NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Twitter's Censorship Muddle
Twitter's Censorship Muddle
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000934.html
With some fanfare, Twitter announced yesterday that they were
implementing a mechanism for IP-based censorship of tweets on a
country by country basis -- triggered by demands made by individual
countries themselves ( http://j.mp/wCPRne [Twitter] ).
It's been accurately noted that Twitter (like most other global
Internet firms, including Google and Microsoft) has long globally
removed certain materials as a perceived legally required response to
individual countries' "orders" in these respects. Localized takedowns
(such as the removal of certain Nazi-oriented search results in
France) are not uncommon.
And obviously such companies must obey these orders if they are to
continue doing business in those nations -- even when the orders are
utterly contrary to basic tenets of human rights and free speech.
In their analysis of this situation, EFF briefly mentions -- but seems
to downplay -- the "slippery slope" aspect of country by country
censorship capabilities. EFF also asserts that "transparency"
requirements -- e.g., Twitter publicly noting when takedowns occur,
represents a significant mitigating factor ( http://j.mp/An4jOr [EFF] ).
But Twitter's new acceptance of localized censorship perhaps provides
an opportune moment to take another look at this entire situation,
with an eye toward determining whether such approaches do more harm
than good, both globally and locally.
Unfortunately, there is virtually no evidence to contradict, and vast
evidence to support, the notion that the more "localized" and
"frictionless" a censorship system, the more governments will expand
their use of such systems over time.
In the Internet context, the problems triggered by providing localized
censorship capabilities are easily visible on both sides of the fence.
For the country doing the censoring, localized censorship capabilities
are a dream come true. They can push through all manner of takedown
demands, knowing that pushback from the Internet services involved
will be minimized by the fact that such services no longer have to
risk the global wrath of users in other countries affected by global
takedowns. So especially for those countries who already imprison
their citizens for merely writing a blog post or sending a tweet that
is not in keeping with the party line, the local censorship approach
seems a page directly from their oppressive playbooks. And they can
feel pretty confident that those firms won't feel the need to cease
providing all services to such countries, since they can censor in
those nations without affecting the remainder of their global user
bases.
Local censorship can indeed sometimes be easier on the Web service
firms. They are no longer faced with the binary choice of accepting
global censorship demands, vs. pushing back on such demands (as they
would likely be more inclined to do when global takedowns are the
norm), and perhaps having to threaten to no longer do business in or
provide services to those countries.
Essentially, localized censorship systems provided by global Internet
firms can enable a mechanism for evading key foundational ethical
questions. If faced with a total cutoff of such important services,
rather than an easy way to consummate their censorship demands, would
many nations actually choose the former, total cutoff course? How
would their populations react? What would be the political and other
ramifications?
But these become purely academic questions when country by country
blocking and takedowns are available, because the systems then provide
a comparatively frictionless path for both governments and Web service
providers. The losers, by contrast, are the ordinary people in those
censored countries.
It is certainly true that some knowledgeable users in such countries
will likely find ways around blocks and associated nationally-based
takedowns, through proxies or other means. But most persons in those
nations probably will not know how to do so, and would be fearful of
the risks associated with being discovered using such circumvention
technologies.
Nor is there significant evidence suggesting that transparency
"listing" requirements reduce censorship at all. Most purveyors of
censorship have little concern regarding who knows that they are
engaging in censorship, so long as the censorship is taking place.
I would never assert that this is a simple situation, or that these
are easy decisions for the firms involved. There are many complex and
frequently conflicting aspects, forces, and considerations in play,
both in purely business and other spheres.
Still, my gut feeling is that moves toward localized censorship
enabling systems ultimately fall into an ethically suspect arena.
While they likely reduce the need for global takedowns, they also seem
destined to perpetuate and over time increase the use of censorship
against national populations by their governments, sometimes in
intensely oppressive manners.
There is a disquieting sense of trying to make peace by pushing
censorship behind borders where everyone else doesn't have to deal
with it, while the targets of censorship are left to wither under an
ever escalating barrage of national censorship demands.
It's difficult to see how the scourge of censorship can be
realistically fought in such an environment, where for all practical
purposes the result of these arrangements is censorship being
effectively given a stamp of approval, so long as any given item isn't
censored on a global scope.
This may indeed be a workable mechanism for avoiding the need to fight
intense anti-censorship wars, or threatening countries with major
service cutoffs.
On the other hand, if we actually care about persons under the boots
of censorship loving regimes, perhaps we should be giving a bit more
consideration to the notion that some concepts -- freedom of speech
among them -- truly are worth fighting for.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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