Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report (Second edition; fully revised and updated)

No sooner was the Internet upon us than anxiety arose over the ease of accessing pornography and other controversial content. In response, entrepreneurs soon developed filtering products. By the end of the decade, a new industry had emerged to create and market Internet filters....Yet filters were highly imprecise from the beginning. The sheer size of the Internet meant that identifying potentially offensive content had to be done mechanically, by matching "key" words and phrases; hence, the blocking of Web sites for "Middlesex County," or words such as "magna cum laude". Internet filters are crude and error-prone because they categorize expression without regard to its context, meaning, and value. Yet these sweeping censorship tools are now widely used in companies, homes, schools, and libraries. Internet filters remain a pressing public policy issue to all those concerned about free expression, education, culture, and democracy. This fully revised and updated report surveys tests and studies of Internet filtering products from the mid-1990s through 2006. It provides an essential resource for the ongoing debate

Myspace, Yourspace, But Not Theirspace: The Constitutionality of Banning Sex Offenders From Social Networking Sites

In recent years there has been intense public pressure to enact increasingly restrictive and intrusive sex offender laws. The regulation of sex offenders has now moved online, where a growing amount of protected expression and activity occurs. The latest trend in sex offender policy has been the passage of state laws prohibiting sex offenders from visiting social networking sites, such as Myspace or Facebook. The use of these websites implicates the First Amendment right of expressive association. Broad social-networking-site bans threaten the First Amendment expressive association rights of sex offenders, who do not lose all of their constitutional rights by virtue of their conviction. Although social-networking-site bans are politically attractive on the surface, such prohibitions are fundamentally flawed because they are predicated on a number of widespread misconceptions about sex offenses and sex offender behavior. These misconceptions include the beliefs that all registered sex offenders are violent sexual predators who have extremely high recidivism rates and that Internet predators are increasing the incidence of sex crimes against minors. In fact, there is very little evidence to indicate that this type of legislation will help reduce sexual violence. This Note argues for empirically based and narrowly tailored sex offender policies that will strike the appropriate balance between protecting minors from sexual abuse and respecting sex offenders\u27 constitutional rights. Such an approach is more likely to help rehabilitate offenders and thus protect children and others from sexual predators

Myspace, Yourspace, But Not Theirspace: The Constitutionality of Banning Sex Offenders From Social Networking Sites

In recent years there has been intense public pressure to enact increasingly restrictive and intrusive sex offender laws. The regulation of sex offenders has now moved online, where a growing amount of protected expression and activity occurs. The latest trend in sex offender policy has been the passage of state laws prohibiting sex offenders from visiting social networking sites, such as Myspace or Facebook. The use of these websites implicates the First Amendment right of expressive association. Broad social-networking-site bans threaten the First Amendment expressive association rights of sex offenders, who do not lose all of their constitutional rights by virtue of their conviction. Although social-networking-site bans are politically attractive on the surface, such prohibitions are fundamentally flawed because they are predicated on a number of widespread misconceptions about sex offenses and sex offender behavior. These misconceptions include the beliefs that all registered sex offenders are violent sexual predators who have extremely high recidivism rates and that Internet predators are increasing the incidence of sex crimes against minors. In fact, there is very little evidence to indicate that this type of legislation will help reduce sexual violence. This Note argues for empirically based and narrowly tailored sex offender policies that will strike the appropriate balance between protecting minors from sexual abuse and respecting sex offenders\u27 constitutional rights. Such an approach is more likely to help rehabilitate offenders and thus protect children and others from sexual predators

