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New Internet Free Speech Laws Proposed

5:00 am on January 13, 2006 | Category: Business, Editorials, Law, Web Services

There have been a number of incidents in the past few months where American companies have worked with repressive foreign governments to limit the free speech of citizens.

These disturbing incidents have prompted a free press advocacy group by the name of Reporters Sans Frontieres to draft a proposal for tougher laws preventing US companies from working against the right to free speech.

If enacted, the proposal would prevent US companies from hosting email servers within any repressive country (as defined by the US State Department), as this allows governments to access the private details of customers. In addition to this, search engines would not be allowed to filter out â€œprotectedâ€ keywords such as â€œdemocracyâ€ and â€œhuman rights.â€

American companies would also be prevented from selling any kind of internet censorship or surveillance technology to repressive governments.

Although such laws would, in theory, prevent some of the hypocrisy carried out by companies in the western world, the fact is that they would do very little practical good. In the case of major internet companies, their failure to comply would simply cause repressive governments to enact a blanket ban of their email and search services.

This certainly wouldnâ€™t improve anyoneâ€™s free speech rights, and it would effectively prevent major internet companies from operating in much of the world. Any law that does this would greatly damage free trade and the global market, something that any non-repressive government simply shouldnâ€™t do.

In some ways, preventing the sale of censorship and surveillance to repressive countries does make sense, but again, it would destroy a companyâ€™s right to participate in the global market. And in a truly free world, a companyâ€™s right to sell products to whomever they wish is just as important as the right to free speech.

The only people that can justly punish companies for working against free and democratic ideals are consumers, through the use of watchdog groups and boycotts. In the case of government intervention, however, the sad paradox remains that true freedom will always include the right to work against freedom, and thereâ€™s very little that can be done about it.

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