UNESCO’s Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace Report

Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression:
The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet

by

William H. Dutton
Anna Dopatka
Michael Hills
Ginette Law
and
Victoria Nash

Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
1 St Giles Oxford OX1 3JS
United Kingdom

19 August 2010

A report prepared for UNESCO’s Division for Freedom of
Expression, Democracy and Peace. The opinions expressed in this
report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the
views of UNESCO or its Division for Freedom of Expression,
Democracy and Peace.

Preface

As stated in its Constitution, UNESCO is dedicated to “Promoting the free flow
of ideas by word and image”. Part of this mission, therefore, is to promote
freedom of expression and freedom of the press through sensitization and
monitoring activities, as a central element in building strong democracies,
contributing to good governance, promoting civic participation and the rule of
law, and encouraging human development and security. Media independence
and pluralism are fostered by the Organization, providing advisory services on
media legislation and sensitizing governments and parliamentarians, as well
as civil society and relevant professional associations. However, UNESCO
recognizes that the principle of freedom of expression must apply not only to
traditional media, but also to the Internet. Providing an unprecedented volume
of resources for information and knowledge, the Internet opens up new
opportunities for expression and participation and holds enormous potential
for development.
This comprehensive research publication examines the changing legal and
regulatory ecology that has shaped the Internet over the years. The
researchwas supported by UNESCO within the framework of the follow-up
process to the World Summit on the Information Society, and as part of
UNESCO’s activities relating to the Internet Governance Forum. The principle
aim was to provide a reference tool that can inform and stimulate the current
debate on the global trends that have shaped freedom of expression on the
Internet. The report explores the various legal and policy mechanisms that are
crucial for the free flow of information, providing guidance for policy-makers
and other relevant users, for the creation of environments conducive to the
freedom of expression.
As this publication makes clear, freedom of expression is not just a by-product
of technical change: it must be protected by legal and regulatory measures
that balance a variety of potentially conflicting values and interests in a
complex global ecology of choices. The impetus that this report provides for
the prioritization of research in this field encourages further scrutiny of the
multifaceted issues that govern the conditions for freedom of expression on
the Internet. The findings of this research point to the need to better track a
wider array of global legal and regulatory trends, and whether individual
researchers, students or policy makers, it is my hope that this publication
proves to be a useful and informative resource for all readers.
Jānis Kārkliņš, Assistant Director-General for Communication and
Information, UNESCO

1

Acknowledgements
The authors thank for supporting this report. Support of this report was
provided by UNESCO’s Division for Freedom of Expression,
Democracy and Peace and by the Fifth Estate Project at the OII, through
gifts from June Klein, Electronic-Boardroom TMV®. Many others helped in
the preparation of this manuscript. We are particularly grateful to a
group of advisors we assembled to alert us to key legal and
regulatory trends, and review interim drafts of our report. Our
advisory committee included:
Ian Brown, a computer scientist and Senior Research Fellow at the
OII, with expertise in computer security and privacy.
David Erdos, a legal scholar, the Katzenbach Research Fellow at
the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, and Balliol College, Oxford.
Christopher Millard, OII Senior Fellow and Professor of Privacy and
Information Law, School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London.
Richard Susskind, OII’s Visiting Professor in Internet Studies, with
expertise in the role of IT and the Internet in legal professions.
Tracy Westen, Director, Center for Government Studies in Los
Angeles, and adjunct Professor, at USC’s Annenberg School.
Jonathan Zittrain, Professor at the Berkman Center at Harvard
University, and a founding director of the OpenNet Initiative.
In addition, we are very grateful to Bianca Reisdorf for assistance with the
preparation of tables and figures, Mahmood Enayat for observations on
Iran, Louise Guthrie and Arthur Thomas for comments on ratings,
Alissa Cooper for her perspective on network neutrality, and Arthur
Bullard for his help with figures. We owe special thanks to staff of
UNESCO’s Division of Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace,
especially Mogens Schmidt and Xianhong Hu, for comments and
guidance.
William Dutton
Anna Dopatka
Michael Hills
Ginette Law
and
Victoria Nash

2

Executive Summary
Over the first decade of the 21st Century, the Internet and its convergence
with mobile communications has enabled greater access to information and
communication resources. In 2010, nearly 2 billion people worldwide – over
one-quarter of the world’s population – use the Internet. However, during the
same period, defenders of digital rights have raised growing concerns over
how legal and regulatory trends might be constraining online freedom of
expression. Anecdotal accounts of the arrests of bloggers, the filtering of
content, and the disconnection of users have sparked these concerns.
However, they are reinforced by more systematic studies that provide
empirical evidence of encroachments on freedom of expression, such as
through the increased use of content filtering.
This report provides a new perspective on the social and political dynamics
behind these threats to expression. It develops a conceptual framework on
the ‘ecology of freedom of expression’ for discussing the broad context of
policy and practice that should be taken into consideration in discussions of
this issue. This framework structures an original synthesis of empirical
research and case studies of selected technical, legal and regulatory trends.
These include developments in six inter-related arenas that focus on:
1. technical initiatives, related to connection and disconnection, such as
content filtering;
2. digital rights, including those tied directly to freedom of expression and
censorship, but also indirectly, through freedom of information, and
privacy and data protection;
3. industrial policy and regulation, including copyright and intellectual
property, industrial strategies, and ICTs for development;
4. users, such as focused on fraud, child protection, decency, libel and
control of hate speech;
5. network policy and practices, including standards, such as around
identity, and regulation of Internet Service Providers; and
6. security, ranging from controlling spam and viruses to protecting
national security.
By placing developments in these arenas into a broad ecology of choices, it is
more apparent how freedom can be eroded unintentionally as various actors
strategically pursue a more diverse array of objectives. The findings reinforce
the significance of concerns over freedom of expression and connection,
while acknowledging countervailing trends and the open future of technology,
policy and practice. Freedom of expression is not an inevitable outcome of
technological innovation. It can be diminished or reinforced by the design of
technologies, policies and practices – sometimes far removed from freedom
of expression. This synthesis points out the need to focus systematic research
on this wider ecology shaping the future of expression in the digital age.

3

Table of Contents
Preface

1

Acknowledgements

2

Executive Summary

3

Introduction

6

Legal and Regulatory Trends Shaping Freedom of Expression
Freedom of Expression in a Network Society
Outline of this Report
1. Internet Freedom: A Perspective on the Research

13

The Literature
Limitations of Advocacy and Research
2. The Ecology of Freedom of Expression

16

Freedom of Expression: Foundations in Human Rights
The Ecology of Games: A Perspective on the Larger Context
The Ecology of Freedom of Expression
3. Connecting to the Internet: Reshaping Access

20

Law and Regulation Underpinning Internet Diffusion
Access to Technologies of the Internet
4. Technologies of Disconnection

26

Filtering
Counter-measures for Filtering
The Arrest of Journalists and Bloggers
Alternatives to Filtering
5. National Practices and Trends Worldwide

32

Internet Filtering and Censorship
Public Opinion: Beliefs and Attitudes Concerning Internet Freedom
6. Legal and Regulatory Protections of Digital Rights

39

Censorship: Internet Filtering
Equality: Access to Skills and Technologies
Freedom of Information
Privacy and Data Protection
7. Economic Development and Industrial Strategies

4

47

Technology-led Industrial Strategies
Intellectual Property Rights: Copyright and Patents
ICT for Development
8. Regulating Users: Offline and Online

51

Child Protection
Libel for Defamation
Hate Speech
Fraud
9. Internet-centric Controls and Strategies

54

Internet Governance and Regulation
Regulatory Models for a ‘Technology of Freedom’
Protective Regulation: Net Neutrality
Licensing and Regulation of Internet Service Providers
10. Security

59

Google and China
Privacy and National Security: Blackberry
Secrecy and Confidentiality
Security against Malware
National Security: Counter-Radicalisation and Terrorism
Summary and Conclusion

66

The Ecology Shaping Freedom of Expression
Recommendations for Research, Policy and Practice
Appendices
1. Glossary
2. Abbreviations and Acronyms

75
82

References

85

End Notes

100

5

Introduction
Legal and Regulatory Trends Shaping Freedom of Expression
The continuing reinvention and worldwide diffusion of the Internet has made it
an increasingly central medium of expression of the 21stcentury, challenging
the role of more traditional mass media, including radio, television, and
newspapers. In 2010, nearly 2 billion people worldwide – over one-quarter of
the world’s population – use the Internet.i This could have major societal
implications, as the use of the Internet has the potential to reshape global
access to information, communication, services, and technologies (Dutton
1999, 2004). Enduring issues, ranging from freedom of the press to the
balance of world information flows in all sectors, and from the media to the
sciences, will be tied to the Internet as a ‘network of networks’ – an interface
between individuals and the news, information, stories, research, cultures and
entertainment flowing worldwide (Baer et al 2009).
The increasing centrality of the Internet has countervailing implications. On
the one hand, the global diffusion of the Internet, along with a continuing
stream of innovations, such as the ease with which users can create as well
as consume text and video, are making the Internet increasingly pivotal to the
communicative power of individuals, groups and institutions with access to
networks and the skills to use them effectively (Dutton 2005; Castells 2009).
On the other hand, this very shift in communicative power has spawned
greater efforts to restrict and control the use of the Internet for information and
communication on political, moral, cultural, security, and other grounds. It is
leading also to legal and regulatory initiatives to mitigate risks associated with
this new medium, ranging from risks to children to privacy to intellectual
property rights, to national security, which might more indirectly, and often
unintentionally, enhance or curtail freedom of expression. In some cases,
limits on expression are intentional, but often unintended, such when
regulatory instruments, that might have been appropriate for newspapers,
broadcasting or the press, are used inappropriately to control the Internet.ii
As a consequence, defenders of freedom of expression have raised growing
concerns over how legal and regulatory trends might be constraining freedom
of expression at the very time that the Internet has become more widely
recognized as a major medium for fostering global communication. These
concerns are reinforced by surveys that provide evidence of encroachments
on freedom of expression, such as through the filtering of Internet content. At
the same time, despite Internet censorship and filtering, this network of
networks continues to bring more information to increasing numbers of
individuals around the world, particularly as mobile communication extends its
reach to vast numbers of individuals without access to more traditional
communication resources. However, technological innovation will not
necessarily enhance freedom of expression. It is not a technologically
determined outcome or an inherent consequence of Internet use. This report
argues that it can be diminished unless freedom of expression is explicitly and
systematically addressed by policy and practice.

