Internet Regulation: The Government Knows What’s Best

Do you think  you’re an adult, and one who is capable of making your own decisions about what you do and do not want to read?  Do you think you are capable of clicking a back button?  Or shutting off your password-protected computers when the kids will be home alone?

In Australia, the government thinks not.

The Herald Sun reports that in following the footsteps of China, Australia is considering mandatory Internet censorship.  It started as a proposed Internet filter that would block child pornography sites, with users having the option of using the filter.  Then, the government decided that this filter would be mandatory for all users.

The Reach of Censorship

The problem with government is that it never curtails its own power.  Internet users, human rights groups, civil liberties organizations and tech companies alike worry that in Australia, the filter will extend to other sites that the government thinks should be blocked, beginning with sites like anorexia or euthanasia and then extending to other controversial subjects, such as political discourse.

If this type of censorship and Internet regulation becomes mandatory in the United States, consider the U.S. Army’s recent report about the potential dangers of the microblogging site Twitter.  According to the military, Twitter may become a tool to be used by terrorists.

Will those vegetarians and religious communities on Twitter become terrorist threats?

Breitbart.com reviewed the Army’s report and writes:

“A chapter on “Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter” notes that Twitter members sent out messages, known as “Tweets,” reporting the July Los Angeles earthquake faster than news outlets and activists at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis used it to provide information on police movements.

“Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences,” the report said.”

Wow.  Vegetarian social activism?  I have a hard time imagining vegetarian activists as terrorists.

Filtering Results in Warped News

The filters will warp stories.  For instance, the word “gay” sends jitters of fear down the spines of some.  People for the American Way reports,

Look out for that scary, immoral “G” word!  It could threaten your marriage!

“American Family Association’s OneNewsNow site have a few other tricks up their sleeves, such as automatically replacing any use of the word “gay” with the word “homosexual” in any of the AP stories they run … leading to instances in which proper names are reformatted to meet their ridiculous standard, such as this article about sprinter Tyson Gay winning the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in which he is renamed “Tyson Homosexual”:

You can see the examples of how the news is twisted with filters here.

Where the Candidates Stand

In CNET’s tech poll of Congressional members, Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) and Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) had the best “tech scores.”

CNET published the responses of Obama, McCain, Barr and Nader to its questions for the Technology Vote.  In looking at the two major candidates’ final scores, McCain’s responses revealed that he is more friendly to technology and personal privacy than Obama.

Taking this a bit farther, here’s some of my observations.

Both McCain and Obama supported the FISA legislation which allows the government to tap into your phone calls and emails if you confer with a family member, friend or anyone else who lives outside of the boundaries of the United States.

In 2006/7, McCain had proposed a draconian bill that would require all social service networks to maintain and submit data about its users who were using “illegal images” associated with child pornography.  The problem with this bill, and many other Internet regulations that start with good intentions, is that the  legislation is hard to interpret and is generally interpreted as far more reaching than intended.  In this case, tech experts speculate that the bill would extend to bloggers and just about anyone with a site that interacted with its visitors.  And once Pandora’s regulatory box is opened, these types of bills have a snowball effect with more and more regulations, loopholes, fees and other burdens added into them as people try to understand what they mean and how their businesses have to comply.

On the other side, many on the right worry that an Obama presidency will reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine” in order to stifle right wing radio and any form of dissent.  Capital Weekly writes:

“The reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would be a mortal blow to talk radio, currently the only media that conservatives dominate. But have no fear ditto heads, Rush would simply move to satellite radio and he won’t have to give a damn about the FCC and he will be bigger than ever.

This is all a plan to stifle dissent and ensure that the mainstream media returns to dominance which would not be good for Republicans. If you liked how the mainstream media promoted neophyte Barack Obama to near mythic status while tearing down a true American hero, John McCain, imagine what they could do to conservative voices if they reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Somewhere Stalin is smiling.”

While the Fairness Doctrine would appear to relate to licensed broadcasters that are using public airwaves for radio and television, how much is the Internet associated with these public airwaves?  I don’t know the exact answer to this question.  What I do know is that the FCC is about to auction off a huge chunk of public airwaves and Internet activists would like this to go to Internet providers.  See Save Our Airwaves for an Open Internet.  It would seem, then, that any Fairness Doctrine associated with public airwaves could extend to publishers on the Internet if they are licensed to use the Internet.  Fortunately, there is no license requirement to publish online, although some legislators would like it if people had to acquire a license to use the Internet.

The only candidate that I have seen who had clearly addressed the issue of privacy is Libertarian Bob Barr:

Internet Regulation is Around the Corner

With what’s happening in Australia and poll after poll revealing that Americans (albeit not the majority of Americans) want Internet regulation, I think it’s something that is just around the corner here in the States.

It’s a shame that some parents refuse to take responsibility for their children’s Internet use and that many people refuse to take responsibility for themselves by installing their own Internet filters so that they won’t stumble upon a site that they find fearful or offensive.  Instead, they want to shove this kind of regulation and perhaps censorship on all of us, even if we are mature and responsible enough to realize we have choice in what we see, listen to or publish.

I can see and support a requirement that adult content needs to be published on an “XXX” domain when it comes to pornography and anyone who does not do so gets fined. But filtering the content of the entire Net is taking it a bit too far. The danger is that mandatory filters for what is most universally offensive, such as porn or child abuse, may expand to whatever else the government thinks is offensive – like political dissent — or vegetarians sending tweets on Twitter. Please comment and let us know what you think about Internet regulation and censorship.

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