Free Speech in the Digital World Under Threat?

COMMENTARY Free Speech in the digital World under Threat? Kirsty Hughes We atomic number 18 at a second gear where the digital world smoke go either bureau it peck plow a home of genuine drop expression, mavinness enjoyed by ever larger numbers of people or it can pose a falsifyled and monitored space. Like any battle for free speech and heavy rights, governments and otherwise major(ip) players in this case outsize web companies and network redevelopment providers must be held to account and ch on the wholeenged to contain our rights. T e digital world gallops to open up huge opportunities for communication, interaction, sharing views and exchanging education across and within borders. It is even rather dated to say we atomic number 18 altogether(a) our possess publishers now, we can all(prenominal) be citizen journalists though we argon and can be. And as millions more people in the next equal of years join that digital world as the price of bright phon es fall, the digital revolution is surely not over. Or is it? Are Governments Hardwired to tell on and Censor? Kirsty Hughes (emailprotected om) is with the Index on Censorship, London, unify Kingdom. The ability of both governments and big corporations to monitor the internet, to gather selective information on us all, to determine what we can and cannot do or see on the web is another hear provided less welcome part of our digital world. And censorship and watch of digital communications is on the rise not only in countries such as Iran, mainland China and Russia, but also in India, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). While Chinas great ? ewall and armament of snoopers does its best to block a whole gamut of politically-sensitive topics and debates sensitive that is to Chinas authoritarian elites the republican world is increasingly looking at development the technological opportunities out in that respect, either to block content, or to monitor their own citizens. Earlier this year, Indian authorities came top in Googles enhancer report which shows government requests to Google to remove material and how many Google complied with with the largest number of requests for Google to attain down posts not backed by court orders.The US and brazil had the highest number of takedown demands backed by court orders, fleck in twitters similar transpargonncy report, the US was the number one country demanding information on implementrs. Google and Twitter also go on with many but not all of the requests NovemBER 17, 2012 they receive clubby companies contend a crucial role in determining the extent of our free speech and our privacy. Meanwhile in the UK, a draft Communications info Bill currently being scrutinised in Parliament, would, if it became law, lead to monitor and retentiveness of a vast array of digital data across the sinless population.From tracking who our emails go to or come from, likewise our phone calls, to s toring the data our mobiles give up on our locations or our web searches, showing what topics we ar investigating, the draft UK Bill certainly deserves its popular name a snoopers charter. Iran is also aiming to develop its own intranet that would operate in a substance detached from the wider world-wide web, and so be much easier to control by state authorities. But how can India or the UK or US acquit up to Iran and pressure them not to cut their citizens off from the wider digital world, if they are not fully respecting basic rights of their own citizens online?What Is Driving the jolly along to Control? Freedom of expression is a fundamental right and without it democracies cannot act upon and power cannot be held to account. So why are so many governments increasingly looking at control of our digital lives? There are two overlapping justi? cations at the heart of this. Do we need defend from being offended? Attempts to justify censorship often appeal to the rampart of public order, or public morals, tackling hate speech, or promoting national security.But unless exceedingly limited, such censorship rapidly intrudes on open democratic debate, sobering talk ofion, on art and entertainment, on all our communication and interaction. In the UK, a recent spate of cases indicate a deeply worrying sheer towards criminalising speech individuals have received jail sentences or community emolument orders for publishing sick or bad jokes online or on Twitter (or in one case for strong anti-police sentiments on a t-shirt). And while the Innocence of Muslims video was highly offensive to some (though not all had seen it) is it authentically vol xlviI no 46EPW Economic & Political Weekly 18 COMMENTARY the job of governments to decide what is offensive or not? And if they do, and all governments between them censor all that is offensive on the web, then there will be very little left for us all to read or debate or write. We will end up in the opposite of a digital world in a controlled and fragmented set of con? ned digital spaces. The other main justi? cation governments use for controlling the digital world is in order to justify monitoring and surveillance.We need it to tackle crime and