Censorship Watch
By Anita Fore
Google Takes a One-Two Punch. Remember when you were a kid and somebody told you that pasta was invented in China, and Marco Polo—who you discovered was a real person, not just a swimming pool game—was the guy who first brought it to Italy? Remember a few years later, when somebody told you that pasta didn’t originate in China and Marco Polo had nothing to do with bringing it to Italy? And remember after that, when somebody told you, Not so fast, maybe Chinese pasta is the forebear of Italian pasta (even though some other people swear pasta was introduced into the Italian diet by Arab soldiers)? By then the Internet had been invented, so you could go online, scroll through the available information and decide for yourself, right?
What does that recap have to do with censorship? Well, some perplexing things have happened to Google in China recently, and another perplexing thing just happened to Google in Italy. In both cases, the free-flow of information on the Internet, the ability to jump on line and read or watch or hear whatever someone has decided to post for others to debate, is at issue. Should content on the Internet be policed? If so, who should do the policing? Users? Providers? Advertisers? Why should any of them have the right? After all, everyone thinks they have good taste and good judgment, but most people—except for you—are wrong.
What about the state? The first reaction of many Americans would be “Absolutely not.” Our Congress, however, did enact the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which shelters Internet service providers like Google and Yahoo from liability for content posted at their websites. US courts are however empowered to hold users accountable for libelous and invasive content they post at websites. What about a website that provides content? If a wedding party dance video never sees the light of day on YouTube because a provider pulls the material on account of the couple’s failure to obtain permission to use the song, would the world be a worse place? What if YouTube refused to allow the uploading of videos showing attacks against Uighurs in China, or government protests by Italian dissidents for fear of criminal prosecution? Is that better or worse, and who says?
This Happened to Google in China. In January, after years of cooperating with Chinese authorities by blocking display of results for terms like “Tiananmen Square massacre” or “Dalai Lama” on Google.cn, its Chinese subsidiary, Google announced that it would no longer censor search results in China and threatened to pack up and leave the country. By March, the company did just that. At least as far as search services are concerned. (For now, Google maintains a research and development and sale presence in China.)
Google.cn users are now redirected to Google.com .hk, a Hong Kong-based site which offers searches in simplified Chinese. Although Hong Kong is a part of China, the “one country, two systems” structure of governance means that Internet users in Hong Kong are not subject to the restrictions imposed on mainland China users. However, shortly after the shut down, one technology expert reported that some searches on hot-button topics were, in fact, blocked on Google.com .hk. In an official announcement, Google said “We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services.” The company has created a webpage summarizing service availability in mainland China that it has promised to update daily: www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl= en
When Google launched its Chinese website in 2006 and agreed to self-censor, it justified the decision with the argument that providing greater access to information in China would outweigh the harm that might be ultimately caused by the censorship. Despite criticism from free expression groups such as Reporters Without Borders, the chance to win a foothold in the vast Chinese market seemed to trump any corporate worries about bad publicity—until last December, when the company discovered that Google.cn had been attacked by cyber spies. The attacks focused on the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China, presumably with the purpose of discovering with whom and about what they were corresponding. Gmail is reportedly popular with protestors in China because the email accounts feature added encryption and its servers are hosted overseas. Many believe the hackers acted with the knowledge and probably the approval of the Chinese government, but as we went to press Google had neither confirmed this nor named any suspects. What Google has said is that the hackers achieved only very limited success, obtaining account information but not contents from the emails of two activists.
Initially Google announced plans to dismantle the Internet “firewall” that blocked controversial search results from Chinese users. The firewall was briefly opened following Google’s January announcement, then plugged again while the company considered its future in China. Google engaged in months of talks with the Chinese government, seeking to discover a way to go forward without censoring its search engine, but both sides remained silent on the details of those discussions. Li Yizhong, China’s minister of industry and information technology, ominously warned that Google’s non-compliance with the Internet filter laws would lead to dire consequences. As reported in The New York Times, Mr. Li said, “[I]f you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible and you will have to bear the consequences.”
Google’s decision to end its compliance with the free speech restrictions demanded by the Chinese government is grounded, in part, on the background of its co-founder Sergey Brin. Brin told The New York Times that his childhood experience of living under totalitarian rule in the Soviet Union until the age of six influenced the company’s ultimate decision to pack up shop in China. “[That childhood memory of censorship] has definitely shaped my views, and some of my company’s views,” Brin said.
This Happened to Google in Italy. In February, an Italian judge convicted Google’s chief privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond, and George Reyes, former chief financial officer, on criminal charges of invasion of privacy. None of the three Google executives was present in court, where a six months jail sentence was pronounced. And although the sentences were immediately suspended and the decision is subject to appeal, the judgment raises serious concerns about the free flow of information on Italian websites.
Criminal charges were brought by Italian prosecutors in 2008 when it was decided, after a two year investigation, that Google had not moved quickly enough to take down a 2006 video featuring a gang of teenagers bullying an autistic boy. The video was viewable on the Google Video website for two months, until Google was contacted by the Italian police upon receiving a complaint from a Down syndrome support group, Vivi Down. Although the video was removed within hours of the complaint, the Google executives were charged with defamation and invasion of the boy’s privacy. Under Italian law, executives may be held liable for a company’s criminal behavior. Judge Oscar Magi cleared the defamation case but convicted on the invasion of privacy charges.
The defense argued that a conviction on the invasion of privacy charges would violate an EU directive that shelters Internet service providers from liability for content posted by users, much as the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act does. The prosecution alleged that Google’s level of interaction with content means that the company should be considered a content provider, not merely a service provider, and should not be entitled to safe harbor under the EU directive.
If the judgment holds, it could mean that, in order to avoid future liability, Google would have to actively monitor content posted to all its websites in Italy, an impossible task the company’s executives argue. Google says that users upload 20 hours of video to its sites every minute. Free expression advocates also fear that the obligation to engage in more hands-on monitoring at Google’s Italian websites would lead to greater restrictions not only on video uploads but to other content, such as blog posts and forum posts as well, because of the great volume of material users display at the websites. In the interests of corporate efficiency, it could be easier for Google to simply do away with such venues than to keep a close watch over them in order to stay out of jail.
