Web 2.0 Can Backfire in Authoritarian Hands, IGF-USA Told

“Just because there’s the Internet doesn’t mean authoritarianism is going to crumble,” said MacKinnon, who’s on leave from the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Center to write a book about China’s grip on the Internet. China has shown other governments, especially in developing countries, how they can “evolve, adapt, survive and thrive” by coopting Web 2.0 technologies at the expense of users’ free expression and privacy. Asked by NetChoice Executive Director Steve DelBianco whether Web 2.0 was actually a “tool for repression,” MacKinnon said China was pouring money into development of next-generation Internet technologies and connecting its entire population. That will drive Chinese competitiveness and allow homegrown companies like Huawei to snag business in developing countries, saying, “'Look at us, we can do it; you can do it too'” -- controlling users’ activities online, she said.

A key aim for the U.S. at international meetings should be countering “intermediary liability,” MacKinnon said. The protection the U.S. gives Web hosts and network operators against blame for their users’ actions is rare among countries, where broad libel and subversion laws constrain what U.S. companies abroad can let their users do, she said, noting newly implemented webmaster liability in Thailand. “The censorship is then deputized to the private sector.” But Web 2.0 also contributes to “viral spread,” Boorstin said, noting the popular video of an Iranian woman’s murder in the wake of its disputed election. “You wouldn’t have seen it become the icon of that period” otherwise. Internet users have a natural reluctance to speak up online in repressive countries, knowing not to cross a line that might earn them a police visit, Boorstin said: “That is something no [technological] tool will be able to conquer.”

But carrying the message that Web 2.0 helps “expose atrocities” won’t convince governments to push forward on Internet expansion, DelBianco said. David Gross, coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration, took issue with what he perceived as DelBianco’s endorsement of the U.S. bringing a “unified message” to the Egypt forum. The point of the gathering is to hear divergent views, especially within countries, without any expectation of setting policies, said Gross, now a partner at Wiley Rein. A “collective” U.S. message would encourage other governments to do the same, threatening to turn the forum into a decision-making event with “lowest common denominator” policies, he said.

Going back to the first meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the U.S. has emphasized that Internet freedom only matters to those with Internet access, Gross said. At that Geneva meeting, countries simply incorporated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in lieu of more specific policy statements on free expression, he said. But “somewhat ironically” the U.S. helped secure “unqualified endorsements” of the free flow of information at the second meeting in Tunis, a first for the U.N. With wireless technology now the primary driver of Internet access in the developing world, users are finding Web 2.0 an economic reason to get online, changing the Internet’s “value proposition,” Gross said.

Mobile technology could itself be misused by governments to keep tabs on people, MacKinnon said. Mobile versions of Web 2.0 applications are “much more trackable and lockdown- able” than PC counterparts, especially with geolocation functionality, and implementation of IPv6 will inevitably raise questions about how devices and apps handle privacy, she said. Phone companies in China already hand over users’ text or tweet data to authorities, MacKinnon said. “Not to say nasty things about our brothers in the telecom business,” but phone companies have historically been “quasi- governmental,” so it’s no surprise they hand over user records to the Justice Department “with abandon,” Boorstin said in a jab at Google’s telco critics. With video and audio capture functionality on new phones, governments could push mobile usage as a way to “outsource surveillance” -- with telecom providers surreptitiously eavesdropping on customers, said Robert Guerra, Internet freedom project director at Freedom House. But other companies’ missteps have had some positive effects, MacKinnon said -- Yahoo’s handing over of user data to Chinese authorities led others to store user data in jurisdictions with a “narrower definition of crime.” Yahoo itself now stores Vietnamese user data in Singapore, she said.

Making the case for a hands-off approach to Internet expression has been a hard sell with foreign governments, MacKinnon and Gross said. The Tunisian government tried to shut down MacKinnon’s panel on free expression at the 2005 WSIS meeting, complaining it had nothing to do with information and communications technology development, she said. With the aid of the Dutch government the panel resumed, but it was “filibustered” by plainclothes police and local journalists, with one blaming “you westerners” for elevating free expression over economic development, MacKinnon said. Gross recalled being pulled into a “frank discussion” with the Tunisian foreign minister about the incident.

The larger problem, though, is getting over the “social cohesion” argument of governments -- that free expression online can inflame passions and lead to rioting, Gross said. “For a lot of these governments, the ’this is wrong’ argument doesn’t work.” Emphasize the loss of foreign investment and slowed economic growth from censorship policies, Gross said, to get foreign counterparts’ attention. China’s sudden reversal of its Green Dam software filtering order, following an outcry from computer makers (WID Aug 17 p5), shows the tactic works, he said.