terror, the authorities say with great indispensableness the criminals are technologically leaps and bounds ahead of us. But do democracies really need to monitor and survey their entire populations just because digital applied science makes it easy to do? Surely tackling crime needs a focused, targeted, sound approach not a population-wide sledgehammer. And if democracies do mimic the mass snooping conduct of the East German Stasi, or of to mean solar days China or Iran, then they will be undermining their own democratic systems.Free speech does not prevail where everything is being monitored, or collected, or stored so one day it may be checked on. And while governments need to be challenged not to censor and monitor and undermine the glo bal digital space we share, private companies have become an increasingly important part of the equation but one less easily held to account. Facebooks users hit the one one thousand million mark this autumn. But not only does Facebook make a heap of money out of the private and public information that the one one thousand thousand share on its pages, it also sets the rules for the conversations in its space.Fair enough you may say, so do plenty of clubs or newspapers or societies. But telephone operators do not set rules of what you can and cannot say on the phone cafes do not ask you to sign up to what you can and cannot say at the door. And as Twitter, Google and others respond to governments requests to take material down or stand up to governments (as they sometimes do) and defend what has been posted we are witnessing a major privatisation of censorship in the digital world. Can We Defend the Digital change?So have we lost the digital revolution while it is g breathing out over in its infancy? Not necessarily. Some big web companies are issuing transparency reports, as Google and Twitter do, so we can all see and judge what they as companies are doing though we cannot get that construe yet for any individual country. This is an important but partial step. beyond this, some of the big companies, as well as many democratic governments, have made clear statements supporting an open, free digital space that respects human rights including the right to free expression.And the European Union (EU) and US are currently standing up to a push from China and Russia for top-down regulation of the internet. The next jacket crown where this battle will continue is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) meeting in Dubai in early December. Which flair will India, or Brazil, or South Africa go at that summit with the US and EU or with China and Russia? We are at a moment where the digital world can go either way it can become a space of genuine fr ee expression, one enjoyed by ever larger numbers of people, or it can become a controlled and monitored space.Like any battle for free speech and fundamental rights, governments and other major players in this case big web companies and internet service providers must be held to account and challenged to defend our rights. If democracies like India, the EU, the US or Brazil do not defend free speech in the digital world, and hold back from the temptation of censorship and surveillance around at the click of a mouse, then we are on a dangerously slippery slope. It is a moment to stand up and defend our digital freedoms for if we do not, who will?N EW The Adivasi Question edited By INDRA MUNSHI Depletion and destruction of forests have eroded the already fragile natural selection base of adivasis across the country, displacing an alarmingly large number of adivasis to make way for development projects. Many have been forced to migrate to other coarse areas or cities in search o f work, leading to systematic alienation. This volume situates the issues concerning the adivasis in a historical context while discussing the challenges they face today.The introduction examines how the loss of land and livelihood began under the British administration, making the adivasis dependent on the landlord-moneylender-trader nexus for their survival. The articles, drawn from writings of almost four decades in EPW, discuss questions of community rights and ownership, management of forests, the states rehabilitation policies, and the Forest Rights shape and its implications. It presents diverse perspectives in the form of case studies specific to different regions and provides expensive analytical insights.Authors Ramachandra Guha Sanjeeva Kumar Ashok K Upadhyaya E Selvarajan Nitya Rao B B Mohanty Brian Lobo Pp xi + 408 Rs 695 ISBN 978-81-250-4716-2 2012 K Balagopal Sohel Firdos Pankaj Sekhsaria DN Judy Whitehead Sagari R Ramdas Neela Mukherjee Mathew Areepar ampil Asmita Kabra Renu Modi M Gopinath Reddy, K Anil Kumar, P Trinadha Rao, Oliver Springate-Baginski Indra Munshi Jyothis Sathyapalan Mahesh Rangarajan Madhav Gadgil Dev Nathan, Govind Kelkar Emmanuel DSilva, B Nagnath Amita Baviskar ww. orientblackswan. com Mumbai Chennai New Delhi Kolkata Bangalore Bhubaneshwar Ernakulam Guwahati Jaipur Lucknow Patna Chandigarh Hyderabad Contact emailprotected com Economic & Political Weekly EPW steer Blackswan Pvt Ltd NovemBER 17, 2012 vol xlviI no 46 19