[governance] Taking down a site [was: beijing ticket scam]

Wed Aug 6 20:31:49 EDT 2008

Lisa makes a very strong case for human rights experience and structures to
underpin policy development in this area. Certainly I agree with this as a
logical way to proceed.

But let's look at a hypothetical (but fairly typical) situation. Let's call
the site racist.ru. The registry is in Russia. The owner is a British
citizen. The site is about South African race issues and the participants
are from many countries. The servers are located in Texas USA because that's
a nice cheap place to host sites.

The hypothetical site clearly offends SA human rights legislation. However
what action if any could be taken in this case? 

The registry may refuse to act because Russian law is not involved. The
hosting provider may only respect a subpoena from a US court. The site owner
is on extended holidays in the Bahamas and is not answering emails. The
South African authorities have plenty else to think about and this becomes
just too hard. 

And secondly is this an internet governance issue at all? It's easy to take
the line that, like in phishing scams, its not an Internet governance issue
at all but just a problem with all our institutions adapting to the
realities of the internet era. Human rights is human rights, fraud is fraud,
law is law, whatever the communication media involved is, let everyone get
their house in order and the Internet remains neutral to all of that and has
no responsibilities at all except to respond as individual entities to legal
requirements presented to them in their own national jurisdiction only. It's
an enticing argument in line with calls for minimalist Internet governance.

Ian Peter
Ian Peter and Associates Pty Ltd
PO Box 10670 Adelaide St  Brisbane 4000
Australia
Tel (+614) 1966 7772 or (+612) 6687 0773
www.ianpeter.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lisa Horner [mailto:lisa at global-partners.co.uk]
> Sent: 07 August 2008 01:11
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: RE: [governance] Taking down a site [was: beijing ticket scam]
> 
> I agree that this might not be the best or most clear cut case to start
> working with.  But basically what I'm trying to suggest is that we try
> and work out how to build on the 60 years of development of the
> international human rights system so that it is capable of addressing
> and providing guidance on relevant social and ethical issues that have
> arisen with the evolution of the internet.  The system includes
> frameworks for balancing out tensions between competing rights and
> responsibilities - indeed in this particular case it could well be ruled
> that the site doesn't constitute sufficient 'incitement to cause harm'
> to justify action.  Obviously the system isn't geared to rule on issues
> such as the Beijing scam - there are more appropriate arenas for that
> (although I think we'd all agree that they can't argue against
> regulation of their site on free expression grounds...).  But it's
> exactly these kinds of grey issues around FoE that the human rights
> system is capable of dealing with, or at least should be.
> 
> I just think that it's important that the human rights framework is used
> in the first place - to benefit from its 60 years of evolving to deal
> with such issues, to ensure that it is kept up to date with salient
> issues of our time and to ensure that norms underlying internet
> governance support human rights.  Obviously dealing with cases in this
> way wouldn't work in regions that do not have human rights institutions
> that act in accordance with international standards.  But South Africa
> has one of the most progressive rights regimes in the world, supported
> in turn by the African Charter and the Declaration of Principles on
> Freedom of Expression in Africa - the most progressive elaboration of
> FoE in any international agreement (depending of course on your
> interpretation of 'progressive').  Cases might of course have different
> outcomes in different countries according to different conceptions of
> rights, the most obvious being between the USA and other countries
> concerning acceptable limitations on FoE.  But the human rights system
> has developed to cope with 'trans-boundary' differences of
> interpretation and opinion: it's by no means perfect but it hasn't
> collapsed because of them.
> 
> Rather than avoiding using the human rights framework for fear that it
> will serve as a cover for restrictions on rights, we need to work with
> and develop the system to make sure that it's capable of addressing
> these issues.  I'm keen to work out how we can do this.
> 
> I'm thinking in terms wider than the specific issue of what constitutes
> acceptable limitations on FoE.  But in this specific case, in short, the
> tools and systems are in place to determine whether Rui's site does
> constitute a violation of rights in South Africa, or whether, as you
> argue, a legitimate means of expression as they would be ruled to be in
> the USA (and as Rony pointed out, possibly elsewhere).  The fact that
> they are in place is a positive thing that we can build on and work
> with.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Milton L Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu]
> Sent: 06 August 2008 15:02
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Lisa Horner; Rui Correia
> Subject: RE: [governance] Taking down a site [was: beijing ticket scam]
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lisa Horner [mailto:lisa at global-partners.co.uk]
> >
> > Echoing Ian, I wonder if it would be worth filing a complaint with the
> > South African Human Rights Commission?  The SA bill of rights states
> that
> > freedom of expression doesn't extend to "advocacy of hatred that is
> based
> > on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes
> incitement to
> > cause harm." Is this supported by any other legislation in SA?
> 
> Lisa:
> As Rui herself said, the site does not contain incitement to harm. It's
> political speech: an old and defeated racist party publicizing its
> views, which of course are pretty stupid.
> 
> I'm sorry but I don't see anything here but an attempt to suppress
> expression that you don't like. The problem with the website is just
> that she, and you, disagree with it and find it offensive.
> 
> Let's be honest about this.
> 
> Rui:
> > I am personally a defender of freedom of expression. However, like any
> > other right, the right to freedom of expression has limitations, such
> 
> How many times have I heard this? Exactly what the Chinese state and
> everyone else interested in censorship says. They all "support freedom
> of expression," except when someone says something they feel threatened
> by or strongly disagree with.
> 
> That kind of "support" is worthless.
> 
> The underlying message is clear: you are saying "if I don't agree with
> what you say, I have the right to use force to suppress you." From that
> point on it's just a political competition to see who or what gets
> suppressed. I don't see any difference in principle between this and the
> attempts of, e.g., Islamic fanatics to kill Salman Rushdie or Ayaan
> Hirsi Ali for their heresies. Insulting the prophet or criticizing Islam
> is, in their world view, just as reprehensible as racism is to you.
> Perhaps even more so.
> 
> What's bizarre and disturbing about this is the appropriation of "human
> rights" terminology by people who clearly just don't understand the
> moral, political and philosophical basis of free expression.
> 
> At least when radical Islamists or Chinese authoritarians suppress
> speech, they don't say they are doing it in the name of "human rights."
> This misappropriation is far more dangerous than a clear authoritarian,
> because at least you know what the dictators are up to.
> 
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