Transcript Anti-social Speech

Freedom of Speech - Objectives
1.
2.
3.
4.
Discuss the different legal treatment of different medial
regarding Freedom of Speech
Discuss various types of offensive speech
Discuss various issues related to freedom of speech
Discuss some currently available technological means
to ensure or to restrict freedom of speech
Activities
•
•
•
Monday: overview, based on Chapter 5 of Baase
Wednesday: (finish overview) + discuss several of the
questions at the end of Chapter 5 of Baase:
–
look at general exercises – 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21;
–
be ready to discuss them
Friday: discussion of cases and articles accessible
from Comtella
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
1
The Legal Context
• U.S. Constitution
– first amendment
• “Congress shall make no law … abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press …”
– fourth amendment
• “the right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated …”
• Canadian Constitution: 1982 Constitution Act
Charter of Rights and Freedoms
– section 2 (b) guarantees
• “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and
expression, including freedom of the press and
other media of communication...”
– section 8 guarantees that
• “everyone has the right to be free against
unreasonable search and seizure…”
– charter rights have been held as vitally
important and only to be restricted in the
clearest of circumstances
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
2
Other Canadian Laws and Regulations
Affecting Freedom of Speech
• provincial human rights codes
• Criminal Code of Canada prohibitions
–
–
–
–
section 163: distributing pornography
section 319: incitement to hatred and genocide
section 326: theft of telecommunications
section 342: unauthorized use of a computer
system
– section 430: mischief in relation to data
• various laws against misrepresentation,
protecting copyright and trademark, etc.
• publication bans
– for example on minor’s names, opinion polls
during elections (B.C.), broadcasting election
results before the polls close, etc.
• content rules
– for broadcasting (CRTC)
• doesn’t apply to internet (yet)
– Québec language laws
• applies to commercial web sites in Québec, but
not extraterritorially
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
3
Different Legal Treatment of
Different Media
• Print media (books, newspapers, pamphlets 1:m)
•
•
– Protected by Constitution (from government
censorship, not individual or corporate – see pg. 195,
last paragraph and 1996)
– Almost free press in U.S. and Canada
– Libel laws still apply, inciting violence is illegal, but
advocating illegal acts is usually legal
Common carriers (phone, post  1:1)
– No control or responsibility for content
Broadcast (TV, radio 1:m)
– Strong government regulation (through licensing)
– Justification: Limited number of licenses (frequencies)
leads to monopoly of broadcasters; comes into the home
(children-viewers)
• Cable (1:1)
•
– More freedom of speech than broadcast, but less
than press
Computer communications (Internet newsgroups,
services like AOL, Yahoo, MSN  m:m)
– Theoretically: unlimited freedom of speech
– Practically: a battlefield
– Similar to all media listed above + libraries,
bookstores, rented meeting rooms, and all these are
treated differently by the laws
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
4
Types of Offensive Speech
•
Libel
– person can be sued
– can the internet service also be sued?
•
Hate Speech
– Promotion of hate directed at particular races, or groups of
individuals such as gays or doctors providing abortions.
– Promotion of religious bigotry.
– False information.
•
Anti-social Speech
– Anti-government propaganda
– Information about illegal or anti-social acts, such as bombmaking, hacking or virus-making.
•
Other Offensive Speech
–
–
–
–
–
–
•
Religious
Racist or Nazi propaganda
Abortion / Ant-abortion information
Advertisements (e.g. for tobacco, alcohol)
Violence depictions (e.g. violent movies or games)
When commercial interests are affected (e.g. legal software
or medical advice websites have been sued by professional
organizations)
All these things existed before the Internet
– The Internet changed the scale (easy access, anonymous,
straight into the homes, school libraries etc…)
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
5
Types of Offensive Speech
• Pornography
– Illegal (child pornography) vs. inappropriate for
children
– defined by local community standards,
– but virtual communities cross the local boundaries
– “least common denominator” community standards
– U.S. Communications Decency Act (1996)
•
•
•
•
•
•
aimed at preventing child pornography
part of 1996 Telecommunications Act
makes it illegal to distribute child pornography
applies to both individuals and to the internet service
severe penalties
but too vague and broad and does not use the least
restrictive means of accomplishing its goals
•  ruled unconstitutional by supreme court in 1997
– The Child On-line Protection Act (1998)
• Similar fate like the Common Decency Act
• Encourage development of preventing technology
• The responsibility on the users’ own shoulders
– are there other ways of preventing pornography?
