Three lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual sites have been blocked by the Turkish telecommunications authority. The sites were deemed to incite or encourage suicide, child abuse, drug-use and obscenity. Galibe.com, haydigayri.com and shemaleturk.com, which have a combined membership of 225,000, argue that they were given no advanced warning of the action.
Read more here
On 23 September, the government has announced plans to block 1040 websites, referring to a resolution which states that all telecommunications companies and internet service providers “shall block pornographic websites”. Many of the websites to be blocked, however, are those of the opposition, religious groups and human rights organisations.
Read more here
The UK’s Ministry of Justice has launched a consultation on defamation on the Internet, with particular focus on the “multiple publication rule”.
What’s multiple publication? Simple, really. Every time someone visits a story on a web site, or a blog post, that counts as publication. If they then refresh the page, that’s two publications, and so on.
With print publications, there is a statute of limitations of one year for libel proceedings. That is to say, if someone published a libellous comment in a newspaper, the person who feels he has been defamed has to respond by issuing legal proceedings. After a year, they can no longer sue. There is a logic to this: if someone genuinely felt they had been damaged, or put at risk of damage, by a news story or comment, it is unlikely they would wait a year before commencing proceedings against a writer, newspaper, magazine or publisher.
With online publication, however, as every time a page is refreshed counts as publiaction, there is no initial point of publication recognised in law. Hence, someone could sue a blogger for something they had written five years ago, but had not been noticed until last week.
This is the issue the consultation seeks to address. You can read the initial consultation paper here
German government plans to ban violent videogames will have to be put on hold, after a successful internet petition by German gamers. The e-petition, hosted on the official forums of the Bundestag, the German parliament, has passed the 50,000 signatures necessary to force a government review. Last month the country’s 16 interior ministers called for a ban on the creation and distribution of games involving violent acts against human or human-like characters. Read more here