...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

The Jewstablishment’s war on Cyber-hate: One of the bees in the Jewstablishment’s bonnet is controlling hate on the World Wide Web—a well-nigh Herculean, not to mention Quixotic, task. Here’s the conclusion of a 2007 B’Nai Brith document—Hate on the Internet: Best Practices for Industry Stakeholders—that came out of the 3^rd International Symposium on Web hate held a year earlier. For those concerned that our current anti-hate industry already has way too much power, it makes for some mighty scary reading (transcribed from my hard copy; sorry, no link):

Today, the call for a code of conduct among industry stakeholders reflects a growing consensus that government regulation is by itself unable to tackle the problems of hate speech in cyberspace. Expecting ISPs to be a “thought police” who monitor and censor the communication passing through their servers is both ethically undesireable and technically impossible. Yet, at the same time, to assume that ISPs can be passive and that all be be resovled with recourse to simplistic assertions of a ‘net neutrality’ and absolute ‘free-speech’ is morally dishonest and intellectually specious. Despite their limited capacity to screen content, ISPs remain vitally important as the front-end ‘gatekeepers’ by whom the vast majority of people pass in order to go online.

One way to cut this proverbial Gordian Knot is to realize that the public good and private interest are not mutually exclusive when it comes to industry regulation; an effective code of conduct does not have to sacrifice private interest on the altar of social responsibility. For example, adopting a well-defined procedural mechanism for dealing with complaints is precisely the means to effectively regulate industry stake-holders who consistently fail to live up to their assurances, deter potential offenders, and offer customers a sign of quality-control to attract their business.

Currently, Canadian ISPs have policy guidelines designed to encourage what they term ‘aceptable use’. While in practise such a definition is largely defined negatively in relation to complaints that ISPs receive from end-users, ISP codes of conduct lack a precisely defined sanctions mechanism to ensure proper follow up (sic) such complaints.  Therefore, the real weakness in current attempts at industry self-regulation is as much procedural as it is substantive: without a complaints procedure that spells out the circumstances under which sanctions will be applied, their mere presence on codes of conduct means little more than ink on paper. Only a framework that properly instrumentailizes such potential actions will make disciplinary measures routine, predictable and effective.

But is “government regulation” coupled with industry self-regulation going to be enough to tackle the problem?  Tammy Farber, another champion of censoring hate on the ‘net, thinks not. In a paper written for the Canadian Human Rights Commission he says,

More must be done to counter this challenge. In July 2005, Canada became the first non- European county to sign the additional protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime. The treaty is intended to facilitate international cooperation in investigations and extraditions. In so doing, the Government of Canada fulfilled an important commitment, which it articulated in the March 2005 federal Action Plan Against Racism. Canadian Jewish Congress and other likeminded organizations will continue their advocacy work on behalf of communities that are targeted by hate. We will continue to build partnerships with all stakeholders on this important matter. However, Canadian Internet service providers must also take as active a role in combating hate as they have against child pornography.

While an ISP may not be legally liable for information that flows through their network (of which they may not even be aware), they should, through self-regulation, be responsive to concerns raised by their customers and other interested parties and take steps to curb the flow of hateful material into this country. The technology exists to allow ISPs to block access to foreign websites and refuse to distribute content that is illegal when hosted in Canada. This approach has already been followed in the United Kingdom, through the partnership between British Telecom, the Internet Watch Foundation and other stakeholders. In other words, ISPs must work cooperatively to stem the tide and, in so doing, become good corporate citizens.

Certainly, the implementation of such a process of self-regulation would not be simple. How would it be determined which sites should be blocked? What criteria would be employed and how would it be applied? Who would be seated at the table? From where would the funding come to develop a database of prohibited sites that could be shared amongst Canadian ISPs?

Hate on the Internet will not disappear overnight. But the intractability of the problem does not absolve us of the responsibility to engage in its resolution. The very size of the problem requires us to pursue multiple approaches for partnership with government, police services, schools, community groups and service providers. It is work that needs doing. (My empahsis)

Tammy’s solution: more investigation, more regulation, more censorship. And at the end of the day will the censors have made even a minor dent in the hate? Don’t be silly. But they’ll sure feel good about themselves and be able to give each other high fives all ‘round for trying. And, hey, isn’t that more important than a picayune matter like free speech?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:13 | link | comments (1)

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#1  18 July 2008 - 21:19

 

The CJC et al will need a King Canute.

Anonymous

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