As an international space and free-for-all of random social media content, diverse blogs, media and forums, some people may think the Internet is above regulation and the law. But countries around the world are implementing legislation that aims to protect users from harmful content, even at the risk of free speech. Should the United States follow suit?
China uses firewalls to prevent access to some sites and has a range of Internet regulations, including stipulations about websites hosted in the country registering their domain names and a process for government approval of new domain extensions.
The UK has laws regulating Internet porn produced or sold in Britain. Paid-for-porn is regulated in the same way as DVD porn, with acts such as non-consensual sex and abusive language banned and others subject to restriction. The regulations include some contradictions. Female ejaculation is banned outright but male ejaculation is unrestricted.
A recent court order in the UK has forced Internet service providers to block free video streaming sites such as Putlocker. However, VPN services or mirror sites can get around those efforts.
US regulating the Internet more than you think
There is also some Internet regulation in the United States, despite a cultural emphasis on free speech. The U.S. government actually intervenes in Internet life a lot more than most people think.
Though there is little mandated filtering of content and regulation of Internet porn focuses on access by minors and child pornography, the United States does practice forceful seizure of domains and computers, at times without notification. Sites such as Napster, Wikileaks, PirateBay and MegaUpload have been shut down permanently or temporarily.
The United States also encourages content regulation at a business level, especially focusing on protecting intellectual property, and over some types of terrorism. U.S. officials have pressured social media sites, for example, to monitor or block people with connections to the Islamic State. Twitter has since shut down 125,000 such accounts.
Internet companies, meanwhile, are taking on regulatory decisions themselves. Facebook censured breastfeeding, for example. While on a practical and technical level it might seem the easiest way to protect users, corporate policy decisions are unaccountable to the public and they are not necessarily the best-placed people to decide on the ethics of content.
But it’s U.S. Internet surveillance practices that perhaps most impact freedom of expression and put the country near the bottom of the list for Internet freedom. Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 how the National Security Agency (NSA) had been spying on U.S. citizens and foreigners through phone metadata and the Internet. Such practices affect the freedom of investigative journalists as well as the privacy of individuals.
Freedom of expression or freedom to hurt?
What Internet regulations are necessary and at what point do they cross a line into impinging on free speech?
U.S. laws are unique in that they protect people against physical harm but tolerate emotional harm — that is, hate speech, verbal abuse and manipulation. On an individual basis, emotional harm has been proven to cause more long-lasting damage than physical harm but there are also the political consequences of such policies.
There is speech that incites violent actions, such as the historic dehumanization of Jews in order to lay the foundation for exclusion and extermination. Today, dehumanization of Muslims and Middle Easterners has softened up the public for U.S.-led invasions. Verbal and Internet-based discrimination against Muslims in the United States has led to physical attacks and murders of U.S. citizens.
Many would argue that regulation of hate speech on the Internet goes against creating a climate where there is “free intellectual exchange, [and] hateful and bigoted ideas are refuted and discredited,” as Jonathan Rauch writes in The Atlantic.
Yet hate speech can intimidate women and other targets and force them into being quiet — meaning their right to free speech is restricted.
Buying free speech?
When money is introduced into the equation, either for buying advertising or Twitter followers or to affect access to even being online, free speech becomes even less available to everyone.
The United States has just approved new regulations on Internet service providers to stop them from applying paid prioritization, that is, striking deals with content companies for smoother delivery of traffic to consumers while slowing down other sites.
Businesses already are objecting. Not enforcing s0-called “net neutrality” would mean that companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast could create pay-to-play fast lanes and charge customers more depending on what sites and Internet services they want fast access to — somewhat like premium cable packages. A company like Comcast, for instance, could slow down traffic for Skype and Google Hangout calls, as they pose competition to Comcast’s phone service. The other consequence would be that sites — especially individuals — who can’t afford to pay would become virtually invisible to users.
It’s worth thinking about the costs of Internet regulation, and the costs of allowing damaging content to continue.
