Threats to Internet Freedom

Threats to Free Speech on the Net: Censorship and Copyright Law

Despite the universally recognized benefits of the Internet revolution by academics and millions of Internet users everywhere, some special interests seek to undermine the core feature that has made the Internet so successful: its freedom.

There are two main threats to freedom of speech on the Internet today. The first threat to free speech on the Internet is website filtering and censorship by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

Many Americans are unaware that Internet censorship is currently practiced in the United States. It’s true: the Associated Press recently caught Comcast secretly using Web filtering technologies similar to those used in China to censor the Internet.

The second threat to free speech on the Internet is oppressive copyright law enforcement by media conglomerates like Viacomand Warner Brothers. The old-fashioned, literal interpretation of copyright law in a digital age is threatening to stifle the creativity of our generation by criminalizing our creative social behavior. Some awesome Stanford University professors have played a crucial role in the fight to defend free speech on the Internet. Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society has led the fight to preserve freedom on the Internet. Professor Lessig’s work to establish Creative Commons, a groundbreaking non-profit organization “devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally” has been one of his greatest successes.

Internet Censorship and Net Neutrality

Now we face a constitutive choice with the Internet—a choice between closed networks where the network operators control the user experience and open networks that are controlled by end users.
– FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, Statement at Stanford’s Hearing on Broadband Network Management Practices

In October 2007, the Associated Press reported that Comcast was blocking access to BitTorrent, a popular peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used by millions of Internet users. BitTorrent, like all types of peer-to-peer file sharing has legitimate uses – it is used by universities, open source software projects, and new technology companies to efficiently distribute large files directly from user to user – although it can also be used for copyright infringement. Ars Technica, a popular technology news site, covered the development:

Comcast is blocking—or at least seriously slowing down—BitTorrent transfers, regardless of whether the content is legal or not. AP chose to download a copy of the King James Bible through BitTorrent (because it is an uncopyrighted work) and went to work. In two out of its three tests, the downloads were blocked altogether, while in the remaining test, the download started after a 10-minute delay.

Comcast’s censorship of the BitTorrent protocol violates one of the core tenets of the Internet: the concept of network neutrality. While the term “network neutrality” is relatively new, the concept is not. Network neutrality (or net neutrality, for short) is a network design principle that promotes “the idea that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally. This allows the network to carry every form of information and support every kind of application.”

In other words, net neutrality mandates that Comcast and other ISPs provide equal access to all websites and services on the Internet – no favoritism, no charging fees to website publishers to increase website speed, and no website censorship.

There are neutrality laws for other public utilities, so why shouldn’t a neutrality proposal makes sense for the Internet, which has increasing become a necessity of modern life, much like water and electricity service?

Services such as telegrams and the phone network . . . are considered common carriers under U.S. law, which means that they are considered akin to public utilities and overseen by the FCC in order to ensure fair pricing and access; such networks are expressly forbidden to give preferential treatment [to certain communications based on their contents]

Indeed, net neutrality was the standard practice for Internet service before Comcast’s lobbyists convinced the FCC to change this policy two years ago. Many Internet users are still wondering how that FCC policy change benefits consumer freedom, but have yet to find out.

Comcast offers an explanation: “We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure all our customers have the best broadband experience possible. This means we use the latest technologies to manage our network to provide a quality experience for all Comcast subscribers.”

Of course, “latest technologies” is code for “censorship technologies.” Comcast’s censorship of BitTorrent, done in the name of network management, was nothing more than a sly effort to undercut an up-and-coming competitor to cable TV service.

Comcast is not the only ISP that publicly opposes net neutrality; so do Verizon, AT&T, Bell South, and HDNet. However, despite the chorus of corporate opposition to net neutrality, most Stanford professors, faculty in the Center for Internet and Society, and average Internet users like you and me recognize the threat that unregulated ISP censorship can have on Internet free speech.

Some Stanford professors decided to fight Comcast’s censorship in an effort to set a precedent in the U.S.

On April 17th 2008, over 600 people gathered at Stanford– widely considered to be the birthplace of the Internet economy – to discuss the future of the Internet. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to hold a public hearing at Stanford to discuss broadband network management practices and Internet-related issues in the wake of the Comcast censorship controversy. Stanford law professors Lawrence Lessigand Barbara van Schewick, and Gregory L. Rosston, Deputy Director of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, gave expert testimony in support of net neutrality to the FCC commissioners, all five of which were in attendance that day.

“The Commission [heard] testimony both from expert panelists, and members of the audience who [were] permitted to speak directly to the commissioners during the public comment session.”

The entire Stanford faculty in attendance made compelling cases for net neutrality. Lessig, for example, stated that “[Net neutrality is] the thing that makes it all transparent, it’s open, anybody can do anything . . . It gave us transparency, openness, and freedom.”

The freedom that Lessig refers to is the guarantee for activist citizens that ISPs will not censor their controversial free speech, the guarantee for application developers that ISPs will not block or slow down their application if it competes with the ISP’s own services, and the guarantee for website publishers that ISPs will not slow down access to their websites and favor their own web properties.

The other Stanford professor in attendance, van Schewick, also made a strong case for net neutrality on the basis of consumer rights:

Allowing network providers to single out specific applications and block or degrade them . . . would harm user choice and application level innovation . . . The market will not solve this problem . . . To protect application level innovation and user choice, the FCC needs to clarify that singling out specific applications and blocking or degrading them . . . is not reasonable network management and violates the Internet policy statement.

The ultimate Internet nightmare. Tiered pricing packages offer access to various websites at differing costs, stifling the free and open nature of the Internet.

Lessig and van Schewick realize that the open, dynamic Internet – the last bastion of true free speech in the world – is at risk of becoming a television-like medium if net neutrality is not made law. Steve Elliot, an activist blogger, painted a dark picture of this television-like Internet future. As he describes it, “You pay for a small commercial package of sites you can visit and you’ll have to pay for separate subscriptions for every site that’s not in the package.” As he puts it:

If this plan is implemented, almost all smaller websites and alternative information sources will disappear over time – because most people will never find out about them! – and multinational corporations who are used to using big budgets to brute force their content into every media outlet will finally realize their dream of being able to approach the World Wide Web in the same way.

We must not let them succeed.

Written By: Feross Aboukhadijeh, Stanford, CA

Article First Appeared On: Feross.org, as Threats to Free Speech on the Net

About the Author: Hi, this is Feross. I'm a computer science student at Stanford University (class of 2012). I'm interested in Internet technology, web development, and computer security. I like hacking on cool software projects, running, basketball, retro video games, and shiny gadgets.