A Free and Open Internet
Byron Carter
DeVry University

A Free and Open Internet

During an August 2007 performance by the rock group Pearl Jam in Chicago, AT&T censored words from lead singer Eddie Vedder’s performance. The ISP (Internet Service Provider), which was responsible for streaming the concert, shut off the sound as Vedder sang, “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush find yourself another home.” By doing so, AT&T, the self-advertised presenting sponsor of the concert series, denied viewers the complete exclusive coverage they were promised. Although Vedder’s words contained no profanity, an AT&T spokesperson claimed that the words were censored to prevent youth visiting the website from being exposed to “excessive profanity.” AT&T then blamed the censorship on an external website contractor hired to screen the performance, calling it a mistake and pledging to restore the unedited version of Vedder’s appearance online. (Stanley, 2010). So far, in this country there has only been incidents like this. This kind of censoring behavior has not become the normal mode of operation for the internet in the United States, but around the globe censorship takes many forms. The internet in this country is open and free due to net neutrality. Not every country around the world is as luck as the U.S., but how long will the luck hold out. There are those, here and abroad, that are trying to control the flow of the internet. Net neutrality needs to be maintained so that corporations and governments worldwide can’t slow or hinder the flow of information on the internet, which can lead to censorship and the loss of free speech, through the reclassification of broadband services and placing limits on the large ISPs. With the United States being the hub of the internet for the whole world and with court rulings in other countries it is even more important that the internet is remain open and free starting here, in this country.
Figure [ 1 ], Global Internet Censorship in 2013, http://www.freedomhouse.org/
Figure [ 1 ], Global Internet Censorship in 2013, http://www.freedomhouse.org/
Censorship of the internet is a global issue. It takes place in many countries (Figure 1) and in different ways. In North Korea, most people are unable to get on line, those that can, access an intranet that connects to state media. Members of the elite, resident foreigners and visitors in certain hotels are allowed full access to the internet. Most western social media site are blocked in Iran, as well as political opposition and sexually explicit websites. Due to tight control, high costs and slow speed, only about 5 percent of Cubans have access to global internet, with about a quarter of the population relying on a government intranet. In several countries through central Asia, you must show identification and register to use public facilities or cyber cafes. Some of the commonly blocked sites are social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube, non-state sponsored media sites, blogs and of course pornography. In Eritrea, the government restricts access to the internet and closely monitors online communications. It is reported that the Eritrean government monitors email without obtaining a warrant, which is required by law, and all internet service users are required to use one of the three service providers owned by the government or controlled by high ranking members of the country’s sole party (Associated Press, 2012).
Although there is internet censorship in many countries, nobody does it like China. “Internet censorship in China is not simply a matter of blocking foreign websites and deleting anything deemed harmful, nor is the state the only actor. The government delegates’ censorship to private websites, which face punishment, including closure, if they do not comply. On social media platforms like Sina Weibo, the Twitter-like site where about 100 million posts appear daily, censors block keywords to keep people from discussing politically sensitive topics.” (Henochowicz, 2014, p. 22). The average life span of a microblog is China is about 10 hours. Foreign journalists face surveillance, harassment, intimidation, restrictions of their movements, and sometimes physical danger (Mooney, 2014). Journalists have seen long delays of their visas applications to move to china to work. Mooney himself said “On November 8, Journalists' Day in China, I was informed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had rejected my application for a journalist visa to take up a position in Beijing with Reuters, ending an eight-month wait for a visa and an 18-year career as an accredited journalist in China. I was the second journalist in two years to be refused a visa. Al Jazeera reporter Melissa Chan was expelled from China in 2012, also believed due to her reporting on human rights.”(2014, p. 24). The government continues its battle to censor the internet they use threats and pressure to suppress those that are speaking out. Blogs that have millions of followers have disappeared. Some of China’s most prominent journalists and writers have silenced themselves or left the country.
There is a less evasive form of censorship that is gaining ground, and it is being perpetrated by individuals, with the help of the courts, on search engines like Google. It was ruled in May 2014 by the European Court of Justice, that EU citizens have a “right to be forgotten” on Google. If requested, search engines must remove inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant information or be subject to fines, according to the judgment. One of the arguments against the ruling is that it is the next step to censorship and will give people to rewrite history. Critics fear that groups like corporations, politicians and criminals will be able to request that important information that will show them in a bad light be removed. Those that favor the judgment point out that privacy is a human right and individuals should not have to live with out of date and unflattering information on the internet hunting their lives and careers (Neroth, 2014). The question now is, does a person have a right to have information of themselves behaving badly removed from a search so that it may be hidden from friends, family or employers? Even with Google being forced to remove information from their search data base the information is still out there on the original websites.
