Stormy weather in cyberspace building

Storm clouds seem to be gathering globally on a number of fronts in cyberspace as governments and international organisations battle to find ways to deal with some of the implications of completely unrestricted and unregulated free flow of all sorts of data and communication on the Internet. Much more is at stake than merely the spat between Google and the Chinese government, with tension between Europe and the United States over commercial piracy having come to the fore last week; hate speech in South Africa on Facebook coming under the spotlight; an anti-terrorist campaign in Internet cafés in the United Kingdom, and much more.

After Google closed its operations in China the previous week after attempts to censor access to content by the Chinese government, the European Commission last week had to attempt to dispel rumours regarding draconian new anti-counterfeiting laws, said to be punted particularly by the US in negotiations under the international Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Agreement (ACTA).

From the UK, the BBC last week reported that under a pilot project in Camden, someInternet café owners were being asked to spy on their customers as part of police terrorism prevention efforts.

From Australia, the Inquirer also last week reported that “privacy advocates who have been accruing out online attacks protesting against the Australian government’s bizarre Internet censorship plan, are apparently turning to terrorism. According to one report, members of the community responsible for recent attacks on government websites are now discussing a violent uprising and trading bomb recipes and calling for the Australian minister of communications Stephen Conroy 'to be bumped off'.”

In South Africa, the Human Rights Commission has launched an investigation into hate speech on a Facebook page, claiming to be in support of ANC Youth League President Julius Malema. Pinning down responsibility and accountability, however, may prove to be difficult, as a League spokesperson said it has nothing to do with the page and that Malema does not even have a Facebook page.

At the heart of the controversy surrounding the ACTA negotiations of the last two years, with the next round scheduled for April in Wellington, New Zealand, is a proposed formulation by the US of protocols to suspend the Internet connections of customers caught downloading copyrighted works. The draft, formulated in January and leaked last week, if adopted would for the first time hold Internet service providers responsible when customers download infringing material.

The proposed so-called “three strikes” or “graduated response” policy is punted strongly by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. The leak came two weeks after the European Parliament agreed to oppose ACTA measures if it contained a three-strikes policy.

Beside data-privacy issues, it is feared by some commentators that such an approach will compel Internet service providers to filter and remove content and services, turning them into private police and justice auxiliaries. It would expect private institutions to become adjudicators on matters of fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens, it is claimed.

In the UK, its Institute of Race Relations has described the initiative to rope in Internet cafés into a counter-terrorism strategy aimed at stopping radicalisation and “winning the battle of ideas” as “dangerous”.

“It … potentially criminalises people for accessing material that is legal, but which expresses religious and political opinions that police officers find unacceptable. It is likely to result in not only a general violation of privacy and freedom of expression, but also discrimination against Muslims, whose use of the Internet will be seen as inherently more suspicious,” said a spokesperson of the institute.

The focus on Internet cafés follows the conviction last year of the so-called "liquid bomb plotters" in the UK who planned to blow up passenger jets by mixing chemicals disguised as soft drinks and who used public cafés to access extremist websites and communicate with each other anonymously.

On another front, some European regulators are investigating whether the practice of posting photos, videos and other information about people on sites such as Facebook without their consent is a breach of privacy laws.

The Swiss and German probes go to the heart of a debate about the extent to which social networking platforms are responsible for the content that their members upload. Another battle between the likes of Google, Facebook and others came after an Italian court last month held three Google executives criminally responsible for an offensive video posted by a user.