Legislation: New regulations for Internet censorship law

Communications Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has published amended Films and Publications (FPB) regulations that set out new rules governing online content distribution. According to a report on the My Broadband site, the regulations complement the Film and Publications Amendment Act, colloquially termed the ‘Internet Censorship Bill’ before it became an Act of Parliament. President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ntshavheni signed the law into operation on 1 March. Although the Act creates two categories of content distributors – commercial and non-commercial – it doesn’t unambiguously state exempt non-commercial publishers from classification.

In broad terms, a commercial online distributor is someone who earns an income from putting films, games, and publications on the Internet. In a media briefing on 3 March, the Film and Publications Board (FPB) assured that non-commercial distributors do not need to classify their content. However, this has not been made clear in the regulations Ntshavheni published this month. The only explicit exemptions are the press and advertisers registered with the Press Council or Advertising Regulatory Board. Whether non-commercial distributors are exempted from FPB classification or not, the new law and regulations still bring them under the body’s jurisdiction. Anyone may complain to the FPB to take action against unclassified, prohibited content. Ellipsis founder and regulatory expert Dominic Cull has been a vocal critic of the Act, arguing that the FPB should not have any dominion over what permissible speech is. Responding to the regulations, Cull said that, unfortunately, it was expected they would be poor. ‘Regulations can only be as good as the legislation they are based on,’ Cull said.