaped universes.

In Einsteins theory of gravity, the general theory of relativity, spacetime itself can be curved (SN: 10/17/15, p. 16). Massive objects such as stars bend the fabric of space, causing planets to orbit around them. A singularity occurs when the warping is so extreme that the equations of general relativity become nonsensical as occurs in the center of a black hole. But black holes singularities are hidden by an event horizon, which encompasses a region around the singularity from which light cant escape. The cosmic censorship conjecture, put forth in 1969 by mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose, proposes that all singularities will be similarly cloaked.

According to general relativity, hypothetical universes can take on various shapes. The known universe is nearly flat on large scales, meaning that the rules of standard textbook geometry apply and light travels in a straight line. But in universes that are curved, those rules go out the window. To demonstrate the violation of cosmic censorship, the researchers started with a curved geometry known as anti-de Sitter space, which is warped such that a light beam sent out into space will eventually return to the spot it came from. The researchers deformed the boundaries of this curved spacetime and observed that a region formed in which the curvature increased over time to arbitrarily large values, producing a naked singularity.

I was very surprised, says physicist Jorge Santos of the University of Cambridge, a coauthor of the study. I always thought that gravity would somehow find a way to maintain cosmic censorship.

Scientists have previously shown that cosmic censorship could be violated if a universes conditions were precisely arranged to conspire to produce a naked singularity. But the researchers new result is more general. There's nothing finely tuned or unnatural about their starting point, says physicist Ruth Gregory of Durham University in England. That, she says, is really interesting.

But, Horowitz notes, there is a caveat. Because the violation occurs in a curved universe, not a flat one, the result is not yet a completely convincing counterexample to the original idea.

Despite the reliance on a curved universe, the result does have broader implications. Thats because gravity in anti-de Sitter space is thought to have connections to other theories. The physics of gravity in anti-de Sitter space seems to parallel that of some types of particle physics theories, set in fewer dimensions. So cosmic censorship violation in this realm could have consequences for seemingly unrelated ideas.

Read more:
Naked singularity might evade cosmic censor - Science News

This picture taken on March 21, 2013 shows two young woman typing on their smartphones at a shopping mall in Bangkok. NICOLAS ASFOURIAFP/Getty Images

Facebook is still up and running in Thailand despite being given a Tuesday deadline to block content deemed insulting to the monarchy by the countrys ruling junta.

Telecom authorities threatened to shut down the social media site if it did not comply with a request to censor 131 items viewed as violating the kingdoms draconian lse-majest law , Reuters reports.

The legislation is ostensibly meant to protect the royal family from being defamed, but in practice is often used to suppress dissent. Violations are punishable with up to 15 years in prison, and complaints can be made by anyone, against anyone, with no statute of limitations.

More than 100 people have been arrested on lse-majest charges since Thailands military seized power in a 2014 coup, according to rights groups.

Read More: The Draconian Legal Weapon Being Used to Silence Thai Dissent

Facebook does sometimes remove content at the request of governments if it is found to be in violation of local laws, as outlined in the companys community standards guidelines.

The junta has shut down the social networking site in the past; users were outraged by a temporary shutdown shortly after the military seized power. It has also recently tightened its already strong grip on the Internet, blocking thousands of websites and passing new cyber-security laws that legal experts say are susceptible to abuse.

[ Reuters ]

Continued here:
The Deadline for Facebook to Censor 'Insulting' Content in Thailand Has Passed - TIME

NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

Thailand's internet has become increasingly censored in recent years, and now the country is threatening Facebook.

The social media giant has been ordered by Thai authorities to remove all posts deemed illegal in the country by next Tuesday, failing which legal action will be taken, reports Bangkok Post. The order came from Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) and the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DE).

The popular social networking platform was requested by the Thai Internet Service Provider Association (TISPA) to block 600 pages last Thursday, of which 309 are blacklisted by the Criminal Court. While TISPA noted yesterday that most of these pages have been removed, 131 remain accessible in the country.

The move comes as part of the country's tightening grip on cyberspace. Thailand has been ramping up control of content posted online and began a new campaign last month to clamp down on websites with content it considers undesirable.

Freedom House noted the country has been restricting freedom on the internet over the last few years and highlighted its net status as "Not Free" in 2016, eventually prompting censorship concerns. In December last year, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha shrugged off the concerns, saying this is meant to fight "those who violate the law."

Facebook is perhaps Thailand's most popular social networking platform -- a Thai artist engraved its logo onto a statue dedicated to the country's late king last month, only to have had to remove it following protests from the ground.

Thai authorities did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comments.

Facebook declined to comment.

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Facebook gets legal threats from Thailand over e-censorship - CNET