— Tamara Pearson
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-scary-lesson-to-the-world-censoring-the-internet-works/2016/05/23/413afe78-fff3-11e5-8bb1-f124a43f84dc_story.html
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20160331_china_miit_clarifies_new_domain_name_regulations_allays_concerns
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-porn-legislation-what-is-now-banned-under-new-government-laws-9898541.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/free-speech-isnt-free/283672/
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/putlocker-blocked-down-virgin-media-sky-internet-streaming-watch-online-videos-a7050056.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-neutrality-idUSKBN0LU0CA20150226
http://english.cctv.com/2016/05/17/ARTIilFQJkwUDwqJ9LyMJAI0160517.shtml
http://nique.net/opinions/2016/03/11/the-importance-of-protecting-net-neutrality-and-online-freedom
No,the government should not regulate the internet.The government is incapable of regulating anything without the total destruction of the intended utility of the product. The only purpose the government has in regulating anything is taxation & censorship. Especially the news. We need less government, not more.
The First Amendment is the First Amendment! There is already too much suppression.
It’s only one step from surveillance to attacking; from the passive perception of information to the active attack of interference and vandalism. Since I was unlawfully, severely punished and severely threatened to keep a secret about our own bodies, I have been doing everything in my power to spread it. As a result right now as I attempt to type this, if the cursor goes to another line the print will go on that other line; and, if the cursor goes off the page, all I typed will vanish in a flash. So, I usually cut and paste that which I have already typed. Here is that forbidden secret: The pertinent biochemicals of psychedelic plants work by blocking seratonin, the neurotransmitter of the inhibitory neurons of the brain, thereby allowing more than the normal 10% brain use. But, those chemicals are in control. You can be in control with vagal stimulation. The supreme grand secret of the cartel of secret lodges is that enough vagal stimulation causes all the “magical” phenomena that gives high degree lodge members the confidence of having “magical” mastery. But, put in modern medical terms, “Vagal stimulation is as effective as LSD”. This is done by vagal stimulation spreading to the brain where it awakens more than the normal 10% brain use by overriding the inhibitory neurons. The neurotransmitter of these inhibitory neurons is seratonin, which LSD blocks and thereby awakens more than 10% brain use. Psychiatry professionally (secretly) calls more than 10% brain use “psychosis”. Back when “psychosis” was a commitable offence twenty-five million Americans were committed to, and imprisoned in, the mental hospital gulags. That was one fourth of the American population at that time. They attempted to erase their memories of this secret by inflicting electric shock treatments. This was actually done to reserve the supreme grand secret exclusively for the privileged elite, high degree lodge members. Now they have been trying to eliminate our Constitution in order to exterminate everyone who knows too much, the concentration camps have been built; and now, with a Muslim in power, even only two weeks of an attempted Islamic American government will enable them to exterminate everyone who knows too much, which now includes you. Everybody has a vagus nerve. But. Massachusetts’ courts were ordering vagalectomies against people who were caught “playing with”their’s. But, of course this caused serious health problems. People with vagalectomies rarely lived beyond forty years old; and, their teeth rotted out from dry mouth; and, many went blind from dry eye. It was quite hush hush, with whispering in court, and “gag orders”; but, it may have been ruled “cruel and unusual punishment”, a blatant violation of the Eighth Amendment, by the Supreme Court.When an asthmatic passes out from an asthma attack, it is usually from the struggle to breathe causing a vagal syncope. It’s stimulation like from holotropic breathing, http://www.holotropic.com . Crucifixion forces holotropic breathing, but, all the way to what Dr. Stanislav Grof calls “ perinatal matrix three”, to what the Greek New Testament calls “aioniu amartematos” (another whole subject). Long before His crucifixion Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me”. Of course he knew what the cross did, i.e., vagal stimulation. He was crucified for being a “profaner of the sacred mysteries”.
While regulating “hate” speech may sound good on the surface, who is actually going to do the censoring? How do we distinguish between “hate” speech, and normal criticism? In this climate of PC hysteria-where logic, facts and reason have been lost to emotions, intimidation and conformity-how can we let the powers-that-be decide what what speech is appropriate and what is not. To me this sounds like a huge excuse to give power to those who want to suppress the political opposition. That is why the first amendment exists.