6

This report provides a preliminary view of the evidence behind these
concerns, and how they can be addressed through more systematic research,
and new frameworks for discussion of policy and practice. It is not a definitive
treatment of the wideranging issues it addresses, but an effort to begin an
original overview and synthesis of legal and regulatory trends that could
reshape freedom of expression in the digital age of networked societies.iii In
doing so, it offers a framework that places developments within a broad
ecology of actors, objectives, and strategies for shaping the role of the
Internet and Web in local and global communication, based on a critical
review of existing research, legal and regulatory documentation, news
coverage, and expert opinion. The findings reinforce the significance of these
concerns, while acknowledging countervailing trends and the open future of
freedom of expression. Based on these findings, the report points toward a
need to more systematically monitor a wide range of legal and regulatory
developments that directly–and indirectly– shape the future of free expression
on the Internet in local and global contexts.
This synthesis suggests a need for further research to systematically monitor
these developments in ways that are trusted and able to inform debate about
policy and practice. The value of the Internet to political and democratic
institutions and processes will depend on such efforts to track worldwide
freedom of expression on the Internet.
Freedom of Expression in a Network Society
Representatives of global institutions and national governments around the
world have endorsed freedom of expression as a basic human right. While
most often associated with freedom of the press and the First Amendment in
the US, freedom of expression is not simply an American value. It has been
upheld as a basic human right for decades by a number of international
organizations, having been endorsed since 1948 in the United Nations’
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.iv
In 2009, speaking to college students in Shanghai, China, on his first Asian
trip as President of the United States, Barack Obama made this point. He
cited freedom of expression, along with religion, as a universal human right,
saying:
‘… freedoms of expression, and worship, of access to information and
political participation – we believe they are universal rights. They should
be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities,
whether they are in the United States, China or any nation.’v
This position was reinforced and extended by US Secretary of State, Hilary
Rodham Clinton (2010) in linking freedom of expression in the 21st Century
with the right of people to connect. She evoked the First Amendment to the
US Constitution, and Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’ speech of 1941 to
discuss freedom of expression on the Internet and extend this to what she
called the freedom to connect, defined as the ‘idea that governments should

7

not prevent people from connecting to the [I]nternet, to websites, or to each
other’. She spoke of a need for ‘freedom of assembly in cyber space’. This
reflects a similar commitment expressed years ago by Viviane Reding (2007),
Commissioner for Information Society and Media in the European
Commission, in saying: ‘Freedom of expression is one of the most
fundamental rights of our European democracies’ ... but that ‘without freedom
of information, freedom of expression often remains meaningless’. These
recent developments reinforce the commitment of international institutions,
such as UNESCO, which ‘promotes freedom of expression and freedom of
the press as a basic human right’.vi
The logic underlying the defense of these values is two-fold. One is that the
free flow of ideas is critical to democratic processes and institutions, such as
the ability of citizens to vote in an informed way and to hold their governments
and other public institutions accountable. A second is based on the priority
placed on the autonomy of the individual in relation to larger collectives, a
principle that varies cross-culturally, underpinning many debates over the
relative weight given to individuals versus communities or other collectivities.
For example, a focus on individual autonomy might support the role of the
individual in choosing what to filter. In contrast, a focus on the collective could
support a greater role for state filtering to protect shared values.
Clearly, freedoms of expression and connection to the Internet are not
absolute in any cultural setting and this applies equally, whether considering
expression online or offline. Cross-nationally and cross-culturally, the relative
priority accorded freedom of expression in relation to many other goals and
objectives, such as national security or personal privacy, is one of the critical
issues tied to global governance of the Internet and related information and
communication technologies (ICTs).
Box 0.1. Three Dimensions of Freedom Online.a
Freedom House identifies three aspects of freedom on the Internet, which can
be mapped into our two categories, although all overlap and are interrelated:
1. Obstacles to access, including restrictions imposed by governmental
policy or economic conditions, such as a lack of infrastructure;
2. Restrictions on the rights of users, such as (un)lawful disconnection;
and
3. Limits to content, such as through self- or government-censorship,
when self-censorship includes that imposed by the Internet industry.
a

Adapted from Freedom House (2009).

21stcentury conceptions of freedom of expression entail at least two general
dimensions tied to the Information Age of networked communication (Klang
and Murray 2005: 1). The first focuses on access to the means for expression.
In the age of digital networking, this increasingly translates into access to the
Internet – one critical aspect of connection, and related ICTs, as they are
becoming a primary interface between individuals and the world (Dutton 1999;

8

Baer et al 2009). For this reason, the global diffusion of the Internet has
become a critical issue for those supporting worldwide freedom of
expression.vii
The second focuses on the rights of individuals and groups to use various
media, from association to mass communication in order to support political
processes and institutions, such as elections, but also in all areas of life. This
is most often associated with freedom of the press and the freedom to
associate with others, but increasingly, freedom of expression is being
extended to the requirement of rights to use the Internet and ICTs for
obtaining information and organizing politically, particularly as individual
Internet users increasingly take on many roles formerly played by the press.
The Internet as a worldwide ‘network of networks’ could enable people to
inform and educate themselves, express their views, and participate in civil
society and democratic processes to an extent never before possible. New
forms of information and participation like Internet-based newspapers, blogs,
or social networking sites are challenging more traditional media by proposing
new forms of communication, such as by enabling users to share, generate
and even co-create or co-produce information (Table 1). In such ways, the
Internet has complemented more traditional forms of one-to-many broadcast
communication by many-to-many and many-to-one networks of
communication, as illustrated by the work of Global Voices (Box 2). Such
initiatives over the Internet are expected to enhance the diversity of available
information and facilitate access to ‘user-generated content’ (UGC) in ways
that empower citizens, and become a tool for ensuring greater transparency
and openness.
Table 1. Forms of Communication Enabled by the Weba
Web-enabled
Illustrations
Web 1.0. Sharing
Hypertextual links on the Web, enabling the
Information
global sharing of documents, text, video, etc.
Web 2.0. User-generated
Blogging, micro-blogging (e.g., Twitter), User
content (UGC)
comments, ratings, polling, etc.
Web 3.0. Co-creation, coWiki-based contributions (e.g., Wikipedia),
production of information
collaboration software (e.g., Google Docs)
a

Adapted from Dutton (2009).

Box 0.2. Global Voices: Complementing and Extending Traditional Media.
Global Voices is a collaboration, claiming more than 200 bloggers around the
world, that works on translations and reports from blogs and citizen media
outlets. They place an emphasis on giving voice to people and views that are
not ordinarily heard on international mainstream media and therefore not likely
to reach a broad audience. The Global Voices team also has an Advocacy
website and network designed to help people express opinions online in
countries where their voices are restricted by state censorship.
See: http://globalvoicesonline.org

9

However, this potential for the Internet to enhance freedom of expression is
not universally welcomed. For example, some worry that the Internet could
undermine traditional media practices and institutions by eroding standards of
broadcasting, undermining local and national media outlets and productions,
or undermining the business models supporting the media, such as
advertising or the sale or sharing of copyrighted material. In other cases there
are concerns about particular information or content that might be
disseminated online, perhaps on the basis of national security, or on political
or moral grounds, such as in the case of WikiLeaks (see Box 0.3) distributing
documents on the war in Afghanistan, which might have jeopardized the lives
of informants identified in leaked docments (Waters 2010).
Box 0.3. WikiLeaks and the War in Afghanistan
The Website entitled WikiLeaks is dedicated to providing access to
information by protecting ‘whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have
sensitive material to communicate to the public’.a The site leads with a quote
from Times Magazine that the site ‘… could become as important a
journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act.’ It was founded and led by
Julian Assange, based in Reykjavik, Iceland, on the notion that ‘principled
leaking’ of key documents can support greater public accountability, invoking
the spirit of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. The site was supported
primarily by individual volunteers, but the release of notable documents led to
some funding through donations (Khatchadourian 2010).
In 2010, the site became a focus of debate over its posting of an ‘Afgan War
Diary, 2004-2010’ on 25 July, which included over 91,000 reports on a
dedicated Web page. WikiLeaks argued that ‘some 15,000 reports from the
total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our
source’b, but this did not prevent the release of information deemed sensitive
by governments, the press, and civil liberties advocates, such as the identities
of some informants. Even before this moment, there have been efforts to
censor the site, such as in Australia, where the government included
WikiLeaks pages in its censorship list (Singel 2009).
a
b

From ‘about page’ of WikiLeaks: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/WikiLeaks:About
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010

The use of Internet filtering (Box 0.4) and other forms of restricting full access
to the Internet has led to a number of efforts to track and monitor its
prevalence, namely work done by Freedom House (2009), as well as
academic research, such as the OpenNet Initiative, one of the most prominent
projects (Box 0.5).

