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The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) on 7 September issued a public notice stating that anyone wishing to publish information online must be licensed ahead of a 5 October deadline.

It is the latest blow to the right to freedom of expression in Uganda ahead of 2021 elections, following guidelines issued in June restricting public gatherings for electoral processes, in compliance with COVID-19 prevention measures. This means that election campaigning will only be allowed through media and social media platforms.

The requirement for people to seek authorisation before posting information online is retrogressive and a blatant violation of the right to freedom of expression and access to information.

The requirement for people to seek authorisation before posting information online is retrogressive and a blatant violation of the right to freedom of expression and access to information. With restrictions on public gatherings already in place, the Ugandan authorities are shutting off a vital channel for people to express their political opinions and share critical information about COVID-19, said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty Internationals Director for East and Southern Africa.

Freedom of expression does not need a license.

The Communications Commission cited Section 27 of the 2013 Uganda Communications Act, among others, which prohibits broadcasting content without a broadcasting licence. By applying this law to those sharing content on the internet and on social media platforms, the authorities are effectively criminalizing the right to freedom of expression online.

Freedom of expression does not need a license.

The regulations cited are overly broad and ambiguous, and do not differentiate between media broadcasting and communications between friends. This means it is impossible for an individual to know what exactly is being regulated.

These vague regulations will turn social media into minefield, with users likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the law and may face prosecution simply for expressing their views. The Ugandan authorities must do away with these requirements and amend laws that are promoting online censorship. They should respect, protect, promote and fulfil human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, association, and access to information, said Deprose Muchena.

These vague regulations will turn social media into minefield, with users likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the law and may face prosecution simply for expressing their views.

The 2016 Ugandan general elections took place amidst a government-ordered social media shutdown that European Union election observers said unreasonably constrained freedom of expression and access to information.

Just before those elections, the UCC had directed Ugandas main communications providers to block access to social media platforms for national security reasons, which had not been defined.

Background

On 1 July 2018, the Ugandan authorities introduced a tax on social media use in Uganda to raise revenue from what they described as gossip on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Viber.

According to Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), the social media tax reduced social media users from 47% to 38%. The Uganda Revenue Authority admitted in January 2020 that the tax had dismally failed to raise the revenue anticipated.

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Uganda government to license online posts stifling freedom of expression online - Amnesty International

Watch the newCBSN Originalsdocumentary, "Speaking Frankly | Censorship," in the video player above. It premieres on CBSN Sunday, August 30, at 8 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET.

Musician Joy Villa's red carpet dresses at the past three years' Grammy Awards were embellished with pro-Trump messages that cemented her as an outspoken darling of the conservative movement. With over 500,000 followers across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, Villa refers to her social media community as her "Joy Tribe," and a few years ago she enlisted them to help wage a public battle against what she claimed was YouTube's attempt to censor her.

"I had released my 'Make America Great Again" music video on YouTube, and within a few hours it got taken down by YouTube," Villa told CBSN Originals. "I took it to the rest of my social media. I told my fans: 'Hey listen, YouTube is censoring me. This is unfair censorship.'"

Villa saw it as part of a pattern of social media companies trying to shut down conservative voices an accusation that many other like-minded users, including President Trump himself, have leveled against Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter in recent years.

But those who study the tech industry's practices say that deciding what content stays up, and what comes down, has nothing to do with "censorship.""There is this problem in the United States that when we talk about free speech, we often misunderstand it," said Henry Fernandez, co-chair of Change the Terms, a coalition of organizations that work to reduce hate online.

"The First Amendment is very specific: It protects all of us as Americans from the government limiting our speech," he explained. "And so when people talk about, 'Well, if I get kicked off of Facebook, that's an attack on my free speech or on my First Amendment right' that's just not true. The companies have the ability to decide what speech they will allow. They're not the government."

A YouTube spokesperson said Villa's video wasn't flagged over something she said, but due to a privacy complaint. Villa disputed that, but once she blurred out the face of someone who didn't want to be seen in the video, YouTube put it back online, and her video remains visible on the platform today.

