Internet Content Regulation Research Articles

Establishing Legal Order in the Digital World: Local Laws and Internet Content Regulation

The need for establishing legal order in cyberspace is growing; the time has come when it is also possible in several different ways. One of the crucial issues in this respect is the worldwide reach of the global network. Legal rules for human activities, including online activities, vary from state to state, and regulation of cyberspace cannot occur in one single manner all over the world. The existence of various laws produces far reaching consequences both for users and for regulators. Thus, users might face legal consequences in a foreign state for activities lawful in their home jurisdiction, and states might not be able to enforce the laws if the offender resides in another state. The paper examines this issue on the example of Internet content regulation. The approach supported here is to focus on the new actors in the online world and on the new regulatory choices they offer.

A Longitudinal Study of ISP Reactions to Australian Internet Content Regulation Laws

This paper discusses a longitudinal study which surveys a targeted selection of Australian ISPs to determine both initial and subsequent effects of and attitudes towards the legislation. The paper observes that, initially, ISPs were generally opposed to the legislation, offering stiff opposition to its introduction. The initial results suggested dissatisfaction with the legislation on the part of ISPs, and foreshadowed adverse effects on the online industry. Concerns were also raised that the legislation would not be effective. Two years later, however, ISPs had generally observed little change in operations, arguing that the legislation had had little overall effect. The study also raises a number of interesting issues that are outside the scope of this paper. These issues merit further research.

Right Vision, Wrong Expectations: The European Union and Self-regulation of Harmful Internet Content

The regulation of ‘harmful Internet content’ is problematic for states. In trying to balance growing public concerns regarding the effects of harmful content with respect of the fundamental right to freedom of expression, the European Union (EU) has promoted self-regulation. This article argues that the EU position follows the right (and inevitable) direction in the light of the legal limitations harmful Internet content places on state regulation. EU action in support for regulation developed by decentralised and heterogeneous communities of the Internet is reviewed. In practice, this self-regulation is not aimed at defining and prohibiting the distribution of specific content, but rather at providing the technical and legal means to allow the user or group of users to personally decide which content to receive or access. It is argued here that EU expectations of self-regulation are based on two false premises: that the regulation of harmful content is similar to the regulation of illegal content; and that self-regulation can achieve the same goals as a centralised and direct regulatory system. The consequences of unrealistic EU expectations are that the EU is embarking on wrong directions in newly proposed actions and is losing the opportunity to participate more effectively in the regulation of harmful Internet content.

The Co-Regulatory Scheme for Internet Content Regulation: operational effectiveness

The debate about the likely effectives of a Scheme to regulate the access to certain Internet content during the hearings of the Select Senate Select Committee and during the parliamentary debates was characterized by a great diversity of opinion. This paper describes these opinions and then examines the claims made about the operational effectiveness of the Co-Regulatory Scheme for Internet Content Regulation since its inception on 1 January 2000.

Regulating Hate Speech in Cyberspace: Issues of Desirability and Efficacy

Cyber-libertarians advocate a free and unfettered cyberspace, unencumbered by regulation. Despite this idealised view, nations around the world are asserting their right to enforce individual regimes of content regulation. Universal agreement on Internet content regulation is almost impossible to obtain. Even in an area that is universally abhorrent--child pornography--the First Amendment to the United States Constitution stands as a stumbling block to effective government regulation. When the content under discussion concerns hate speech, consensus becomes more elusive. There are those who argue that freedom of speech principles preclude censorship of opinion, and that more speech is the best antidote to racist views. Others argue that hate speech silences minority opinion and is really an equality issue, which if not addressed, runs counter to International Human Rights principles. Nations such as Germany and France have prohibited hate speech on the Internet, and have brought both criminal and civil penalties against defendants. However, enforcement is fraught with difficulties, especially when the defendants are not nationals, and when the content emanates from foreign jurisdictions. The Council of Europe has recently moved to include an additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime. This Protocol would cover offences of racist or xenophobic propaganda, making them subject to reciprocal enforcement provisions by Member States. Whether international efforts can succeed where a piecemeal approach has failed is yet to be seen. Although the United States and its First Amendment currently present the greatest obstacle to hate speech regulation, technological advances as well as judicial development in First Amendment jurisprudence may yet provide an avenue for regulating hate speech in cyberspace.

Regulating Internet Content through Intermediaries in Europe and the USA

Summary This paper emphasises the key role played by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the current developments in Internet content regulation. At present, no common international standards govern free speech limits on the Internet. Racist speech constitutes the most controversial issue between Europe and the US. The enforcement of domestic law online has recently led to surprising court rulings in several European countries, putting transatlantic ISPs under pressure. The paper provides a detailed account of three of these cases: the early German Compuserve case, the famous French Yahoo! case and most recently the French J’accuse! case. Both European and American legislators have endeavoured to provide ISPs with “safe havens” (limitations of liability) and tentative procedural solutions like “notice and take down”. These new regimes and their likely effects on ISPs are presented and discussed. It is suggested that, despite the lack of common standards, the combination of the American and the European provisions would strongly incite transatlantic ISPs to take down racist material This, however, also risks affecting other controversial data, otherwise subject to free speech protection. The danger of a massive scheme for private censorship is compelling.