10

Box 0.4. Internet Filtering.
Governments, Internet Service Providers, Internet access providers,
companies, parents, or individuals can install software that restricts content to
users. This software can be installed on an individual personal computer, but
may also be installed ‘upstream’ on a home, company or ISP network server.
In some cases, it is installed at a national ‘backbone’ level. A filter can screen
particular words, e-mail addresses, Web sites or other addresses and be used
for example, if the installer wishes to prevent users within its borders from
seeing particular content or a particular site. This software is sometimes
called ‘content-control’ or ‘Web filtering’ software. When used by
governments, it is often branded as ‘censorship’, particularly if aimed at
political speech. But in the case of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), where
filters are used for example to combat SPAM, it can be viewed as an essential
service to users. In the household, parents might use a filter as a means of
‘child protection’. These examples underscore the need to assess the social
and political context in which filtering is conducted.

Box 0.5. The OpenNet Initiative.
The OpenNet Initiative seeks to discover and report on the Internet filtering
practices of countries that may be filtering Internet content for social (moral),
political or security purposes. Their research team has employed creative
mechanisms to obtain empirical evidence about what content is filtered in
different countries, such as by making similar requests for Web pages from
computers located within different nations. In addition to the study of Internet
filtering, the project seeks to understand their outcomes and unintended
consequences. The team does comparative assessments across countries,
and writes regional overviews as well as country profiles on censorship and
filtering to inform public policy makers and civil society advocates. OpenNet is
a collaborative partnership of academic institutions, which includes the Citizen
Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; the
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; and the
Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme,
University of Cambridge.
See: Deibert et al (2008, 2010) and http://opennet.net/
Many different actors can restrict freedom of expression online. Individuals
decide what to read, and what to delete or filter, such as by installing spam
filters on their personal computer. Parents, corporate IT departments, and
many other actors have a role in deciding what content is available to users in
different social contexts. However, studies of censorship and filtering and
freedom of expression, generally, are most often concerned with
governmental censorship. Governments can directly, or indirectly (through
formal and informal agreements with Internet Service Providers), restrict
freedom of expression by regulating access to the Internet or to particular
Internet content. Many civil society advocates of freedom of expression are

11

concerned that state-supported restrictions on Internet access and information
are increasing and thereby threatening freedom of expression online.
While the decisions of many different actors are online freedom of expression,
most are not focused on regulating speech. In fact, most actors are focused
on other goals and objectives. It is in the pursuit of these diverse objectives
that their actions can expand or limit citizens’ enjoyment of freedom of
expression. In some cases, the pursuit of particular goals can enhance
freedom of expression. For example, the push towards economic progress by
developing countries has been a major impetus behind the worldwide
diffusion of the Internet, as it has become a central infrastructure for local and
global economic transactions and trade. In other cases, the pursuit of different
goals can lead directly or indirectly to restrictions of freedom of expression,
through laws and regulations governing privacy and liability online. A person’s
exercise of free expression could, for instance, harm others by divulging
private information or tarnishing the reputation of an individual or a company.
These examples raise complicated and unresolved questions about legal and
regulatory trends in related areas that might have more or less direct
implications on freedom of expression on the Internet. This complex and
evolving ecology of law and policy is the focus of this report.
Outline of this Report
This report provides a synthesis of many of the key trends in law and
regulation that might be reshaping – for better or worse – freedom of
expression around the world. It begins by providing a brief overview of
previous literature and research on freedom of expression, which identifies
key limitations of work in this area. The review leads us to introduce a
framework for considering the many areas of policy and practice that need to
be considered, which we call an evolving ‘ecology of freedom of expression’.
This framework provides a structure for discussing a broader array of policy
choices than are normally considered in discussions of freedom of
expression, and creates an outline of areas that are described in the following
sections of the report, ranging from access to the Internet to concerns over
privacy and surveillance.
This introduction has explained the focus of our report. The following sections
begin with a critical perspective on the literature on freedom of expression,
arguing that it has not been sufficiently examined from a broad social science
perspective, partly due to the politically sensitive features of this topic. The
next section provides a framework for discussing the broader context of
freedom of expression, what we call an ‘ecology of freedom of expression’.
The report then moves into a discussion of the key elements of this ecology,
beginning with an overview of one of the most positive developments, the
worldwide diffusion of access to the Internet. This discussion looks at some of
the legal and regulatory underpinnings of the widespread diffusion of the
Internet that enables its potential as a means for empowering individuals and
groups across the world. This is followed by an overview of countervailing
technical developments designed to filter the Internet – to disconnect users.
This discussion introduces some of the principal technologies used to control

12

access to the Internet and its content. These introductions to the rights to
freedom of expression and the technologies of connection and disconnection
identify the basic instruments of law and regulation that make content controls
practically feasible. In short, new technology is enabling the exercise of
worldwide freedom of expression, but also providing governments with new
forms of censorship and new ways to disconnect people from information and
communication resources.
The next section provides a meta-analysis of evidence regarding worldwide
practice. This shows that a sizeable group of nations are limiting freedom of
expression for a variety of reasons, ranging from national security to moral
concerns.
This analysis is followed by a discussion of four sets of developments that are
shaping freedom of expression online. They are legal and regulatory efforts to
protect other rights, such as community standards of decency, equality,
freedom of information, and privacy and data protection. This is followed by
discussion of moves to stimulate and protect economic development and
industrial goals, including the protection of intellectual property, and
technology-led industrial and development strategies. This is followed by
discussion of how users are regulated, mainly by laws that apply offline and
online to protect children and other individuals from harm. This is followed by
a description of developments in Internet governance and regulation, focusing
on competing models for regulating the Internet. Finally, we look at the area of
security, a prime motivation behind some governmental efforts to filter.
The report concludes with a discussion of the value of the ecology of freedom
of expression as a framework for study and policy deliberation, and of the
need for further research to refine and extend this preliminary analysis, ending
with a set of recommendations for research, policy and practice.

1. Internet Freedom: A Perspective on the Research
The Literature
This report provides a synthesis of existing research and literature on freedom
of expression in the digital age. It is not based on new data gathering, but
aims at pulling data and research together in new ways and identifying areas
for further research. We therefore provide only a brief overview of the existing
literature, which is then woven throughout this report. However, it is important
to present a broad sense of the literature in this field and indicate why it led us
to propose a reconsideration and expansion of empirical research in this area,
and also underline why we recommend the re-focusing of research on the
larger ecology of freedom of expression on the Internet.
The literature in this field includes outstanding work that is theoretically and
empirically innovative and significant. For example, the 1980 report of the
McBride Commission (Box 1.1) has had a major impact on debate over global
communication and remains relevant to discussions of the Internet and mobile

13

communications. As the Internet promises to reconfigure global information
flows, it will be important to revisit many aspects of the McBride Commission
in the coming years.
Box 1.1. The MacBride Commission and Report
Sean MacBride, a Noble Peace Prize laureate from Ireland, presided over the
International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. This
commission was established in 1977 by UNESCO, and reported in 1980 with
the publication of Many Voices One World (ICCP 1980), which came to be
known as the MacBride Report. This report became a major reference for
advocacy of a ‘New World Information and Communication Order’ (NWICO).
The Commission raised concern over the uneven international flow of news
and information worldwide, which was protected by the advocacy of a free
press. In calling for a new world information order, the report challenged
conventional wisdom concerning the free flow of information in order to
reduce or eliminate ‘situations of political, economic and cultural dominance
and dependence’ on producers in the most developed nations (Ibid, p. 43).
Despite an expressed commitment by the Commission to the principle of
freedom of expression, the NWICO came to be viewed as an argument
against the operation of the free market in global communication, and a threat
to a press free of governmental oversight and control.
More contemporary research, such as that focused on Internet filtering,
particularly that by the ‘OpenNet Initiative’, has developed creative
approaches to gathering empirical data on the extent and nature of content
filtering in a growing number of nations (Box 0.5, above). In addition, a
number of NGOs, for instance, Freedom House (FH) and Reporters without
Borders, have invested heavily in monitoring governmental efforts to restrict
freedom of expression (Freedom House 2009; Reporters without Borders
2010). Studies such as these provide an empirical basis for informing debate
and further research.
Limitations of Advocacy and Research
However, these studies and reports remain exceptional cases in a literature
that has important limitations taken as a whole. Generally, with notable
exceptions, such as those identified above, the significance of the issues tied
to freedom of expression has not been well matched by systematic programs
of independent, disinterested, research. In contrast, it has been generally:
• under-researched in light of early and continuing risks to freedom of
expression;
• composed primarily of normative policy advocacy rather than
empirically-anchored description and synthesis;
• focused most often on single issues, such as freedom of expression,
child protection, or copyright, rather than on the tradeoffs among these
often conflicting values and interests;

14

• limited to single indicators of trends in selected countries, such as the
prominence of filtering in the countries most actively involved, rather
than multiple indicators across systematic samples of countries;
• North American and European-centric in perspective, with freedom of
expression being viewed as a particularly American priority, given the
press freedoms tied to the First Amendment to the US Constitution;
• not attentive to addressing the issues raised by the proliferation of
some content on the Web that would be legally actionable in an earlier
era, such as mass sharing of copyrighted materials, which undermines
systematic debate of appropriate remedies; and
• focused too narrowly on policies designed to protect or constrain
freedom of expression, when the relevant legal and regulatory
environment is much broader.
A number of factors have undermined the limitations of research in this area.
One is a technologically-deterministic optimism about the impossibility of
controlling expression on the net. Another is the relatively recent advent of
truly global communication networks and services, particularly the worldwide
diffusion of the Internet and mobile communications. Most discussion over the
past decades focused on national policies and the press and mass media,
and were more local and national in their focus, reach and governance. In
comparison, the Internet is a far more recent phenomenon, still reaching only
a quarter of the world’s population by 2009, and only beginning to be the
focus of debate over governance.viii
Another factor has been the depth of controversy surrounding discussions of
global media and information flows, epitomized by the divisions created by the
MacBride Commission and its report (see Box 1.1). The global significance of
international news agencies and the press and mass media, along with the
emergence of new media, created a division between advocates of freedom
of expression, such as representatives of the press in the most developed
nations, versus advocates of efforts to balance the global flow of information,
such as by redressing inequities between the developed North and the
developing South. Critics have called into question basic assumptions about
the primacy of freedom of the press, for example, questioning whether these
principles undermined the development of a more diverse media landscape,
such as by enabling greater dominance of global media firms or the
dominance of Western media messages – creating a new era of cultural
‘media imperialism’ (Herman and McChesney 2001).
At times, debate between the advocates of the free flow of information and
communication clashed with advocates of what came to be called the New
World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) in ways that made
disinterested academic research difficult to marshal. This polarized opposing
ideological positions between advocates of freedom of expression and those
focused on balancing world information flows. Each camp sought support for
its own position in what at times became an ideologically fraught, and
correspondingly less academically reasoned debate.

