Tangled web of opinion blurs information screening debate

Date: 23/10/1997

By Simon Coss

TO SOME, the fact that the Internet provides almost unfiltered access to information on practically everything is a serious threat to the moral fabric of our society.

To others, the service represents the greatest step towards true openness and democratic freedom of speech the world has ever experienced.

To governments, it is just very hard to control.

The basic problem for politicians is that while the Internet is a global phenomenon, they operate within national or - as in the EU's case - supranational boundaries.

Passing laws in Europe to ban grossly offensive or extreme right-wing material, for example, would only be effective if they could be enforced world-wide. If not, Europeans wishing to obtain such information would simply log on to websites based in third countries.

It is highly unlikely that a full international agreement will ever be reached given that successive court rulings in the US - home to the world's largest concentration of web-surfers - have decreed that controlling the Internet runs counter to Americans' constitutional right to freedom of speech.

“It is difficult, I would say impossible, to legislate concerning the Internet,” admitted one European Commission expert on audio-visual policy.

Nevertheless, public pressure to try to stamp out, in particular, child pornography transmitted via the service has led the EU institutions to devote a large amount of time in recent months to the problem of controlling the uncontrollable.

Earlier this year, French Radical MEP Pierre Pradier drew up a report in which he called on EU governments to set up a 'cyberpolice' unit within the fledging European police agency Europol.

But even Pradier was forced to conclude that, as far as the Internet was concerned, censorship was virtually impossible. He likened the service to a “huge world-wide labyrinth”.

On the other side of the coin, many civil rights groups warn that unscrupulous governments could use the excuse of restricting harmful content on the Internet to suppress the legitimate views of political opponents.

“Censorship efforts in the US and Germany lend support to those in China, Singapore and Iran where censors target not only sexually explicit material and hate speech, but also pro-democracy discussions and human rights education,” noted the human rights lobby group Human Rights Watch recently.

The only practicable route to controlling content on the Internet may be to try to get service providers - companies which sell access to the web - and web-page designers to agree to some form of self-regulation.

This month, the newly created International Working Group for Content Rating (IWG) said it would try to develop a range of internationally agreed categories - similar to the system of cinema film classification - which could be applied to websites.

The European Commission is also working on a policy paper on the protection of minors in audio-visual services which is scheduled to be presented to EU culture ministers next month.