Content Matters
This section address a range of threats to the Internet from 2008 to the present day. If you are student, you should check my books for citation and referencing.
In 2022, the open and neutral Internet is under threat more than ever as policy-makers seek to rein in the bit tech global platforms, some of which did not exist when I set up this website in 2007.
We have seen several different groups of stakeholders lobbying for blocks to be placed on websites, user access to be suspended or content filtering. It all started with copyright, but now many other lobbying interests are leading the charge. Many are non-governmental organisations representing vulnerable people or children, others are big industrial corporations whose motives are less likely to represent a public interest. A worrying development is how law enforcement have themselves become a stakeholder in this debate, seeking to get the private corporations to carry out enforcement on their behalf.
The issues also have moved on. Over the time that I've been writing on this field, we've seen calls for Internet blocking arising in respect to libel and defamation, and now there is very long list. One of the more worrying developments, especially in the UK since Brexit, is the matter of abuse of individuals. Those who oppose government policy tend to experience high volumes of very unpleasant abuse, and in some cases violent threats. This is not acceptable. It does raise a very difficult question, from a policy and human rights perspective. How to balance the need to protect free speech against malicious or arbitrary restrictions against the need to tackle the those who engage in this unpleasant and anti-social activity.
If you like the articles in this section and you are interested in Internet policy-making in the EU, especially with regard to copyright policy, you may like my books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma
If you are following discussions around telecoms and technology policy and content blocking , you may like my book The Closing of the Net which covers the British copyright blocking orders, as well as the Megaupload case.
