NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] In the Wake of Boston Bombings, Misguided Demands for YouTube Censorship
In the Wake of Boston Bombings, Misguided Demands for YouTube Censorship
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001021.html
Frankly, I was expecting such a call, and sure enough it arrived
yesterday. A reporter for a significant media outlet wanted my
opinion on the thesis that YouTube and other video sites should be
self-censored and/or censored by governments to remove "all materials"
that could "be of help" to would-be terrorists.
This meme is not new, but was inevitably resurrected with word that
the Boston bombing brothers supposedly were inspired and trained
largely from Internet videos posted by various radical groups.
Now, before we proceed, a few words about the media. It's popular
these days to paint mainstream media in particular with a very broad,
largely negative brush. In my personal experience, this is mostly
unwarranted.
Most reporters I come into contact with -- and this holds true for
print, web, radio, and television venues -- are trying to do a good
job, often under significant editorial time pressures and associated
constraints.
The majority are interested in getting straight information to help
them make an accurate presentation. I call these reporters the
"seekers of knowledge."
There is however also a minority that are essentially only interested
in getting quotes to try add "gravitas" to an already largely
pre-written story, article, or other presentation that is predestined
to take a particular point of view regardless of what facts come to
the reporter's attention. We can call these reporters the "seekers of
confirmation."
If your statements to the latter type do not well synchronize with
their preconceived ideas and points of view, you can depend on your
input being discarded and, most likely, you will never hear from them
again.
The reporter who contacted me yesterday was indeed in this second category.
So after I explained to him that not only was the concept of video (or
for that matter, other information) censorship that he was proposing a
completely abhorrent and utterly impractical attack on civil
liberties, I was not surprised when he suddenly "got another call" and
quickly terminated the conversation without so much as a thank you.
I believe what really upset him was my explanation that such Internet
censorship attempts could actually be extremely counterproductive.
They would mainly serve to make it more difficult for authorities to
easily observe what sorts of materials were circulating, since
censoring of public sites would by no means eliminate "items of
concern" from availability, but would instead drive them underground
into the so-called "darknets" where, for example, photos and videos
related to child abuse remain widely accessible, despite attempts by
service providers and authorities to stamp them out.
Especially when dealing with videos or other information that are
espousing radical concepts, even violence, censorship is not the
answer. Censorship attempts will not be effective, and can very
easily make the problems that censorship was aimed to address much
worse, not better.
The appropriate response to information of concern is not to try
eliminate or block access to those ideas and concepts, but rather to
provide more information, better ideas and concepts, a powerful
counterpoints.
Trying to censor even outright lies will almost always fail. The
antidote to lies is not censorship, but truth.
And truth be told, often the forces of evil are much faster to adopt
new technologies to their advantage, while their adversaries stay
stuck in old, ineffective methods of battle -- like censorship -- that
are as obsolete as lobotomies in the Internet world of the 21st
century.
There's a maxim that "for every complex problem there's a simple,
wrong answer."
In the wake of the tragedies in Boston, it is to be expected that even
many well-meaning individuals and authorities would be desperately
searching for a "simple" answer to the complicated, multifaceted
specter of terrorism.
But that old saying still holds true. There are no simple solutions
for terrorism. Attempts to counter associated videos and related
materials with censorship are doomed to failure.
Rather, the answer again is more information, not less.
The answer is straight talk about why terrorism is a path not to
justice, but to evil.
We must learn to use the tools of the Internet at least as well as our
adversaries, not by playing desperate, hopeless games of censorship
Whac-A-Mole, but by uploading light to push out the darkness.
Get to work on those videos.
--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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