Chapter 3:

Freedom of Speech

What We Will CoverWhat We Will Cover

• Changing Communication Paradigms• Controlling Offensive Speech• Censorship on the Global Net• Political Campaign Regulations in

Cyberspace• Anonymity• Protecting Access and Innovation: Net

Neutrality or De-regulation?

First Amendment

• Freedom of speech and of the press

• For the protection of controversial and/or offensive speech & ideas

• Covers spoken and written words, art, pictures, & other expressions of ideas & opinions

Changing Communication Paradigms

• Regulating Communications Media Print media (newspapers, magazines, books) Broadcast (television, radio) Common carriers (telephones, postal system)

Controlling Offensive Speech

• What is offensive?

• A few examples: Georgia The doctor Others in book

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• Bomb making information on the Web Oklahoma City bombing Columbine High School

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• Is looking at pornographic images bad?

Protection of Children

• 1996 - CDA (Communications Decency Act) $100K fine & 2 yrs. prison -> too broad and too vague

• 1998 COPA (Child Online Protection Act) $50K fine & 6 mos. prison -> too broad and would threaten art, news, & health sites

• 2000 CIPA (Child Internet Protection Act)

Filtering

• Example of how society affects technology - the demand for SW filters resulted in their quick development

• By 2006, more than 1/2 of all families with teenagers used filters on their computers

• Filters do not do a perfect job; figure 3.2 lists Web pages blocked by some filters.

Spam

• So what?

• According to Clemson’s page on spam: http://www.clemson.edu/ccit/support_services/it_support/email/spam.html)

In 2007, it was estimated that 62 billion spam

messages were sent per day worldwide. 3 out of every 4 messages were spam.

• Clemson is now using filtering software called Proofpoint to filter out spam.

Spam

• 1996 - AOL - 1/2 of all their email was spam, most of which coming from Cyber Promotions. AOL blocked all email from them. They sued, claiming AOL violated their 1st Amendment rights.

Spam Solutions

• Challenge-response filtering

• Services that businesses can subscribe to the keep lists of spammers to block

• Pay-to-email schemes

• The federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2004 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act )

Challenging Old Regulatory Structures

• Other examples of how new technology presents challenges to existing laws real estate example

Posting and Selling Sensitive Material

• Yahoo example

• search engines

• false profile of a friend as a joke

Need to consider…

• Unintended readers or users

• Potential risks

• Ways to limit access to intended users

• Difficult to remove material once it’s been posted online

Case Study

Background: A computer system manager at a public university noticed that the number of Web accesses to the system jumped dramatically. Most of the increased accesses were to one student’s home page. The system manager discovered that his home page contained several sexually oriented videos. The videos were similar to those that legally appear on many web sites. The system manager told the student to remove the videos.

The grievance cases: A female student who accessed the videos before they were removed filed a grievance against the university for sexual harassment. The student who set up the home page filed a grievance against the university for violation of his First Amendment rights.

Global Censorship

• Yahoo & French censorship the 1999 case 2000 French court order

• How does international law apply to companies in this country? Which country’s laws would be enforced?

Hate Material

• Yahoo, eBay, and others have banned “hate material” for business reasons - is it

1. responisible policy, or

2. a demonstration of the power of one government to impose censorship standards on other countries

Censorship in other Nations

• Lots of examples, pages 172-174• Should we be required to aid foreign

censors, pages 174-175• Google provides limited access in China -

is it that case that1. some access is better than no access, or2. are they partners with the Chinese

government’s ethically unacceptable control of access to information by its citizens

Political Campaign Regulations

• Laws have had to adapt with respect to political campaign donations on the Web: there were restrictions on money contributions, and non-money contributions had to be given a value and counted against their contribution limits… well, with the Web, how do you give a value to endorsements online? How can you even know about all the endorsements online by people?

Political Campaign Regulations

• Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold Act) - how do these laws affect freedom of political speech? Prohibits corporations, unions and other

organizations from paying for ads that show a candidate's name or face close to an election (60 days for elections, 30 days for primaries or conventions)

Campaign Laws & the Internet

• Federal Election Commission (FEC) administers election laws Unpaid individuals may put political content on

their Web site, send emails, blog, create or host a campaign-related Web site and provide links to campaign sites

AnonymityAnonymity

• Anonymity protected by the First Amendment

• Services available to send anonymous email (Anonymizer.com)

• Anonymizing services used by individuals, businesses, law enforcement agencies, and government intelligence services

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• Should anonymity on the Web be protected?

• Problems with anonymity…

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• Should businesses be able to get the real names of people posting messages that they object to? SLAPP, a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public

Participation

• ISPs keeping records of true identities of each user for a specified period of time prevents true anonymity -> does this conflict with the 1st Amendment?

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• Does the potential for harm by criminals who use anonymity to hide from law enforcement outweigh the loss of privacy & restraint on freedom of speech for honest people who use anonymity responsibly?

Net Neutrality or De-regulation?

• Net Neutrality Equal access to the Internet (not allowing companies

to exclude or give special treatment to content transmitted based on the content itself or on the company that provides it? - e.g. AT&T’s proposal)

• De-regulation Flexibility and market incentives will benefit customers

(Should companies be permitted to provide different levels of speed at different prices? Or to block material from various sources?)

Supporters of Net Neutrality

• “Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success...A number of justifications have been created to support carrier control over consumer choices online; none stand up to scrutiny.” - Vint Cerf Google Chief Internet Evangelist and Co-Developer of the Internet

Protocol

Supporters of Net Neutrality

• “The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true. Let us protect the neutrality of the net.” - Tim Berners-Lee Inventor of the World Wide Web

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• 3.29 page 191: Find out whether your college restricts access to any Web sites from its computer systems. What is its policy for determining which sites to restrict? What do you think of the policy?

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• 3.32 page 191: To what extent is violence on the Web and in computer games responsible for shootings in schools? What should be done about it without violating the First Amendment?