NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Free Speech, the Internet, and a Very Big Lie
Free Speech, the Internet, and a Very Big Lie
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000990.html
A dangerous and decidedly false meme has been floating around in media
and elsewhere in recent days. It's actually not a new concept at all,
but we're now seeing calculated efforts being deployed to leverage
recent world events toward the achievement of an ancient and evil
goal -- the control of public and private speech in their various guises
and forms.
The catalyst for this newly energized push to muzzle the world is of
course the vile anti-Islamic YouTube video, which I have discussed
previously in "YouTube Blocking the Anti-Islamic Video: Censorship or
Responsible Stewardship?" and elsewhere ( http://j.mp/R04pkD [Lauren's Blog] ).
I will not here and now discuss this particular case in much more
detail, except to note that trying to understand the reactions to this
video, without a comprehensive understanding of the geopolitical and
social history of the Mideast, is like attempting to figure out how a
smartphone works by staring intently at its miniaturized circuit board
components.
Of great concern are the comments and editorial opining now appearing,
suggesting that the U.S. puts too much stake in "free speech"
concepts, that we must be "tolerant" of other countries' sensibilities
about speech restrictions, and that perhaps global censorship of
unpopular concepts and ideas can be justified in the name of community
good and world peace.
Implicit (and sometimes explicit) in these arguments is the assumption
that censorship leads to happier, more peaceful populations, where
conflicts that would otherwise occur will instead be tempered or
eliminated by the unavailability of particular types of information
and content.
Attempts to impose such controls on speech are now of global extent,
and have massively accelerated with the evolution of the Internet.
Some countries ban what they consider to be "sacrilegious" materials
in a religious context. Others ban Nazi imagery, or negative comments
about the ruling government or monarchs. In some nations, violations
of associated speech laws can result in decades-long prison sentences.
Even here in the U.S., multiple legislative attempts have been made to
try ban a wide variety of broadly defined content from the Net, on the
grounds of it supposedly being "inappropriate" for children.
But the question that is hardly ever asked is fundamentally a simple
one.
Ethical questions aside for the moment, does government-imposed
censorship -- or government-inspired self-censorship -- actually have
the "desired" results?
As a thought experiment, imagine that Google had acceded to demands
that the anti-Islamic video be immediately blocked globally on
YouTube, instead of taking what I believe was the appropriate course
of instead only implementing highly targeted and narrow blocking.
Would global blocking have avoided the violence? Would the leaders
calling for such blocking have then been satisfied?
The answer to both questions clearly appears to be no.
In fact, most of the violence in reaction to the video has been from
persons who have not even seen it. Most don't even personally know
anybody who has seen significant amounts of the actual video. Rather,
they have "heard" about it -- second hand, third hand,
characterizations, rumors, bits and pieces from other sources.
This is a clue to the Very Big Lie of censorship.
Censorship is not actually about preventing violence, or keeping
people happy, or even improving the economy.
Censorship is essentially a *political* act. It is a mechanism of
political control and political empowerment of existing leaders, not
an effective mechanism for improving people's lives -- other than the
lives of rulers and politicians themselves.
If YouTube had blocked the video in question globally, various leaders
would have crowed that they had bullied Google into submission, but so
long as the video existed anywhere, in any form, protests and violence
would continue, with many of these leaders tacitly or even directly
urging protesters on, fanning the flames of emotion.
For it is the very *existence* of information, not *access* to
information per se, that is at the heart of censorship demands.
And in the age of the Internet, information has become much like
energy itself. It can be hidden, changed in form, but information has
become virtually indestructible. And like a chain reaction in a pit
of uranium-235, the suppressed energy of information can explode
across the Internet in a relative instant, impossible to control
around the planet.
Demands to censor the Net, to somehow limit or marginalize free speech
as some sort of American aberration, are ultimately doomed.
Censorship proponents dream of the days before the Net -- before
television, radio, newspapers, and the printing press, when
information could not be easily duplicated, transmitted, and widely
disseminated.
When the printing press was invented, church leaders in particular
were horrified. Much like politicians and leaders today, they knew
that the technology could serve them well, but the last thing they
wanted was such communications powers in the hands of the common folk.
The Internet of today has become the fulfillment of would-be censors
worst nightmares. It provides the ability of virtual "nobodies" to
reach vast audiences with unapproved ideas of all sorts, at any time,
in all manner of ways -- written, audio, video.
Without the Internet, you would obviously not be reading these words,
nor would you likely even be aware of my existence. Multiply this
effect by millions -- that's the technological marvel that is a terror
to those who would control information, communications, speech, and
ideas themselves.
The U.S. has plenty of problems when it comes to its own handling of
free speech. Related government hypocrisies are as old as the union,
and largely independent of which political parties are ascendant at
any given time.
But the Founding Fathers, fresh from the repression of monarchy, wrote
words of genius when they created the First Amendment to the
Constitution, and ensconced freedom of speech firmly into the fabric
of their new nation. That their foresight, in a largely agrarian
society, is even more valid and important today, in a time of
instantaneous global communications within a highly technological
milieu, is a wonder of the ages.
We must firmly reject the claims of persons who assert that there's
too much free speech, that perhaps censorship isn't so bad, that the
world at large must cower to the lowest common denominator of narrow
minds and political expediencies.
They are wrong, and unless they're willing to cut themselves off from
the Internet entirely -- and perhaps not even then -- the Net will
ultimately foil their efforts to impose "dark ages" sensibilities onto
our world of now.
We're all well into the 21st century -- not the 13th.
Get used to it -- or learn the lessons of history
the very hard way indeed.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
- Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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