15

Nevertheless, the MacBride report acknowledged the importance of freedom
of expression, properly balanced with the laws and cultural and politicaladministrative traditions of nations, arguing that:
‘It is widely recognized that freedom must be reconciled with an
obligation to obey the law and must not be exploited to injure the
freedom of others; also that the exercise of freedom has a counterpart
which is the need to exercise it with responsibility, which in the field of
communication means primarily a concern for truth and the legitimate
use of the power it conveys. We need to ask moreover, on what grounds
a claim for freedom is being made. The freedom of a citizen or social
groups to have access to communication, both as recipients and
contributors, cannot be compared to the freedom of an investor to derive
profit from the media. One protects a fundamental human right; the other
permits the commercialization of a social need. Yet when all these
reservations are made, the principle of freedom of expression is one that
admits of no exceptions, and that is applicable to people all over the
world by virtual of their human dignity.’ (ICCP 1980: 18).
The skepticism of the McBride Report is useful to revisit in the 21st Century, in
noting that: ‘… as technology advances, the essential consideration at every
stage should be that its progress is put at the service of better understanding
between peoples and the furtherance of democratization within countries and
not be used to reinforce vested interests of established powers.’ (ICCP 1980:
80). In fact, we would go further in arguing that while freedom of expression
should be viewed as a fundamental right, it needs to be seen in the larger
context of competing values and interests. Equality and diversity of
expression are a subset of a wider range of values and interests critical to
understanding the key values that support freedom of expression and also
those that are putting it at greater risk as we head into the second decade of
the 21st Century. That is why it is necessary to look at the wider, developing
ecology that is reshaping freedom of expression in the network society, but
without deflecting attention from protecting this core value.

2. The Ecology of Freedom of Expression
Freedom of Expression: Foundations in Human Rights
The principle of Freedom of Expression is based on internationally recognized
laws and standards for human rights (Box 2.1), such as the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Other regional human rights
instruments address the issues of freedom of expression and privacy such as
in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.ix Additionally, national
or regional conventions are implemented to transfer these principles into
national law and ensure freedoms and rights for residents and citizens.
Across Europe, the most relevant basis for freedom of expression and free
speech comes from the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), along with the EU’s Charter of Fundamental

16

Human Rights. While the ECHR guarantees everyone the freedom to hold
opinions and to get and pass on information and ideas, it also allows a
number of qualifications, stating that these rights:
‘…may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties
as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in
the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for
the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals,
for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the
disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the
authority and impartiality of the judiciary.’x
Box 2.1. International Guidelines on Freedom of Expression.
Internationally Recognized Standards for Human Rights:
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR);
•

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR);

•

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR).

Other Regional Human Rights Conventions:
• European Convention, implemented by the European Court of Human
Rights;
•

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Unionxi;

•

American Convention, implemented by the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights and Inter-American Commission; and the

•

African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, under the Organization
for African Union, and implemented by the African Commission on
Human and People’s Rights.

In the United States, Freedom of Expression is enshrined in the First
Amendment to the US Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights, and upheld in
more absolute terms relative to most other nations and regions. The rights
include freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and
freedom of speech such that:
‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances.’xii
The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights differs from the protection
afforded by other treaties as it does not explicitly include a right to hold
opinions, but simply the right to receive information and to express and
spread their opinions within the bounds of the law.xiii In addition, within the
charter, freedom of expression is subject to the general restriction, which

17

requires the individual to exercise protected freedoms ‘with due regard to the
rights of others, collective security, morality and common interest.’xiv
Formal constitutional or legal guarantees provide protection for freedom of
expression in much of Asia. Examples include Article 35 of the Constitution of
the People's Republic of China, Article 19 of the Indian Constitution, and
Article 19 of the Constitution of Pakistan. Similar guarantees exist in the
constitutions of most other Asian countries, with notable exceptions, such as
the Union of Myanmar (Burma) and the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea (DPRK).
The Ecology of Games: A Perspective on the Larger Context
The primary theme of this report is that it is helpful to broaden the context in
which ‘freedom of expression’ is conceptualized. Not only does the pursuit of
other values shape freedom of expression, but also the pursuit of freedom of
expression can serve a variety of other values and interests, from
democratizing communication to reinforcing vested interests, as highlighted
by the controversies surrounding the NWICO. A framework of value for this
purpose is based on the concept of an ‘ecology of games’.
The idea of an ‘ecology of games’ (EoG) was introduced in local community
studies within the political sciences during the 1950s (Long 1958). The
concept was used to focus on a key weakness of dominant elite and pluralist
perspectives on community power, arguing that few actors sought to control
communities per se. Instead, actors sought to achieve a wide array of more
specific objectives, from making their neighbourhood safer to enhancing the
quality of schools to being elected to office. That is, there exists a ecology of
actors, each pursuing particular objectives, and each making choices in the
pursuit of those objectives that shape the development of a community.
Community development, from this perspective, is a largely unplanned
process driven by the unanticipated interactions of multiple players or
stakeholders within overlapping ‘games’. The unfolding history of such
separate but interdependent games is then driving the evolution of local
communities.
The Ecology of Freedom of Expression
This perspective has since been refined and developed in applications to the
study of information and communication technologies and policies.xv It could
provide a new perspective on the study of freedom of expression, by viewing
these freedoms as the outcome of a ecology of choices made not only about
freedom of expression, but also a variety of other objectives. Table 2 provides
a list of some of the goals pursued by key actors along with the strategies
they might pursue in accomplishing these goals. As Table 2 suggests, some
actors, such as from civil society, are explicitly seeking to achieve greater
freedom of expression, but others are focused on censoring expression, such
as through the use of Internet filtering, the censorship of news and mass
media, or the efforts to silence journalists or bloggers. More indirectly, some
actors are focused on quite different goals, such as protecting children from

18

harmful content, or protecting their own reputation, and might well seek to
prevent people from posting information or seek damages from others who
publish harmful information.
Table 2 illustrates how the wide range of separate but interrelated goals being
pursued by a variety of actors, employing an array of strategies, might
influence the state of freedom of expression on the Internet. The focus of
actors is often not on freedom of expression, but on other values and
interests, such as the stability of a regime, the vitality of an economy, or the
safety of children. In some nations, such as those with state media
organizations, the media are more heavily controlled, such as to ensure that
existing regimes are supported by news and public affairs reporting. In such
environments, the Internet is often the only place in which non-popular
opinions can be communicated, leading the Internet to be perceived – rightly
or wrongly – as a threat to the stability of a regime.
Table 2. The Ecology of Freedom of Expression on the Internet
Categories
Digital Rights

Objectives Defining Choices in Games
Access – Freedom of Connection
Freedom of Expression
Censorship
Equality, e.g., Media Literacy and Skills
Freedom of Information (FOI)
Privacy and Data Protection
Industrial Policy Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): Copyright
and Regulation IPR: Patents
Competition
Technology-led industrial strategies
ICT for Development
User-Centric
Child Protection
Decency: Pornography
Libel: Defamation
Hate Speech
Fraud
Internet-centric Internet Governance and Regulation
Domain Names and Numbers
Standard Setting: Identity
Net Neutrality
Licensing, Regulation of Internet Service Providers
Security
Secrecy, Confidentiality
Security against malware, such as spam and viruses
Counter-Radicalisation
National Security, Counter-Terrorism
Although many governments have allowed the Internet to remain relatively
free of content controls – in practice, if not always in law – growing numbers
of states are threatened by its potential for political mobilization, but also for

19

other potential consequences, to ideals such as child safety, personal privacy,
creativity, or security. For such reasons, more governments have expanded
methods to regulate, control, shape, and monitor Internet messages and
related digital content. As the Internet has become more central to
communication, the more it has been a focus of the strategies of multiple
actors in achieving their various goals.
The following sections of this report will develop some of the key goals,
actors, and strategies enumerated in Table 2. This is not intended to be
exhaustive or detailed survey, but sufficient to show how laws and regulations
in many of these areas are indeed involved in the larger ecology that is
shaping freedom of expression on the Internet. As said decades ago, by the
MacBride Commission (ICCP 1980: 93), the new technologies:
‘offer considerable potential for diversifying messages and further
democratizing communication. However, realizing or rejecting this
potential depends, of course, on the economic, social and political
choices that must be made.’
This conceptual framework seeks to identify the many political choices that
are being made about law and regulation in ways that will realize or restrict
the expressive potential of the Internet.

