1 Nov 2012 | Middle East and North Africa, Opinion
Bahrain has a funny definition of free speech.
After jailing human rights activists and social media users critical of the government and even going as far as banning protests, the country’s government still insists that it protects its citizens’ right to freedom of expression.
A child protester at a rally in Bahrain, 12 October 2012 – Demotix
In the most recent case, Bahraini officials reportedly sentenced a social media user to six months in jail for insulting the country’s King Hamad on Twitter. He was one of the four Twitter users arrested last month for “defaming public figures on social media” — which, according to the Ministry of Interior, is a no-no:
The acting Director-General said that the freedom of expression was protected under the Bahraini constitution and the law. However, this freedom did not allow the defamation of others. He stressed the importance of using the social media responsibly and ethically.
So expressing discontent with Bahrain’s government seems to fall outside the bounds of what is responsible and ethical, while the online war Bahrain wages against activists and protesters seems to fall within it.
Earlier this week, Bahrain banned all protests, after “repeated abuses” of free expression. The ban is supposedly being used to diffuse what has become an even more violent and desperate situation. In the past two months, security forces have killed two teenagers. After a roadside bomb took the life of a police officer during clashes in the village of Akar, seven were arrested in connection to the attack.
Rather than merely cracking down on dissent, Bahrain would do better to follow through on its promise to implement the 140 of the 176 recommendations that came from this year Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN. Or even follow through on the seemingly long-forgotten recommendations from the Bahrain Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI) last year.
But Bahrain’s desperation to silence its unrest — rather than address it — is only contributing to the country’s declining situation, and its disregard for reforms only spells out a bleak picture for its human rights situation. While insisting that it protects freedom of expression, Bahrain has actually declared war on it.
Sara Yasin is an editorial assistant at Index on Censorship. She tweets at @missyasin
1 Nov 2012 | Uncategorized
Blogger Tom Pride has an alarming story of a Welsh disability activist getting a visit from local police, apparently because of Facebook posts critical of the government.
According to the blog, the anonymous activist said:
I’ve just had the police forcing their way into my flat near midnight and harrassing me about my “criminal” posts on Facebook about the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions], accusing me of being “obstructive”. I didn’t know what in f**k’s name they were on about. They kept going on and on at me, it was horrifically stressful, and they only left after I started crying uncontrollably.
The “visit” is alleged to have taken place on Friday, 26 October at 11.40pm.
The activist has now filed a complaint to South Wales Police, as well as a Subject Access request and a Freedom of Information request, demanding to know why South Wales Police felt it appropriate to send officers to her house late at night in order to warn her about her online interaction. Police also allegedly asked her about her involvement in an anti-cuts protest.
She asks some questions that should provide some very interesting answers:
How much time/manpower/money does South Wales Police invest in monitoring Facebook post (a) generally, (b) of people involved in Disabled People Against Cuts or other disability campaigning groups and individuals.
Why was I visited by South Wales Police officers on Friday night 26th October? Who sent the officers (name, rank), and on what grounds?
Why was I told my Facebook posts are criminal?
Did anyone complain about my Facebook posts? If so, who? If no-one complained, why was I questioned?
Why was I asked whether I organised/was involved in the deportation protest on Saturday 27th.
Read the full complaint and information request at Tom Pride
Padraig Reidy is News Editor at Index on Censorship. Follow him on Twitter @mePadraigReidy
18 Oct 2012 | Uncategorized
Twitter this week announced that it had blocked the account of German far-right group Besseres Hannover.
The small anti-immigrant group is accused of inciting racism and Neo-Nazism, and has been banned under Germany’s strict anti-Nazi laws.
A letter from Hanover police informed Twitter of this ban, and requested that they block the site: the platform complied, and since 25 September, the account has been unavailable. 
It’s important to note the “in Germany” part. Besseres Hanover’s twitter account is still available in the rest of the world, though until today it had not been updated since the ban.
Back in January, Twitter announced that it would be introducing a system where it would comply with national blocking orders while keeping content available outside the relevant jurisdiction.
Interestingly, the blog post announcing this policy specifically mentioned Germany’s anti-Nazi laws:
As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.
Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.
