Abstract
Closed circuit television, London
Credit: Steve Forrest/Panos
A diverse landscape for open debate, creativity and innovation, the digital world has in many ways been a gift for free expression. A place for spreading news quickly and information-sharing, for highlighting the most profound violations of human rights, it transforms how we communicate. It’s also, of course, ripe territory for censorship, widespread offence and illegal activity.
As the September 2012 controversy over the YouTube video The Innocence of Muslims demonstrated, the digital environment continues to be one of the most important battlegrounds for free speech. Over a period of a few days, a previously obscure film was able to span the globe, resulting in widespread condemnation, protests and violence. It also reignited one of the most contentious issues today: whether individuals or groups have the right not to be offended. How, some argued, can Google, YouTube’s parent company, reconcile its business interests and its commitment to freedom of expression with the cultural, religious and political demands of the countries in which it operates? As courts and government bodies in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Malaysia and other countries demanded that Google block access to the video, legal expert Jennifer Granick asks whether the global internet is now actually turning into a group of parishes where local law dominates (pp.25-32).
Attempts to remove or block content is only one way governments try to secure control over a population. The export of surveillance technology has become big business, and, as Privacy International’s Eric King observes (pp.81-86), this largely unregulated industry is being used to attack, intimidate and silence journalists, activists and ordinary people taking to the streets in protest, as seen in Syria and elsewhere.
Protecting children from harmful content continues to pose significant problems. As Joe McNamee reports (pp.98-103), measures taken to clamp down on content are ill-researched, ineffective and counter-productive – and largely based on fear. Policy-makers and campaign groups pushing for legal reform in this area would do well to educate themselves about how filtering actually works and make decisions based on solid evidence. This would not only protect children, it would ensure that free expression is protected.
One of the most controversial topics around free speech online is trolling: individuals who post abusive, off-topic comments on websites with the intention of hijacking a discussion. But Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman argue that the term should also be applied to those with political power or media influence: ‘the solution’, they write, ‘is to build a media that is better at providing context, so that those who use it to spread hate speech or intimidate people from speaking out are not only exposed but challenged’.
Bloggers and activists are using technology to spread vital information and exercise their right to free expression more than ever before, from the Gulf States to Vietnam. Index also looks at how mobile technology is making the distribution of information and news possible, from the Ushahidi platform in Kenya to software that ensures events in Pakistan are widely reported. Here, too, censorship is rife: the Indian government, for example, continues to employ filtering tools in an attempt to control what its citizens read and share (pp.72-80).
Also in this issue, we look at the ongoing clash between religion and free speech. While the Indian government has ordered content deemed to be offensive to religion to be taken down, offline censorship is still practiced widely in the world’s largest democracy, as Edna Fernandes reports (pp.142-146). In Tunisia, the coalition government has taken steps to protect ‘sacred symbols’, significantly threatening moves towards a transparent and open society. Brad Adams and Maryam Omidi look at how blasphemy laws continue to hamstring open debate and political reform (pp.152-164). And, in the United States, where religion continues to be a powerful political weapon, Svetlana Mintcheva recounts how offence engenders a toxic climate of self-censorship (pp.167-176).
This will be the last issue in the current format. We look forward to launching our new-look magazine in March 2013 and welcoming Index’s new editorial director, Miren Gutierrez. As always, we’ll continue to publish the best international writing on latest news and trends in free expression. And be sure to keep up to date with free speech news comment and analysis by visiting indexoncensorship.org