President Cyril Ramaphosa signed off on the controversial Films and Publications Amendment Act in October 2019.<\/p>\n
Described in the media as the “internet censorship bill”, the Act will now officially come into operation on a future date to be declared by the President, says Peter Grealy of law firm Webber Wentzel.<\/p>\n
Grealy said that among other changes, the Act\u00a0introduces significant changes to our law, including the regulation of harmful content and hate speech.<\/p>\n
It also regulates commercial distributors of content (including people who distribute content online for commercial purposes) as well as non-commercial distributors (who distribute content for their own private use).<\/p>\n
The Act also places new obligations on internet service providers (ISPs) to remove and report certain content or be subject to a fine, he said.<\/p>\n
How you will be impacted<\/strong><\/p>\n The Act regulates content uploaded by social media users, bloggers and influencers, Grealy said.<\/p>\n “There are criminal penalties for distributing content that amounts to propaganda for war, incites violence or which advocates hatred against a person or an identifiable group or which amounts to child pornography.<\/p>\n “In a welcome step, the Act criminalises the intentional distribution of private sexual photographs\/films without the prior consent of the subject of such photographs and\/or films,” he said.<\/p>\n Grealy said that any Internet Service Provider (ISP)\u00a0who has knowledge that its services are being used for the distribution or hosting of content that incites imminent violence; propaganda for war; advocates hatred against a person or an identifiable group or amounts to child pornography must:<\/p>\n “A failure to do so could result in a fine not exceeding R50,000 and\/or imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months,” he said.<\/p>\n\n
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