Danielle Citron, a professor at the Boston University School of Law and a 2019 MacArthur Fellow, has argued that the immunity afforded by Section 230 is too broad. In a recent article for the Michigan Law Review, she writes that the law would apply even to platforms that have urged users to engage in tortious and illegal activity or designed their sites to enhance the reach of such activities. In 2017, Citron and Benjamin Wittes, a legal scholar and the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog, argued that a better version of the law would grant a platform immunity only if it had taken reasonable steps to prevent or address unlawful uses of its services. A reasonableness standard, they note, would allow for different companies to take different approaches, and for those approaches to evolve as technology changes.

Its possible to keep Section 230 in place while carving out exceptions to it, but at the cost of significant legal complexity. In 2018, Congress passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), a bill intended to curtail sex trafficking. Under FOSTA, Internet platforms no longer receive immunity for civil and criminal charges of sex trafficking, and posts that might promote and facilitate prostitution no longer enjoy a liability shield. Kosseff, testifying before a House subcommittee, acknowledged the gravity and urgency of the sex-trafficking issue but cautioned that there were strong arguments against the bill. Rather than allowing states to get around Section 230s immunity shielda move that could force platforms to comply with many different state laws concerning sex trafficking and prostitutionKosseff suggested that Congress enhance the federal criminal laws on sex trafficking, to which platforms are already subject. Two years in, its not clear that FOSTA has had any material effect on sex trafficking; meanwhile, sex workers and advocates say that, by pushing them off of mainstream platforms, the legislation has made their work markedly more dangerous. After the law was passed, Craigslist removed its personals section. Any tool or service can be misused, a banner on the site read. We cant take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services.

There is a strong case for keeping Section 230s protections as they are. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-civil-liberties nonprofit, frames Section 230 as one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet. Kosseff, with some reservations, comes to a similar conclusion. Section 230 has become so intertwined with our fundamental conceptions of the Internet that any wholesale reductions to the immunity it offers could irreparably destroy the free speech that has shaped our society in the twenty-first century, he writes. He compares Section 230 to the foundation of a house: the modern Internet isnt the nicest house on the block, but its the house where we all live, and its too late to rebuild it from the ground up. Some legal scholars argue that repealing or altering the law could create an even smaller landscape of Internet companies. Without Section 230, only platforms with the resources for constant litigation would survive; even there, user-generated content would be heavily restricted in service of diminished liability. Social-media startups might fade away, along with niche political sites, birding message boards, classifieds, restaurant reviews, support-group forums, and comments sections. In their place would be a desiccated, sanitized, corporate Internetless like an electronic frontier than a well-patrolled office park.

The house built atop Section 230 is distinctive. Its furnished with terms-of-service agreements, community-standards documents, and content guidelinesthe artifacts through which platforms express their rules about speech. The rules vary from company to company, often developing on the tailwinds of technology and in the shadow of corporate culture. Twitter began as a service for trading errant thoughts and inanities within small communitiesBird chirps sound meaningless to us, but meaning is applied by other birds, Jack Dorsey, its C.E.O., once told the Los Angeles Timesand so, initially, its terms of service were sparse. The document, which was modelled off Flickrs terms, contained little guidance on content standards, save for one clause warning against abuse and another, under General Conditions, stating that Twitter was entitled to remove, at its discretion, anything it deemed unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable.

In 2009, Twitters terms changed slightlyWhat you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly, a Clippy-esque annotation warnedand expanded to include a secondary document, the Twitter Rules. These rules, in turn, contained a new section on spam and abuse. At that point, apart from a clause addressing violence and threats, abuse referred mainly to misuse of Twitter: username sales, bulk creation of new accounts, automated replies, and the like. In her history of the Twitter Rules, the writer Sarah Jeong identifies the summer of 2013 as an inflection point: following several high-profile instances of abuse on the platformincluding a harassment campaign against the British politician Stella CreasyTwitter introduced a report abuse button and added language to the rules addressing targeted harassment. That November, the company went public. Changes in the Rules over time reflect the pragmatic reality of running a business, Jeong concludes. Twitter talked some big talk about free speech, she writes, but it ended up tweaking and changing the Rules around speech whenever something threatened its bottom line.

