international law as justifying restrictions on freedom of expression. Instead, the free and open nature of the Internet should be respected, subject to laws of general application, such as defamation or hate speech laws. This situation is seriously exacerbated in Jordan due to the fact that the PPL requires the Director of the Media Commission to block unlicensed websites which violate the provisions of the law, including because they are required to register. 100s of websites were in fact blocked in June 2013, giving rise to widespread both internal and international criticism. The new rules also set strict conditions for online content. These include that the owners and editor-in-chief are responsible for the content of third party comments, which are considered to be “journalistic material”, that only comments which related to the topic of the news article are allowed, and that websites must keep records of comments for six months, including information about the individual who posted them. Once again, these provisions signally fail to respect international standards, which hold that websites should not be responsible for third party comments at least until they have received a reliable notification to the effect that the comment is illegal, and then fail to take it down. There is also no reason why comments should formally be required to relate to the news article; the online space is so important to freedom of expression precisely because it allows for freewheeling debates which do not necessary follow formal standards of logic and coherence. Finally, the ability and indeed right to post content anonymously is widely recognised as an aspect of the right to freedom of expression. In terms of enforcement, the PPL creates a complex relationship between the Director of the Media Commission and the courts. The former has the power to ban the importation of foreign publications which breach the rules in the Law, whereas according to international law only courts should wield these sorts of powers. The Director also has the power to refer cases concerning books to the court, which led to the very high number of over 30 books per year being banned in 2013 and 2014. It would be preferable if any such actions were initiated only in the regular way by the prosecutorial authorities without the intervention of the Director. Jordan: Analysis of the Press and Publications Law, 1998, as Amended - 3