"At YouTube, we've always had policies that lay out what can and can't be posted. Our policies have no notion of political affiliation or party, and we enforce them consistently regardless of who the uploader is," said YouTube spokesperson Alex Joseph.

While Villa and others on the right have been vocal about their complaints, activists on the opposite side of the political spectrum say their online speech frequently ends up being quashed for reasons that have gotten far less attention.

Carolyn Wysinger, an activist who provided Facebook feedback and guidance about minority users' experience on the platform, told CBSN Originals that implicit bias is a problem that permeates content moderation decisions at most social media platforms.

"In the community standards, white men are a protected class, the same as a black trans woman is. The community standards does not take into account the homophobia, and the violence, and how all those things intersect. It takes all of them as individual things that need to be protected," said Wysinger.

The artificial intelligence tools that automate the process of moderating and enforcing community standards on the sites don't recognize the intent or background of those doing the posting.

For instance, Wysingersaid, "I have been flagged for using imagery of lynching. ... I have been flagged for violent content when showing images about racism and about transphobia."

According to the platforms' recent transparency reports, from April to June 2020, nearly 95% of comments flagged as hate speech on Facebook were detected by AI; and on YouTube 99.2% of comments removed for violating Community Standards were flagged by AI.

"That means you're putting these community standards in place and you have these bots who are just looking for certain specific things. It's automated. It doesn't have the ability for nuanced decision-making in regards to this," said Wysinger.

Biases can be built into the algorithms by the programmers who designed them, even if it's unintentional.

"Unfortunately tech is made up of a homogenous group, mostly White and Asian males, and so what happens is the opinions, the experiences that go into this decision-making are reflective of a majority group. And so people from different backgrounds Black, Latino, different religions, conservative, liberal don't have the accurate representation that they would if these companies were more diverse," said Mark Luckie, a digital strategist who previously worked at Twitter, Reddit and Facebook.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he believes the platform "should enable as much expression as possible," and that social media companies "shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online."

Nonetheless, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults believe social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints. In the last two years, two congressional hearings have focused on the question of tech censorship.

"We hear that there is an anti-conservative bias on the part of Facebook or other platforms because conservatives keep saying that," said Susan Benesch, executive director of the Dangerous Speech Project, an organization based in Washington D.C. that has advised Facebook, Twitter, Google and other internet companies on how to diminish harmful content online while protecting freedom of speech.

But she adds, "I would be surprised if that were the case in part because on most days the most popular, most visited groups on Facebook and pages on Facebook are very conservative ones."

She said she also finds it interesting that "many conservatives or ultra-conservatives complain that the platforms have a bias against them at the same time as Black Lives Matter activists feel that the platforms are disproportionately taking down their content."

A 2019review of over 400 political pages on Facebook, conducted by the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters, found conservative pages performed about equally as well as liberal ones.

But reliable data on the subject is scarce, and social media platforms are largely secretive about how they make decisions on content moderation.

Amid ongoing criticism, Facebook commissioned an independent review, headed by former Republican Senator Jon Kyl, to investigate accusations of anti-conservative bias. Kyl's 2019report detailed recommendations to improve transparency, and Facebook agreed to create an oversight board for content removal decisions. Facebook said it "would continue to examine, and where necessary adjust, our own policies and practices in the future."

According to Fernandez, the focus should be on requiring tech companies to publicly reveal their moderation rules and tactics.

Benesch points out, "We have virtually zero oversight regarding take-down, so in truth content moderation is more complicated than just take it down or leave it up," referring to the fact that, to date, there has been little publicly available data provided by tech companies to allow an evaluation of the process.

"Protecting free expression while keeping people safe is a challenge that requires constant refinement and improvement. We work with external experts and affected communities around the world to develop our policies and have a global team dedicated to enforcing them," Facebook said in a statement.

And a statement from Twitter said, "Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules. In fact, from a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized to keep all voices on the service."

