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FILE PHOTO: Illustrations of pages of porn sites on the web.
Conservatives take on adult entertainment industry
“Yes, I’m an adult” boxes for popular adult sites may soon become a thing of the past.
Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne, an independent, has proposed a law that would require Canadians to verify their age to access sexually explicit material online to prevent minors from being exposed to harmful content.
The law would pose a challenge to Montreal-based Aylo, which owns Pornhub and some of the internet’s other biggest adult video sites. An Aylo executive told the Canadian Press the company is considering blocking Canadian users if parliamentarians pass a bill imposing age verification on the sites.
Several US states — including Louisiana, Montana, and Arkansas — have passed similar laws requiring internet users to upload government identification to prove they are old enough to access Aylo and similar websites. This caused traffic to crash in those states, prompting Aylo to geo-block IP addresses in those areas.
Adult sites will face another challenge when rules under the UK’s Online Safety Act come into force next year, requiring British internet surfers to upload passports or credit cards before they can access such sites. Privacy advocates warn that the law poses risks to internet users’ privacy and security.
The Canadian bill is just going to a House of Commons committee to be studied. The governing Liberals oppose even studying the measure, but they were outvoted by the Conservatives, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois MPs. The bill is unlikely to go anywhere with the governing Liberals opposed to it, but on Wednesday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievresaid he would support an age-verification law, which means Canadians could see a similar law if the Conservatives win the next election, as all the polls predict they will.
The dangers of deepfakes and the need for norms around trust
Get insights on the latest news about emerging trends in cyberspace from Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center and former European Parliamentarian.
Have you seen the Tom Cruise deepfake and how dangerous is this technology?
Well, I did see the deepfake with Tom Cruise and it certainly looked more convincing than ones I'd previously seen with President Obama, Vladimir Putin, or Donald Trump. Clearly, this technology is growing more sophisticated and deepfakes more convincing. And it's dangerous when people cannot tell authentic, trustworthy messages from deceptive and manipulated ones. With AI generated text, we know that people cannot distinguish machine generated from human generated.
What is being done to combat such convincing forms of misinformation?
Well, there is a cat and mouse race to also advanced technologies that can help detect deepfakes, identify them. And additionally, regulation or clarification of rules may also help because impersonation is often already illegal, particularly when it comes to public officials. And ensuring that there is accountability and discouraging people to use deepfakes for fun or advertising stuff will hopefully create a norm towards trust. Building instead of breaking trust is essential not only for the use of technology, but for societies as a whole.
Section 230: The 90's law still governing the internet
The technology of the 1990s looked nothing like today's connected world—and the internet hosted just a fraction of the billions of people who now use it every day. Yet, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, is the law that governs rights and responsibilities of social media companies…that weren't even around when it was written. Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.
Do the Democrats have enough power to rein in Big Tech?
The Democrats shocked the country by eking out a 50-50 majority in the US Senate earlier this month, securing control of the House, Senate and Executive. But do they have enough power to impose the kinds of restrictions to Big Tech that many believe are sorely needed? Renowned tech columnist Kara Swisher is not so sure. But there is one easy legislative win they could pursue early on. "I think it's very important to have privacy legislation, which we currently do not have: a 'national privacy bill.' Every other country does." Swisher's wide-ranging conversation with Ian Bremmer was part of the latest episode of GZERO World.