Do the dangers of the uncontrolled internet require an international agreement to protect us against child porn, international terrorism etc?

‘The internet is the fabric of our lives. If Information Technology is the present day equivalent of electricity in the industrial era, in our age the Internet could be likened to both the electrical grid and the electric engine because of its ability to distribute the power of information throughout the entire realm of human activity.’ –Manuel Castells.

The above quote puts into perspective my blog on the Internet, its inherent dangers, and arguments for and against controls. The Internet is a global communications medium that allows its estimated 1.1 billion users to engage in commercial, financial, recreational, educational, and governmental matters. It has no boundaries and no borders; users can communicate, obtain information, or conduct business across the globe in moments. It is a neutral technology that can be and is used predominantly for good effect; however, criminals also transit cyberspace.
Its use as a communication system worldwide, according to Castells Manuel (2001), blossomed by the end of 1995 as the first year of widespread use of the World Wide Web with sixteen million users.

Since then, the world’s billions appear to have adapted Internet use to the extent that areas with poor or no access, due to inappropriate telecommunication facilities, have contrived ways of logging onto what pundits describe the Information Super Highway. A great disparity exists between Internet use in the developed and developing worlds where Internet speed, cost of access and poor infrastructure are key setbacks. Recognizing the limitless opportunities this information exchange or sharing portal avails to the public, concerns have been expressed about the inherent dangers of the Internet and arguments proffered for its curtailment or stricter regulations.

In The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society, the author recounts his excitement about a headline ‘New Uses of Internet in Colombia’ thinking the Internet finally provided a ‘small sign of light at the end of the tunnel’ of Colombia’s violence. To his dismay, the author reveals that indeed extortionists and kidnappers resorted to the internet to distribute hundreds of threats through electronic mailing lists, then proceeded to selective kidnapping to enforce their threats. That way they cashed in on their Internet-based, mass-produced extortion business. This is only a part of how evolving society appropriates the Internet criminally.

Manuel Castells’ experience to an extent reinforces the belief that the Internet is becoming a bully pulpit from which the disgruntled broadcast their frustration to the world at large.

I will like to refer to a speech delivered by Anetta Tousheva of Bulgaria’s State Agency for Child Protection (SACP), when she spoke on ‘Protecting children’s rights in the information society’ at the South Eastern Conference on Cyber Security Co-operation in Sofia in September 2003. Making a note of the positive impact of the transition to the information society, she acknowledged many negative effects of this transition which concerned, to a high extent, children who are among the most active users of Internet.

According to her, the first initiatives and projects in Bulgaria designed for the preparation of children for a competent, safe and responsible behaviour in Internet started in 1996/1997. Examples for that are some projects of the Bulgarian Section of the European Association of Teachers (AEDE -www.aede.org) such as “Internet in the Classroom”, “The Dark Side of Internet”, etc. Among main objectives was the enhancement of the awareness of students, teachers and parents on the risks and threats to the security of children in the net, on the ways to protect children from harmful and illegal content and on crimes and abuses in Internet. Within the period 1996-1998, teachers and students in several schools in Sofia received training in issues including: child pornography and pedophilia on the Internet, abuse of personal data and threats to privacy, Internet censorship debates, the illusionary anonymity of the net, fraud and cyber crimes, etc. A student’s e-mail competition themed “The Dark Side of Internet” was arranged during which students found out from their own research about Internet problems relating to rights violations in the cyber world, possibilities for efficient protection and safety behaviour rules.
Many internet pioneers saw cyberspace as a free and open space in which to exchange knowledge and ideas, unencumbered by the kinds of regulation and control applied to previous generations of communications networks. However, as the scenario analysis seeks to draw out, the internet is not one community, but a complex of communities, each with its own objectives and expectations. Stakeholder interests are likely to conflict in many areas.

Advocates for internet content controls have a concern that stretches beyond what readily rolls off their lips: child pornography, sex tourism, international terrorism, drug smuggling etc. The uncontrollable nature of the Internet in its present form reveals the weakness of long-established procedures of policing, rooted in the powers already present in all governments worldwide because of their inability to stop the communication flows that they have banned within their borders-be it Falun Gong messages in China, the memoirs of Mitterrand’s doctor in France, or the auctioning of valid absentee ballots for American elections over the Internet in the United States (the website was moved to Germany) (Castells Manuel 2001). States’ sovereignties are rooted in their abilities to control information. The Internet undermines that ability.