3. Connecting to the Internet: Reshaping Access
Law and Regulation Underpinning Internet Diffusion
Legal and regulatory initiatives have underpinned increasing worldwide
access to the Internet and the information, communication and services that it
enables. The Internet’s worldwide diffusion has not been the inevitable
outcome of the technology, but of a series of technological innovations
shaped by policy and practice.
For example, the Internet was developed early on as the ARPANet (Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network), supported by funding from the US
Department of Defense. However, it was developed within universities and
research institutions primarily as a tool for scientists to share computing
resources, not as a tool for national defense.xvi It was born therefore in a
culture of relatively free, open and trusted communication. This did not mean
that abuses of this freedom did not occur. There were problems even early on
within universities of individuals, such as a disgruntled student sending hate
mail, but such problems were relatively easy to deal with by institutions that
could identify the offending student or staff in due course and take remedial
actions, such as suspending their network privileges. Similar practices applied
to the Internet today would be less feasible and more controversial as this
platform has become more central to all forms of communication and
information access.

20

Second, well before the commercial development of the Internet,
governments recognized that computer-based communication systems, such
as videotext in the late-1970s, and ‘multi-media computers’, were significantly
different from the traditional media of broadcasting, telecommunication and
print (Pool 1983). The regulatory regimes developed for the traditional media
did not apply well to the ‘new media’. Moreover, as new media were widely
viewed as key to the future of communication, nations wanted to foster
innovation in this area as a driver of new industry and economic development.
The unique features of new media and the industrial policy goals associated
with them led many governments to avoid regulation and not control content
on new media, and later on the Internet. In fact, efforts to encourage new
media developments extended to not taxing online purchases, and public
investment in pilot projects.xvii An exception is the parallel rise of policy on
privacy and data protection, such as with the European Commission’s Data
Protection Directive of 1995. While this directive pre-dated widespread
understanding of its potential to conflict aspects of new Internet applications,
such as social media, privacy and data protection pursued as a separate set
of goals and objectives in a broader ecology of games.
Access to Technologies of the Internet
One of the most positive developments shaping the role of the Internet in
opening up a new channel of expression has been its continuing pace of
worldwide innovation and diffusion. By 2009, over one-quarter (26 percent) of
the world’s population had access to the Internet, growing from less than ten
percent (6 percent) in 2000 (Figure 1). This corresponds to over 1.7B users by
2009 (Figure 1).
Figure 1 Worldwide Internet Diffusion of the Internet: Number of Users and
Proportion of Users by World
Population.

21

And diffusion has reached almost every region of the world, with the exception
of Africa, which has remained comparatively low in levels of Internet access –
below 10 percent (Figure 2). In general, Internet diffusion remains varied by
region on at least two major dimensions, which might be called ‘throw weight’
and ‘penetration’.
Figure 2 Regional Diffusion of the Internet: Number of Users and Proportion
of Users by World
Regions.

Figure 2 lists major regions in order of the proportion of the population that
use the Internet – their levels of penetration in 2009. As shown in Figure 2,
Africa has the lowest level of Internet use at about 7 percent, followed by
Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Oceania and
Australia, and finally North America, which has the highest proportion of its
population online at nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of the population.
There is a substantial gap between Europe, with just over one-half of the
population online, and North America, as well as Oceania and Australia, a
region closer to 60 percent. However, even in Africa, with the lowest level of
penetration, the arrival of submarine fiber optic links, and the diffusion of
mobile communication promise to enhance Internet access in the coming
years. Also, by 2009, mobile communication reached over 4B users
worldwide, and is converging rapidly with Internet communication in ways that
will help diminish, but by no means erase, the divide across regions of the
world.
Figure 2 also shows that while penetration rates are low in Asia, less than 20
percent, its Internet users make up the largest proportion of the total number

22

of Internet users online; accounting for 43 percent of the global Internet user
population. By 2010, there were more Internet users in China than there were
people (on or off the Internet) in the United States. Asia is clearly developing
the greatest throw-weight online of any region in the world.
Figures 3-5 vividly illustrate the rise of Asian countries in the world’s Internet
population. For example, Figure 3 shows that North America reached a
plateau in diffusion since 2002. Europe may be hitting a plateau since 2008,
but the number of Internet users in Asia continues to climb. The leveling of
diffusion in North America and Oceania/Australia is even more obvious when
looking at the percentage of Internet users over time (Figure 4).
The impact of these global shifts in Internet adoption is best summarized by
Figure 5, which shows North America declining from the largest plurality of the
Internet population to falling below Europe and Asia. That said, Europe is also
declining in its presence online, relative to Asia (Figure 5).
Finally, while the growth in Internet penetration appears gradual on a global
scale, compared for example to that of mobile telephony, content continues to
expand at a fast pace (Figure 6). The number of active Web sites took off
after 2006 and appears to remain in a steady phase of growth, creating a
virtuous cycle of more content generating more use and more content.
Figure 3. Total Number of Internet Users within Regions.

These figures dramatically illustrate a global shift in the centre of the Internet’s
gravity. Asia is becoming the dominant presence on the Internet, constituting
a very large proportion of the world Internet population, and is therefore
becoming more significant to considerations of freedom of expression and
connection than might be judged only on the basis of penetration rates.

23

Figure 4. Percentage of Internet Users within Regions.

Figure 5. Percentage of Worldwide Internet

Population.

24

Figure 6. Percentage of Worldwide Internet Usage by Number of Active
Websites Worldwide.

The global diffusion of the Internet is most often viewed as a story of
technological innovations, but a variety of legal and regulatory choices have
underpinned this history in critical ways. Perhaps most significant were
decisions taken in the 1970s in the US in the context of the computer inquiries
undertaken by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which
culminated in computer-based communication services being largely
unregulated. Liberalization of computer-based data processing and
communication services enabled the development of innovative service
provision outside AT&T and companies formed through its divestiture in 1984.
There were many subsequent attempts to regulate data communication,
largely to protect the telecommunication firms, such as by legally prohibiting
voice communication over computer-based networks. The diffusion of ‘Voice
over IP’ services, such as the beta version of Skype, launched in 2003, has
been possible because they are not legally prohibited in many nations.xviii That
said, in many countries, such as where incumbent telecommunication
providers have monopolies, VoIP services, such as Skype, have been
blocked. This is a common practice in many African countries and other
developing nations that have depended on the general revenues generated
by telephone companies, but with a cost to economic development more
generally.xix Many other legal and regulatory incentives have buttressed the
development of the Internet, such as initiatives in many countries not to tax
online purchases, creating a financial incentive to shop online. Many rapidly
developing nations have been convinced of the value of liberalizing
telecommunications in ways that support the Internet, such as China, which
has used the Internet as a means to support the economic development of
key regions (Qiu 2009).
In such ways, government policies have incentivised the development and
diffusion of the Internet throughout its history as a means for enhancing
technological innovation in communication and information technology and

25

services. This is an element of industrial policy in that it supports the
development of not only new information industries and businesses, but also
enables innovation in all other sectors of society, from large industrial firms
and agricultural enterprises, to the household, who find more efficient ways to
use information and to communicate in everyday life and work. Economic
development is supported by the use of ICTs, not only by their production
(Baer 1996). The potential threat is from over-regulation that might undermine
the vitality of the Internet and its global diffusion.
4. Technologies of Disconnection
The best empirical work which examines government filtering and website
blocking suggests that these practices have increased since 2002, when
filtering first began to be tracked by this project (Deibert et al 2008, 2010).
These trends are supported by related research by organizations focused on
freedom of expression, including Freedom House (2009) and Reporters
without Borders (2010).
Filtering
In parallel with advances in technology underpinning greater access to the
Internet and mobile communication technologies have been innovations in
technological approaches to controlling the flow of information over these
networks. This has been driven by the need to maintain and improve the
quality and security of services, such as by screening out spam e-mail and
viruses, but also by efforts to block unwanted content as judged by
individuals, parents, NGOs, corporations or governments. Regulation of
Internet control is enabled by these technological approaches, which can be
implemented at several different levels (Box 4.1). Filtering technology is a
two-edge sword in that it can be used for diverse purposes, and therefore tied
closely to legal, political and cultural determinations of its appropriate
application. We briefly review some of the key tools in this section, as they are
the means for implementing aspects of many legal and regulatory initiatives
that we turn to in the remaining sections of this report.
As information and communication flows online, it may use several Internet
related protocols and services and pass through various points in the Internet
network as well as the end user’s device. As a result, filtering methods can be
applied at various points throughout the network (Box 4.1). Most concern is
focused on state- or government-sponsored or enforced filtering, but even
state-filtering can be implemented at different levels and by various parties
acting on behalf of the state: individuals, institutions, service providers, or
directly by government. Generally, those concerned over the civil liberties of
Internet users want filtering decisions to be made at the lowest possible level
– as close as possible to the individual user.

26

Box 4.1. The Locus of Filtering Technologies.
The most common points at which various approaches to filtering can be
applied include:
•

Internet Service Providers: ISPs are often mandated, encouraged, or
incentivised to filter illegal or immoral content, or prevent search results
from specified Websites, by a regulator or other agency authorized by
a government with jurisdiction over their activities. They also routinely
filter spam and attempt to prevent infection by malware for reasons of
stability and user protection.

•

Gateways to the Internet Backbone: State-directed implementation of
national content filtering schemes and blocking technologies may be
carried out at the backbone level, often with filtering systems set up at
links to the Internet backbone, such as international gateways in order
to eliminate access to content throughout an entire country.