• parental and societal responsibility
• monitoring e-mail and web sites
• technological solutions (eg. NetNanny, MicroWebToolkit)
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
6
Possible Controls
• Using blocking software.
• Forcing ISPs or libraries to use blocking
software
• Using existing laws.
• Passing new laws.
• Civil cases.
• PICS (Platform for Internet Content
Selection) http://www.w3.org/PICS/
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
7
Holding Internet Services
Responsible?
• Are they similar to libraries, or to
newspapers?
– Libraries are government institutions,
subject to the 1st Amendment
– Newspapers are private and are not obliged
to publish things they don’t agree with
• Can content be monitored?
– impact on privacy (e.g. in discussion groups)
– filters
• not reliable,
• restrict more than needed,
• aren’t sensitive to who is accessing the
material,
• can’t filter P2P exchange of files
• Who decides what is offensive?
• Will internet services move offshore?
– Approaches to restrict access outside of a
country
– Challenges, e.g. anonymizer services
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
8
Free Speech Issues
• anonymity and pseudonymity
– anonymous e-mail, browsing, user information
• should really be called “pseudonymous” (false name)
– used for both good
• help groups – protects privacy and allows disclosing
intimate information
• whistle blowers, e.g. John Doe lawsuits…
– and bad
• Fraud, Harassment, Misrepresentation
• Criminal and antisocial uses (e.g. distributing child
pornography, to infringe copyrights)
– should anonymity be banned?
• comparison to letters to editor
• Guaranteed right by the First Amendment (U.S.)
• rule of thumb: anything with reactions this strong
should probably not be prohibited
– When do internet service providers NOT protect
anonymity?
• Only in case of special circumstances (e.g. suicide,
terrorist threat, or libel lawsuit
• After a period of waiting, and informing the anonymous
users the provider can reveal their identity
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
9
Spam and Freedom of Speech
• Spammers say they exercise their right to free
speech
– It is cheap and obviously effective
• But it costs the recipient and the internet service
provider (connection time on dial up, disk space on webmail, effort to clean up mailbox, clogs the network, loss of
customers)
– Violates private property rights of internet service
providers (ISPs)
– ISPs are private companies (like newspapers) are not
obliged by the First Amendment to publish everything
• Courts have ruled that spam is not protected by
free speech, since the perpetrator is using
somebody else’s resources without their
permission
– So ISP have the right to filter spam
– But then they may move out of the country
– Other solutions: spammer pays every recipient a
micropayment
•
Laws regulating spam (pg. 222)
• But what if a spam-like message is not
commercial?
– If a mail expresses political views, human-rights issues
or blowing the whistle, can the ISP filter it?
– Is every mass mailing = spamming?
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
10
How to ensure valuable
content on the internet?
• If everyone can publish, how to find educational
and useful materials among all the content?
• If government funds programs to create useful
material or make such material more visible, will
this be a violation to the freedom of speech of the
authors of the other materials?
• No strong agreement in the public about what is
valuable content.
• Experience with other media
– press  diversity of information and opinion, many
publishing companies make decisions what to
publish (influenced by their expectations about what
will sell).
– broadcasting networks  only several networks
define the content  less diversity
• Internet  we are seeing mergers of large ISPs 
will only a few viewpoints be presented? Large
companies will use laws and regulations to restrict
competition, commercial interests will dominate?
Will volunteers have a chance to continue providing
independent content?
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
11
How to ensure valuable
content on the internet?
• Initiative:
– Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA): a
non-profit org., including AOL/Time Warner, Bell
South, BT, IBM, MSN, UUNet, Verizon.
– Mission – to enable the public to make informed
decisions through open and objective labeling of
content
– Authors answer a questionnaire about the content
of their material  a label (piece of code) is
generated automatically
– Labels follow an Internet standard notation, called
PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection).
– Users, can set their browsers to disallow websites
with objectionable content. ISP, companies can
easily filter content.
• Weaknesses:
– Authors can lie
– The majority of currently available web- content is
not labeled.
• How can these problems be alleviated?
– Collaborative recommendations to verify ratings…
– …?
Vassileva
CMPT 408 – Freedom of
Speech
12