NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] China to Require Internet Licenses -- But The Battle is Already Lost
China to Require Internet Licenses -- But The Battle is Already Lost
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000532.html
Greetings. Less than a week after YouTube access was restored in
China (it apparently reappeared last Friday, but this wasn't reported
as widely as the original blocking), word is coming from China that
most (all?) Internet content providers will officially need to obtain
government licenses to legally disseminate their materials on the
Internet. The usual (for China) list of "prohibited topics" will be
attached to this expanded licensing requirement
( http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118001993.html ).
The idea of licensing users of the Internet one way or another is not
a new one by any means. I regularly need to "educate" upset parties
who approach me with the erroneous concept that if only everyone using
the Internet were fully identified at all times, the Net would become
an online nirvana free of spam, scams, scums, bums, pimps, porn, and
all that pesky political content that they so abhor.
What's really interesting about the situation in China regarding the
Internet is how utterly bizarre it obviously has become. The Chinese,
with the clear goal of a "soft landing" into the financial and
development world of the 21st century without the baggage of broad
political or speech freedoms, have become an object lesson in the
confusion that results when governments attempt to manage Internet
content. (Presumably the Australian government, bent on its own vast
Internet censorship track, is hoping to avoid China's mistakes -- but
failure here too is ultimately inevitable.)
Direct access to particular Internet sites from China is blocked, then
unblocked. New rules for Internet users appear, and are promptly
evaded. Deals for controlled content arise, while simultaneously
other services from the same entities inevitably facilitate Chinese
access to "forbidden fruits" of the Net. Enforcement of
Internet-related rules in China is necessarily spotty, tending to
focus on political or the most egregious (by Chinese standards)
violators.
Yet the Chinese citizenry by and large -- in much the same manner that
they've been doing for thousands of years -- typically find ways to
work around the oppressive bureaucracy.
Unless China cuts itself off entirely from the Internet -- a virtual
if not physical impossibility -- the trend lines are clear. The
Chinese people will continue to obtain ever greater access to the vast
array of unapproved Internet content. Attempts to restrict this
access may protect some Chinese bureaucrats' jobs for a period of
time, but the thrust of history in the long run is clear --
information in the hands of the people is the ultimate political
power, and it's simply not possible to control the benefits of the Net
in a micromanaged manner.
Once you plug that jack into the Internet router, you are part of the
global community in a manner that civilization has never before seen.
Governments around the world continue to assume (or at least hope)
that the Net can somehow be bent to their wills like any other
technology with an origin in the sphere of defense and military
research.
But by enabling effectively unrestricted communications between people
anywhere on the planet, in ways both infinitely extensible and
mutable, it becomes more obvious every day that the Internet -- in one
form or another -- is a game changer not of years, or centuries, but
of millennia.
There will be ups and downs, struggles with censorship, and continuing
battles to minimize the privacy threats that have accompanied the rise
of the Net.
But the Internet and its vast potential for two-way communications is
already arguably weaving itself more deeply into our psyches than the
telegraph or telephone, perhaps even more so than printing,
newspapers, and books themselves.
Where precisely this will lead us is not clear. But lead us it will,
the protests of governments and Luddites alike notwithstanding. The
Internet is the purest and most fundamentally egalitarian form of
communications yet developed by mankind.
Get used to it.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: LW1