•

Institutions: Companies, schools, libraries and households can filter on
the basis of their own criteria or on behalf of state authorities

•

Individual Computers: filtering software can be installed on individual
computers, such as a personal computer, that restricts the ability to
access certain sites or use certain applications

•

Users: actions taken against users who engage in unlawful file sharing
of music, malicious hacking, fraud, etc.

Adapted from: Zittrain (2006) and Callanan et al (2009).
Most forms of filtering require some inspection of the content of a message,
which could be derived from the identity of the source, header information on
an e-mail, for example, or the actual content of the message, such as the
words, strings of words or images in the message or on the Web site.
Increasingly this involves what is called ‘deep packet inspection’ (Box 4.2).
Box 4.2. Deep Packet Inspection
Deep packet inspection is the use of computer systems that can inspect
packets sent over networks using the Internet Protocol suite in ways that
enable a third party, not the sender or receiver, to identify particular aspects of
the communication. Inspection is done by a ‘middle-man’ -- not an endpoint of
a communication, using the actual content of the message. For example, ISPs
can apply this technology for the lawful intercept of messages on public
networks to determine if customers are using the network for unlawful
purposes or purposes that violate their user agreements. Governments in
North America, Asia and Africa use DPI for various purposes such as
surveillance (Nelson 2006) and censorship (Wagner 2009). Deep Packet
Inspection can serve as a ‘one for all’ solution to monitor or regulate traffic
and communication elements: e.g. the interception and logging of Internet
traffic, enforcement of copyright, prioritizing limited bandwidth, tracking users’

27

behavior. DPI thus can serve interests of many stakeholders:
•

government agencies and content providers, who are interested in the
monitoring and filtering of information flows (political control)

•

network operating staff, who have to deal with malware and bandwidthhungry applications (technological efficiency),

•

vertically integrated ISPs that want to create additional revenues or
protect them, e.g. through preventing the Internet from cannibalizing
their telephone- or video-on-demand revenues (economic interests).

See: Ralf Bendrath: DPI as an Integrated Technology of Control – Potential
and Reality http://dpi.priv.gc.ca/index.php/essays/dpi-as-an-integratedtechnology-of-control-%E2%80%93-potential-and-reality/
There are also a number of approaches to filtering, such as blocking an IP
address, a DNS name, a URI, or keywords (Box 4.3). Each involves
somewhat different technical methods. Keyword filtering requires more
advanced techniques to be well targeted, but it is being used by a growing
number of countries.
Box 4.3. Approaches to Blocking.
•

IP blocking, by screening a particular IP addresses;

•

Blocking or manipulating, DNS, information which involves falsifying
the response that is returned by a DNS server;

•

URI blocking, which screens out specific resources from a specific Web
site; and

•

Keyword blocking, which denies access to websites based on the
words found in pages or URIs, or blocks searches involving blacklisted
terms. Advances are enabling increasingly dynamic, real-time analysis
of content, but it not yet in wide use.

Filtering methods often use some kind of blacklist (or ‘allow’ lists) that are
configured to pass traffic by default except if it contains certain content,
names, or keywords which are on the list. Filters are also often adjusted as
information is passed on from law enforcement investigations or consumer
complaints. If blocking takes place within a certain network, such as within a
company, the network administrator is often the person who manually defines
the filtering. In contrast, many email filters or virus scanners often use predefined criteria to filter the content without local human intervention.
Many contemporary filtering techniques are blunt instruments, often leading to
some level of over- or under-blocking. For example, it is almost impossible to
block only the content aimed for without unintentionally blocking related
material.
Counter-measures for Filtering

28

Many technologically savvy users can find alternative methods to access
blocked content. However, for most people, blocking is an effective means for
preventing access. Nevertheless, as filtering or blocking content does not
erase the original content, some users can still access the content by using
other connections for which access has not been blocked, creating a cat and
mouse game between actors seeking to gain or block access to particular
content. The fact that websites are not removed, but blocked, can mean that,
for example in the case of child protection, the content has not been
destroyed, but it has been made invisible for most non tech-savvy users.
The Arrest of Journalists and Bloggers
Control is not limited to filtering or censorship. Recent years have seen an
increase in a wide variety of threats to freedom on the Internet, e.g. an
increase in arrests of bloggers and Internet users. The Committee to Protect
Journalists found that in 2008, there were, for the first time, more jailed ‘cyberdissidents’, such as bloggers, than traditional media journalists.xx The arrest
or detention of content producers, such as journalists or bloggers, or users,
such as those who are accessing or consuming unlawful or otherwise
targeted material is one of the most traditional forms of content control. In
doing so, surveillance and monitoring methods are often used to identify users
or producers (see Boxes 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6).
Box 4.4. A Twitter-Based Arrest in the USA.
During the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in October 2009,
close to 200 arrests were made during demonstrations involving up to 5,000
protesters. One arrest made at a Pittsburg motel, not on the streets, by
Pennsylvania State Police was of a 41 year old New York social worker,
named Elliot Madison, for being part of a group that posted messages on
Twitter that were designed to help protesters at the G-20 summit ‘avoid
apprehension after a lawful order to disperse’. He was found with computers
and police scanners while using the micro-blogging service Twitter. According
to available accounts, FBI agents later executed a search warrant at his home
in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, for ‘evidence of federal anti-rioting
law violations’.
Source: Moynihan (2009) and Valetk (2009).

Box 4.5. Twitter in the Iranian 2009 Election Protests.
In the midst of protests surrounding the contested 2009 election results in
Iran, the Internet, and Twitter, in particular, was claimed to have played an
important role in organizing and supporting the protests on the streets of
Tehran. Overall, there is little doubt that Twitter and videos posted on the Web
played a significant role in providing a means for individuals in Iran to
communicate with one another, but most often via the world outside Iran. The
main role of Twitter was as a tool for the Iranian Diaspora to relay protest
news to the international media, which in turn became a significant factor in

29

shaping and informing developments on the ground.xxi
That said, English language Twitterers from the Iranian diaspora became
bridges between events in Iran and the 24-hour English news cycle, which
followed Twitter feeds during this period. A few weeks before the election ‘Iran
Twitter Revolution’ CNN appointed its own ‘Twitter Correspondent’. Andrew
Sullivan coined the term ‘twitter revolution’ two days after the election and
played a key role in promoting the ‘Tweeting for Iran’ campaign. Later the
State Department also fueled the attention surrounding Twitter by asking
Twitter to postpone their routine maintenance as there was a Twitter
revolution going on in Iran.
Although Twitter might not have played a critical role in shaping the flow of
information into Iran or being used as a tool by the opposition to organize
themselves during the unrest, the episode introduced Twitter to many
individuals inside Iran and as a result there are many more users of Twitter
inside Iran after than before the protests. Even so, "Citizen Journalist" videos
played an important role. The more foreign media activities were restricted,
the more these citizen videos filled the void. BBC Persian TV relied on these
videos mainly for its coverage of Iran. Satellite TV stations like BBC Persian
and Voice of America played an important role in informing and effectively
organizing people. Email was also very effective due to its low bandwidth and
features making content easy to share. Most significant were human networks
(there are videos of people on YouTube shouting in Tehran metro promoting
the upcoming protest gatherings). In Iran there was an alignment of old and
new media, forming a cycle of technically-enabled users publishing news
online and uploading video footage, outside media picking up these materials
and sending them back to Iran for a larger audience, which users further
disseminated through their own networks.
The counter measures used by the Iranian government to break this cycle
were quite effective. On important protest days, Iranian authorities effectively
pulled the plug on the Internet, introducing 60-70% packet loss into the
network and closing all the major ports used by circumvention tools, making it
nearly impossible for ordinary users to do anything online. On normal and
non-critical days, Iran appeared to be doing deep packet inspection. On the
satellite TV front, authorities have managed to jam the signals of political
Persian Satellite TV stations, forcing them to shut down or move to less
popular satellite platforms. Due to heavy jamming on BBC Persian TV,
HotBird and NileSat decided to stop broadcasting BBC Persian as the
jamming was interfering with other channels. All of these were in addition to
offline methods of shutting down, banning, arresting, and intimidating
protestors.
Box 4.6. Freedom of Expression in Vietnamxxii
Dozens of dissident activists, bloggers and writers active online have been
arrested by the Vietnamese government, most often for writing commentary,
such as on Sino-Vietnamese relations.xxiii The International PEN, Amnesty
International, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Reporters

30

Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and the World Organization Against
Torture have all reported severe restrictions on Internet freedom in Vietnam,
with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) naming Vietnam as one of the
10 worst countries to be a blogger.xxiv
On its official website, the Vietnam Ministry of Information and
Communications (MIC) listed as its main functions to include: “manage all
types of press… including electronic and information on the [I]nternet”.xxv As
official media has been restricted under the Communist Party, many have
gone to the Internet to discuss controversial issues more freely (Pham 2009),
leading to crackdowns, utilizing Article 88 “Propaganda Against the State” and
Article 258 “Abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the State interests”
under the Vietnamese Penal Code.
In October 2009, eight Vietnamese bloggers received jail sentences, which
ranged from two to six years. They were accused of disseminating antigovernment propaganda under article 88 of the Vietnamese penal code.xxvi
Alternatives to Filtering
There a number of ways to deny access or censor particular types of content
other than content filtering. These include:
•

•
•

•

Denial of service attacks, which produce the same end result as other
technical blocking techniques—blocking access to certain websites—
although only temporarily, and more often used by actors seeking to
disrupt services;
Restricting access to domains or the Internet, such as by installing high
barriers (costs, personal requirements) to register a domain or even to
get Internet access;
Search Result Removals, as search engine providers can filter web
content by excluding unwanted websites from search results. By using
blacklists, parsing content and keywords of web pages search engines
are able to hinder access, without blocking a certain page, by not listing
them in the search results. This method makes circumventing the
denial of access more difficult if search engines do not always provide
transparency about their filtering; and
Take-down of Websites, by removing illegal sites from servers, is one
of the most effective ways of regulating content. To do so, regulators
need to have direct access to content hosts, or the legal jurisdiction
over the content hosts, or an ability to force ISPs to take down
particular sites. In several countries, where authorities have control of
domain name servers, officials can deregister a domain that is hosting
restricted content (Deibert et al 2008).