Internet Content Regulation in Southeast Asia: Directions

The movement of Internet content regulation from telecommunications regulatory regimes into the existing streams of media regulation can be seen all over Southeast Asia — from Australia and Singapore to Vietnam and Laos. This paper examines this movement, comparing regulatory regimes for internet content control in Vietnam, Singapore and Australia. It will show that these countries have moved to integrate internet content regulation within existing media regulatory regimes and that regulation of internet content in countries of widely differing social and political cultures is not as different as may be believed. The regulatory path in a future of converged distribution systems for previously disparate forms of content may, however, force a re-evaluation of existing rationales for media and broadcasting regulation.

INTERNET CONTENT REGULATION: Concerns from a European User Empowerment Perspective about Internet Content Regulation: an Analysis of some recent Statements — Part I

This article, to be published in two parts, explores the debate between the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Centre for Democracy and Technology about regulation on illegal and harmful content on the Internet. The authors intend to analyze the method, interests and limits of the self regulatory model proposed by the European institutions, bearing in mind the users’ empowerment perspective.

Regulating for Content on the Internet: Meeting Cultural and Social Objectives for Broadband

Much of the present debate about content on the internet revolves around how to control the distribution of different sorts of harmful or undesirable material. Yet there are considerable issues about whether sufficient sorts of desired cultural content will be available, such as ‘national’, ‘Australian’ content. In traditional broadcasting, regulation has been devised to encourage or mandate different types of content, where it is believed that the market will not do so by itself. At present, such regulatory arrangements are under threat in television, as the Productivity Commission Broadcasting Inquiry final report has noted. But what of the future for certain types of content on the internet? Do we need specific regulation and policy to promote the availability of content on the internet? Or is such a project simply irrelevant in the context of gradual but inexorable media convergence? Is regulating for content just as quixotic and fraught with peril as regulating of content from a censorship perspective often appears to be? In this article, we consider the case of Australian content for broadband technologies, especially in relation to film and video, and make some preliminary observations on the promotion and regulation of internet content.

Shrouds of Secrecy: The Operation of the Online Services Act

An analysis of the Report on the Co-Regulatory Scheme for Internet Content Regulation covering the period July to December 2000, released by the ABA on 19 April 2001, demonstrates that the scheme has had a minimal impact on internet content hosted in Australia. The ABA's refusal to release any further information about the content that has been removed, under freedom of information legislation, suggests the government believes that secrecy is necessary to foster the perception that the scheme is actually effective. However, its limited effectiveness does not justify its cost. This paper maintains that taxpayers' money would be better spent in funding the police to track down and prosecute the producers and distributors of child pornography.

Internet Content Regulation: UK Government and the Control of Internet Content

Internet content regulation with an emphasis on the existence of sexually explicit content remains one of the greatest concern for governments, supranational bodies and international organizations. The 1990s witnessed the proliferation of the Internet and the current concerns by the regulators mainly concentrate on the existence of illegal content such as child pornography over the Internet, and the access of (mainly) sexually explicit content over the Internet by children. This article will analyze the recent developments in relation to Internet content regulation and will argue that there is too much unwarranted anxiety about what is and what is not available over the Internet. Furthermore, the specific technical solutions offered within different foras for the availability of illegal and harmful content may not be the right solutions to pursue as there remains serious concerns for cyber-speech.

Paradox and Structure: Relying on Government Regulation to Preserve the Internet's Unregulated Character

The Internet's power as a communications medium has been the focus of a great deal of attention, but the Internet still lacks uniform and readily understood rules for much of what goes on there. Recently, there has been a flurry of activity to create such rules, with particular emphasis on private regulation of activity on the Internet. In this article, I examine one area of Internet regulation, the regulation of mature content. After evaluating different methods for Internet content regulation, I conclude that the most efficient form of Internet content regulation is ratings-based filtering, with Internet content providers having the responsibility for applying ratings to their content. In order to preserve the Internet's value as a place of free development of both ideas themselves and ideas about how to share ideas, any such regime must be voluntary. Because market forces are an inadequate brake on overreaching by private Internet content regulators - and because private entities are poorly situated to provide Internet content regulation - the federal government is the best potential source of Internet content regulation. The key to efficient and effective government regulation of mature content on the Internet is the use of power-conferring, instead of proscriptive, rules. Reliance on federal Internet content regulation as implemented through power-conferring rules may have the practical effect of spreading free speech protections across international borders. Finally, I address the constitutionality of federal Internet content regulation and conclude that any system of federal Internet content regulation must be voluntary.

