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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.

2011 - a schizoid year for Internet policy?

Monica Horten
Catetory: Content Matters
Published: 01 January 2011

In 2010,  we got  ACTA and the Digital Economy Act. On the other,  Internet freedom of speech  gained a new celebrity status, and in Britain anyway, the establishment has woken  up to the issues.

 

What can we expect for 2011? Will the new found free speech celebrities  take the issue mainstream?  Will the schizoid patterns of 2010 continue?

 

***And a happy New Year to all iptegrity readers! ***

 

First, a quick round-up of 2010.

The year  began with the fight between the European Parliament and the Commission over ACTA.  The Parliament passed a Resolution calling for transparency of the ACTA text, and opposing the inclusion of measures such as 3-strikes.  Contradictorily, this was followed by the Gallo report which supports 3-strikes and other draconian measures such as the blocking of websites.

 In the UK, the Digital Economy Act was bulldozed through the Parliament by the old Labour government under the eyes of the British music industry. In France, the 3-strikes measures began to take effect. The new Hadopi authority was established, warning  letters to Internet subscribers were drafted, and  software companies were asked to design ‘security' software which would ensure that a subscriber could not infringe copyright, by looking at all web traffic and applications on the computer. Internationally, ACTA  was concluded as a  multi-national  pact to enforce copyright against peer-to-peer file-sharing and any other activities on the Internet.

 In the autumn, the gloves came off