Influencing the content that users consume or produce does not necessarily
involve filtering technology. Content can be influenced by introducing rules, or
laws, or by instilling social norms among content producers. This can be

31

enforced by the threat of legal action, but also by social pressure for
commitment.
One creative approach to addressing some content concerns, such as that
which is politically contentious, is to enter the conversation. This is an
approach that is most in tune with the spirit of free expression, but only if it is
transparent. For example, the US State Department has initiated an effort to
respond to what they view as misinformation and inaccurate accounts of US
policy and actions on Arab language blog and Websites by commenting on
the Arab language blogs, and explicitly identifying themselves as
representatives of the US State Department. In many respects, this is a
modern form of public diplomacy, adapted to the Web 2.0 technologies of the
Internet and in keeping with open access to more diverse sources of
information.
However, some regimes have increasingly resorted to guiding or influencing
online discussion without being transparent, such as through the clandestine
use of paid pro-government commentators or the financing of entire websites
and blogs (Karlekar and Cook 2009). Freedom House (2009) pins this offense
on the Chinese government for employing ‘50 Cent Party’ commentators;
Russia for using Kremlin-affiliated ‘content providers’, and Tunisia for using
similar approaches to ‘subvert online conversations’.
Some civil libertarians have been critical of governmental publications or
‘propaganda’ aimed at countering particular political movements or views, or
trying to guide online opinion, such as through pro-government websites,
online commentators, and propaganda. This is of course an online analogy to
long-held efforts of governments to provide information over the mass media,
such as the Voice of America (VOA) in the US, which has moved from radio
and television broadcasting to become a multimedia source of news and
information about the US. Arguably, governmental provision of information is
entirely in keeping with principles of freedom of expression, as long as it is
transparent and not overwhelming alternative sources of information.
As this section argues, the control of information on the Internet and Web is
feasible. It is not impossible to censor. There are many tools available and in
development. The key issues around the control of information concern
political and cultural choices about who should control what content in which
ways, and for what purposes, with what level of transparency. This leads us to
a consideration of the legal frameworks and motivations behind such goals as
censorship, copyright issues or child protection through the use of these tools.
The next section begins this discussion by focusing on law and policy
supporting freedom of expression.

5. National Practices and Trends Worldwide
International trends can be tracked on at least two different levels. One
concerns the actual practices of censorship, such as Internet filtering. The

32

other concerns perceptions of the public. Do individuals believe they are more
or less free to express their opinions?
Internet Filtering and Censorship
In the early years of the 21st century, an increasing number of governments
have taken steps to block or regulate Internet access or content. This
increase can be seen most clearly in the work of Freedom House (2009),
based on their Global Index of Internet Freedom (Box 5.1) and the OpenNet
Initiative. The OpenNet Initiative reports on only a few governments
documented to be blocking online content in 2002, while by 2007, they
estimated that at least 40 countries used methods to do so (Deibert et al
2008). Thus, national regulation of the Internet is taking place despite
ambiguity over appropriate policy and uncertainty over its implementation, and
risks to freedom of expression (Deibert et all 2008; Freedom House 2009).
Box 5.1. The Index of Global Freedom (IGIF)
Freedom House is an independent nongovernmental organization, which
focuses on uncovering efforts to restrict transmission of news and politically
relevant communications, while acknowledging that some restrictions on
harmful content may be legitimate. It measures restrictions from both
government and non-state actors. The key components of the index are
access to technology as well as free flow of information and content. Each
country gets scores from 0 (the most free) to 100 (the least free), which
serves as a basis for an Internet freedom status designation of Free (0-30
points), Partly Free (31-60 points), or Not Free (61-100). The approach
considers various factors that could affect levels of Internet freedom, including
dynamics within each country, both in terms of changing methods of
restriction as well as changes over time. Their 2009 report on freedom on the
Internet provides an overview on strategies and trends, such as the
‘outsourcing of censorship’ to private companies and the use of surveillance
by state actors. The index covers both more repressive countries such as
China and Iran and more liberal democratic nations such as India and the
United Kingdom, finding some degree of Internet censorship and control in all
15 nations studied.
See: Freedom House (2009) and online see:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/specialreports/NetFreedom2009/FOTN
%20Overview%20Essay.pdf
European Digital Rights websitexxvii provides an overview on filtering
tendencies and country cases. Studies by the OpenNet Initiative offer some of
the most extensive surveys of Internet filtering (Deibert and others 2008,
2010), along with country by country overviews. Our own meta-analysis of
existing surveys illustrates that many nations are likely to exercise some level
of censorship, but that only a minority exhibit pervasive levels of censorship
(Table 4).xxviii

33

It is often thought that content control systems are only established in
undemocratic countries or by authoritarian regimes, when content control
legislation has become more prevalent around the world. Australia, Canada,
China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, the UK,
the US and Uzbekistan are just a few countries who have implemented
national filtering systems or have presented legislation to approve filtering
practices. Content control is not simply a practice of regimes with a particular
political system, or in a particular region or cultural category. In democratic
societies, issues of copyright infringement, hate speech, defamation, privacy
protection, and child protection are at times a basis for Internet filtering or
other content control. In most jurisdictions, Internet service providers need a
legitimate basis prior to monitoring or filtering any kind of content, as they are
otherwise in breach of national protections or international conventions to
which their country is party. For example, EurolSPA claims that any restriction
of an individual’s fundamental rights should only be taken following a prior
judicial ruling.xxix
Table 4. Meta-Analysis of International Surveys of Filtering.
Country

OpenNet Evidence of Filtering Levels
Political
Social
Security Overall
2007

Armenia
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Belarus
Brazil
China
Cuba
Egypt
Ethiopia
Estonia
France
Georgia
Germany
India
Iran
Italy
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kyrgyzstan
Libya
Malaysia
Moldova
Morocco
Myanmar

2009

2007

2009

2007

2009

2007

M
NE
L NE
L
L NE
H
M
NE
L
NE
L
NE NE
H
H
NE
NE
L NE
L
NE
L
NE
H
M

L
M
L
L
M
NE
NE
NE
NE
H
L
L
L
NE
M

NE
NE
NE
H
L
NE
M
NE
NE
NE
L
M

L
NE
NE
L
H
NE
NE
L
NE
M
NE
NE
NE
NE
M

L
M
NE
H
M
L
H
L
NE
M
L
H

M
M
L
L
H
NE
NE
L
NE
H
L
L
L
L
H

Overall
Rating

2009

L
M
NE
H
M
NE
H
L
NE
M
NE
H

Freedom
House

34

Low
High
High
Medium
Low
Medium
Medium
High
Medium
Medium
-

Medium
Medium
Low
Medium
Low
Low
High
High
Medium
Medium
Low
NE
Medium
NE
Medium
High
Low
Low
Low
Medium
Low
Medium
Medium
Low
Low
High

Oman
Pakistan
Russia
Saudi
Arabia
Singapore
S. Africa
S. Korea
Sudan
Syria
Tajikistan
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
UAE
Ukraine
United
Kingdom
USA
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Yemen

NE
L
-

NE
L

H
M
-

M
L

NE
H
-

M
NE

H
H
-

M
NE

Medium

High
Medium*
Medium

M

-

H

-

L

-

H

-

-

High

NE
NE
NE
H
L
L
H
-

NE
L
L

L
L
H
L
NE
M
H
-

M
NE
L

NE
H
NE
L
NE
NE
L
-

H
NE
NE

L
H
H
H
L
M
H
-

H
L
L

Low
High
Medium

Low
Low
High
High
High
Low
Medium
High
Medium

-

H

-

L

-

L

-

H

-

High

L
-

NE

H
-

NE

L
-

NE

H
-

NE

-

High
NE

-

NE

-

NE

-

NE

-

NE

Low

Low

M
H
L

NE
H
-

L
L
H

NE
L
-

NE
NE
L

NE
L
-

M
H
H

NE
H
-

-

NE
High*
High
High

Key: Collapsed ratings from different studies into one more general rating:
For OpenNet:
NE = no clear evidence, including ‘suspected filtering’;
Low = evidence of selective filtering;
Medium = ‘substantial filtering’;
High = ‘evidence of pervasive filtering’ (Faris and Villeneuve 2008: Table 1.5). Overall =
highest level of filtering across categories.
For Freedom House Ratings:
Low = 10-26, rated ‘Free’;
Medium = 27-55, rated ‘Partly Free’;
High = over 55, rated ‘Not Free’ (Freedom House 2009: p. 20).
A ‘-’ indicates that the country was not covered by the respective study / in the respective
year.
‘*’ indicates that the rating for the respective country has changed from 2007 to 2009.

