Soft Filtering
A large part of the power of Internet filtering regimes comes from overlapping methods of control. China, for example, requires Web site owners to register with the Ministry of Information Industry, blocks Web traffic to prohibited sites at its network backbone, and forces blog providers to censor postings with sensitive keywords. The state is also good at encouraging self-censorship by Net authors: they need only consider the case of Yang Tianshui, who was just sentenced to twelve years in prison for posting an essay supporting free elections in China. (This isn’t just an Internet issue; China’s Public Security Bureau detained Hao Wu, a blogger and editor for Global Voices, after he met with a Christian church group as part of filming a documentary.)
Cyberlaw folks are conditioned to think about Larry Lessig’s four modalities of regulation: code / architecture, law, markets, and social norms. What Lessig emphasizes in his book, but we too often overlook, is that these methods of shaping behavior are interdependent and reinforcing. Digital Rights Management software is powerful because it’s generally illegal to bypass it through hacking. Filtering is effective because states can use code (software or hardware that blocks certain content), law (strict defamation rules), markets (expensive Internet access), and norms (surfing porn is harder if there are no dividers between computers in cybercafes) in conjunction to constrain what users see, and post. Information control online isn’t just about code – control is most effective when it’s multi-modal.
(Props to Deven Desai for the update on Yang Tianshui.)
Filed under: Filtering, Intermediaries
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