From Baku: Voices for internet freedom

08 Nov 12 | Digital Freedom, Uncategorized

The Baku Expo Centre is a fairly bland setting for the Internet Governance Forum 2012 — even if the choice of Azerbaijan as host is not —  but debates, discussions and overlapping conversations are lively, pointed, sometimes heated with voices from politics, business, activists, academics, officials around the world arguing about our digital world.

One thing is clear in this melee: a big international debate on how — and whether — we keep the internet free is under way, and there is a lot of support for the sort of bottom up, diverse, varied debate (or in techno-speak “multistakeholder governance model”) the IGF is part of.

Here’s a flavour of some of the views and debates of the first two days.

A common starting point at the IGF has been that offline rights must apply equally online. But views diverge rapidly on whether access to the internet is or should be a human right. “No,” says a lawyer, jumping to his feet, “we cannot defend that in court”; “yes” is the riposte from a senior Kenyan official, adding that “as more people in Kenya use mobiles for simple money transfers, lack of access to such a service would block many people from normal economic activities as well as from wider information and debates.”

Switch to another session and a Council of Europe official is arguing — strangely — that we probably cannot avoid population-wide databases on our digital comms, so we must control who has access and how. A speaker from India in a subsequent session disagrees strongly calling such big data projects “a big catastrophe”.

Azerbaijani writer, Emin Milli explains that in Azerbaijan you can freely write on Twitter or Facebook, but the problem is what happens afterwards. The regime targets writers and bloggers with the aim of creating more widespread intimidation and self-censorship — online and offline censorship intertwine.

 

EU MEP Marietje Schaake talks of “cat and mouse” games between states pushing for security — and repression — and of activists creatively finding ways to assert their freedom and rights. She calls for export controls on digital surveillance technology as a priority and urges the EU to develop a full digital strategy that can be applied to its external policies.

In yet another session, the need for anonymity online is debated and strongly defended with the chairman summing up by saying that “protection of anonymity is an absolute priority and ISPs (Internet Service Providers) must go as far as possible to defend it.”

As I head off to join a panel on cyber security, privacy and openness, I am sure I will encounter a range of views including some passionate disagreements. But I know too that many, if not all, of these voices will be arguing about how to keep and promote our internet freedom — and if we can build this debate and these networks, then we can stand up to those who are acting both openly and covertly to undermine those freedoms.

Kirsty Hughes is Chief Executive of Index on Censorship

Censorship, self-censorship and the Olympic spirit: Confusion over blocking of BBC content as Olympic rules kick in

31 Jul 12 | News and features, United Kingdom

Chilling free speech in the name of brands, rights and commercialisation is not what promoting the Olympic spirit is about, says Kirsty Hughes

This piece was originally published on Huffington Post UK

Friday’s opening of the Olympic Games, with the extraordinary spectacle created by Danny Boyle, ranging from the industrial revolution to the digital age, from children’s literature to the National Health Service, has received plaudits and praise along with some bemusement and criticism. It may be just as well though that it didn’t celebrate another British icon, the BBC.

The impact of the commercialisation of the Games, with lucrative sponsorship and rights deals, means another British virtue — freedom of speech — is rather less free than normal for the duration of London 2012. A particularly disturbing example of this is the BBC — which has said that due to rights restrictions various radio programmes, ranging from the prestigious Radio 4 Today news programme to the lighter Radio 2 Chris Evans’ Breakfast Show and Radio 5 Live, whether live or on iPlayer, may not be available to audiences abroad for the duration of the Games.

While the BBC World Service has a proud history of broadcasting into authoritarian regimes, faced with its lucrative rights deal for UK broadcasting of the Games, the BBC is blocking its own output from being available internationally. It has a helpfully succinct explanation of this on its own news site where it says: “The BBC’s agreement with the International Olympic Committee means we are not allowed to broadcast anything online outside the UK from the Olympic Park or Olympic venues. As a result this programme may need to be blanked for International listeners due to rights issues surrounding Olympic content in programmes.”

Perhaps conscious of quite how ludicrous this is, and damaging to the BBC’s own image and values, by Sunday the BBC had apparently carried out some damage-limitation negotiations with the International Olympic Committee so at least the Today programme could be restored to international listeners — though the announcement of this appears to be confined to a small blog update which states:

After discussion, the IOC and the BBC have agreed that there is no need to block our international streams of Radio 4 programmes with a wide news agenda. Radio 5 Live (apart from the news programme Up All Night) and 5 Live Olympics Extra will remain available only in the UK.

We knew that the Olympic commercial brands deals had put money ahead of free speech — Locog published months ago two lists of words that must not be combined at risk of legal action for breaching the brand/copyright rules. These include not combining the words “games”, “2012” or “twenty twelve” with, for example, “gold”, “silver” “medals”, “sponsor” or “summer”. But more examples keep coming in of the censorship effects, and the chilling of the right to peaceful protest.

Unauthorised YouTube videos of the Games are reportedly being taken down with alacrity. Meanwhile, a group of cyclists has been banned from cycling in Newham for the duration of the Games.

The Olympic charter celebrates a number of human rights, declaring that: “The practice of sport is a human right… Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.” The charter makes no commitment to that other key and universal human right — freedom of expression. But chilling and censoring free speech in the name of brands, rights and general commercialisation is surely not quite what promoting the Olympic spirit is all about.

Kirsty Hughes is Chief Executive of Index on Censorship

MORE ON LOCOG’S OLYMPIC CENSORSHIP AT INDEX’S FREE SPEECH BLOG

PLUS NATALIE HAYNES GETS TO GRIPS WITH THE RULES POLICING THE BRAND OF THE LONDON GAMES HERE

AND READ MORE ON SPORT AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN INDEX ON CENSORSHIP MAGAZINE’S SPORTS ISSUE