[governance] Google to Censor Blogposts

[parminder]

On Wednesday 25 February 2015 11:43 AM, parminder wrote:
>
> 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!) 

Well of course, I have been typing 'world social forum' too often these 
days :)..... I surely meant , god forbid if these are made at the world 
economic 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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>
>
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