Internet and Democracy: The Sequel

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Syllabus


April 10

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.




Readings


Additional Resources

Class Discussion

April 10: Internet and Democracy: The Sequel Just Johnny 17:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I was surprised by the numbers from the "Evolving Landscape..." reading as far as how normal people use the internet in restrictive countries. We tend to think of the internet as this powerful tool to access multicultural views and information, especially if you live in a censorious society. This neglects the fact that around 80% of the websites I use/read/visit commonly are based out of the U.S., and 99% are English-language, so why would that be substantially different for someone from China? Part of our assumption that this resource is so valuable is that people would want to read the same info we are, because it is presumably the best (and to be fair it at least quite often is, as far as the areas it actually covers). But that often is not the info most relevant to those readers.

The shockingly low % (1% at a guess by the reading) of people in China, for example, who are using circumvention tools makes a lot more sense when you realize that internal Chinese sites like youku fill the vast majority of their internet needs, and that specifically Chinese concepts and constructs like microblogging avoid censors through a much more realistic approach to political censorship for the average internet user there. This is troubling in light of the conclusion that censoring technologies may now be outstripping circumvention technologies/abilities of average internet users to avoid censorship/attack/tracking. The solution of aggressively empowering a small group of activists, who would then spread messages through the local networks, seems to me to be a good one. It does place those activists at even more risk by further singling them out though, and obviously detracts from the crowd-sourcing type benefits that are at the heart of the internet's value.

I'm looking forward to discussing in class the balance of an international company's responsibility to its shareholders to create profit and remain competitive v. its responsibility to its original nation's norms/laws/etc. v. its responsibility to to an international "human rights" type code for the internet, regardless of where it comes from or where it's serving.

There are always arguments to be made for profit above all else, and what if trying too hard to be moral lowers your profits to where an 100% immoral (in relation to these internet issues) company corners the market? Then your idealism ruined you AND actively hurt online rights, since you left the door open for someone far worse than yourself to control that chunk of the web. AlexLE 17:03, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The first article for this week’s class was concise yet powerful and true. The internet has definitely become a very important battlefield and it can become a powerful weapon if used in certain ways. We can simply think of the number of people who read newspapers these days compared to blogs, forums and other online discussion boards where information can be, and it is very often, distorted. Other than this, the article was very useful for understanding political implications concerning the use of the internet, especially the ones that take place in Countries where freedom of speech is often denied by dictatorial governments. The Zittrain/Palfrey article was very interesting especially when depicting a hypothetical yet realistic situation at the beginning. For us westerners it is very hard to imagine what it would be like to be censored for futile reasons, or be controlled by governments and even be at risk of incarceration for writing something so harmless but fundamental like “democracy” in China. The third article was also very interesting and I personally could identify myself only with Facebook because I don’t use any other social network. What has been said is true but I believe that it can be very easy to avoid detection on Facebook if something against the rules were to take place. As the article has already said, anonymity is a very common practice on Facebook and I personally think that the Facebook staff doesn’t really spend that much time searching for irregularities, especially since they have created the “flag” option where users become a sort of citizen watch to report violations themselves. The ONI blog revealed some very attention-grabbing news about the internet but my attention was directed to the headline regarding CISPA and how people think it will become a new SOPA or PIPA. I have personally read the entire bill and I don’t think it can be considered similar at all. There have been a number of emails sent around the internet asking to sign a petition against CISPA for a series of reasons which turn out to be completely untrue, therefore one can really understand how emails, blogs and other internet tools can provide misinformation and make people believe something that isn’t true. I agree on the creation of the Safe Harbor Provision but I still think that ISPs or OSPs should also be vigilant 24/7 on what material is posted on their sites and take adequate countermeasures to stop illegal activity without waiting to actually be caught by the government or law enforcement agencies. The hall of shame was perhaps the most interesting website this week because it shows something which I am writing about in my research paper for this class and that is: Shaming ISPs in an attempt to stop illegal activities. The Viacom v. YouTube case was and still is very interesting. At first the court ruled in favor of YouTube but during the appeal it seems that both Viacom and YouTube can consider themselves victorious even though both losing something. It will be very interesting to see what happens next to this important case. Emanuele 10:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


I found an interesting article on the ONI Blog titled "Iran Plans to Implement 'Clean Internet' by August 2012." That article summarizes, essentially, how the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology in Iran plans to soon "install an Intranet that will block Gmail, Facebook, and many other websites in attempts to create a 'clean Internet'." Some have named this an "electronic curtain." In lieu of the aforementioned popular western Internet tools, the government will instead replace them with Iran Mail and Iran Search Engine. I just found it fascinating that such a large scale crackdown on western internet tools would be carried out and implemented so quickly. It appears as if they are targeting a 5 month timeframe for completion. Cfleming27 10:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The readings raise frightful questions about internet censorship that almost certainly will never be resolved if we expect corporations to “regulate” themselves and establish a code of ethics as Ziittrain and Palfrey explore. The whole core belief of the free market is that all corporations enjoy benefits and focus solely on profits, meaning that profits generated through ethical sacrifices will be a leading problem unless, as was suggested, the United Nations becomes involved or countries conform.

From the ONI website, the Iranian censorship campaign is quite disturbing. Yet many countries of the world have strong business ties with this regime and therefore outside pressures to encourage free speech are essentially a moot point.

The Arizona law mentioned on the ONI website is particularly troubling because of its ambiguous language. The controversial heart of the bill reads as follows (http://articles.cnn.com/2012-04-04/tech/tech_web_internet-trolls-arizona-law_1_bill-internet-trolls-hateful-comments?_s=PM:TECH):

"It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person. It is also unlawful to otherwise disturb by repeated anonymous electronic or digital communications the peace, quiet or right of privacy of any person at the place where the communications were received."

While threats and intimidation may fall into the category of bullying, such broad language raises concerns on how law enforcement can, in fact, outwardly censor the internet at their own discretion. I don’t think you have to be a civil libertarian to find the ambiguity of this bill to be troubling.--Jimmyh 16:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Links

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