Under Section 230, content moderation is free to be idiosyncratic. Companies have their own ideas about right and wrong; some have flagship issues that have shaped their outlooks. In part because its users have pushed it to take a clear stance on anti-vaccination content, Pinterest has developed particularly strong policies on misinformation: the company now rejects pins from certain Web sites, blocks certain search terms, and digitally fingerprints anti-vaccination memes so that they can be identified and excluded from its service. Twitters challenge is bigger, however, because it is both all-encompassing and geopolitical. Twitter is a venue for self-promotion, social change, violence, bigotry, exploration, and education; it is a billboard, a rally, a bully pulpit, a networking event, a course catalogue, a front page, and a mirror. The Twitter Rules now include provisions on terrorism and violent extremism, suicide and self-harm. Distinct regulations address threats of violence, glorifications of violence, and hateful conduct toward people on the basis of gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, and caste, among other traits and classifications. The companys rules have a global reach: in Germany, for instance, Twitter must implement more aggressive filters and moderation, in order to comply with government laws banning neo-Nazi content.

In a 2018 article published in the Harvard Law Review, The New Governors: The People, Rules, and Processes Governing Online Speech, Kate Klonick, who is now a professor at St. Johns University Law School, tallies the sometimes conflicting factors that have shaped the moderation policies at Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The companies, she writes, have been influenced by a fundamental belief in American free speech norms, a sense of corporate responsibility, and user expectations. Theyve also reacted to government requests, media scrutiny, pressure from users or public figures, and the demands of third-party civil-society groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League. They have sometimes instituted new rules in response to individual incidents. There are downsides to this kind of improvisational responsiveness: a lack of transparency and accountability creates conditions ripe for preferential treatment and double standards.

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Trump, Twitter, Facebook, and the Future of Online Speech - The New Yorker

From Michael Corleone to Tony Soprano, on-screen mobsters are far more violent than virtuous.

Yet despite dealings in organised crime and their ability to justify murder as "business" these men, and their families, identify as Catholics.

Baptisms, confessions and other religious sacraments are strewn throughout The Godfather trilogy and the HBO series The Sopranos.

You might think that religion like pasta or Italian curse words is just another tool that screenwriters use to emphasise the mobsters' migrant backgrounds.

But there's more to it than that. As one film critic argues, Catholicism was inserted into this violence-laden genre to get movies past American censors in the early 20th century.

Critic and author Martha Nochimson says the story starts in the 1930s with the introduction of the Motion Picture Production Code, commonly known as the Hays Code.

These moral guidelines prohibited films from featuring nudity, drug trafficking, the ridicule of clergy, and other content deemed profane.

"The original Catholicism was really grafted onto the gangster movie by the censors," she points out.

"They said the gangster had to be punished at the end, and there should be some moral spokesperson, preferably a Catholic priest, in the meanwhile."

The 1938 picture Angels with Dirty Faces typified this morality-based model.

The film depicted the friendship of a hardened felon, played by James Cagney, and a Catholic priest, who sought to stop youths from following a path of crime.

But Dr Nochimson says the Code's attempts to sanitise mobster movies weren't successful.

"The audiences did not identify at all with the moral spokesperson, they identified and this is a problem with the gangsters," she says.

James Martin SJ, a Jesuit priest based in New York City, says audiences now expect these kinds of storylines to involve Catholicism.

"Most of the mob movies that people are familiar with The Godfather, Goodfellas, The Irishman, most recently are about the Italian mob in the United States, which is largely Catholic," he says.

"The Italian-American experience was centred around the Church for the immigrants in the 1900s, right all the way up to 1950, 1960.

"And by now it's kind of a trope ... I think people expect them to go to church."

Despite being a fan of The Godfather and The Sopranos, Fr Martin points out that fictional depictions of mobsters are often laden with racial stereotypes.

"I think the difficulty for a lot of Italian-Americans, like myself, is the portrayal of, 'If you're from Italy you're from the Mafia,'" he says.

James Fisher, an emeritus professor of theology and American Studies at Fordham University, says the role of religion in these films reveals something more about Italian-American life.

For example, in the 1940s the era at the beginning of The Godfather the traditionally Italian neighbourhoods of New York City enabled first and second-generation immigrants to "transplant the values of the old world to the new".

He contrasts this with the late 1990s, when The Sopranos began airing.

"There was a tremendous exodus of Italian-Americans from those neighbourhoods in lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and East Harlem to places like New Jersey," he says.

"Over time, the Italian-American customs that had been so tightly reinforced by the life of these close-knit neighbourhoods, they all kind of dissolve."

While Tony Soprano may be a less observant Catholic than Michael Corleone at least in terms of church attendance religious rituals, figures and structures are still omnipresent in The Sopranos.

