The recent online suicide of a teenager on live videocam has raised questions once again about whether the internet should be regulated. While live broadcasts of a young man committing suicide are shocking and tragic, trying to control and regulate this is a particularly difficult task without infringing on rights of free expression.
There is always the danger of incidents like this being used as a backdoor to enforce stringent policies to control the materials the public can post and read/view, as is currently the case in Australia, where the government wants to introduce a content-filtering scheme. The scheme, which many criticise as amounting to censorship, is being imposed upon Australian citizens in the name of protecting children from inappropriate content. But once implemented, schemes like this can also easily be abused.
Our freedom of expression via the internet is vital to our freedom to protest and raise awareness. In some countries, the internet serves as the only way to contact and inform the rest of the world of, for instance, political oppression. Blogging has become a new means of resistance and often the only way for people to ensure they don’t suffer in silence.
Certain governments have censored the internet and persecuted bloggers in recognition of their influence, and Western society has rightfully frowned on this. However, are we also not moving in the same direction without realising it? We need to ensure we don’t sleepwalk into internet censorship through scaremongering from our own governments.
Internet companies such as Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft have an important part to play in this by refusing to cooperate with governments enforcing any form of censorship or suppression of citizens’ opinions online. These companies pride themselves on being ‘caring’ organisations, which strive to be the best companies to work for by, for example, providing generous benefit packages for employees. But as was the case with Yahoo!, which allegedly passed on information leading to the prosecution, torture and jailing of internet bloggers in China, it’s outrageous for them to then collaborate with repressive governments to help identify those who dare to speak out.
We must guard against online censorship wherever it occurs and challenge the internet companies that support it. And similarly, we cannot allow governments to appeal to our emotions in order to pass laws restricting our freedom of expression.