Of the states examined by previous studies (Table 4), those with the most
extensive filtering practices are China, Cuba, Myanmar (Burma), Oman,
South Korea, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates,
Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen. These nations fall primarily in three
regions: East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Central Asia.
Nevertheless, there is great diversity in filtering practices within these regions.
In the Asia-Pacific region, much has been written about the ‘Great Firewall of
China’, and there is widespread agreement that China has one of the most
sophisticated and pervasive filtering systems for Internet censorship.xxx
Vietnam follows many similar practices. Myanmar (Burma) famously shut
down the Internet in the fall of 2007, during disturbances. In South Korea, the

35

Internet is generally free, except in the area of national security, were there
are tight controls. Pakistan and Sri Lanka restrict politically sensitive sites.
Filtering in North America and Western Europe is mostly targeted at child
sexual abuse images or hate speech and propaganda (Zittrain and Palfrey
2007). In Central and Eastern Europe there is high regional diversity with
some states being quite open and others taking steps to block access
(Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan). In the Middle East and North
Africa, the blocking of websites is fairly extensive, especially in Syria and Iran.
Filtering and monitoring is often through government-owned ISPs. On the
African continent, the lack of access to the Internet is the greatest obstacle to
expression. In addition, while the Internet is only now beginning to play a
major role due to financial and infrastructural constraints, Gambia and
Ethiopia have already started to block sites and restrict access. In the
Americas and Western Europe, no significant restrictions were reported in the
studies used for the meta-analysis, though some pornographic or hate-speech
content was blocked in specific cases, such as for child protection. Cuba is a
notable exception in the region with severe restrictions on access.
Public Opinion: Beliefs and Attitudes Concerning Internet Freedom
There is a need to continue efforts to track trends in Internet censorship and
filtering, but also to more broadly assess the outcome of this evolving ecology.
This relates to work on how to gauge citizen experiences with respect to
freedom of expression overtime and across national and regional jurisdictions.
Can we measure freedom of expression in more meaningful ways? Will it be
possible to compare and contrast these indicators so that the world can
monitor shifts in freedom of expression? For example, this collaborative
project has already launched early work on the development of a World
Internet Policy Project (WIP2), which intends to monitor policy changes
shaping the Internet worldwide. In such ways, the project aims to efficiently
tap the wisdom of the wider Internet community for critical case studies,
emerging legal initiatives and regulatory trends that need to be a focus of
those concerned with the freedom of expression generally, and online, in
particular.
Separately, the BBC has conducted a global Internet survey that addresses
questions relevant to these concerns (Figures 7 and 8). Most interestingly,
their global survey shows that attitudes and beliefs about freedom of
expression do not have straightforward associations with actual practice.
Those who use the Internet, even in nations that have reputations and
practices of monitoring and censorship, feel better able to express
themselves, but some users in nations with more liberal democratic traditions,
such as in France and Germany, feel restraints on expressing themselves
(Figure 7). However, across the range of world cultures tapped by this survey,
there was widespread support for the freedom – maybe even the right – to
connect (Figure 8).
Figure 7 shows the percentage of people who strongly or somewhat agreed
that the Internet is a safe place to express their opinions. This question was

36

only asked to people who declared that they used the Internet in the last six
months. Egypt, India and Kenya appear to have the highest percentages of
people who strongly or somewhat agree that the Internet is a safe place to
express their opinions. Those who agree the least are people in Germany and
France, followed by citizens in highly filtered countries such as China and
South Korea.
Figure 7. The Internet is a Safe Place to Express my Opinions.a

a

Source: BBC (2010): 15. Percentage of Internet users responding ‘strongly agree’ or
‘somewhat agree’ with the statement: The Internet is a safe place to express my opinions’.

At first, some of these figures may seem surprising but it important to note
that there are several particularities that need to be highlighted in the BBC
Internet study. First, samples were not weighted thought they ranged in
numbers from 507 (Brazil) to 2,162 (Pakistan). Secondly, samples in some
cases represented national populations and in other cases only represented
urban populations (Brazil, China, Egypt, Turkey). Methodology would also
vary across countries between face-to-face and phone interviews, though the
methodology chosen within a country remained consistent. The sample frame
also showed a few discrepancies. In most cases, people interviewed were 18
years old or older. However, there were a few exceptions, notably in France
and Turkey where the age frame was 15+, and in Germany 16+. People
surveyed in South Korea were 19 years old or more. The reason for these
sample inconsistencies was not indicated in the study. On their own, these
incongruities may not make much difference, but together they can produce
somewhat misleading and skewed results.

37

Still, certain data from the BBC survey may be hinting at some important
dynamics found in particular countries, such as France and Germany where
fewer users agreed that the Internet was a safe place to express users’
opinions. Recent legislation such as France’s Hadopi (also known as the
three strikes law) and Germany’s Data Retention Law as well as Internet filter
law, might explain a little why there seems to belittle faith in the Internet being
a safe place to express one’s opinions, though we do not have any data to
confirm this assumption. In contrast, a more recent Internet penetration
growth might explain why there’s a more optimistic perspective in countries
such as Egypt and Kenya.
Figure 8. Access to the Internet Should be a Fundamental Right of All
People.a

a

Source: BBC (2010): 17. Percent who ‘strongly agree’ or ‘somewhat agree’ to the statement:
‘Access to the Internet should be a fundamental right of all people.’

When looking at Figure 8, again the same problems with samples applied.
However, the graph indicates that in all countries except in Pakistan, the
majority (even an overwhelming majority) of people interviewed, users and
non-users, agreed that access to the Internet should be a fundamental right of
all people. In Pakistan, only 46% of the surveyed population sample agreed to
this statement. Yet, this country also had one of the highest response rates in
the “don’t know/not applicable” category (23%). Pakistan also had a sample
size that was double the average sample size in the study. This might explain
why numbers may appear lower.
The BBC survey also asked users a question related to what they thought
was the most valued aspect of the Internet. On average, ‘finding information
of all sorts’ resulted as being the most important characteristic (46%) amongst
other choices such as ‘interacting with people’ (32%) and ‘source of

38

entertainment’ (12%). Therefore, there might be a relationship between
people believing that access to the Internet should be a fundamental right for
everyone and that its most valued aspect is finding information.
What this graph does not show is which countries have the highest percent of
respondents who strongly disagreed that the Internet should be a fundamental
right of all people. Japan had the highest percentage rate at 13% followed by
Pakistan and Kenya at 11%. However what may be surprising is that,
amongst the 26 countries polled, the USA (11%) and Canada (10%) are
among the top five countries where people most strongly disagreed that
access to the Internet was a fundamental right of all people. These findings
illustrate the complex relationships between government policies and public
beliefs and attitudes, an area in need of further research.

6. Legal and Regulatory Protections of Digital Rights
Content blocking and filtering have a wide range of objectives. It can focus on
security issues, namely in preventing the spread of spam and viruses. It can
be anchored in political concerns, such as countering radical political
movements, or it can be used to protect the moral standards of a religious
community, by filtering pornography, for example. It can also be socially
driven, to prevent hate speech for instance. Most countries use some mix of
existing media, telecommunications, national security, and Internet-specific
law and regulation to protect or to restrict the publishing of, and access to,
online information. It is important to remember that regulation often targets a
particular type of action rather than a specific communication medium,
addressing illegal acts regardless if committed online or offline, such as
defamation or fraud.
Controlling the Internet is a fundamental aspect of ‘Internet politics’ (Seltzer
2008) and most countries have viewed some level of censorship as a
legitimate means to protect a nation’s interest, such as in online child
protection (Hills 2006). However, the degree and legitimate targets of online
censorship can vary from comprehensive to more permissive and targeted
levels, depending on the actor, the content being censored and the national
context in which it finds itself.
The transparency and implementation of government policy are a key
problem. Often, it is not known to what extent access to Internet material is
blocked. Countries such as China, Cuba and Iran are often accused of such
practices. However, others such as the USA, France and Germany have also
censored online content (Klung 2006). The need for empirical studies of
online filtering is a symptom of the general lack of transparency overall. In
contrast, censorship of print or broadcast material in most nations is often
more publicly identified and debated.
Some governments take responsibility for monitoring online content by directly
monitoring users. But an increasing number of countries, including China and
Britain, have enlisted private stakeholders such as search engines and ISPs

39

to operate as proxies (Kreimer 2006). In some cases, ISPs are strongly
encouraged to adopt filtering systems (Brown 2007). In other cases, service
providers simply choose to offer filtering services themselves, even if they are
not directed to do so by a governmental or regulatory authority (Palfrey 2006).
Table 3. Digital Rights Goals, Stakeholders and Strategies in the
Ecology
Goals - Games
Main Stakeholders
Strategies - Objectives
Develop infrastructures
Access – Freedom of
Internet business and
Connection
industries; governments; and services; media
literacy and skills
civil society advocates;
development; provide
producers and
public access facilities;
consumers of
and reduce costs to
information and
communication services access
Freedom of
Civil society and human Challenge practices,
laws and regulations
Expression
rights advocates; the
that impinge free
press and media
expression
organizations
Practice Internet
Censorship
Governments and
filtering; take down Web
regulatory authorities;
sites; arrest bloggers;
ISPs; political and
interests groups; human and impose other legal
restrictions
rights advocates
Efforts to rebalance
Equality
Advocates of a New
news coverage; redress
World Information and
inequities; decentralize
Communication Order
production of news and
(NWICO); press and
information; and
media organizations;
diminish the dominance
developed and
of global media outlets,
developing nations
and inequalities in
production or
consumption
Freedom of Information Civil Society; politicians; Develop laws and
(FOI)
NGOs; citizen groups
policies promoting
access to government
and other public
information (eg.
encouraging the use of
the Web to make
information more
accessible)
Make efforts to protect
Privacy and Data
Courts; data protection
personal information
Protection
commissioners; law
from unauthorized
enforcement;
disclosure; and avoid
government agencies;
unwarranted
users and citizens
surveillance

40

UNESCO’s Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace Report

UNESCO’s Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace Report

More Related Content

UNESCO’s Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace Report