The children are sent to Catholic schools, the Virgin Mother is regularly invoked with cries of "Madone!" (Madonna), and when men are "made" (or inducted into the mobster family), they say their oath before a card of St Paul.

"They haven't thrown away all the [Catholic] structure, but the structure is empty," explains Dr Nochimson.

She says Carmela Soprano, Tony's wife, has a particularly interesting relationship with religion.

Throughout the show, Carmela wrestles with the knowledge that she's an accessory to organised crime and her desire to renounce evil. When times are bad, she prays and goes to confession.

But despite being a married woman, she also has a "thing" for the local priest and, in a heated scene during the first season, shares a spiritual-meets-sexual encounter with Father Intintola.

"Allen Coulter directed this episode and he told me ... he directed it like a parody of a porn movie," says Dr Nochimson.

In the scene, Fr Intintola gives Carmela communion in front of a blazing fire. We see an extreme close-up of her tongue and lips as she takes the holy wafer and wine.

"What she does in this episode is what she does with Catholicism all the way through," says Dr Nochimson.

"She uses it as a bridge to satisfying wants and desires that, in the Christian faith and in all major faiths, have been classified as sin."

Carmela Soprano's storyline isn't the only one where sacred rites clash with selfish and sinful objectives.

One of the most iconic scenes from The Godfather splices Michael Corleone at the baptism of his nephew promising to be a good Catholic, renouncing Satan with the brutal murders of the five mobster family heads.

For Fr Martin, it's an image that's difficult to get out of his head even in deeply sacred moments.

"Every time I do a baptism, and I say, 'Do you reject Satan?' ... I'm focussed on the baptism, but I think about that scene, because I saw that scene long before I was a priest," he says, laughing.

"It's a marvellous bit of filmmaking ... it's life versus death, water and blood, so there's a lot of heavy symbolism there."

Fr Martin has another perspective on mobster films, having actually played a role in one appearing as a priest in Martin Scorsese's The Irishman.

The 2019 film chronicles the life of an Irish truck driver-turned-hitman (Frank Sheeran, played by Robert De Niro) who works for an Italian mobster.

And Fr Martin says it's a movie that deals with Catholicism in a more sophisticated way.

"I think there is a sense of repentance, remorse and regret that I didn't see in some of the other films," he says.

"I mean, Michael Corleone doesn't ever seem to be upset about what he's doing. It's just business.

"At the end of The Irishman, no one wants to be Robert De Niro's character he's alone, his family has rejected him, he's sick, everyone's dead. It's not glamorising these people at all."

Link:

Why on-screen mobsters, from The Godfather to The Sopranos, are so obviously Catholic - ABC News

Following the success among Filipino audiences of the Thai BL (Boys Love) series 2gether, numerous media outlets are starting to create Filipino BL series to please the newfound market. The list of upcoming series includes Darryl Yaps Sakristan, Petersen Vargass Hello, Stranger, Xion Lims #MyDay, and Ivan Andrew Payawal's Gameboys, among others.

I have seen efforts by film producers and writers to veer away from the parloristang bakla narrative, where gays are portrayed as comic relief just starving for the male species. However, when it comes to BL series, how gay characters are depicted there poses another challenge. They are presented as eye candy, with masculine features and fit bodies, charming male leads without a trace of body fat or effeminacy. This poses a problem, as young LGBT viewers could then view themselves as too ugly to be gay, or worse, believe that they do not deserve the same love because of their appearance. (READ: 'Tolerated, but not accepted': Filipino LGBTQ+ speak up vs discrimination)

***

I taught media and communication for a year at a Dominican-run Catholic institution before transferring to the blue Jesuit school. As a partial requirement, I instructed my students from the Dominican school to create a short film about a social or political issue. I stressed the importance of media representation, that it was better for them to create stories on the lives of the least represented.

In 2019, one of the student-made films, Hanggang Dulo, bagged awards in an intra-school student film competition. The film was not perfect. It had its flaws. But I said to my students that what mattered more was that they lent a voice to the least represented in the society. In the film, they shared how young LGBT members cope in relationships where one partner is born with HIV. (READ: What LGBT kids need to hear)

After winning Best Picture, I gave my students the go-signal to publish their film on YouTube. I was usually hesitant to let students post their films on the internet as I wanted to reduce digital footprints and not be held accountable for their works. However, their film was an exception, as I wanted more people not only to watch it, but also spread its message to end the stigma towards people living with HIV/AIDS, and to get tested. As of writing, the video garnered 750,000+ views and more than a thousand comments on YouTube. Not bad for a student-made film.

