In a similar move by the Canadian Parliament, Trudeau and the Liberal Party voted against it, but it was forwarded to committee anyway because everyone else voted for it. Trudeau has remained true to himself, in that he has never in 8 years passed a single bill to protect children from the worst atrocity in the world - child sexual abuse. Makes one wonder who Justin's friends are?
Three porn sites, including Pornhub,
to face tougher EU safety regulations
The European Union on Wednesday added three pornographic websites to its list of online platforms that are large enough to come under tougher safety regulation.
Adult sites Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos now join the likes of TikTok, X or Facebook as designated "very large online platforms" -- those with more than 45 million active users in the EU.
From the end of April, four months after the designation, the sites will have to apply stricter rules, in particular to protect children, under the new EU Digital Services Act (DSA).
The three new names on the list bring to 22 the number of huge platforms regulated by the Brussels across the 27-nation bloc, according to a statement from the European Commission.
The commission will monitor how platforms comply with "measures to protect minors from harmful content, and to address the dissemination of illegal content" such as images of rape or child abuse.
"I have been very clear that creating a safer online environment for our children is an enforcement priority under the DSA," said EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton.
EU vice-president Margrethe Vestager said designing (designating?) the three porn sites "will allow for higher scrutiny and accountability of their algorithms and processes".
The "very large online platforms" or VLOPs are deemed by Brussels to have "systemic importance" by virtue of their sheer scale and must demonstrate what they are doing to comply with the DSA.
In their first reaction to the news, Pornhub protested that the site had only 33 million average monthly viewers in the European Union over the six months to July 31 this year, fewer than the 45 million that would be needed to designate them a very large platform.
Those that breach the rules could be fined up to six percent of their global annual turnover, or even banned from operating in Europe in the event of serious and repeated violations.
Illegal content
Among their new obligations, VLOPs must analyse the specific threats posed to Europeans rights and safety by the kind of content they publish and to submit a report to regulators.
They are subject to increased transparency, with the obligation to provide access to their data to researchers approved by the EU.
They must also submit, at their own expense, to an external audit once a year to verify that they comply with European rules.
Platforms must agree to act "promptly" to remove any illicit content as soon as they become aware of it, and to inform legal authorities if they spot serious criminal offences in content submitted online.
They are forbidden from exploiting sensitive user date like political leanings or religious faith for targeted advertising and must be transparent about how their algorithms suggest content.
No firm has yet been found guilty of breaching the new EU content rules.
But on Monday, Brussels opened its first "formal investigation" under the DSA targeting the multibillionaire tech baron Elon Musk's social network X, the rebranded Twitter.
Various preliminary investigations have also been opened in recent months against Apple, Google, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Amazon.
(AFP)
Congressional panel demands release of
detained Chinese #MeToo activist
Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Congress' China human-rights watchdog demanded the immediate and unconditional release of a Chinese #MeToo rights activist after a closed-door trial on subversion charges that ended without a verdict.
Li Qiaochu, who stood trial in a Shandong court Tuesday on the "absurd charge of incitement" for publicizing the torture of jailed activists Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, needs urgent medical treatment and must be released unconditionally, the Congressional-Executive Committee on China wrote on social media.
Her lawyer was barred from the trial for "inciting subversion of state power," which carries a prison sentence of up to five years if she is found guilty, the group Free Li Qiaochu said.
The initial trial of Li, who has already been in detention for three years, was postponed in June after the only lawyer allowed into court said he could no longer represent her after he was prevented from presenting any evidence.
Amnesty International condemned Tuesday's trial as a sham.
"In reconvening Li Qiaochu's trial, Chinese authorities are trying to put a veneer of legitimacy over years of harassment and detention aimed at silencing her peaceful dissent, with vanishingly thin evidence that amounts to little more than guilt by association," said Amnesty International's China lead Sarah Brooks.
The 32-year-old was first detained and held incommunicado for four months in February 2020, the same day partner Xu, one of China's best-known human rights activists, was taken into custody 1,300 miles away in Guangdong province, according to the committee.
After being released on bail in June 2020, Li summarized her period in detention as "black hoods and handcuffs, closed rooms, 24-hour white lights".
In February 2021, authorities from Shandong province returned to Beijing and rearrested her, the same day she publicized the torture and maltreatment of Xu and Ding by uploading articles to an activist network the pair had set up.
Li, who was first hospitalized six weeks later after being denied medication for a chronic depressive disorder, has had repeated applications for medical parole rejected and her family has been refused permission to visit.
The former Tsinghua University sociology researcher had previously been involved with helping migrant workers who had been evicted from their homes in Beijing in 2017. She later supported several #MeToo campaigns and helped Xu on his Beautiful China website, which carried articles on China's civil rights movement.
In April, a court in Shandong sentenced academic and lawyer Xu, 50, to 14 years in prison and human rights lawyer Ding, 54, to a 10-year term, after finding the pair guilty of organizing and planning subversion of state power by founding and scaling up New Citizens' Movement, an activist network.
In other words, they were guilty of revealing the truth - a virtual act of treason in a communist state.
Xu and Ding's "cruelly farcical convictions and sentences" were condemned by Human Rights Watch which it said demonstrated President Xi Jinping's "unstinting hostility toward peaceful activism."
U.S. Angry that Traditional Countries
Blocked Consensus on LGBT Issues
NEW YORK, December 22 (C-Fam) In the open plenary debate at the UN General Assembly this week, an obviously frustrated U.S. delegate to the General Assembly repeatedly scolded delegates from traditional countries for objecting to the U.S. and EU homosexual/transgender agenda.
This was the final debate before several dozen’s nonbinding resolution were accepted by the General Assembly.
