Dusan Babic

We are witnessing many controversies over the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), from to be a strictly governments-level affair, to to be full of empty rhetoric. I did not attend that huge gathering, but I have read extensively about it from various sources. My first impression was that the Summit missed to emphasize importance of full understanding how the convergence of mass media and new Information and Communications Technologies (ITCs) can be liberating and threatening at the same time. We are also witnessing dramatical technical changes but not sufficiently exploring its no less dramatic socio-cultural effects and impacts. However, some sound points have been made at the Geneva December 2002 WSIS, such as: "Political and moral divide must be bridged before the digital divide", said World Association of Newspapers' (WAN) representative. That is absolutely correct, but political and moral divide can be more effectively bridged after the bridging the digital divide. The latest figures claim that Internet access worldwide is hitting half a billion people, but digital divide is even still widening! It is hypocrisy to claim that the Internet is spreading democracy, while one third of world population have never made a phone call, or Manhattan alone has still more phone lines than whole African continent!

Another burning issue is how to regulate the Internet? There are basically two concepts: European and American. Europeans consider that the Internet cannot be unregulated, and Americans are insisting on so-called light regulation, put in the context of deregulation of the media sector as a general trend in America. Some scholars and media experts consider the cyberspace as a human rights frontier, which implies that the Internet should be in a forefront of widening and strengthening of press freedoms. And it should be so, but the Internet as the new medium must respect some postulates of tradional journalism, e.g., there is no absolute freedom of expression, there is only absolute freedom of thought or opinion, but not publicly expressed.

It was very illustrative the case of Yahoo, France, just three years ago, after the French courts banned the sale of Nazi memorabilia via Yahoo portals, since it "offended France's collective memory". By many media watch dog and human rights groups such move has been regarded as Yahoo's surrender, but they didn't uderstand that browsing can be an offense too (search for child porn). In brief, exercising of freedom of expression is strictly conncted with duties and responsibilities. It means also that ISPs must be responsible for their contents posted, but it raised another issue: whose rules will govern or prevail in the cyberspace? What is illegal in one country may be legal in another country.

To solve that indeed complex problem the media sector worldwide needs a global agreement over the Internet. It would be more effective if put in the context of self-regulation of the Internet. In my modest view, it doesn't require any extra media lawyers and experts to be engaged. It should be put simply in the formula: What is illegal offline should be illegal online, or what is legal offline should be legal online. In brief, the message matters not the medium.

I know that regulation, in general, is not keeping up with technology, in particular not with new ICTs, but just bearing that fact in mind, self-regulation of the Internet might be successful formula. If does exist pan-European self-regulatory advertising system, why shouldn't exist similar system for self-regfulation of the Internet. To be honest, I admit that self-regulation of the media worldwide doesn't work yet, but facing with the truth how important is the new medium, and how the world is shrinking thanks to the Internet, it should be done something in that direction for the benefits of all people in the cyberspace, and for the benefit of those still outside the cyberspace.

Dusan Babic
media researcher and analyst in Sarajevo-based
Media Plan Institute