12 Sep 12 | Americas, Digital Freedom
Brazil is close to passing the world’s first internet bill of rights. The Marco Civil da Internet aims to guarantee basic protections for internet users. In development since 2009, the civil regulatory framework was created through public consultation and has undergone many changes, eventually reaching the Brazilian Chamber this year. The bill has catapulted Brazil to a progressive position in digital policymaking, potentially serving as a model for other countries trying to balance user rights against interests of online companies and law enforcement. The crucial vote will take place in Brazil’s Congress on 19 September.
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28 Aug 12 | Digital Freedom, Uncategorized
December will see the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialised UN agency that sets standards for international telephony. The Dubai-based conference will bring together 190 nations and, while members have been meeting behind closed doors, various policy proposals have been leaked by activists on the website WCITLeaks.
There are huge decisions at stake over the future of internet governance, with the battle lines being drawn between governments that see the access to information as a matter of human rights, and others that consider the control of information to be an issue for the state.
Russia and China have been putting forward proposals to regulate certain areas of the web — citing the old axioms of crime and security, for one. These are areas which are currently unregulated due to, as Rebecca MacKinnon writes, a “lack of international consensus over what those terms actually mean or over how to balance enforcement with the protection of citizens’ rights.” Of course, this is not the first time these two nations have banged that drum against Western domination over such institutions or asserted their national sovereignty over cyberspace.Nor is it just authoritarian regimes with patchy human rights records that are citing these as justification for national control of the web. A year ago, Brazil and South Africa called for a global internet governance body to be located within the UN system.
Opponents believe such proposals encroach upon the free and open nature of the internet. If the governance of the internet were in the hands of a UN body, this trend of individual nations exerting overt censorship will be strengthened. Russia’s creation last month of a blacklist of websites that promote drugs or suicide or contain porn or “extremist” materials is just one example of a trend in which free expression is continually chilled. China, a country of 500 million internet users, also finds sophisticated ways of censoring the web (see Dinah Gardner’s thorough explainer here).
Yet the current multi-stakeholder approach is not without its problems, either (MacKinnon gives an illuminating rundown of the current governance ecosystem here). As Katitza Rodriguez of the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted at a panel this summer, “a large part of the world’s population feels excluded from international Internet policy making venues.” While this is certainly the case, this exclusion is exacerbated when restrictive internet policies are imposed on the world by a handful of governments pursuing a national agenda.
A major challenge will be diversifying the multi-stakeholder model to include more voices who are not only the most affected by but also vulnerable to repressive internet policies, as MacKinnon has highlighted.
But as actors work out which governance model suits the web — and freedom of expression — best, December’s conference, as Index trustee John Kampfner writes, marks “just the start of the battle between those who wish to keep the internet (relatively) free and those who will do everything in their power to reverse the process.” More power games lie ahead in the fight for online freedom.
Marta Cooper is an editorial researcher at Index. She tweets at @martaruco
20 Jul 12 | News and features
With the security apparatus in place for the London Olympics, due to begin next week, Katitza Rodriguez and Rebecca Bowe look at how intense surveillance can threaten privacy long after the games are over
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29 Jun 12 | Uncategorized
We are looking to recruit correspondents with excellent local contacts, expertise and language skills in Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, East Africa, India, Thailand (covering East Asia)
To widen our reach and impact both at home and abroad, in 2010 Index on Censorship launched a worldwide regional editors programme. Each year we have established new correspondents in different priority regions for freedom of expression, each one led by a regional expert with local contacts and language skills.
These part-time positions are offered on a 12-month basis, with the intention and possibility that editors will continue to contribute to Index at the end of this period.
Correspondents play an essential role in Index’s plans for website expansion. Their role is to contribute original copy to the Index website on freedom of expression in their country and some of the other countries in the region. This will support Index’s website – which is currently undergoing a redesign – in becoming one of the foremost portals for discussing free speech around the world, to develop original content and new audiences, break news, publish insightful analysis, interviews and opinion, and share ideas through social media. Editors may also be asked to contribute to Index’s quarterly award-winning magazine, suggest contributors and help to research / commission pieces.
As well as writing for the site we want correspondents to help connect us to a wider group of contributors and bloggers – advising us on emerging artists, musicians, free speech advocates, lawyers and writers directly engaging with censorship and other challenging political issues. Index correspondents will also communicate with Index colleagues based in London giving short updates on the wider political context and developments within which freedom of expression challenges sit.
Index correspondents must have excellent writing skills and proven writing experience and be able to contribute blogposts and longer articles to Index’s website both at short notice, for breaking news, and through planned features and interviews. They will also be expected to submit original ideas for articles and features. Ideally correspondents should have multimedia skills and the ability to submit video / audio interviews for our site. Correspondents should also be adept at using social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc)
Applicants should also have proven expertise in writing about and/or commenting on freedom expression.
The experts will coordinate closely with Index’s web team, and also where relevant our advocacy team, under the direction of online editor Emily Butselaar.
Index correspondents will situate their writing and other work for Index mostly within our five overarching themes: free expression in the digital world; religion and culture; totalitarian and authoritarian regimes; the use of national security, public order and defamation as excuses for censorship in democracies; and access to free expression (eg issues of illiteracy or discrimination as they impact directly on free expression). They will work to a discrete programme of activities in each region, to enhance and extend Index on Censorship’s publishing activities, advocacy initiatives and arts programming, including a special focus on free expression in the world of literature.
In-country correspondents will also be expected to cover wider issues in the region in which they are based – for instance our Turkey correspondent will also need to look at issues in Iran and Syria.
If you are interested in applying for one of these positions please write to Emily Butselaar via jobs[at]indexoncensorship.org
