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With the law to introduce internet blocks in the fight against child pornography, censorship has made its way from foreign to domestic politics in Germany. But Germany isn't alone with its efforts to introduce censorship: Only recently Wikileaks published parts of the Italian filter list. Is internet censorship on the rise in Europe? And can we really, just as Hans-Peter Uhl (CDU) believes, learn from China?
Gulli:news talked to Jillian C. York on the international development of internet censorship. She is a project coordinator for the OpenNet Initiative at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and coordinates international publicity and community for Herdict. The latter is a project that tries to track internet censorship using crowdsourcing: Users can report censorship they experience via a Firefox addon.
gulli:news: Germany is experiencing a heated debate over internet censorship following a law that will introduce DNS blocks against child porn sites. Judging from your observations, do you think internet censorship is increasing in Western democracies?
Jillian C. York: Internet filtering is definitely becoming more and more common in the West, as governments and private entities become more aware of the breadth of the Internet. Granted, most Western filtering has traditionally focused on child pornography and extreme sexual content, but it does seem that censorship is widening in some places (such as Australia) to include gambling sites, drugs content, and even more controversial things such as pro-anorexia/bulimia sites.
gulli:news: In the last few years, many European countries have started to introduce systems using DNS blocks, mainly to fight the spread of child porn. Critics have always held against them that DNS blocks are very easy to circumvent. Do you have an explanation why this method is adopted so widely despite its known flaws?
Jillian C. York: To me, it's as if the governments would rather do something than appear to be doing nothing. The more effective method of tracking and shutting down such sites and hopefully arresting and prosecuting the people involved in creating and distributing child pornography requires far more time and resources than simply blocking the sites. Therefore, in order to appear as if they are ridding the world of child pornography, governments choose the low-hanging fruit method of just blocking the sites from public view. It is true, however, that the blocks are often easily circumvented.
gulli:news: In the current debate over the introduction of a censorship list, one German MP, Hans-Peter Uhl, suggested Germany could learn from China on the field of censorship. The country has recently made headlines with its "Green Dam" software. How sophisticated is the Chinese internet censorship? In which ways do its technological means differ from those used in the European Union?
Jillian C. York: Although Green Dam was not particularly sophisticated, Chinese Internet censorship is more complex than most; China uses TCP reset for keyword filtering, which means that when a user tries to search for a certain term (such as "falun gong" or "Tiananmen Square") in Google or Yahoo!, their IP packets are inspected, and reset packets are sent to both the source and destination IP addresses in the packet, breaking the connection.
Other regimes that employ heavy filtering have other filtering methods in common with China, but China's keyword filtering is quite unique.
gulli:news: Do you think it is likely that Western countries will indeed learn from China and other censorship superstars and adopt new technologies in the future? Which could these probably be?
Jillian C. York: It doesn't seem likely to me that Western countries will employ keyword filtering - it would cause significant outrage and not be particularly effective against the types of things Western countries want to block.
gulli:news: One concept many experts, such as the German scientist Ralf Bendrath, seem to be especially worried about is Deep Packet Inspection. Could you provide us with a brief outline of this method and why it is so dangerous?
Jillian C. York: Deep packet inspection examines the data portion of a packet (as well as potentially the header) as it passes an inspection point. It can be used to search for protocol non-compliance, spam, or any other pre-defined criteria. What's dangerous is that it has the potential to be used for surveillance, and several governments (including Japan, China, and the U.S.) have such capabilities in place, even though they are not, to the best of my knowledge, utilizing them for surveillance.
gulli:news: While the Chinese censorship system seems largely aimed at prohibiting people from accessing certain material, there are also tendencies to track down those who want to access it. Iran is said to hunt down protestors who use social media such as twitter to report on the situation during the aftermath of the election. Do you think this is indeed barring people from accessing information?
Jillian C. York: First of all, there are no known cases of people in Iran being hunted down via Twitter. That said, the perception of surveillance and the reality of surveillance in many countries is preventing users from blogging about certain topics, or using social media. In Morocco last year, a Facebook user was tracked down (and his information perhaps passed over by Facebook, though that has not been confirmed) after posting a fake account in which he posed as one of the country's princes. On the other hand, such technologies could be used for good, such as tracking down traffickers of child pornography.
gulli:news: More and more people use tools like TOR or alkasir that promise an easy way to circumvent censorship and protect the users' privacy. Do you think this technological approach is able to make internet censorship useless?
