NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] (Don't) Send in the (Internet Censorship) Clowns!
(Don't) Send in the (Internet Censorship) Clowns!
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001064.html
Great Britain had two princes to talk about last week. One was the
widely celebrated birth of the new Prince George, a joyful occasion
indeed.
The other "prince" -- actually a "clown prince" named David Cameron to
be more precise -- was playing the fool somewhat under the radar, and
we can excuse the British people for not noticing him as much amid the
celebration of George's arrival.
To call Prime Minister Cameron a "clown" at all might reasonably be
taken by some as an affront to clowns and jesters reaching back
through history. Because Cameron's style of clowning is far more akin
to the nightmarish, sneering "clowns" of "B" horror movies, not the
bringers of entertainment under the big top.
Cameron, through a series of inane and grandstanding statements and
pronouncements both deeply technically clueless and shamelessly
politically motivated, has been channeling Napoleon by placing the
clown prince crown on his own head.
Laughing at his antics would be a terrible mistake. For his wet dream
of Internet censorship poses an enormous risk not only to the UK, but
to other nations around the world who might seek comfort in his idiocy
for their own censorship regimes (already, calls have been made in
Canada to emulate Cameron's proposed model).
David Cameron's buffoonery in this context appears to have started
with what (he apparently and wildly inaccurately assumed) was a simple
concept -- force UK Internet users to "opt-in" if they wanted to be
able to access "pornography" on the Internet (though, as we'll see,
his censorship plans have always been much broader in scope).
The politics of the situation seem clear enough -- a specific British
tabloid has been pushing hard to promote Internet censorship, and
Cameron knows well enough which side of his bread is buttered.
Under his scheme, existing UK Internet users would be forced to choose
a "filtered" (that is, censored), or "unfiltered" (sort of unfiltered,
anyway) Internet feed. If they didn't choose, they'd get the censored
version. New users would be automatically given the censored version,
and would have to explicitly opt-in to the uncensored variety.
Perhaps unwittingly and ignorantly, Cameron implied that the vast
Chinese censorship apparatus was his model for Great Britain. He
managed this bizarre feat by choosing to praise the (currently opt-in
for filtering) content blocking system offered by one British ISP,
which just happens to be owned and operated by the true masters of
Internet censorship -- China itself (and reportedly, virtually all of
that ISP's user data routes through the Chinese system, whether
individual subscribers have chosen to activate the content controls or
not).
Cameron wants this Chinese-style filtering to instead be the default,
and you'd have to explicitly ask (and perhaps, find yourself on some
rather interesting government lists!) to be exempted from Cameron's
Content Censorship.
That is, to the extent you were allowed to escape -- because Cameron's
plans are extraordinarily extensive, as we'll see in a moment.
Almost instantly when he announced his proposal, negative reactions
and questions started bubbling up from all quarters.
Proxies, VPNs, and the like could easily evade such a filtering
regime. Did Cameron plan to try block those, too?
How does Cameron define pornography? Soft core? Hard core? Images
only? Literature? Would sex health information be blocked? What of
sources that have a wide variety of imagery, only some of which is
sexually oriented? Tumblr? Google Images? Flickr? What about
written works like "Fifty Shades of Grey" -- or "Lady Chatterley's
Lover" or ... ?
What would happen in homes where one adult wanted to privately look at
such materials and the other didn't even know about it? Will they
have to fight over the censorship setting?
Who will actually make and maintain the block lists? The UK
government? The Chinese content filtering company? Rupert Murdoch?
To most of these and virtually every other related question, David
Cameron's response has amounted to Alfred E. Neuman's classic tagline
from "Mad Magazine" -- that is, "What - Me worry?" (in other words,
"Golly, I dunno!")
But he (Cameron, not Alfred) hasn't been completely devoid of
additional information.
It quickly became clear that his plans for Internet censorship went
far beyond his "opt-out" model for porn filtering, to include a wide
array of other material that would be banned entirely -- no
exceptions.
Cameron has proposed total blocking, both at the site and search
engine keyword level, for whole ranges of other information, including
what he defines as "self harm and other dangerous topics."
He proposes that access to such sites, or attempts to search on
related keywords, would be blocked and return pages explaining that
the related materials were unavailable, or illegal, or ... whatever.
And again, it's hard to believe that the government wouldn't want to
keep track of who was making those queries for any reason, which of
course could also include researchers, reporters, and others with
completely benign motives.
The "slippery slope" aspects of Cameron's censorship cadenza are
obvious. What he's demanding is nothing less than total control over
Internet site access, and micromanagement of search engine results.
Cameron even ran into trouble with what he no doubt thought was a
politically safe expansion of "forbidden" content -- suggesting that
"rape imagery" should have the same status as child abuse materials --
illegal to produce or possess.
While virtually nobody argues against efforts to control the
abhorrence of child abuse and associated imagery (though attempts to
block such images, like all censorship attempts, tend to push them
further underground and may make them even more difficult to monitor
by authorities), Cameron likely was surprised by the pushback against
his "rape imagery" criminalization proposal -- from both males and
females -- with some of the strongest denunciations from the latter.
It was quickly noted that studies have shown virtually all such
material is simulated, that no correlation with actual rapes has ever
been demonstrated, and that (as politically incorrect and inconvenient
as this undoubtedly is) "rape fantasies" broadly defined have been
shown to be common among normal persons both male and female.
Observers expressed concerns about such censorship efforts driving
this category dangerously underground as well (with some suggestions
that this really represents an attack against the consensual BDSM
community more than anything else).
This is a particularly uncomfortable and disquieting subject to be
sure, but it's dangerous in the extreme to let our emotions get in the
way of logical thinking when it comes to censorship (or anything else,
for that matter) -- even though politicians disingenuously depend on
our permitting our glands to override our brains.
In the end, we're faced with only two major, reasonable possibilities
when it comes to David Cameron's Internet censorship agenda. Either
he really hasn't thought most of this through, especially considering
his repeated expressions of ignorance regarding details, practicality,
or impacts and collateral damage -- or he's simply being a blatant
political opportunist, who knows full well that he's proposed an
Internet censorship regime that would gladden the heart of pretty much
any tyrant, anywhere, and is likely to give encouragement and comfort
to repressive governments around the world today.
Cameron and his Internet censorship docket are of course a matter for
the British people to deal with as they feel appropriate. If vast and
pervasive (though counterproductive and ultimately ineffective)
attempts at censorship are what you want, your prime minister appears
more than happy to provide them.
If that's not what you want ... well ... you know how to deal with PMs
who are full of themselves.
But over here across the pond, my main concern is that David Cameron's
nonsense will inspire other political clown princes to try ply similar
brands of oppression against free speech, and that's a scenario best
restricted to actual nightmares, not waking reality.
So in this case, please -- don't send in the clowns!
I just hope too many of them aren't already here.
--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
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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