MEDIA LAW AND MEDIA FREEDOM: ANXIETIES AND REALITIES
30.04.2010Speakers in a panel discussion at the Eurasian Media Forum expressed varying degrees of concern about attempts by different authorities to restrain both free expression and open access to the worldwide web. At the same time, there was general agreement on the need for the rule of law in cyberspace, as well as the right of individuals to seek legal redress through the courts.
Miklos Haraszti, Former OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, from Austria, said it was no longer possible for governments to regulate content on the Internet as it used to be when the media consisted only of newspapers and television.
“Any action to regulate content in such an infinite global medium as the Internet can only be arbitrary and selective, but this action can still be used to inflict fear, the fear that you, the individual, will be targeted,” he said.
Professor Carlo Alberto Carnevale Maff, Internet economist from Milan's Bocconi University, Italy, agreed that international content could not be controlled, but called for accountability within the national context.
Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Associate Professor in Law, Faculty of Law, Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey, said it was understandable that governments wanted to tackle criminals, but he deplored what he called a tendency to lower their sights and target individual users.
“We are faced with a new era of censorship in which governments are punishing users,” he said.
One example, he said, was the way in which countries such as France and New Zealand would cut off access to the Internet as a punishment for three copyright violations. “That is not right,” he said.
Dr Makram Khoury-Machool, UK-based academic, said there was a danger that the Internet was being used to impose Western cultural and social values on developing and third world countries. This was wrong.
“We cannot apply the cultural specificity of one nation over another. Every society has its own social values. We cannot come with the values of Switzerland and try to impose them in Kazakhstan or Nigeria,” he said.
Dunja Mijatovic, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, based in Austria, disagreed. “Culture and tradition is being challenged, certainly, but I see that as something positive, I do not see it as a threat.”
But she also argued in favour of the rule of law on the Internet. “We must have laws,” she said, referring to issues such as pedophilia and pornography. “What is illegal in society must be illegal on the Internet.”
The question of terrorism, however, posed a new dilemma all over the world. The danger was that governments reacted by passing laws without full discussion, using the threat as an excuse to try to control the Internet.
All these questions must be tackled by the courts, not by governments, she said.
The chair of the session, Monita Rajpal, CNN News Anchor, questioned the ability of the OSCE to do anything about government repression and restraints on free access to the Internet.
“It is simply not true that nothing is happening,” Mijatovic replied. “There are so many journalists who have been freed. Many laws have been harmonised and changed. There are many cases of web sites which were blocked and have been opened after intervention by our office.” But there was a need for much more concerted action, she conceded.
Tatyana Bendz, Chief Editor of Kazakhstan Internet portal 2b.kz, pointed out that the Internet had also become an economic and business arena, where disputes over copyright and other questions of ownership needed to be resolved. This raised the question of whether market forces alone could regulate the Internet. The law itself needed to be refined to meet the reality of the new media.
Professor Maff said it was the right of everybody to have access to political discussion: “The only regulation should be de-regulation.”
Dr Khoury-Machool warned of a danger that the Internet might actually be helping to marginalize some societies and groups who were trying to represent themselves. “We have to recognise that there is a digital divide at work here,” he said.
Questioners in the audience asked what users could do against different kinds of abuse of the Internet. Dr Akdeniz said the answer was to mount a challenge in the courts, as he had done in Turkey. “If that is not successful, take your case higher, go to the United Nations.”
Dr Maff suggested that the Eurasian Media Forum itself could become a platform for developing a new framework for the political and economic operation of the Internet. “I think the Eurasian way has a lot to recommend it,” he said.
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