12 Aug 13 | Digital Freedom, India, News and features
The New Delhi High Court has given Facebook and Google one month to submit suggestions on how minors can be protected online in India.
This move is in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by KN Govinacharya, a senior member of the right wing political party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The PIL seeks to protect citizens of India from cyber crimes, which according to the government, has cost the exchequer $4 billion last year. Some of the highlights include the PIL pointing out that despite guidelines given by the government for companies to follow the KYC normal (“know your customer”), social networking companies do not follow them. The PIL believes that Facebook is not verifying its users, and instead allowing minors to set up accounts because it uses them for marketing, advertising, and data mining purposes.
Under Indian law, children under 13 are incompetent to enter into any legal contract, yet it states that Facebook allows children to sign into its website unverified because it seeks to make revenue from them through online gaming – and this is a direct reference to a contract between Facebook and Zynga to provide gaming applications to kids that accounts for 12.5% of Facebook revenue. The PIL stipulates that through incessant data mining through the unauthorized use of emails, photographs, passwords, chats, and so on, Facebook is infringing on the right to privacy of the Indian subscriber.
The bench of the Delhi High Court took the PIL seriously in light of the allegation that minors are entering into social media networking sites and are then being lured into illegal activities, either knowingly or unknowingly. According to reports the court’s direction came after counsel for Facebook 
submitted that the site operated under the US law Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as per which a child below 13 is not allowed to open an account. The Court expressed unhappiness that there is no mechanism that currently exists to verify the age of a child online, and that while children were protected in the US, what of the children in India.
Facebook filed a counter-affidavit to the PIL and argued that limiting social media can limit an individual’s freedom of speech and expression. Drawing on the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution that internet is a human right, Facebook has argued that the “internet is increasingly becoming a platform for citizens including minors to interact and voice their opinions and, therefore, a meaningful interpretation of the right to freedom of speech and expression would include the freedom to access social media.”
However, cyber lawyer Pavan Duggal points out that despite the freedom of expression argument, “the issue still remains that a minor doesn’t have the capacity to act under the Contract Act.” Others have pointed out that users enter into agreements with Facebook and social networking sites, not contracts. Further, law professor Saurav Datta feels that the PIL’s suggestion that all users be verified itself impinges on their privacy, and that it, “the goal of the PIL is wrong. We need to protect children, not keep people out.”
Moving ahead, it remains to be seen what social networking sites can suggest for protecting minors online. At the same time, it seems educating minors about the dangers of the internet is a good way forward as well. Facebook has joined the Internet and Mobile Association of India to bring an Internet Safety Education programme for children between the ages of 13-17. Even though this was not designed as a response to the PIL, it certainly seems a step in the right direction, regardless of the Court’s decision.
30 Apr 13 | Digital Freedom
Washington DC was awash this weekend with some of the biggest names in journalism, technology, civil society and government — and not just for the star-studded White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
On Friday, Google hosted its first Big Tent event in DC with co-sponsor Bloomberg to discuss the future of free speech in the digital age.
Each panel was guided by hypothetical scenarios that mirrored real current events and raised interesting free speech questions around offence, takedown requests, self-censorship, government leaks, national security and surveillance. The audience anonymously voted on the decision they would have made in each case, but as Bill Keller, former executive editor at the New York Times, acknowledged, “real life is not a multiple choice question”. Complex decisions are seldom made with a single course of action when national security, privacy and freedom of expression are all at stake.
The first panel explored how and when news organisations and web companies decide to limit free speech online. Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond said that governments “go for choke points on the internet” when looking to restrict access to particular content, meaning major search engines and social media sites are often their first targets regardless of where the offending content is hosted online. Drummond said that Google is partially blocked in 30 of the 150 countries in which it operates and cited an OpenNet Initiative statistic that at least 42 countries currently filter online content. Much of this panel focused on last year’s Innocence of Muslims video, which 20 countries approached Google to review or remove. Drummond questioned whether democracies like the US, which asked Google to review the video, are doing enough to support free expression abroad.
Mark Whitaker, a former journalist and executive at CNN and NBC, said staff safety in hostile environments is more important in deciding whether to kill a story than “abstract issues” like free speech. Security considerations are important, but characterising freedom of expression as “abstract” and endorsing self-censorship in its place can set a worrying precedent. Bill Keller argued that publishing controversial stories in difficult circumstances can bring more credibility to a newsroom, but can also lead to its exile. Both the New York Times and Bloomberg were banned in China last summer for publishing stories about the financial assets of the country’s premier. This reality means that news organisation and web companies often weigh public interest and basic freedom of expression against market concerns. Whitaker acknowledged that the increased consolidation of media ownership in many countries means financial considerations are being given even greater weight.
