Why Internet freedom is important.

As technology improves the dangers of that technology being abused become more apparent. The average Internet user is unwittingly facing a bombardment of restrictions to their freedom in the name of excuses such as safety, consumerism and national security. The glory days of an Internet akin to the wild west are fast disappearing to be replaced with markedly more closed and watchful system.

Net Neutrality

From the capitalist agenda arises the issue of net neutrality (Or more accurately, the move away from it). This argument, raging in the boardrooms of major telcos involves changing the way we currently have access to data. Since the birth of the Internet any user could access any form of content with the same level of priority, certain corporations would love to change that.

In an effort to monetize or perhaps promote friendly services some companies wish to limit the access they provide to competing sites, protocols and services. Essentially one website may pay an ISP to gain preferential treatment and speed. Another ISP may block a rival companies services to promote their own. They may then artificially create premium services to gain full access and speed to content that was previously freely available.

This is marked contrast to the ideals formed with the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee. As a vocal supporter of Net Neutrality, he considers “Threats to the Internet, such as companies or governments that interfere with or snoop on Internet traffic, compromise basic human network rights.”

Unnecessary crippling of services is ethically unsound. The reasons for this behaviour are not complementary to innovation and also involve systems being put in place to prevent the need to upgrade aging networks and low bandwidth.

Privacy

With the founding of the Internet came a new era in human communication. People across different continents gained the ability to communicate in real time. With the relative anonymity the Internet provided for communication, new ways of interacting began to develop. While for several years true anonymity has essentially been non-existent, with users happy to  provide personal details across the Internet on a daily basis, the only real threats to privacy involved the odd case of hacking and legitimate uses for law enforcement.

However, this anonymity has given ordinary people surprising power to previously easily suppressed voices. Recently we have seen how Internet services and cell phones have essentially allowed revolutions against corrupt dictators in the middle east. At the same time we are more and more aware of oppressive administrations fighting to control their populations access to Internet services [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. China is infamous for its filtering, censorship and propaganda. We hear stories of companies such as Google bowing to the respective government pressure to censor news and the information is always portrayed in such a way to suggest these problems do not affect those of us in the west.

One of the more controversial threats to privacy is the idea of forcing away the relative anonymity. Several pundits have raised plans for Internet ID systems. While the emergence of Facebook and other services now makes these ideas seem less crazy than they once did, the average user still has the choice to use Facebook or not. No doubt any ID scheme created would cause more identity fraud problems than it attempted to solve.

Censorship

Often censorship and filtering procedures are implemented in haste to curb high profile social issues such as preventing child abuse, a most noble cause. However in part due to the haste these regulations are written and perhaps ulterior motives of lobbyists the legislation is often created with much broader wording than is actually required.

In Australia a filtering system was put in place for this very purpose and those in charge of the system were famously shamed when the secret list of blocked websites was leaked and found to contain the website of an innocent dentist. A worrying premise.

As mentioned previously on Tartarus, as of March 2010 Internet filtering exists in New Zealand. We too have a secret list of filtered sites. How long will it before we have the websites of political parties, dentists and other innocuous websites.

The issue of censorship on the Internet is different to traditional broadcasting mediums such as television and radio. Television and radio are broadcast indiscriminate of who the audience may be. It is not unethical to censor certain content at certain times due to the possibility children may be watching the shows. With digital television and the ability to require pin codes to shows of certain ratings, this point is rather moot though. The Internet is in marked contrast to television and radio in that the user must actively search and choose the content they wish to obtain. In a free world, the user should be able to read whatever they wish.

A common argument in support of censorship is the risk that children will accidentally stumble across pornography and other information that is considered dangerous to their upbringing. There are many lobbyists trying to paint a picture that the Internet is a dangerous place and all children are doomed. However the risk to children is lower than sometimes put forward. The risk of accidentally stumbling across pornography is much lower than often suggested. The highest risk to children on the Internet appears to be more of a social nature, something that no blocking system can solve.

Filtering the Internet should not be the responsibility of the government. In fact, ideally they shouldn’t even have the power. Acceptable solutions exist by installing content-control software on home computers, allowing parents to choose how they raise their children and limiting the scope of unnecessary censorship. The European Union has the right idea when it comes to Internet filtering. They actually went and outlawed it.

The filtering systems that are put in place also served to markedly slow down the Internet, creating bottlenecks to access content. With such a small proportion of sites, most unheard of and illegal being the focus of the filtering, it seems unjustified to ruin everybody else’s experience.

File Sharing

In New Zealand we have recently had file sharing infringement clauses added to the respective Copyright Amendment Bill. The worrying part is not that this legislation will come in to effect, regardless of the arguments that can be made about failed business models and distribution methods. It is that this bill was issued under urgency by people who quite clearly had no understanding of the impact of the bill, what the bill did and the technology involved. In fact, only one MP clearly understood the situation and the ramifications.

This creates a dilemma that undermines democracy. If our elected leaders are so willing to create unpopular laws, that a significant amount of the population are against, under urgency so as to prevent submissions and discussion, how can we trust them to fairly operate content filtering systems. The introduction of this law saw a revival of the 2009 blackout campaign and a Facebook page – Opposing The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill currently has over 10000 members. With this new law and attitude to democracy the potential for corruption is worrying.

Further to that are the worrying implications for our justice system, where the legislation requires the defendant to prove their own innocence, on claims which previously have been shown to be fairly dubious. Current identification techniques provide false positives at a rate of approximately 11%. With legislation requiring people to prove their innocence, as opposed to being presumed innocent until proven guilty, we can presume that 11% of those found guilty of file sharing will be innocent. The rate will no doubt be higher, with the named person of the account being liable for anyone else’s actions who also use the account.  This will create problems in flats, libraries, and all other examples of shared Internet connections.

Perhaps the most worrying issue of all is how these topics relate to the greater freedom and sovereignty of New Zealand as a nation. The changes being made do little to actually help New Zealand, and represent our country bowing down to foreign pressure in an attempt to solicit trade agreements.

Conclusion

Net Neutrality should be a right. It is unethical not to have a neutral net.

It is important that privacy is maintained on the Internet to stop oppression. Contrary to certain agenda, forced identification will likely result in more identity fraud.

Censorship should not be the domain of the government when it comes to the Internet and there are perfectly acceptable tools to achieve the same and better results in the home.

If the Internet is the last remaining bastion of democracy, we may be facing a time where the politics of the Pirate Party of New Zealand are necessary.