South African government policy could put country’s Internet freedom under threat

The Film & Publication Board (FPB), a South African government censorship agency, has introduced a policy that intends to prevent children from accessing pornography online and curbing the distribution of child pornography.

But while doing so, it appears that the policy would also put South Africa’s Internet freedom under threat of censorship, as it could give the FPB powers to remove content that it deems as ‘classified’ that has been shared online on international social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Vine and Instagram.

An excerpt from the Draft Online Regulation Policy of the Film & Publication Board (FPB) [download here], made available to Techloy, reads:

“…Internet intermediaries, including application service providers, host providers and internet access providers will bear the responsibility of putting in place content filtering systems to ensure that illegal content or content which may be harmful to children is not uploaded in their services. In addition to the above the FPB through its online compliance monitoring work, may refer any self-generated video that is found to contain classifiable elements for classification to its classification committee, instruct the distributor to take down the unclassified content and only reinstate it after having complied with the FPB classification decision.”

Industry experts have raised concerns about the effect of this policy on free speech, saying that ‘by placing obstacles in the way of people who create content, this policy will stifle free speech’.

Some have argued that while children should be protected from questionable material online, classifying YouTube or Vine videos will not achieve any of the policy objectives.

Besides, most of the social media platforms have already put mechanisms in place for users to flag or report content that is deemed inappropriate for children.

But asides the threat to free speech, the policy, if adopted, could have adverse effects on the South African economy as businesses and industries that rely on the open competitive landscape that the internet provides may be discouraged from providing their offering to the country.

The proposed Policy amendment is set to be reviewed at a Public Consultation on May 28, 2015, after which upon approval, the policy will take effect, as stipulated in section 4A of the Film and Publications Act, 61 of 1996, as amended.

If you disagree with the new policy, you can help to protect South Africa’s Internet freedomby filling your details to email a message directly to the FPB in opposition to the Draft Online Regulation Policy.