On the Net

Citation

Wynder, N. (1999), "On the Net", Internet Research, Vol. 9 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.1999.17209dag.001

On the Net

Freedom of speech has always been a global issue. Many democratic and developed societies regard the option to express thought and opinions as a right, not a privilege.

The Internet has opened the way for virtually anyone in the world to express and discuss an opinion with a global audience. A number of high-profile freedom of speech cases have reached the courts in the States, where the Constitution and Amendments, upon which the American society is built, call for absolute freedom of speech. Any governmental action to revoke this right from an American citizen is immediately met with contest and confrontation from free-speech campaigners. As the Internet was mainly developed by US academics, US technology and US finances, the ability to post virtually any information to a Web site, newsgroup or mailing list seems to have manifested itself in the Internet as an entity and as a community.

This, of course, is different in many other countries, especially in the East. In China, a software engineer named Lin Hai was arrested in early 1998 for supplying a pro-democracy Internet newsletter with 30,000 e-mail addresses. In early 1999, he was sent to prison for two years. In the latter half of 1998, two Malaysians were imprisoned by the government for starting rumours, via Internet newsgroups, of political demonstrations in the country's capital Kuala Lumpur. These are prime examples of the restriction some governments are placing on freedom of speech and, while being proportionately isolated incidents, perhaps show another division between the politics, developments and cultures of the East and West.

In some instances, governmental action and "damage control" have pushed the expectations of human rights and free-speech campaigners beyond the norm. Many campaigners have a new voice on the Internet, as the right to express views, from a Western perspective, is seen as a basic part of everyone's lives.

This, of course, has its down sides. A 1998 study by the Anti-Defamation League showed that extremist groups had taken to the Internet to spread their messages of hate.

A recent focus on the Web as a tool for disseminating socially unsuitable material was the 1999 shooting of 15 and double-suicide at Columbine High School in Colorado, USA. One of the teenagers involved in the shooting had posted messages possibly indicating his intentions to kill, and had ready access to bomb-making information on the Internet.

This one focus, though, is a relatively isolated incident, but has perhaps damaged the cause for freedom of expression on the Internet. Calls for legislation against terrorist information and the ready availability of socially-threatening information on Web sites and the like are regular and generally coincide with events such as the Columbine High School shooting, where blame is generally targeted at the most culpable suspect; in this case, the Internet became part of the whole "story" and will perhaps suffer from this negative press.

Global freedom of speech and expression is a very tough goal to reach, but as well as spreading misinformation and being a source of potentially damaging information, the Internet is helping disseminate truth and opinion worldwide, between cultures and age groups, between politics and war. This gives a promising vision for future generations of all nations worldwide, where we can speak and share as one, with the Internet perhaps being the greatest mediator of that vision.

Noel Wynder (nwynder@irdc.com)Internet Research & Development Centre