The reaction to this announcement was mixed: some initially screamed “CENSORSHIP!”, but probably the fairest analysis came from EFF’s Jillian C York, who wrote:
Let’s be clear: This is censorship. There’s no way around that. But alas, Twitter is not above the law. Just about every company hosting user-generated content has, at one point or another, gotten an order or government request to take down content. Google lays out its orders in its Transparency Report. Other companies are less forthright. In any case, Twitter has two options in the event of a request: Fail to comply, and risk being blocked by the government in question, or comply (read: censor).
… I understand why people are angry, but this does not, in my view, represent a sea change in Twitter’s policies. Twitter has previously taken down content — for DMCA requests, at least — and will no doubt continue to face requests in the future. I believe that the company is doing its best in a tough situation… and I’ll be the first to raise hell if they screw up.
It’s a realistic view, and I’d be very surprised if Jillian raised hell about today’s case. Twitter is a private company, and while it has a decent record on free speech, it cannot be expected to go to the barricades for every issue. Moreover, Germany is a huge and wealthy market.
Twitter has complied with the law, and been open about it. The German law itself is the problem. Banning far-right views and Nazi-inspired historical revisionism is anachronistic for a modern liberal democracy. And these laws are pointed to as an example when the EU attempts to lecture the world on free speech.
In this case, Germany is censoring a tiny organisation whose main spokesman is a man in a furry outfit called Abschiebär, who appears in videos making Hitler salutes and mocking kebab shop workers. Interestingly, Abschiebär’s videos are still available on YouTube. 
Nonetheless, it’s worth keeping an eye on this development: In our enthusiasm for social media, we often forget that we are communicating on platforms run by private companies. In order to function, private companies must obey the law of the land. The privatisation of social space is going to be a crucial factor in free speech debates.
18 Oct 2012 | Uncategorized
If passed, the UK’s draft Communications Data Bill — also known as the “Snooper’s Charter” — will make room for the blanket storage of information on British citizen’s emails, text messages and internet activity. Companies would have to collect data they don’t currently retain, and the Home Secretary would have the power to request communications equipment manufacturers install hardware to make spying easier.
With these concerns in mind Index hosted a panel on the bill today chaired by trustee John Kampfner, who was joined by Index CEO Kirsty Hughes, Demos’s Jamie Bartlett, Emma Ascroft of Yahoo and Ian Brown from Oxford University.
There was consensus over the bill’s red flags, particularly its broad language and wide extension of surveillance powers to anyone who provides telecommunications operating systems. This would include social networks and domain name registries.
For Yahoo’s Emma Ascroft, it was unclear what consideration the UK’s Home Office had given to jurisdiction boundaries. The broad nature of the bill means the UK would be the first country to extend its jurisdiction, creating a reserve power to “require UK providers to retain data that they could not obtain directly.” The Home Office has acknowledged, Ascroft said, that the UK would be the first country to extend its jurisdiction in this way, but added there will be a “tension” where UK citizens’ data is available to foreign law enforcement authorities. This would, she warned, lead to a “complex patchwork of overlapping laws”.
Of equal concern was them chilling effect the bill could have if passed, as Index CEO Kirsty Hughes described:
It risks undermining anonymity, particularly whistleblowing, if user data can be tracked and comprehensively collected.
But despite conceding no other democracies had gone as far as the UK proposes to go, Jamie Bartlett felt the bill didn’t go far enough. Emphatic that he was “in favour of regulated, transparent and clear powers of surveillance”, he said there were far greater problems posed by the ability of the government to access open source social media content, which is currently not covered by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Writing for Index today, Bartlett said:
This type of widespread, mass social media monitoring needs to regulated, limited, and put on a legal footing.
Yet the fact that the bill is not subject to judicial oversight, combined with the prospect of a backstop power, worried some. For Oxford University’s Ian Brown, the latter went to “the heart of proportionality”, which Index and other rights groups have flagged as one of the bill’s greatest flaws.
“The Home Office has to come out of its comfort zone,” Ascroft concluded, pointing to internal conflict over the bill. “The Foreign Office, justice department, culture department, they all have anxieties.”
While she predicted the bill would be amended, Hughes suggested there was a risk this would not go far enough. “We need the UK’s voice out there defending digital freedom,” she said.
The joint committee on the bill is due to report on 30 November.
Written evidence to the draft bill has been collated here
Index’s own submission is available here
