[governance] Google to Censor Blogposts

[parminder]

On Wednesday 25 February 2015 08:05 AM, Barry Shein wrote:
> snip
> Whatever happened to the theory that if you act as the censor then you
> can be held responsible for the content (e.g., failure to perform
> liability when some kid gets porn this way anyhow)?

Yes, this is a very important point. There is obviously a big paradox in 
these Internet majors both claiming no intermediary liability and also 
the right to control the content on their platforms. Logically, it can 
either be one or the other.

What such paradoxes of this new situation - where private players fully 
own and control monopoly spaces underpinning key sectors of social 
activity - point to is something much larger. Something which public 
interest groups have not given adequate attention - as evident from some 
bland responses to the earlier thread on 'monetising socialisation' 
referring to a very problematic - ad hoc , not transparent and non 
(publicly) accountable - practice of Facebook. This present issue about 
Google's sudden decision is of a similar kind (although, I I must admit, 
perhaps both the monopoly element and lock-in element is relatively 
lesser in case of google's 'blogger platform' that its search platform 
and Facebook's social networking platforms).

What we need is a much more serious discussion on how to meet public 
interest requirements in these new conditions of an Internet mediated 
society, where its key social activity spaces are digitally mediated by 
monopoly platforms owned by corporate giants, who act as per their will. 
( I am surprised that a few people here do not consider this as one of 
the most important IG issues, but well to each one's own.) . Putting the 
proverbial ostrich's head in the sand, which has been the mainstream 
civil society response, or to hope that talks with MNCs or civil society 
ratings will make the problem go away, is obviously not fine. But we 
seem to be doing little else, as the techno-social architecture of a new 
social system seem to be getting concretised around us, and soon it may 
be too late.

At a very high level, one can say that  such key monopoly social 
platforms should

(1) either be directly owned by the public (which is not what most of us 
want in most of the cases, although in some areas, like shown by the 
movement for community owned broadband network, such public/ community 
ownership needs to be explored and this option cannot just be dismissed 
out of hand).

(2) or they are subject to strong public interest regulation, based on 
clearly laid of norms, public policy principles and regulatory rules and 
structures.

This obviously leads us to the question of how to devise such norms, 
principles and regulatory structures for what is in larger part a 
'global Internet'. There is no escape from this question, although most 
of us have spent more than a decade now trying to escape this question 
(or coming up with limp, if not uprightly problematic responses, like 
the Net Mundial Initiative). It is time we devote ourselves to this 
question. We need an adequately federated response to this key issue of 
global governance of the Internet: while the final political and 
regulatory authority can only be anchored at the national level, we need 
global norms, principles, and structures for building common policy 
responses, model laws and regulatory systems, and means of their regular 
coordination. (And God forbid if these are made at the World Social 
Forum!) I dont see any other way for us to go - unless of course we go 
towards fully national Internets.

parminder


>
> Did that have no legal basis? Is there any case trail?
>
>
>
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