However, one of my colleagues remarked that the films submitted by my students were hindi pang-hayskul (not suited for high school students). She might have been echoing former MTRCB chair Marissa LaGuardia's classification of homsexuality as an abnormality of nature." She also pointed out how some of my students were even minors. She said that they might be too young to comprehend issues like same-sex relationships, rape, and even death as subjects of films. I understood her concern, because I was still bound to the rules and norms of a Catholic institution. However, I remained firm with my philosophy to be more liberal, while teaching my students to be ethical content producers, and not to be exploitative in their own writings.

***

Communication theorist George Gerbner argues that the more time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality aligns with reality portrayed on television. Although Gerbners cultivation theory is debunked by most theorists, as most audiences have shifted from getting information on TV to getting it on the internet, content producers of Pinoy BL series still have a responsibility to be more inclusive.

My cis female cousin who is a 'BrightWin,' or a fan of 2gether's main actors, asked me to recommend similar series, and I shared with her one of the Thai series I admired, Diary of Tootsie. My cousin watched a few episodes and was lukewarm towards it. She said that some characters from Diary of Tootsie were not as "visually pleasing" as 2gether's Bright Vachirawit or Win Metawin.

I hope that Pinoy BL series go beyond this hype, serving a greater purpose and injecting pressing social and political realities. Who knows? The next Pinoy BL series might feature a gay character who is plump (or in LGBT lingo, a chub) or an effem person with a disability. Rappler.com

Patrick Ernest C. Celso, 23, is a licensed professional teacher from Makati City. He teaches media and communication at Ateneo de Manila University. He is finishing his graduate degree in Creative Writing and obtained an English Education degree at the University of Santo Tomas.

Original post:

[OPINION] Pinoy BL, censorship, and problematic LGBTQ+ representation - Rappler

The German government has indicated again that it wants to increase the regulation of Facebook content, and say that the tactics applied by the social network are not enough to prevent the spread of so-called hate speech.

Possible actions by the German government are being decided upon as a response to a campaign against Facebook originated by activist movements in the United States.

These movements, united under names such as Stop Hate for Profit, say that the social network has not contributed much in the fight against hate speech, so they urge the platforms advertisers to not advertise during the whole month of July to put pressure on Facebook until it changes its moderation policies.

Organizers of this boycott even met with Mark Zuckerberg, but have not seen the Facebook CEO have any concrete plans to combat racism and hate on the platform.

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Based on what these activists have stated, Germany is planning the implementation of new laws that would allow them to actively participate in the moderation of the content on the social network since the country does not believe that self-moderation is enough.

Germany has decided that it wants to take advantage of the present sentiment towards Facebook and not let off. This week, Berlin called for more action at a meeting on Monday of the blocs justice ministers.

We cannot accept the public debate being distorted and poisoned, said German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht. Voluntary commitments and self-responsibility are not enough.

Germany doesnt have the equivalent of the United States First Amendment and the history of the country is not exactly steeped in affordances of liberty and free speech.

Germany already has existing regulations in the country that sought to reduce the spread of extremist comments and criminal content. Just the last month, the government enacted a law that states that social networks must notify federal prosecutors if they get content that promotes ideas of far-right extremism and online hatred.

These measures were strongly criticized by defenders of free speech in Germany, as they say that these actions only make social networks look like criminals, and do not attack the real problem that is unfounded in society.

Left-wing lawmaker Anke Domscheit-Berg weighed in, saying, You cant outsource criminal law.We need better qualified and resourced policebut that doesnt mean we should remove responsibility from Facebook.

Since 2018 there is a law in Germany that requires that content that has been reported as inappropriate be blocked or removed from social networks within 24 hours. This law encouraged social networks to dedicate themselves much more to regulating content.

However, reports from Facebook itself have shown that this has not been enough for Germany. In 2019, the social network eliminated around 1,300 posts in compliance with the law, but this only represented a third of the total number of complaints they received.

Due to this, Germany sued the social network for 2 million euros. The government indicated at the time that the platform makes it difficult for users to report the content.

Facebook, however, indicated that they remove more than 90% of malicious content before users can even report it. The global figure for moderating content in the first quarter of 2020 alone would have exceeded 9.6 million posts.

For the German government and activist groups, its still not enough. And, at this point, its starting to look like nothing ever will be.

More here:

Germany thinks Facebook isnt doing enough to censor hate speech and plans to intervene - Reclaim The Net