New technology demands new tactics from free speech campaigners
In the second edition of The Road Ahead (the first edition of his book famously ignores the internet almost completely), Bill Gates predicted that the interactive world would change human culture as dramatically as Johannes Gutenberg's press had done in the Middle Ages. The comparison has been drawn ever since - though it is usually made with little thought. The spread of printed materials led to secularism, individualism, rationalism. These are all good things, so the logic usually goes, so we can expect good things from the information superhighway, too.
But, as Ithiel de Sola Pool wrote in his 1983 work Technologies of Freedom, "Repression is in fact most likely not before a technology of liberation comes along, but only afterward, when the powers that be are challenged by the beginnings of change." And so, if you look a little closer, you will see that today's norms of free expression were established during the intellectual and political struggle for the freedom of Gutenberg's printing press. This is a struggle that lasted for centuries: modern ideas of "prior restraint", for example, date from Areopagitica, John Milton's 1644 polemic protesting to parliament about censorship laws.
Should those who battle for rights to freedom of expression in the offline world be worried? Perhaps. As networked communications develop, they are likely to spur similar attempts at repression, and could even lead to the regression of free-expression norms. Moreover, thanks to the complexity of the networked environment, and the variety of bodies - corporate and institutional - which hold sway over it, fighting repression is going to be that much harder.
Beyond the legal instruments that govern information itself - intellectual property law, privacy, libel - there are many other laws and markets involved in the networked communications environment. This is because the web relies upon so many layers of technology in order to function: computers and mobile phones; the software that runs on them; the wires and other network infrastructure that link them; and the information retrieval systems, such as Google, that run over these networks.
That's a lot of fronts for freedom fighters to fight on. Yet, even though one can identify struggles on each front, most of the groups fighting them - be they MIT with the $100 laptop or the advocates of open-source software - are technologists, not conventional freedom-of-speech advocates. Indeed, it is only when we get to the top layer, which governs search and retrieval, that we see the likes of Amnesty get involved, as with its Irrepressible.info campaign of last year.
But a benevolent Google is no good when you've got censorious forces running your network and laptop. Repression will occur at the point of least resistance. Traditionalist campaigners need to roll up their sleeves and dig in to the technology.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