A discussion of Internet controls cannot be de-linked from the existence and role of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It also cannot be divorced from recent public disagreements between the United States and Europe over proposals to strip ICANN, a U.S non-profit organisation, off its internet governance or control role. ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. These include domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .UK), as well as the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols. Computers use these identifiers to reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. Prior to and since the November 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a number of countries have pressed for ICANN to handover its oversight role to a new organization that would be part of the U.N. system. Arguments have been made that advocates of this arrangement make no claims that the current system is flawed. Instead, they focus on the supposed "injustice" or "inappropriateness" of a system overseen by an American agency. Those who tow this line of argument suggest an ulterior motive behind the clamor for change. The suggestion is that those who clamour for the change include regimes that have taken measures to control their citizens' access to the Internet and have championed global controls over Internet content. These include some of the world's most repressive states: Cuba, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Some assert that other governments have weighed in to support U.N. oversight, either out of anti-Americanism, a reflexive commitment to international governance or a belief that Internet content needs to be reined in. Russia, Malaysia and Singapore have applauded the deliberate attitude of major governments to clamp down on the internet to, in a nutshell, neutralize the ordinary citizen’s ability to share information. Their supporting proposals are aimed at greatly extending government’s power on wiretapping and interception of data traffic and to establish an obligation for Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) to set traceability techniques for their users, as well as forced notification of users’ identities at the request of government agencies, in a very wide range of situations, and in circumstances vaguely defined.
Pro-internet pundits argue highly in favour of an information society devoid of restrictions either through controls or agreements. Researchers Wilsdon J., and Miller P. (2001) assert in Living in a networked world that the Internet is transforming the way we live, work and do business by providing the dynamism and creativity that drives the new economy; that it provides equity-possibilities in the forms of social inclusion and interaction and finally an explosion of new opportunities to tackle the challenges of sustainability. They present questions whose answers, in their view, show the potential of the Internet, through e-commerce, to bring about wider social and environmental benefits. A recap of their assertions includes suggestions that the Internet helps creative minds to develop entirely new ways to deal with old problems.
I share the argument proffered by Castells Manuel that global surveillance encroaches on free speech. Agreeably free speech was the essence of the right to unfettered communication at the time when most daily activities were not related to personal expression in the public realm. He argues that currently most human activities of work, leisure and personal interaction is undertaken online. Therefore, if the average human life is lived online it will be utterly unheard of for Big Brother to be actively seen and known to be monitoring every deed or expression the Internet’s billion patrons engage in. That would lead to an extent a certain sense of internalized censorship. Worse still, under repressive regimes the people’s inalienable freedom to expression as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations will be eroded.
As an advocate of media or platforms that promote the frontiers of free speech, I oppose an international agreement to rein in the uncontrollable nature of the internet. However I believe in the rule of law. Laws, courts, regulatory agencies and allied bodies, be they corporates, the media, the public sphere where opinion is shaped, should be well versed in the statutes that mandate them to deal and seek remedial action in instances where personal liberties and freedoms have been violated. In my research into this subject, I have keenly followed the March 2007 trial in the American state of Philadelphia a case that was brought before Federal Judge Lowell Reed. According to the BBC, Judge Reed overturned a law designed to protect children from viewing internet pornography, saying it violated the right of free speech. The law made it illegal for websites to provide children access to "harmful" material, but it was never enforced. Judge Lowell Reed of Philadelphia said other means of protection, such as software filters, were more effective. Opponents criticized the ruling, saying parents should not have to shoulder the burden of restricting adult material. But what I found most astute in his judgement was what he wrote after delivering judgement “I may not turn a blind eye to the law…to protect this nation’s youth by upholding a flawed statute, especially when a more effective and less restrictive alternative is readily available” .

There’s a need to govern the internet in ways that ensure reasonable equity in the digital space for the needs of the many different stakeholders. Informal systems are not enough. Pressure is mounting for more formal protection in areas like fraud, privacy and security. As the role of governments is not entirely clear, each of the scenarios would benefit from effective and transparent governance, with clear rules and norms established for redress and consumer protection.

The borderless nature of the internet makes institutional development a great challenge. Combining new technology with social and institutional innovation could mean a radical rethink of the way companies, and governments deal with their wider responsibilities. The trick is to address challenges now, before they become a burden to the existing way of doing things.




BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books:
Castells Manuel (2001)-The Internet Galaxy; Reflections on the internet, business and society. Oxford University press, pp 1, 3, 6, 177, 180

Wilsdon J., and Miller P. (2001) Digital futures: living in a network world, edited by James Wilsdon, pg 66




Websites:
Anetta Tousheva (2003), State Agency for Child Protection (SACP), Sofia, Bulgaria, speech given at South Eastern Conference on Cyber Security Co-operation

http://www.cybersecuritycooperation.org/documents/SaferInternet.doc (accessed 17/03/07)


Erica B. Russell (2003), U.S. Department of State report

http://www.cybersecuritycooperation.org/documents/TRENDS_IN_THREATS_TO_CYBERSECURITY.doc (accessed 17/03/07)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6481873.stm accessed 27/03/07


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101408.html (accessed 17/03/07)

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/asia/china.html (accessed 16/07/03)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/focus_magazine/news/story/2007/03/070315_kenya_webwatchdog.shtml (accessed 20/03/07)