Those who care about free expression should get out of their bubble at the Egypt meeting, Guerra of Freedom House said. Historically the “same crowd” speaks on free- expression panels but doesn’t talk to other participants with different views, a contrast to Europeans at previous meetings who pushed through human-rights statements by reaching out, he said. MacKinnon said she'll be focused in Egypt on preventing the forum from becoming “another U.N. Human Rights Council” -- a body taken over by countries with harsh Internet policies. Neither the forum nor ICANN has created a viable multi-stakeholder model, she said, advocating better “institutional architecture.” Gross said Internet access is his top concern. “We still have a long, long and important way to go,” he said. Even with wireless, “we cannot declare victory and move on.” -- Greg Piper

IGF-USA Notebook ...

Participants in the annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meetings are getting more comfortable with talking about controversial issues, after early “skepticism” that the forum would yield much progress, said Markus Kummer, the executive coordinator of the IGF Secretariat. Internet governance used to be a “code word” for ICANN and the U.S., but with their new affirmation of commitments, governance will become truly international, he said. Kummer touted the “soft governance” embodied by the forum and said the U.N. secretary general was reviewing its performance and accepting comments on whether to renew the forum’s charter. Most comments are “overwhelmingly positive” but some commenters want the IGF to “have teeth,” developing into a decision- making process, he said. Kummer said he prefers a “decision- shaping process.” NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said the U.S. will be an “active participant” in the forum. The forum structure has proven useful and the U.S. supports its renewal, he said. The responses to the new ICANN pact have been favorable, from U.S. lawmakers to businesses, Strickling said. ICANN should “move rapidly” to deploy internationalized domain names but concentrate first on security. -- GP

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The underlying architecture of the Internet is the subject of a “start-over” movement among some engineers, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The “level of malevolence” is higher than the Internet’s designers anticipated when they left out authentication measures. The system also wasn’t designed with mobility or surging traffic in mind, leading some engineers now to push for the addition of sensors in devices across the network to report issues like congestion and to better route traffic, Rainie said. TechAmerica President Phil Bond said it’s important for any new architecture to be “flexible” and improve confidence in online security. The business community should be involved at a “deeper, more senior” level in such discussions, he said. “We are confronting some very fundamental choices” about authentication, said Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin, who left Google to join the Obama administration. Securing the routing architecture can also bring “great peril” if users become more wary of freely communicating in a less-private environment, he said. McLaughlin said he was heartened at a recent meeting with other agency officials to see the words “cyber” and “Internet” in so many titles. But it’s important to understand technical differences -- routers versus switches, HTTP versus applications that ride that layer -- to talk “intelligently” about policy choices, he said. Because voluntary interconnection is the basis of the Internet, policy changes must be “nudges” that weigh balances between, say, political dissidents online and security problems like DNS poisoning, he said. The Internet is a crucial bulwark against the “infantilizing mass media” that sprung up last century, giving people the power through fair use to “recapture bits of culture,” McLaughlin said. “The future of the Internet is not the Internet,” said Lee McKnight, associate professor in Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. The “personal cloud of your machines” is still in early phases, but its development will spur authentication by reducing a user’s circle of trust to “your friends and your friends’ machines,” he said. The technology will be aided by a recently launched testbed that will release new standards to universities including Syracuse and Virginia Tech, McKnight said. -- GP

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“I guarantee you every college student would pay for Facebook if they started charging,” said Randy Gyllenhaal, a senior broadcast journalism major at Elon University and Hearst National Broadcast Reporting award winner. The value of social networking isn’t just for goofing off, Rainie said -- it’s the only segment of online usage where Pew hasn’t found “social stratification,” though that could change as the most active users age and become high earners. McLaughlin said the Obama administration, despite blocking Facebook and even LinkedIn at the White House, is intent on creating a closed social network for federal employees that lists their contact information and projects. Facebook is the exception for young users, though, Gyllenhaal said: “From day one” they have expected free content from both pirate and legitimate sites such as CNN.com, endangering the economic viability of all sorts of media. Young users need to “mature” along with Internet technology, he said. Gyllenhaal said his roommate chose to watch House on a pirate site to avoid 30-second commercials for the program on Hulu.com: “Is that how ADD my generation has become?” Paying for online content is inevitable but every major newspaper is afraid of being the first to put up a pay wall for content, he said. Young users’ ignorance of privacy is overstated, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Try to friend your kids on Facebook and you'll get an instant lesson on the value of privacy.” Users of all ages want some control over their data online, as evidenced by the 100,000-strong Facebook group that lobbied against Facebook’s now-reversed terms of service that seemed to give the company more control over user’s posted data, Rotenberg said. The time is ripe for talking about privacy, with Ireland voting Friday on the Lisbon treaty for more coordinated European governance, which would also bring with it more stringent privacy rules, he said. “There has to be some discussion of a bill of rights for Internet users.”