'Nothing new under the sun': old fears and new media

The internet, the newest of the mass media, has many positive benefits in the fields of research and entertainment. It has the potential to be a supremely useful tool for private, professional and commercial uses. However, fears about its dark side, specifically the potential exposure of children to the harmful effects of pornography - both legal and illegal - have given rise to strong demands for the introduction of heavy censorship. Others fear that this will lead to excessive state control over 'freedom of speech'. The furore over internet pornography, follows the classic pattern of moral panic throughout the ages. From Plato's concerns regarding the 'dramatic poets'' effects on the young to the 1980s video nasties scare, to screen violence and internet pornography in the 1990s and beyond: the contexts change but the arguments are consistent. I thus begin this series of three articles considering the whys and wherefores of internet content regulation by setting the debate in its full social and historical context, the better to understand the issues at stake when I come to discuss in depth the current situation.

Internet Regulation in Singapore: A Policy/Ing Discourse

Little has been written critically about Singapore's approach towards Internet regulation and policy/ing. This paper therefore seeks to disambiguate the social, cultural and political aspects of Internet regulation in Singapore. We provide an analysis of Singapore's Internet content regulation, and an update of the information (technology) scene in Singapore, including its converging broadcasting, (tele)communications and media areas, all of which impact upon ‘Internet policy’. We begin with an introduction to Singapore's policy-making style and an up-to-date account of Singapore's information aims and agendas. We then explore the ideology behind Singapore's Internet policy, especially censorship of content, and examine what is known as the ‘light-touch’ regulatory framework. We conclude that media conservatism is likely to continue in Singapore despite recent moves that would appear to ‘open up’ Singapore society.

An Overview of Internet Content Regulation in Australia

In 1999, the Australian parliament passed legislation for the regulation of Internet content, treading a regulatory path that few governments have chosen or have been able to pursue successfully in the face of legal challenges. The Australian approach to regulation of the Internet has attracted much interest, and, it must be said, criticism. Nevertheless, it provides one example of a regulatory model to be considered in framing policy responses to the issue of Internet content. The Australian experience highlights the need to find the right balance between freedom of expression and competing interests; issues of principle; the importance of understanding what the Internet is, how it works and how it is used; and the difficult task for drafters of legislation in seeking to give effect to government’s regulatory aims in respect of the Internet.This paper provides an overview of the Australian approach to Internet content regulation. It covers the policy background; the reasons advanced by the government in justification of its legislation; an overview of the regulatory framework; responses to the legislation; and recent developments.

The Bias of Transnational Communications: The WTO, Wired Cities and Limited Democracy

This paper looks at the reconstruction of global communications policy during the 1990s around a set of three pillars: the WTO, new domestic regulators, and new systems of private authority. It analyses several WTO agreements adopted during the decade and argues that these agreements increased access to telecommunications services and the Internet, but tended to do so among high end users clustered in North America, Europe and Japan as well as a few business centres scattered across the “third world.” The paper also analyses the rising influence of private-sector based policy alliances on the ITU and WTO as well as their power to set de facto policies for privacy, network access and Internet content regulation through self regulation and control over the design of communication technologies. Lastly, it argues that the problem with globalisation is that efforts to create global markets have been divorced from any parallel commitment to the globalisation of democracy.

The Dark Side of Cyberspace

This paper considers the question of how to protect our children in conditions of information and communication technology convergence. It focuses on three traditional centres of action- government, industry and parent - in the context of the European Union. Firstly, it argues how the European Commission, in tackling the issue of internet content regulation and child protection, draws on an 'advanced liberal' form of governance. Drawing on a particular example from the UK, it secondly considers how industry has been constructed as a responsible actor and thus how the internet industry in the UK has aligned itself with the programmatic objectives of the European Commission. However, industry has also come up with regulatory solutions which are more ambivalent with regard to the European Commission objectives and the traditional principles of media and communication content regulation. Thirdly, it argues that the European Commission objective of making parents responsible for children's internet use in the home faces considerable resistance, inasmuch as the agency and geography of domestic supervision are both changing and highly contested.

The Place of ‘Childhood’ in Internet Content Regulation

This paper discusses recent policy calculations in the UK concerning the Internet and child protection issues. Through an analysis of official documents, conference presentations, interviews and press reports, a story is pieced together of the culture of policy making. Problems are made visible, social agents mobilized and techniques invented for the enactment of policy. Central to my argument is an analysis of how childhood is figured discursively as a particular problem for regulation. Policy decisions are made, not in relation to ‘real’ children, but in relation to their representation and the authority of those who claim to represent them. I focus specifically on the circulation of three images of the child: the child-as-victim, the child-in-danger and the dangerous child.