The Internet Under Surveilance
By Vinton G. Cerf
Reporters Without Borders
01 July, 2003Truth is a powerful solvent. Stone walls melt before its relentless might. The Internet is one of the most powerful agents of freedom. It exposes truth to those who wish to see and hear it. It is no wonder that some governments and organizations fear the Internet and its ability to make the truth known. The phrase "freedom of speech" is often used to characterize a key element of democratic societies : open communication and especially open government. But freedom of speech is less than half of the equation. It is also vital that citizens have the freedom to hear and see. It is the latter area in which many governments have intervened in an attempt to prevent citizens from gaining access to information that their governments wish to withhold from them.
The equation is even more complex than simply speaking and hearing or writing and reading. The Internet is much like a piece of paper. The paper is unaware of what is written upon it. The Internet is equally oblivious. It delivers information and misinformation with equal facility. Thus it can become a tool for the delivery of bad data. Worse, this effect may be propagated less by design than by ignorance. It surprises me how often I will find a strident warning in my email inbox forwarded to me by some who should know better, proclaiming that the post office is going to start charging for email or that Microsoft will pay for the forwarding of each copy of the enclosed message. These are all hoaxes but readers are too lazy or perhaps too stupid to take the time to check before they forward.
The antidote for bad information is not censorship but more and better information. Of course, this places a burden on the consumer of information to pay attention and to think critically about what is seen and heard. Surely this is what a responsible citizen should be doing. And surely this is what we should be teaching our children at home and at school.
Despite its great promise, the Internet is not, in and of itself, a guarantor of the free flow of information. George Soros, the well-known financier, takes pains to remind us that the freedom offered by the Internet can be taken away. Indeed, what you will read in the pages that follow illustrates exactly this point. Many governments do want to limit the information its citizens can reach. In some cases the motivations are understandable and even laudable. I can see no redeeming value in child pornography for example and I support efforts to expunge it from the Internet. But those of us living in free societies have been warned repeatedly that censorship is a slippery slope and must be treated with the greatest care.
Even in the worst cases of content abuse, the slope beckons. For example, attempts by governments to extend their jurisdiction beyond their national borders poses a significant threat. More than once, ISPs have been ordered by courts in country A to eliminate content on servers in country B. This extra-territorial gambit leads into a thorny legal thicket into which we should not want to go.
To borrow a phrase from the venture capital world, free citizens must exercise due diligence to assure that their governments are not hiding political censorship behind a putative moral facade. One is reminded of one government's attempt to shut down thousands of Internet cafes on the grounds that one of them had fire law violations and therefore all the others might also be hazardous. This struck me as disingenuous at best and insulting to the intelligence of the citizenry at worst.
I see many responsibilities on the table for effective use of the Internet. Citizens must do their best to guard against government censorship for political purposes. At the same time, they are responsible for trying to distinguish useful and truthful information from bad quality information and must therefore exercise critical thinking about what they see and hear. And that responsibility extends to all media, not only the Internet. Moreover, where disinformation or misinformation exists, thoughtful citizens have a responsibility to draw attention to the problem, possibly even to provide information to counteract the bad data.
Furthermore, citizens must bear in mind that not all relevant information is online and that thoroughness dictates examination of material from other sources than the Internet before concluding that due diligence has been taken. One can imagine a briar patch of legal problems for medical caregivers should they rely solely on Internet-based information in diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury. Nor should patients imagine that they have limned the standard of care with a casual web search or that they have uncovered a miracle cure in a web site that trumpets its obscure and unsubstantiated treatment.
There are no electronic filters that separate truth from fiction. No cognitive "V-chip" to sort the gold from the lead. We have but one tool to apply : critical thinking. This truth applies as well to all other communication media, not only the Internet. Perhaps the World Wide Web merely forces us to see this more clearly than other media. The stark juxtaposition of valuable and valueless content sets one to thinking. Here is an opportunity to educate us all. We truly must think about what we see and hear. We must evaluate and select. We must choose our guides.
In this 21st century information age, Internauts have significant responsibilities. They must guard against abusive censorship and counteract misinformation. They must take responsibility for thoughtful use of the Internet and the World Wide Web and all of the information services and appliances yet to come. Free flow of information has a price and responsible Internauts will shoulder the burden of paying it.