The second panel debated free speech and security, with Susan Benesch of the Dangerous Speech Project standing up for free speech, former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales coming down hard on the side of security, and current Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute backing up Gonzales while recognising the vital role free speech plays in a functioning society.
In the first scenario posed to this panel, audience members were split on whether mobile networks should be shut down when a clear and imminent threat, such as the remote detonation of a bomb, arises. Lute said, “the first instinct should not be to shut down everything, that’s part of how we’ll find out what’s going on,” whereas Benesch focused on the civil liberties rather than surveillance implications of crippling communications networks.
In cases of extremism, which the panel agreed is often more easily and quickly spread via digital communications, Benesch endorsed counter speech above speech restrictions as the best way to defend against hate and violence. 94 percent of the audience agreed that social media should not be restricted in a scenario about how authorities should react when groups use social media to organise protests that might turn violent.
Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt closed the event by highlighting what he considers to be key threats and opportunities for digital expression. Schmidt believes that the world’s five billion feature phones will soon be replaced with smartphones, opening new spaces for dissent and allowing us “to hear the voices of citizens like never before”. Whether he thinks this dissent will outweigh the government repression that’s likely to follow is unclear.
Big Tent will make its way back to London next month where Google hosted the first event of its kind two years ago. The theme will focus on “innovation in the next ten years” with Ed Milliband, Eric Schmidt and journalist Heather Brooke as featured speakers.
Google is an Index on Censorship funder.
03 Apr 13 | Brazil, Digital Freedom
Brazil has been caught up in a fresh controversy over attempts to curb online criticism of politicians. This time, the main players are tech giant Google and the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house in the country’s congress. Brazil is already one of the world’s leaders in online content removal.
In early March, the Chamber of Deputies’ Attorney General, Cláudio Cajado, contacted Google in order to request the removal of online videos and content hosted by the company, for being offensive to deputies.
Cajado, a Democratas Party representative from the state of Bahia, denies that his requests were attempts to restrict freedom of expression, and claimed that he only wanted to speed up the processes that, when left to the Justice, could take months — or even years to be solved.
According to Cajado’s office, Google has responded to his requests by being very “thoughtful” in explaining its policies on content removal.
The Attorney General’s office says it receives an average of two complaints per month by the deputies, mainly because of videos uploaded on YouTube, or posts published on its Blogger platform.
The Chamber of Deputies’ Attorney General is responsible for defending the deputies’ honour and the House’s image.
“We seek a partnership [with Google] to set up actions and attitudes, without creating any kind of erosion [of the House’s image] or harsh consequences”, said Cajado to the Chamber of Deputies’ website.
He cited the case of federal deputy and former Rio de Janeiro governor and presidential candidate Anthony Garotinho, who filed a lawsuit against Google demanding the removal of 11 YouTube videos during the 2010 electoral campaign.
“We have to count on Google executives’ good will and on their comprehension over the importance of measures like this to our country’s life and our democracy,” said Cajado.
As he took office as the Chamber’s Attorney General in early March, Cajado also said he planned to ensure that deputies had enough media time to reply to criticism, and plans to do the same online.
All complaints brought by deputies to the Attorney General are analysed by his office’s legal team, to ensure that cases that can lead to actual lawsuits are taken forward.
The most common cases of online attacks brought to the Attorney General’s office are related to slander and — more seriously — crimes against honour, which is a punishable offence according to Brazil’s law.
When it comes to the Brazilian judiciary, rulings about the internet can be very diverse and — sometimes — illogical.
In September 2012, a judge from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul ordered the arrest of Fabio Coelho, Google’s top executive in Brazil, after videos deemed offensive to a mayoral candidate were uploaded to YouTube. When the posts were not immediately deleted, Brazil’s federal police temporarily detained Coelho.
While the Superior Court of Justice has already ruled that internet providers are not obliged to pay reparations to users because of offensive content, the Supreme Court is about to judge if internet companies should supervise information that is published.
This is related to an appeal by Google after the State Justice of Minas Gerais, Brazil’s second most populous state, ordered the company to pay BRL 10,000 (around USD $5,000) to an offended user, and to remove content from Orkut, Google’s social network.
The Attorney General’s new initiative has already worried a few of his fellow deputies.
“The Parliament’s best defence is a transparent behaviour, one that seeks the public interest. And anyone that feels injured or vilified can always go to the Justice and seek reparation. I believe the Attorney General should have other priorities.” says Chico Alencar, a Rio de Janeiro representative for the Socialism and Freedom Party, PSOL.
Alencar also fears that these actions taken along with Google could worsen politicians already tarnished public image.
“Public opinion would consider this as censorship and a privilege for people that already have many other privileges. We should learn how to reply to websites by creating another websites and, if that’s the case, asking those who offend us for the right to reply. That would be enough.”
Editor’s note: Google is a funder of Index on Censorship
