Net censorship is “morally unacceptable”

Posted on | August 17, 2006 | 2 Comments

The UK Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, in their recent report – Foreign Affairs – Seventh Report – included a section on Freedom of Expression: the Internet within their discussion of human rights across the globe.

They noted: “The restriction of the internet in China has emerged as a key infringement of the right of freedom of expression,” and went on to state that: “that the collaboration of Western internet companies in the censorship and policing of the internet for political purposes is morally unacceptable.” No fence-sitting there!

Bob McDowell, of Analysts IE4C, however, pointed out, in an article entitled “Political Censorship of Search Engines, (also published in The Register) that: “These are strong words with very little likelihood of achieving any direct results. The current UK government takes very little notice of reports from its Parliamentary Committees. The UK government has very little influence, if any, over the Chinese Government. Thirdly, the Internet companies which operate in China persist with platitudinous comments from their corporate communications units.”

The report itself made two recommendations in this area:

1. …..that the Government put pressure on the Chinese government to relax its censorship of the internet and its requirement for foreign companies to restrict the political content of their pages
2. …..that the Government represent to the Chinese authorities the damage which is done to economic growth by continued restriction of the free flow of information.

McDowell’s realpolitik is probably realistic, but it is nonetheless good to hear it being said by our polticians.

[As an interesting addendum, see Richard Clayton on: "Ignoring the Great Firewall of China".]

Technorati Tags: censorship, firewalls, Foreign Affairs Committee, technology, UK Parliament

Category: economy, politics, society, technology

Comments

2 Responses to “Net censorship is “morally unacceptable””

Andrew Brown
September 14th, 2006 @ 1:25 pm

Hear, hear! In this time of worry over censorship of the internet, both in China and the USA, it is encouraging to hear that the UK parliamentary committee makes such a bold statement. This is tragically an international issue though, and it seems so short-sighted on the part of governments to realise the ramifications of their decisions outwith their own borders. It will be both facinating and deeply troubling to see how this and the ‘Blackboard patent’ pans out.
John Connell
September 14th, 2006 @ 1:25 pm

Good point, Andrew – we can’t be complacent here in the UK either, now that BT are using their ‘cleanfeed’ system – there’s a good BBC piece on it too. No arguments from me about the need to block the worst porn and child abuse sites, but we need some reassurance about how this is policed. Who decides what gets added to the block list operated by the IWF, for instance, and how do we ensure that this does not get extended into other areas in the future? I don’t think we can feel reassured at the moment.