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The Economist Scientific American Mr. Wolfstone
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Hands off the Internet CYBER VIEW Two Important Articles are reviewed together! Click here to Contact Us
Regulation ... or Suffocation? The problem is not whether the Internet should be regulated, according to the article in The Economist but rather how we shall regulate it! Offensive material in cyberspace, it bears noting, is identified as sexual exploitation, race hatred, and consumer fraud. The Economist deftly sidesteps the problem of defining these terms -- a task which would set wheels turning within wheels in any lawyer's mind. The staff at The Economist also expresses concern for protecting intellectual property rights i.e., copyrights and trademarks, which seems to fall within the ambit of this supposedly wise recommendation for regulation of the Internet. A Strange Distinction: -- Public or Private Let us summarize the argument advanced by the editors of this piece as follows: -- Because the material published on the Internet can readily leap international boundries by the mere click of the mouse and because the Internet is an admixture of public and private communication, the world community needs to "discipline this adolescent" which Americans have unleashed. Obviously, the "adolescent" is a metaphorical term for the Internet. However, we Americans hasten to add and to admonish the Europeans that the protection of free expression does not stop at the dividing line between private/public communication. Indeed, in order to keep the debate robust, we might prefer to believe that the more public the speech, the greater the need to foster a free exchange in the marketplace of ideas. Paternalistic and Anti-intellectual Unruly adolescent -- you say? My view is that the solution advocated by The Economist is paternalistic at best and anti-intellectual as well as suffocating at worst. In fairness to the editors, however, they do mention the possibility that ultimately market forces could solve the problem. What's this! ... Are the editors advocating regulation (as they clearly do) and then resassuring us in the same breath that market forces might provide an answer in some vague way and at some vague time? Make no mistake about it: -- The staff at The Economist must decide whether they will ride with the hounds or run with the hare! The Hand that Rocks the Cradle The second article reviewed here, Parental Discretion Advised, provides a kinder, gentler solution. A number of states in the U.S. have enacted laws to regulate on-line material, but they are not being enforced. Instead, users are restricting Web pages that feature key words and phrases with software which the viewer can choose to install or choose not to install so that innocent children and sensitive adults can avoid nudity, sex, drugs, gambling and violent themes. T'is A Sweet Thought True, the software filters may throw out the baby with the bathwater (e.g., Robert Frost's "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening" may be excluded because it contains the word "queer"), but at least they rely on the viewer's choice of software rather than the legislators' feeble attempts to define art, beauty and morality. Some works of art or literature such as Shakespeare's Hamlet may also be washed out with the obviously lecherous pronouncement: -- "T'is a Sweet Thought to Lie Between a Maiden's Legs." Whose Net is it, anyway? Narrow minded people like to say that freedom of speech is limited and that one cannot shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. But I suggest that we need to be more concerned with what is said on the stage than what is said in the pit. Let the captious and delicate citizens use their safe surf software, and let the rest of us use our common sense as a moral compass! |
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