Meanwhile users like Wysinger struggle with mixed feelings about social media sites that promise connection but sometimes leave them out in the cold.

"Whether we like it or not, we are all on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter all day long, and when they take us off the banned list, I don't know anyone who doesn't post a status on Facebook right away, after the ban is lifted: 'I'm back y'all!'," said Wysinger.

"It's like an abusive relationship, you can't even leave the abusive relationship because you become so used to and dependent on it."

Read more from the original source:
Censorship on social media? It's not what you think - CBS News

Our early morning report revealed the good news that the Trump Administration is privately assuring U.S. Companies including Apple that WeChat won't be banned in China. However, in general, we can understand why the U.S. Government is against the WeChat App which is a powerful tool for the Chinese Communist Government. Don't take my word for it, take the word of those under China's rule.

Abacus, who works out of Hong Kong, is now under the thumb of Mainland China. They've posted a report, while they still can against the government titled "Chinas WeChat censored thousands of keywords tied to the coronavirus pandemic, Citizen Lab study says."

Many in Hong Kong know the extent of censorship due to researchers from the University of Toronto who cataloged censored keywords from January to May and passed on their findings.

The report by Abacus writer Karen Chiu states that "When the novel coronavirus first struck China, government efforts to control online discussions were mostly focused on domestic politics. But as the pandemic spread across the globe, US-related topics have borne the brunt of WeChats censorship, a new study found.

Between January and May, researchers at the University of Torontos Citizen Lab found that the Chinese app blocked more than 2,000 keywords related to Covid-19.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, early warnings about the virus were censored, as were domestic criticisms of Chinas handling of the outbreak, said the report.

One incident concerned the real estate mogul Ren Zhiqiang, who went missing after he wrote an article slamming the government.

Using the keyword "Ren Zhiqiang" by itself did not trigger any censorship, however when grouped together as "cover up the facts, Ren Zhiqiang" or "Ren, missing," the entire message was blocked.

Months later The story resurfaced in late July with the Chinese Government preparing to prosecute Zhiqiang.

For more on this story read the full Abacus report. Abacus is now owned by the reputable South China Morning News.

WeChat is simply caught up into this political situation because of the Communist Government forcing the issue on them. Not complying would be a death sentence for the company.

On the other hand, U.S. Social Media sites like Twitter use censorship by choice to shut out the U.S President in the hope that he'll lose the election. They can't use the excuse that the government made them censor voices different from their own. In terms of free speech, I wonder what form of censorship is more evil Government or Corporate censorship?

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China's WeChat is forced to adopt Censorship to Appease the Chinese Communist Government - Patently Apple

After banning almost 5,000 books in the last seven years, Kuwaits government has relaxed its book censorship laws in a move that has been welcomed by writers and free speech activists.

Kuwaiti state media reported that the countrys parliament had voted 40 to nine in favour of lifting the Ministry of Informations control over books imported into the country. Previously, the ministry had blacklisted more than 4,000 books since 2014, with titles including Victor Hugos The Hunchback of Notre Dame and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garca Mrquez falling foul of its censorship committee. All books published in the country had to receive prior approval from a 12-member committee that met twice a month before they could be released, with offences ranging from insulting Islam to inciting unrest and committing immoral acts.

The new rules mean importers and publishers will only have to provide the Ministry of Information with book titles and author names, with the importer alone bearing responsibility for the books contents. According to the National, only an official complaint from the public will spark legal action against a book, with a ban only to be implemented by the courts, rather than the Ministry of Information.

The International Publishers Association said the ruling put an end to the mandate of the Kuwaiti book censorship committee.

Congratulations to those in Kuwait who have successfully encouraged this change in favour of the freedom to publish, said the chair of the IPAs freedom to publish committee, Kristenn Einarsson. This is an important step forward and I hope that more positive changes will follow.

Kuwaiti-American author Layla AlAmmar told the Guardian that the change was a major and positive step in the right direction.