Fostering Freedom Online: The Role of Internet Intermediaries

“Fostering Freedom Online: the Role of Internet Intermediaries” is the title of a new title in the UNESCO Internet freedom series. With the rise of Internet intermediaries that play a mediating role on the internet between authors of content and audiences, UNESCO took a joint initiative, with the Open Society Foundations, the Internet Society, and Center for Global Communication Studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, to examine this recent historical phenomenon and how it impacts on freedom of expression and associated fundamental rights such as privacy. The case study research, collaboratively delivered by 16 international researchers led by Ms Rebecca MacKinnon and Mr Allon Bar, as well as 14 members of International Advisory Committee, covers of three categories of intermediaries: Internet Service Providers (fixed line and mobile) such as Vodafone (UK, Germany, Egypt), Vivo/Telefônica Brasil (Brazil), Bharti Airtel (India, Kenya), Safaricom (Kenya), Search Engines such as Google (USA, EU, India, China, Russia), Baidu (China), Yandex (Russia) and Social Networking Platforms such as Facebook (USA, Germany, India, Brazil, Egypt), Twitter (USA, Kenya), Weibo (China), iWiW (Hungary). The research showed that internet intermediaries are heavily influenced by the legal and policy environments of states, but they do have leeway over many areas of policy and practice affecting online expression and privacy. The findings also highlighted the challenge where many state policies, laws, and regulations are – to varying degrees – poorly aligned with the duty to promote and protect intermediaries’ respect for freedom of expression. It is a resource which enables the assessment of Internet intermediaries’ decisions on freedom of expression, by ensuring that any limitations are consistent with international standards

The Internet vs. the Nation-State: Prevention and Prosecution Challenges on the Internet in Republic of TürkiyI

Social, economic, and technological developments are widely accepted as powerful forces that affect the role, power, and functions of nation-states. Being one of the most influential technological developments in the recent decades, the internet has come into prominence in this regard. With the use of the Internet, the monopoly of media and information controlled by official ideologies, capitalist barons, or elites is seriously challenged. Consequently the power balance between individuals and authorities in the mass media and communication has been transformed in a significant way. Though their reliability may sometimes be questionable, the number and type of information resources has increased dramatically, and accessing information has become easier substantially. People are more interconnected today than ever before. They can easily find, join, or construct their personal, social or political networks. With a number of internet applications and social media, collective reactions, social movements and activities are more organized and effective today than ever before. That is why we have seen so much social fluctuation, unrest. protest, and political activism all over the world in the last few years. Moreover new terms and phenomena like cyber-crime, cyber warfare, and cyber-attacks have urged nation-states to be more careful about the internet and increase their efforts to control it. This level of social chaos in different states and increasing cyber-crimes lead us to question the effectiveness of nation-states\u27 controlling measures. Focusing on one state, the Republic of Türkiye, this study analyzes two important dimensions of state control efforts, prevention and prosecution. On the prevention side, I explore the effectiveness of internet access blocking. On the prosecution side, I analyze the effectiveness of prosecution in internet child pornography. The result of testing to measure the effectiveness of Internet website blocking reveals that there are significant gaps, complications, and dilemmas in these policies. A similar situation is also seen in the investigations of internet child pornography. Analysis conducted of the operational investigation files reveals that in most of the files, suspects could not be identified, traced or brought before judicial authorities. As seen in these two fields, state policing efforts of the Internet in a country are not absolute, and the Internet can be a vulnerable space in which any local or foreign actor or agents like criminals, opposition groups, terrorists can create problems for nation-states

Comparative Perspectives of Adult Content Filtering: Legal Challenges and Implications

The internet is virtually ubiquitous and is becoming more accessible to young people all over the world. Along with the many benefits it brings, the internet poses serious risks to the human rights of its most vulnerable users, viz. children. The United Kingdom, Poland and the U.S. State of Utah have already started to mitigate this risk through a variety of regulatory mechanisms. A priori, both self-regulation and hard law can satisfy international requirements on freedom of services and freedom of expression, but each requires careful scrutiny. Neither self-regulation nor soft law appear to be sufficient. It would seem, therefore, that public legal instruments are required. These measures come with a requirement of greater transparency and often allow for the possibility of challenging individual decisions or abstract regulations before the courts