The document discusses the ongoing debate around regulation and censorship of the internet. It explores both the cyberlibertarian perspective that favors minimal regulation and individual freedom online, as well as the cyberpaternalist view that some level of control is needed to establish order. While early thinkers believed the internet existed beyond government oversight, it is now recognized that control can be exerted through other means like laws and technology. The document outlines different approaches countries take toward censorship and how users resist and circumvent restrictions in the ongoing struggle to define free speech online.

2.  Network of networks
 Information Superhighway
 Global Village
 “Medium is the message”

3.  Power is scattered
 There is no objective account only multiple
realities
 The ambivalent character of information
technology

4. Two technological agendas led to evolution of the
internet as we know today
 Cold War networking of US military
- 1973: ARPANET
 PC Revolution
- 1978-1982: Apple and IBM revolutionise
personal computing
- Counter culture effects

5.  Issue of regulation and censorship around since
internet’s inception
 Debates around it can be categorised under two
prevailing ideologies:
- Cyberlibertarianism
- Cyberpaternalism

6. “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh
and steel, I come from
Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask
you of the past to leave us
alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty
where we gather…We are
forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise
according to the conditions of our
world, not yours. Our world is different.”
– John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of
Cyberspace (1996)

7.  Internet is above geopolitical boundaries thus
government regulations cannot apply to it
 Individuals—acting in whatever capacity they
choose (as citizens, consumers, companies, or
collectives)—should be at liberty to pursue their
own tastes and interests online.
 Only alternative system of regulation is a
grassroots approach relying on the consensus of
internet users

8.  Reidenberg’s Lex Informatica : That the
internet is an unstable environment with
changing national rules and conflicting
regulations and for users to thrive, a stable set
rules must be put into place
 Cyberpaternalist perspective

9.  Lawrence Lessig’s The Code (1999)
-Challenged the presumption that technology has created an
inherently free environment.
- Four modalities of regulation: laws, norms, market and
architecture.
 The internet is susceptible to control by other means especially
through the manipulation of the computer code i.e the
architecture of the internet.
 Nations govern telecom firms that provide access to internet
 Internet traffic passes through multiple filters – search engines,
ISPs etc.

10.  Unlike traditional censorship, information
online is usually censored after dissemination
 Filtering – Black-listing, White-listing, Content
Analysis
 Categorised under two heads :
1. Censorship by a central power directing
information flow
2. Private Censorship

11.  Local level
 Organisational level
 National level – Two main approaches:
- Heavy filtering of the internet. China, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey
- Limited no. of individuals can go online at a
time and access previously approved
information. Rest is filtered. Myanmar and
Cuba

12.  Role of ISPs
- Censorship carried out as part of a governmental
recommendation
- Requirement or the censorship is undertaken as part of the
corporate policy
- Voluntary self-regulation
 Legislative rules
- Privacy
- Defamation
- Trademark
- Copyright

13.  Use of pseudonyms and anonymous nature of
the net
 Innovative productions like “Tweetspeak” in
the case of Egypt Uprising
 Encryption
 Hacktivism
 DDoS Attacks
 Mirroring websites

14.  ‘Freedom of Speech’ has always been under
fire on the internet
 Concept of Free Speech and Information
continues to be debated both in the real and
virtual world
 Wikileaks can be seen as an extension of this
“war of perspectives”

15. Articles
 Livingstone, Sonia (2005). Critical debates in internet
studies : reflections on an emerging field [online].
London: LSE Research Online.
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/1011
 Klang, Mathias (2005) Controlling Online
Information: Censorship & Cultural Protection
 Kim,Tae (1998). "Free Speech" in Cyberspace
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/fallsem98/final_papers/Kim.h
 Heng, Michael S.H. (1998). Postmodernist Study of
the Internet ftp://zappa.ubvu.vu.nl/19980004.pdf

16. Other references
 http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Freedom-of-Online-Speech-in-a-Post-W
 http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/online_hate/hate_and_free_spe
 http://www.derechos.org/human-rights/speech/
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6090448.stm
 Cyber-Libertarianism: The Case for Real Internet Freedom [Ver 1.0 -
Thierer & Szoka]
 The battle to control the internet
http://www.economist.com/node/4492875
 Contribution of Internet to a Democratic Society
http://www.ecis2009.it/papers/ecis2009-0436.pdf
 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/291494/Internet
 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11002/1114759-96.stm
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexia-parks/wikileaks-the-first-world_b_79276