Jillian C. York: There are a variety of circumvention tools out there that have nearly made useless current filtering technologies. TOR, alkasir, Psiphon, and others are all well-funded, useful, and allow users to safely navigate the Web. Here's hoping they continue to be one step ahead of the censors.
gulli:news: There is also the fear that Internet Service Providers themselves could start censoring content without any intervention from the state. Do you think this is a serious threat to net neutrality?
Jillian C. York: I do think this is a serious threat to net neutrality. That said, there's little incentive for ISPs to block sites without government intervention.
gulli:news: Lawrence Lessig has already warned in his 2001 book "The Future of Ideas" that the merging of internet providers and content providers could lead to such an incentive for ISPs to manipulate or block content from competitors. This was certainly under the impression of the forming of Time Warner AOL, but even if Lessig's fears do not have become truth since then, the situation seems to have changed little. In my eyes, the incentive is still there, especially since we have experienced the behavior of companies like Comcast that cracked down on BitTorrent users or Rogers in Canada, that implemented its own content into web sites its users accessed. Don't you think it's only a small step from there to censorship?
Jillian C. York: I'm afraid I don't have a clear answer for that one (having not read the book), but I do feel similarly about it as I do about the way iTunes stores for certain countries are only available to those countries' users, or other similar copyright issues - in other words, stupid. Sorry I can't offer more insight.
gulli:news: In which way could and should governments intervene to defend net neutrality? There is a discussion about this in the US as well as in the EU - do you think this topic gets the attention it deserves?
Jillian C. York: I think there's a serious lack of understanding of network neutrality in the United States - I don't think most people have any clue what the term means. There is definitely a need for activists and experts to hold broader discussions on the subject.
gulli:news: Can you give us a global perspective on net neutrality? What is the situation in developing countries? Is there something like an UN-wide initiative to support the concept of net neutrality?
Jillian C. York: As far as I'm aware, there is no UN or global movement supporting net neutrality. Outside of the EU, US, and Canada, little has been done to move toward net neutrality legal frameworks, though Japan seems to be making some progress.
gulli:news: One target of bandwidth discrimination could be filesharers. They are also in the focus of several governments that aim to introduce some kind of "three strikes" legislation. How do you see these content industry-driven initiatives?
Jillian C. York: I'm coming from a copyleft perspective, so I'm certainly not of the mainstream opinion, but even those who are have voiced opposition for three-strikes policies. Taking away the Internet from someone who illegally violates copyright is not exactly a fair and balanced punishment.
gulli:news: Employers and providers of public internet access, such as schools and restaurants, often use white or black lists to ban certain services from their networks. Do you think this is a threat to freedom of expression, or is it generally ok for them to do so?
Jillian C. York: I waver on this, honestly - I do think that it is the prerogative of a private company (such as a cafe or restaurant) to block Web sites, particularly as they may be held liable if someone in their establishment is caught viewing illegal materials. That said, I think many of them go way overboard in blocking sites because their IT departments lack the legal knowledge needed to make a conscious decision about what to filter (most places just use widely available home filtering software anyway, which lends itself toward miscategorization and overblocking).
That said, I do not think that schools and public libraries should filter anything beyond pornography (if anything at all). Some schools block e-mail applications, for example - how is this conducive to learning and communication? Others block Wikipedia, or information on religions. Rather than ban kids from using Wikipedia out of fear they will plagiarize, kids should be taught HOW to use it as a tool.
gulli:news: While German activists propagate the approach of "deleting, not blocking" in the fight against the spread of child porn, in some cases it might not be possible to get material off the internet. Could censorship in such a scenario be an acceptable solution?
Jillian C. York: I don't think censorship is ever an acceptable solution, particularly in light of the fact that it can always be circumvented.
gulli:news: Anything else you want to say?
Jillian C. York: Yes! Although I am wholly opposed to Internet filtering, I do support the use and promotion of filtering software to be used at home. If families took a greater interest in their children's use of the Internet, filtering Web sites that THEIR family deems inappropriate, monitoring their children's Internet usage, and teaching their children solid Internet skills, I believe there would be fewer calls for Internet filtering at the government or ISP level. The choice of what to view should be made at home, not outside of it.
The interview was conducted by Simon Columbus.
Images by Jillian C. York, Das dicke En.de?, no source, ~oetzy. Thanks!
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