p2pnet - rss feed: Killing online freedom of speech
p2pnet.net news view:- A plan by Tim O’Reilly and Jimmy Wales to regulate the Net with a Code of Conduct has sparked outrage among supporters of free speech.
Kathy Sierra, a friend of O’Reilly, blogged about death threats she’d received, prompting Net publisher O’Reilly (left) and the Wikipedia’s Wales to launch a campaign to clean up the Net.
Will O’Reilly, Wales and Sierra want a kind of seal of approval site owners who agree with their ideas will be able/expected to display?
Observes Brian Whitaker in The Guardian, a group of Saudis formed OCSAB promoting rules for “ethical” blogging. The rules were as follows, he says:
1 - That the blog does not touch on Islam improperly in any way or shape, which thereby rules out blogs that call to secularism and liberalism.
2 - Seeing as how the community is for Saudi bloggers, naturally then, the blog must be run by a Saudi.
3 - Since we exert much effort on maintaining an elevated level of blogging, the language in use must be Arabic. An exception: Blogs with a non-Arabic speaking audience are excluded, only on the condition that they call to Islam or reflect a pleasant image of Saudi Arabia.
4 - That the blog specifies a certain direction for it to follow, be it Islamic, scientific, technical, medical, social etc. We apologise for not accepting purely personal blogs (ie diary-like blogs).
Whitaker goes on:
Apart from OCSAB’s claim to be “the official” organisation for Saudi bloggers, the talk of “ethics” raised alarm in the kingdom’s blogging community. Some suspected it might be a cyber-vigilante group, perhaps even the internet equivalent of the dreaded mutawa, or Saudi religious police.
One astonished female Saudi blogger exclaimed: “Boys, boys, boys, when will you ever learn? … You cannot regulate the Saudi blogosphere. You cannot ‘refine’ it nor ‘filter’ it or whatever else I read that you wish to do to it. Now get your filthy hands off blogging … go ahead and pour your crap out to conventional media, that’s what it’s there for, anyway.”
He sums it up thus:
No matter what rules or codes of practice Jimmy Wales, Tim O’Reilly and others try to establish, the blogosphere is always going to be an undisciplined place. But we should have faith in the people who read blogs: they are not stupid, and the more blogs they read the more they will learn to sift the treasures from the trash.
And that says it all.
The online community is vocal, but that’s OK because that’s what freedom of speech is all about.
And anyway, a kind of unspoken, voluntary Code of Conduct already exists because for the most part, members of the Net community are responsible people.
No matter how well intended, a formal Code of Conduct would be the thin end of a very nasty wedge.
JN
Also See:
Code of Conduct - Online Code of Conduct, April 10, 2007
death threats - Death Threats vs Freedom of Speech, April 12, 2007
The Guardian - Blog and be damned, April 12, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
April 13th, 2007 at 8:26 am
O’Reilly and Wales want to make an optional seal of approval thingy. In the name of free speech they are most welcome to do so, and bloggers are welcome to adopt or ignore it as they see fit.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:18 am
P2PNet is getting sued for a freedom of speech thing, right?
April 13th, 2007 at 9:54 am
I just had an email from a Canadian reporter asking, “is it still facing you?”
“It” is Kazaa boss Nikki Hemming’s libel case against me. I replied, “It is. And I’ve literally just posted this: http://p2pnet.net/story/11954.
“I’m still keen to put my case to a jury of my peers (literally : ) but there’s a backlog of longer cases, as mine is expected to be, and it won’t be heard until the end of this year, or maybe even the next, from the look of it.
“If you need to refresh your memory on the details, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5230776.stm”
Cheers!
April 13th, 2007 at 11:55 am
How sad. Now I need to reevaluate my committment to the excellent O’Reilly Books series I love. This on the heels of “owning” the “Web 2.0″ term as a trademark??? Come on Tim, you’re losing it in your zeal for riches..