Policy chiefs face dilemma over dark side of the Internet

Date: 19/10/00

By Simon Coss

WHEN it comes to the sensitive question of controlling access to illegal and harmful content on the Internet, EU policy-makers freely admit that their room for manoeuvre is extremely limited.

Italian Communist MEP Roberta Agnelli summed up the problem in a report on 'Parental control of television broad-casting' which was presented to the European Parliament's culture committee last month.

"We are clearly in front of a paradox," she said. "On the one hand, we are beset by an avalanche of television programmes which are harmful to the development of minors and are often subject to no controls whatever, and the threat these programmes pose is now compounded by other harmful material from online services (the Internet, etc). On the other hand, filtering technologies exist but are either not effective or are not adaptable to the European context. Above all, as far as the protection of minors in the media context is concerned, we are faced in Europe with a jigsaw of legal systems."

These differences alone alone provide a big enough headache for Union policy-makers anxious to address this increasingly important issue.

The legal definitions of a minor vary from one member state to another, as do definitions of what constitutes harmful content. Hardcore pornographic films which can be viewed freely on late-night television in France, Belgium or the Netherlands would be illegal in the UK or Greece, for example.

But the EU's legal jigsaw puzzle is only the beginning of the problem. When it comes to the question of controlling access to harmful content distributed over the Internet, the Union faces a challenge as far-flung and ever-expanding as the World Wide Web itself.

Since many illegal web sites operate in countries outside the EU, the Union's policy-makers can do little more than wring their hands in despair and make disapproving noises.

But even though they admit that they are largely powerless to crack down on harmful online content, they also continue to insist that Internet use should be promoted among Europe's children.

For example, the European Com-mission's 'e-Europe' initiative, which was adopted by EU leaders at a special summit meeting in Lisbon in March, calls for all the Union's schools to be connected to the Internet by the end of 2001.

Some critics have argued that, in the present circumstances, this move to bring the Internet to every classroom may actually end up piping free pornography to the pre-teens.

Earlier this year, the Commission announced a number of measures designed to promote a safer online environment, but all of them relied on the goodwill of either Internet users or webmasters.

One initiative involved creating an EU-wide network of telephone hotlines to report harmful or illegal sites, while another proposed setting up a voluntary ratings system for Internet content.

But even though the policy-makers seem powerless to control the Internet in its current form, many analysts believe that the next generation of online networks will be easier to police. Most official Commission projections suggest that in future, online services will not be provided through the network of interlinked computers that we today call the Internet, but rather will be distributed via mobile telephones and digital television.

Unlike the Internet, which grew in a largely haphazard and anarchic fashion, the development of both these technologies has been closely monitored and regulated from the outset. This, argue critics, means governments will once again gain control over the private lives of their citizens. Supporters say it will mean less pornography.

Article forms part of a survey 'EU and the media'.