Tobacco censorship

When the Tobacco Inquisitors at Otago suggested adoption of the WHO's framework for controlling tobacco marketing on the internet, I was a bit curious to see the details. Here they are.

58. In relation to the Internet, for example, there are five principal categories of responsible entity upon which bans or particular obligations should be imposed.

• Content producers create the content or cause it to be created. These include tobacco companies, advertising agencies and producers of television programmes, films and games that are distributed online. Content producers should be banned from including tobacco advertising, promotion or sponsorship in the content they produce.
• Content publishers include publishers and entities that select content before it is made available to Internet users (e.g. Internet sites of newspapers or broadcasters). Content publishers should be banned from including tobacco advertising, promotion or sponsorship in the content they make available.
• Content hosts are entities that control Internet-connected computer servers on which content is stored, including entities that aggregate content produced by others without selecting the content before they make it available to Internet users (such as social networking Internet sites). Content hosts should have an obligation to remove or disable access to tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship once they have been made aware of the content. [So Facebook users who smoke are banned from having groups promoting their favorite products]
• Content navigators are entities, such as Internet search engines, that facilitate the location of content by users of communications services. Content navigators should have an obligation to disable access to tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship once they have been made aware of the content. [So Google has to follow rules about what searches are allowed to find, not unlike China's rules.]
• Access providers are entities that provide end-user access to communications services, such as Internet service providers and mobile telephone companies. Access providers should have an obligation to disable access to tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship once they have been made aware of the content. [basically a DNS blacklist as best I'd reckon]

The document goes on to outline sanction regimes, telephone hotlines to call if you see a banned tobacco ad, encouraging civil society monitoring and enforcement....

And folks say Big Tobacco is evil.