Abolishing the committee is a major accomplishment that is worthy of celebration, and the credit for it rightly goes to writers and activists like Bothayna al-Essa and Abdullah al-Khonaini, who lobbied tirelessly for this cause, she said.

AlAmmar said that, in the nearly 15 years that the committee was in place, almost 5,000 books were banned in a largely arbitrary fashion and that the law had throttled an already fledgling publishing industry and market where piracy is rampant.

Campaigners have both welcomed the news and shared reservations. The Ministry of Information is no longer the judge when it comes to books and I believe this is a most important achievement, Essa told Gulf News. We will continue to work towards achieving greater freedoms.

But Khonaini said: The freedom of expression is already restricted in Kuwait on multiple levels. This law doesnt fix it. The amendment shifts the power of censorship away from the executive branch to the judicial branch. We still need to work on the prohibition section in the law, which needs a stronger political lobby and mature political and societal awareness.

AlAmmar pointed to the case of International prize for Arabic fiction winner Saud al-Sanousi, who went to court to get a ban on his book annulled. It remains unclear what the fate of the banned books is: does the ban automatically lift? Must they pass through some other authorising committee or bureaucratic procedure before their sale is allowed? None of this has been addressed, she said.

Read more here:
Kuwait relaxes book censorship laws after banning thousands of titles - The Guardian

When the novel coronavirus was first discovered in China last winter, the country responded aggressively, placing tens of millions of people into strict lockdown. As Covid-19 spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world, the Chinese government was just as forceful in controlling how the health crisis was portrayed and discussed among its own people.

Politically sensitive material, like references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, have long been forbidden on Chinas highly censored internet, but researchers at the University of Torontos Citizen Lab say these efforts reached a new level during the pandemic. The blunt range of censored content goes beyond what we expected, including general health information such as the fact [that] the virus spreads from human contact, says Masashi Crete-Nishihata, the associate director of Citizen Lab, a research group that focuses on technology and human rights.

Citizen Lab's latest report, published earlier this week, finds that between January and May this year, more than 2,000 keywords related to the pandemic were suppressed on the Chinese messaging platform WeChat, which has more than 1 billion users in the country. Many of the censored terms referenced events and organizations in the United States.

Unlike in the US, internet platforms in China are responsible for carrying out the governments censorship orders and can be held liable for what their users post. Tencent, which owns WeChat, did not comment in time for publication. WeChat blocks content via a remote server, meaning its not possible for research groups like Citizen Lab to study censorship on the app by looking at its code. We can send messages through the server and see if they are received or not, but we can't see inside of it, so the exact censorship rules are a bit of a mystery, Crete-Nishihata says.

For its latest report, Citizen Lab sent text copied from Chinese-language news articles to a group chat it created on WeChat with three dummy accounts, one registered to a mainland Chinese phone number and two registered to Canadian phone numbers. They used articles from a range of outlets, including some based in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as Chinese state-controlled publications. If a message was blocked, the researchers performed further tests to identify which words triggered the censorship. Some of the blocked messages had originally been published by Chinese state media. In other words, while a person or topic may be freely discussed in the government-controlled press, its still banned on WeChat.

Read all of our coronavirus coverage here.

The Citizen Lab report demonstrates the extent to which the Chinese government tried to control the narrative from the beginning. As residents in Wuhan remained in lockdown, WeChat blocked phrases about Li Wenliang, a local doctor who warned colleagues about a new infectious disease before it was disclosed by the government, and who became a popular hero for free speech after he died of Covid-19 in February. WeChat also blocked its users from discussing an announcement by Chinese officials that they had informed the US government about the pandemic for the first time on January 3, almost three weeks before they said anything to their own citizens. And it censored mentions of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when the organization was coupled with the word coronavirus.

By March, Covid-19 had become a global pandemic, and WeChat began blocking some mentions of international groups like the World Health Organization and the Red Cross. It also censored references to outbreaks in other countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Citizen Lab found that the majority of blocked words related to international relations were about the United States, the subject of the third portion of the report.

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How WeChat Censored the Coronavirus Pandemic - WIRED