The Individual and the State II: International Censorship and Filtering

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A decade ago, the Internet was widely seen as a means to diminish the power of countries to regulate the flow of ideas and information. However, we have witnessed the resurgence of national sovereignty in cyberspace, with many countries now resorting to a combination of technology, law and intimidation to reign in the spread of free speech via the Net. Often aided by the technological support of the private sector in the United States, for this class, we will debate the ethics, practicality and implications of Internet censorship.


Contents

Readings

Additional Resources

From Class

Class Discussion

I thought the following might also be of interest:

--Zsaulkalns 13:47, 27 February 2008 (EST)

  • [1] An interesting web-site keeping track of the parts of the world which have been the hardest on freedom of press and regulation of the internet, including keeping track of the numbers of journalists imprisoned. There are also 'annual reports' for most countries outlining web-site blocked and other freedom of the internet / press issues.

--Zark 17:37, 16 March 2008 (EDT)

--Luke 18:28, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

Censorship and control of the Internet seems on the rise. I think it will continue like this in the near future, more so if the internet community continues to reject some sort of effective self-regulation. A government that for ethical, political or religious reasons considers the content of websites inadequate will have a strong case for censorship. Is there today any other alternative for a government attempting to enforce its local laws (however "wrong" or anachronistic the laws may be)? I don't see one at the moment.

--Oscar 10:16, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

I am not sure if blaming Google or Yahoo for blocking web content in authoritative countries is fair. If companies do not cooperate with these governments, there may not be any search engines available to them at all!

--Andre Monteiro 10:56, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

In 1996 John Perry Barlow famously envisioned an internet utopia where people would freely exchange information and ideas and enjoy complete exemption from the laws of territorial governments, which would not be able to reach the internet [2]. This sovereign “cyberutopia” never materialized, however, and today we find a worldwide web increasingly bound and tailored to each country’s legal system and culture.

International censoring and filtering is a hot button issue. China, for example, filters out many western sites like sex.com that it believes would degrade a healthy socialist society. It has also criminalized “direct threats to the government” made online and has made many arrests and convicted many individuals for this (see Goldsmith & Wu, “Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World,” Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 87-104). Instead of outright filtering, the United States has become adept at indirect regulation, for example going after banks to choke activities that involve financial transactions like online illegal gambling. France and Germany block anti-semitic and Nazi websites, countries in the Middle East block content critical of their governments, and the list goes on and on.

There seems to be a conflict between an implied sovereignty of the internet and the sovereign rights of countries to regulate how they see fit. I would like to play devil’s advocate here and assert, is it appropriate or feasible to judge the morality of internet laws in other countries, particularly when those countries do not share the same values system as does yours? It seems difficult enough to make such judgments about the laws in one’s own country. Since no one entity actually owns or controls the world wide web, perhaps each country should regulate its internet the way it regulates its real world activities and behaviors.

Should companies like Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft comply with internet censoring and filtering policies? These companies find themselves conflicted between operating profitable businesses in other countries and complying with those countries’ laws, often to the displeasure of their shareholders and the general public when censoring and filtering become involved. Multinational corporations have always been compelled to comply with local laws in their overseas operations; should internet companies be any different? If so, what would be the remedy? Could internet companies really adopt a voluntary code of conduct as John Palfrey suggests [3], or is this unrealistic? --Mfregosi 12:30, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

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