View previous stories
	Google reports "alarming" rise in internet censorship by governments by Guardian News   June 2012   There has been an alarming rise in the number of times governments attempted to censor the internet in last six months, according to a report from Google.   Since the search engine last published its bi-annual transparency report, it said it had seen a troubling increase in requests to remove political content. Many of these requests came from western democracies not typically associated with censorship.   It said Spanish regulators asked Google to remove 270 links to blogs and newspaper articles critical of public figures. It did not comply. In Poland, it was asked to remove an article critical of the Polish agency for enterprise development and eight other results that linked to the article. Again, the company did not comply.   Google was asked by Canadian officials to remove a YouTube video of a citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. It refused.   Thai authorities asked Google to remove 149 YouTube videos for allegedly insulting the monarchy, a violation of Thailand"s lèse-majesté law. The company complied with 70% of the requests.   Pakistan asked Google to remove six YouTube videos that satirised its army and senior politicians. Google refused.   UK police asked the company to remove five YouTube accounts for allegedly promoting terrorism. Google agreed. In the US most requests related to alleged harassment of people on YouTube. The authorities asked for 187 pieces to be removed. Google complied with 42 per cent of them.   In a blog post, Dorothy Chou, Google"s senior policy analyst, wrote: "Unfortunately, what we"ve seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different. When we started releasing this data, in 2010, we noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it"s not. "This is the fifth data set that we"ve released. Just like every other time, we"ve been asked to take down political speech. It"s alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect – western democracies not typically associated with censorship."   Over the six months covered by the latest report, Google complied with an average of 65 per cent of court orders, as opposed to 47 per cent of more informal requests. Visit the related web page
	Predatory gambling interests are exploiting the young & Governments are failing to protect them by McGill University, Stop Predatory Gambling   UK Parliament - Select Committee - Gambling & the Young - Summary   Research confirms that young people are particularly susceptible to gambling advertising. "Youth are particularly attuned to gambling advertisements and have high levels of recall for these ads (Derevensky, Gupta, Messerlian, & Gillespie, 2004).   Among other findings of a New Zealand study were that "It was also reported that the younger the person, the more likely they were to remember some form of gambling advertising" (93% of those under 25 years; 76% of those over 65 years).   A US National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported that lottery adverts target particularly vulnerable populations, specifically youth.   To claim that advertising is not targeted at youths are at best disingenuous. A study from McGill University states:   "The gambling industry maintains that ads for gambling products and services are not specifically intended for underage audiences; nevertheless, this study offers ample evidence that many ads can be assumed to have strong appeal to adolescents. Many of the themes described here are likely to have tremendous appeal to adolescents and young adults, even if they are not the primary target audience.   Although in some cases, efforts have clearly been made to use older adults and adult references (such as office settings), there are many more examples of signifiers likely to have strong resonance with youth viewers, such as ironic humour, and the use of quasi-adolescent characters and cultural references."   Normalisation   The gambling industry has a strong incentive to normalise gambling and advertising inevitably plays a central part in this. The McGill study mentioned above states:   "From a marketing perspective, the gambling industry, like the tobacco and alcohol industries, must ensure that a next generation of gamblers will emerge to replace the old one. Gambling corporations require continuity to maintain and increase their market share, and this can only occur with consistent and continuous normalization of gambling as enjoyable and benign entertainment.   Moreover, evidence suggests that brand recognition is even more effective when it is introduced to children at a very young age (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2004).   For these reasons, it is critical to learn the lessons of the tobacco and alcohol awareness advocacy movements, which have had several more decades experience crafting effective guidelines to protect youth from potentially risky messages for those products. An argument that alcohol advertising targets youth simply because it is in so many ways undistinguishable from all other advertising that targets young people can be extrapolated here....(Austin & Hust, 2005) ...of critical concern in advertising any product that is potentially risky to the end user is the social climate of normalization that surrounds it, theoretically heightening audience"s receptivity to the product.   The link between overall problem gambling levels and youth problem gambling is well established. Rises in the former are accompanied by rises in the latter, with the qualification that problem gambling (as a proportion of overall gambling) is generally higher among young people than the general population. Young males are at particular risk.   Internet gambling and advertising, including gambling advertising, are changing gambling patterns in ways that pose particular risks to children.   The Effects of Gambling Advertising on Young People   The authoritative report "An Empirical Study Examining the Impact of Gambling Advertisements on Adolescent Gambling Attitudes and Behaviors" highlights:   "Sixty-one percent of youth reported receiving spam gambling advertisements by e-mail and 96% had seen TV advertisements for gambling. The underlying perceived message is that winning is easy, the chance of winning is high and that gambling is an easy way to become wealthy. While most youth are dismissive of the messages and are aware of the risks associated with gambling, a large percentage of youth report that these messages prompt them to gamble.   The serious risks of gambling advertising for those who are liable to problem gambling are underlined by a US study which found that "gamblers who had urges triggered by advertisements also appeared to develop pathological gambling soon after the onset."   http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmcumeds/writev/1554/ga96.htm   The Impact of gambling advertisements and marketing on children and adolescents. (McGill University - Canada)   With the proliferation of gambling in society, gambling advertisements have become increasingly prominent. Despite attempts to protect minors from harm by prohibiting them from engaging in most forms of gambling, there are few restrictions on the marketing of gambling products.   Evidence of high rates of gambling and associated problems amongst youth indicates that the issue of youth gambling must be addressed to minimise harm.   This paper aims to examine the current marketing techniques used to promote gambling and how they affect youth. The effect of multiple forms of advertisements are discussed, including advertising placement in the media, point-of sale displays, sports sponsorship, promotional products, celebrity endorsements, advertisements using Internet and wireless technology, and content which may appeal to or mislead children.   Based on research in gambling and other public health domains, including tobacco, alcohol, and junk food advertising, recommendations are made for appropriate regulations for gambling advertisements to minimise harm.   http://youthgambling.mcgill.ca/en/PDF/Publications/2008/Monaghan%20Derevensky%20Sklar.pdf   Serious Gambling-Related Problems have emerged as an Epidemic among America’s Youth (US).   This report highlights how serious gambling-related problems have emerged as an epidemic among America’s youth. Today, at least one out of every five young people has a serious gambling-related problem, up from one out of every ten in 1988. The prevalence rate of gambling among the young is now 80%, almost double the rate (45%) it was in 1988.   * Visit the link below to access Stop Predatory Gambling - youth reports.   http://stoppredatorygambling.org/category/research-center/exploiting-americas-kids/   * In Australia there is saturation TV, Radio and Internet Gambling Advertising - including sports betting, casino advertising, horse racing, poker machines and the like. A number of former prominent senior politicians from both major political parties are employed as industry lobbyists. Gambling is being re-branded as entertainment. A number of leading academics have expressed alarm at the effect of pervading gambling advertising - leading to its normalization for children. 40% of all profits realized by the gaming industry in Australia are garnered from problem gamblers. The Gaming Industry is a powerful lobby group that has resisted all calls for meaningful reform. The Gaming Industry has run campaigns targeting politicians electorates in the endeavor of unseating any and all non-compliant parliamentarians.   Independent South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon is an advocate for greater regulation of the Gaming Industry in Australia see: http://www.nickxenophon.com.au/ Visit the related web page
	View more stories