Traditional countries insisted that there are no international human rights obligations based on the concepts of “sexual orientation and gender identity.” This upset the U.S. delegate who has been working for years to make homosexual/trans issues human rights.
Visibly irritated, she chided Gulf countries, Egypt, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and others who repeated their objections to the terms in a U.S. resolution on elections.
“Over eighty percent of the membership supports this resolution,” she decried, pointing to the fact that 155 countries voted in favor of the resolution, nine more than had supported the resolution in the third committee.
She vowed that the U.S. would still consider the terms “consensual” all the same, over the objections of any country who disagreed and ever thought this was clearly false.
“Over eighty percent speaks for itself, and we will still consider it consensus,” she said adamantly. The U.S. delegate said it was not “particularly fruitful” for traditional countries to repeat their objections to the terms.
The same countries had opposed the language with an amendment to delete the terms when the resolution was first debated in the General Assembly’s third committee, which deals with social issues, a month ago. Sixty-three countries voted to delete the controversial terms. Now, they were repeating their objections in the wider forum of the General Assembly plenary and the U.S. delegate was annoyed.
The American spoke in a brash and irritated tone because the mere fact that such a powerful group of countries from across Africa and Asia spoke out against homosexual/trans issues as human rights legally means these controversial ideas cannot be considered human rights.
A delegate from Egypt, highlighted how 63 countries had voted to remove the terms in the third committee and called the U.S. insistence on homosexual/trans issues an “undemocratic imposition.”
A delegate from Pakistan objected to the U.S. characterization of the resolution as consensual. “Delegations that voted in favor of this resolution did so because we fully support democracy but not those concepts that are not consensually agreed and are not part of the domestic laws of the many countries that supported the amendments,” she said. Pakistan was among the delegations that voted in favor of the resolution even though they opposed the controversial terms.
A Nigerian delegate said the U.S. position was “exhausting.” She said the terms “sexual orientation and gender identity” were not mentioned in any international treaty.
A delegate from Djibouti said they had “no accepted legal or scientific meaning.”
Delegates from Belarus, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Yemen also said the terms were not in line with their religious and cultural values and that the terms cannot be considered “internationally agreed” or “consensual.” This is a technical but important label.
When UN resolutions are agreed by consensus, that is, without any objections, they are considered to be strong evidence of an emerging new norm under customary international law. Customary international law is binding on all states. It emerges from interactions between states and international organizations.
The idea is that if countries adopt a UN resolution repeatedly and it is implemented consistently over time it can become a binding international norm. The mere objection to such a norm can prevent it from coming into existence and binding all member states. The U.S. delegate’s visible frustration betrayed her sense of defeat.
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‘I’m good with this,’ Amanda Todd’s mom says
of 6-year Dutch sentence
The mother of a B.C. teen who was harassed and extorted by a Dutch man before taking her own life over a decade ago says she’s satisfied he’s been sentenced to six more years in prison.
“I’m good with this,” Carol Todd told Global News, Thursday.
Todd’s 15-year-old daughter Amanda Todd became a household name after a video she made documenting her abuse at the hands of an anonymous, online blackmailer went viral shortly before she died by suicide.
In July, a B.C. Supreme Court judge sentenced Coban to 13 years in prison for tormenting the teen. However that sentence was subject to a conversion under Dutch law. Coban is already serving a 10-year, eight-month Dutch sentence for similar crimes involving 33 other victims.
On Thursday, the Amsterdam District Court announced it would extend his prison time by six years, as a conversion of the Canadian sentence.
“I am happy with the six years,” Todd said. “I was going into this thinking zero because that’s what we’ve been hearing that the Dutch courts might do.”
Coban’s lawyer has indicated he will appeal the decision to the Dutch Supreme Court.
Coban was extradited to Canada in 2020 to face the Canadian charges in Amanda’s case, on the condition his sentence would be served in the Netherlands.
Dutch prosecutors had argued he should be given a 4.5-year Dutch sentence, in line with guidelines in the Netherlands and the tougher conditions in Canadian jail.
Seriously, how easy do they have it in the Netherlands' prisons?
Coban’s lawyer argued the Canadian sentence was “exorbitantly high, even by Canadian standards” and said he shouldn’t be given any extra jail time. He also criticized Canadian authorities for releasing Coban’s name and photo, forever linking him to the crime.
Thursday’s decision didn’t take into account his time served in Canada and sentenced him to the maximum possible six years.
Todd said she had mentally prepared herself for the likelihood he would appeal.
“Thirteen years, six years, it won’t bring Amanda back. But her story is going to help others, and it is going to help save lives,” she said. “The 13 years Amanda got in the Canadian trial, it has set legal precedence in courts for other predators who may come on trial for child exploitation, so the bar is set at 13 years, it will never change. That’s a good thing, because our bar was set lower.”
At Coban’s B.C. trial, the court heard how he had obtained a video clip of her topless, then used it as ammunition to try and sexually blackmail her into performing sex shows on webcam.
The 12-member jury heard how Coban sent nearly 700 messages from numerous fake email and social media accounts, some to befriend her and extract more information, and others to harass and intimidate her over three years.
Coban ultimately followed through on threats to send nude images of the teen to family, friends and her school community, prompting further local bullying.
The court heard how the abuse transformed Amanda from a vibrant girl who loved singing to an anxious, depressed teen who feared the abuse would continue for the rest of her life.
Just weeks before her death in 2012, she created a YouTube video where she silently held up cue cards documenting the torment she suffered and its effect on her life. The video went viral and became a symbol in the fight against online harassment.
“I can’t stay angry. I can get sad, but this is going to push out more change and awareness and conversation and the main goal is to keep our kids safe,” the teen’s mother said Thursday.
“I don’t call it closure. I call it the end to a chapter, and another one will start.”
-With files from the Canadian Press
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