Mosaiko

The Enigma of Internet Freedom

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By Derek Bambauer

Rhetorically, everyone supports Internet freedom. “Freedom,” though, means quite different things, and carries diverse weights when measured against other interests in various countries and cultures. This normative divergence plays out in debates over access, threats to freedom, online content controls, and governance. In short, the concept of “Internet freedom” holds within it a set of conflicts about how the ‘Net should function. Acknowledging openly these tensions is better than clinging to wording that masks inevitable, hard choices.

First, access to the network is a prerequisite for enjoying Internet freedom, however defined. States differ, though, on whether individuals are entitled to that access. Some see Internet access — particularly high-speed broadband access — as a right, while others conceive it as a privilege. Finland, for example, has stated that having a 1MB connection is a basic human right of Finnish citizens. Similarly, France’s Constitutional Council declared that Internet access is a legal right. The United States, by contrast, views the ability to go on-line as a market good like any other, rather than seeing it as an entitlement. If you can’t afford to connect to the ‘net, you remain offline, or dependent on publicly available access sites at libraries and schools.

Whether Internet access is treated as a right or a privilege also holds implications for loss of that access. The United Kingdom’s new Digital Economy Act sets up a “graduated response” system that would suspend users’ accounts if they are repeatedly accused of online copyright infringement. France’s HADOPI (French acronym for the nation’s law promoting the distribution and protection of creative works on the Internet) regime similarly disconnects users after three allegations of infringement. Thus, even states that establish access as a right balance it against other considerations, such as protecting intellectual property owners. That balancing act is the key to differing conceptions of Internet freedom.

Second, societies vary on the orientation of Internet freedom — in short, free from whom, or from what? One key threat is government. States can impinge online liberties in numerous ways, such as by criminalizing speech or conduct, by monitoring communications, or by blocking material. American views on freedom are typically concerned foremost with preventing unchecked government power. But there are other threats as well. For example, European countries are often wary of the power of corporations to gather private, personally-identifiable information about users. Recent controversies over Facebook’s privacy settings, Google’s video service in Italy, and Google’s Street View geo-mapping project demonstrate the worry over remaining free from private sector data gathering as well as governmental surveillance.

In addition, countries may seek to prevent impingements on one’s freedom generated by other users — for example, the harm to one’s reputation that occurs from false and defamatory content. Some states press intermediaries such as Internet service providers and social networking sites to police this kind of material via the threat of liability, while others provide immunity for anyone but the author. Countries thus demonstrate a range of concerns about threats to freedom.

Third, nations balance differently freedom of expression, and access to information, against concerns about the harms that online material can cause. Those harms can be to individuals (as with defamation), to identifiable groups such as religious or ethnic minorities, or even to shared societal values. The United States views the free exchange of information as sufficiently weighty to displace many competing concerns, which is why material such as hate speech and pornography is protected by its constitution. However, U.S. law does prohibit certain types of information, such as true threats, obscene materials, and child pornography. France and Germany also strongly protect open expression, but ban hate speech online. For example, the countries require Google to filter hate speech sites from its search results on its local language sites. Singapore formally bans pornographic content online, and blocks users from a small set of such sites as a symbolic measure. Saudi Arabia, a country where the majority of citizens are followers of the Sunni branch of Islam, prevents access to certain religious content contrary to Sunni beliefs, such as sites on the Baha’i faith or on the Shia branch of Islam. In short, if we view Internet freedom as protecting unfettered expression, this liberty is counterbalanced to varying degrees by competing concerns, even in countries with strong traditions for protecting speech.

Lastly, countries differ on who should govern Internet freedom, and how it should be implemented. Debates over Internet governance are nearly as old as the commercial ‘net itself. The United States created the Internet’s initial architecture, and retains a baseline level of control over its workings through the relationship between the Department of Commerce and ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which runs the Domain Name System among other tasks. The United States has resisted transfer of ICANN’s functions to other entities based, in part, on a concern that placing the Internet under international control would weaken freedom — in particular, freedom of expression. Other states, though, seek a greater voice in decision-making about the ‘net’s underlying protocols and standards, and do not want the network to be locked into American conceptions of the proper balance among demands such as security, privacy, and open expression. This has led to heated debate in fora such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and to the creation of consultative bodies such as the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Thus, countries not only differ on what constitutes Internet freedom, they also diverge on how it should be achieved in practice.

Freedom is a loaded term. It holds rhetorical power; portraying one’s opponents as averse to Internet freedom is a potent tactic. What makes Internet freedom a difficult goal to achieve is that adherents employ the same term for a range of meanings. Freedom can be conceived of as strongly individualistic, where users are free to act as they please so long as they do not directly harm others. Or, it can be viewed as community-based, where privileges depend upon compliance with a societal framework of rules and norms. Freedom can shield us from interference by states, by companies, and by each other. It can dictate that we have a right to go online, or that we have the opportunity to do so. Internet freedom is thus a dependent term: Its meaning varies with context.

This mutability carries risk, though. Governments may argue that their societies have an understanding of Internet freedom that justifies certain actions while, in fact, those steps are for the benefit of the governing, not the governed. Vietnam, for example, blocks access to certain online material based putatively on concerns about exposure of minors to unhealthy material such as pornography. Yet, the state’s system prevents users from reaching sites on human rights and political dissent, while failing to block even a single pornographic page. Plainly, Vietnam’s government is engaged in pretextual behavior. We should be alert to the risk that states will employ legitimate differences about the normative content of “freedom” online as a cover for activities that undermine that liberty.

Perhaps, in the end, Internet freedom is a term that should be abandoned as too general to be useful. Instead, countries, cultures, and users should grapple with the difficult tradeoffs that Internet communication presents. The ‘net empowers pamphleteering as well as pornography. Anonymous communication can be used to inform about political corruption and to infringe intellectual property untraceably. Data aggregation can personalize one’s online experience, or profile one’s communication and activities. Being explicit about the compromises we make, and being respectful of the underlying values that drive those decisions, will serve us better than using “Internet freedom” to build a false sense of consensus.