The ruling by the European Court of Justice has now been followed by a similar ruling in Canada. The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ruled that Google remove content from their sites. Unlike the European Court of Justice ruling where Google was required to remove information only from their European sites google.fr, google.de, google.uk etc. and not the parent site google.com, the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that Google must remove it from not only their Canadian site, but from all of their sites around the globe. The ruling could spread the newfound “right to be forgotten” across the globe, allowing fallen politicians, sex offenders, and doctors with malpractice problems to wipe their slate clean. This case suggests some strange and chilling effects when a regional court claims jurisdiction over the whole internet. The British Columbia decision poses a threat that could pave the way for any national or local court to affect freedom of speech around the world. As western democracies find ways to limit content online, it gives more heavy-handed governments like Russia an excuse to jump on the global Internet censorship bandwagon. What happens if a Russian court orders Google to remove gay and lesbian sites from its database? Or if Iran orders it remove Israeli sites from the database? The possibilities are endless since local rules of freedom of expression often differ from country to country (Graves, 2014). We, in the United States, have had our battles with internet censorship. Not from the government but from corporations. “In late 2007, Verizon Wireless cut off access to a text-messaging program by the pro-abortion-rights group NARAL that the group used to send messages to its supporters. Verizon stated it would not service programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” Verizon Wireless reversed its censorship of NARAL only after widespread public outrage.” (Stanley, 2010, p. 8) Other cases of censorship include Cingular’s blocking of PayPal, Bell South’s censorship of Myspace in 2006 and other attempts by AT&T, Comcast and AOL/Time Warner.
The best way to avoid censoring of the internet, is to not give in to the pressures of the government and the ISPs controlling the access. Once a freedom is given up it seems that others follow. The best way to combat this is not to give it up to begin with. This nation needs to be the beacon of reason for the world when it comes to internet censorship. The battle for net neutrality continues at this very moment. Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication (Wu, 2003). Net neutrality principles need to be made enforceable through the imposition of common carrier rules on the internet. The postal service isn’t allowed to deliver mail according to the content of the letter, phone companies are not allowed to provide a better connection to those whose conversations are more important, airlines can’t change their fares if they don’t like the purpose of a trip (Stanley, 2010). The FCC need to be at the forefront of net neutrality. One of the first thing the FCC can do to protect the internet is by reclassifying broadband as a common carrier, public utility service or a telecommunications service. Congress defined telecommunications services as “The transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received.” This describes the role of an ISP or broadband provider. Broadband providers see themselves as information services which are more similar to publishers and congress did not want the FCC to regulate them. They are defined, according to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as being involved in “Generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications.” Few people want their internet provider to “transform,” “process,” “store,” or “utilize” the data that they exchange with others. Most people want their provider to transmit the information to the other end and other than that, stay out of the way (Stanley, 2010) The FCC’s purpose is to protect the public interests, not to water down regulations to serve the commercial interests of broadband companies. The FCC should consider several issues in restoring common carrier rules to the internet. First, ISPs do need some flexibility in order to manage their networks if and when they become congested, and to keep malware and viruses out. These functions must be monitored very carefully so that they cannot be abused for financial gain or discriminatory purposes. Most importantly, ISPs must be required to be open and transparent about their network management practices.
The FCC need to be flexible with its rules and enforcement as the internet business model changes. The internet is fast moving and evolving, no one know what it will look like in two months let alone in a year. Strict and unyielding rules and regulations would have an adverse effect on small ISPs, increasing costs, deterring investment, stifling innovation and slowing the growth of broadband services (Gross, 2014). Wireless providers must be included and treated the same as cabled providers.
Opponents of net neutrality claim that restoring common carrier rules to the internet would constitute a government takeover of the internet. Yet the common carrier rules were in place until 2010 and it is a return to these that is needed. The government was involved from the beginning and is necessary in order to help control broadband companies, while maintaining an unrestrictive presence themselves.
It is us, the public, which should decide the shape and destiny of the internet. The broadband companies shouldn’t be allowed to control the flow of the information. The government needs to do its job and be for the people. They need to show restraint in the regulation towards ISPs in order to keep competition and diversity alive in the free market system. The government also needs to keep from getting involved in the censoring of the internet themselves. The internet has gone through a couple of eras, the dial-up era and the broadband era. Both have had their good and bad times. The government has had to keep the telecom companies in check from the beginning. We are now, possibly moving into a new era, an era of filtering. ISPs are trying to shape the internet by controlling data, leading away from network neutrality. As the internet continues to grow and change, more people, worldwide, are gaining access. This country is the hub for the internet and so everyone is watching and waiting to see what will happen. As decisions on censorship are made by governments and courts in other countries, they can’t be allowed to affect the internet here. The internet here must remain free and unhindered by others.

References
Associated Press. (2012, December 14). Internet censorship, restrictions around the globe. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/12/14/internet-censorship-restrictions-around-globe/
Graves, Z. (2014, June 18). The dangerous proliferation of the 'Right to Be Forgotten'. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zachary-graves/the-dangerous-proliferati_b_5507477.html
Gross, G. (2014, September 19). FCC questions how to enforce net neutrality rules. PCWorld. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/2686652/fcc-questions-how-to-enforce-net-neutrality-rules.html#tk.nl_today
Henochowicz, A. (2014) Eluding the “Ministry of Truth”. Nieman Reports, 68(1), 22
Mooney, P. (2014). Command and Control. Nieman Reports, 68(1), 20-25
Neroth, P. (2014). Challenge of balancing privacy with censorship ends up in Google’s lap. Engineering & Technology, 9(7), 16.
Stanley, J. (2010, October). Network neutrality 101 - Why the government must act to preserve the free and open internet. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/free-speech-technology-and-liberty/network-neutrality-101-why-government-must-act-preserve-free-and-
Wu, T. (2003). Netwpok neutrality, broadband discrimination. Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law, 2, 141-176.