Private Power and New Media

Author(s):  
Angela Daly

The focus of this chapter will be the recent conduct of various corporations in withdrawing Internet services provided to information portal WikiLeaks in light of the controversy surrounding WikiLeaks’ publishing classified documents of correspondence between the US State Department and its diplomatic missions around the world in late 2010. The implications for freedom of expression (especially the right to access information) on the Internet will be examined in the wake of WikiLeaks, particularly in the context of the infringer being a private actor, and one comprising a mono- or oligopoly. The motivation of these private actors in contributing to the suppression of WikiLeaks will be assessed to examine whether it constitutes an example of Birnhack and Elkin-Koren’s “invisible handshake,” i.e. the “emerging collaboration” between the state and multinational corporations on the Internet that they posit is producing “the ultimate threat.” The legal recourse open to WikiLeaks and its users for the infringement of fundamental rights will be examined, especially the First Amendment to the US Constitution since the geographic location for these events has mostly been the USA. Finally, the postscript to the WikiLeaks controversy will be considered: the “information warfare” conducted by hackers will be examined to determine whether the exercise of power of these Internet corporations in a way which infringes fundamental rights can be checked by technological means, and whether hackers are indeed the true electronic defenders of freedom of expression.

Author(s):  
Alessandro Morelli ◽  
Oreste Pollicino

Abstract How do legal imagination, metaphors, and the “judicial frame” impact the degree of protection for free expression when the relevant (technological) playground is the world of bits? This Article analyzes the so-called judicial frame, focusing on legal disputes relating to freedom of expression on the Internet. The authors compare the European Court of Human Rights and the U.S. Supreme Court case law from a methodological perspective. The Article shows how the adoption by supreme courts of an internal or external point of view in relation to the Internet affects not only the use of different metaphors to describe the digital world, but also the balance struck between the fundamental rights at stake.


Author(s):  
Eli Rohn ◽  
Connie M. White ◽  
Guy Leshem

Socio-technical forecasts that materialized are of particular interest, as they are based on basic principles that must hold true for a long time, and thus worthy of special attention. The exploitation of the Internet as a vehicle for psychological and physical battle has been anticipated ever since the Internet became a world-wide phenomenon. Its potential for abuse by terrorist groups motivated Valeri & Knights to compile a list of key predictions, without the benefit of the hindsight afforded by the post-millennial terrorist attacks on the USA & Europe, and before social media was conceived. This paper evaluates some of their predictions in light of the massive social media and network attacks that occurred in Israel and Syria. Additionally, the paper examines how attacked governments and nations respond. The authors find that some of the key predictions advanced by Valeri and Knights have proven accurate. Offensive information warfare attacks have and will continue to influence policies, budgets and civic voluntary participation to counter such attacks.


2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoît Frydman ◽  
Isabelle Rorive

SummaryThis paper emphasises the key role played by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the current developments in Internet content regulation. At present, no common international standards govern free speech limits on the Internet. Racist speech constitutes the most controversial issue between Europe and the US. The enforcement of domestic law online has recently led to surprising court rulings in several European countries, putting transatlantic ISPs under pressure. The paper provides a detailed account of three of these cases: the early German Compuserve case, the famous French Yahoo! case and most recently the French J’accuse! case. Both European and American legislators have endeavoured to provide ISPs with “safe havens” (limitations of liability) and tentative procedural solutions like “notice and take down”. These new regimes and their likely effects on ISPs are presented and discussed. It is suggested that, despite the lack of common standards, the combination of the American and the European provisions would strongly incite transatlantic ISPs to take down racist material This, however, also risks affecting other controversial data, otherwise subject to free speech protection. The danger of a massive scheme for private censorship is compelling.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-136
Author(s):  
Nina J. Crimm ◽  
Nina J. Crimm ◽  
Laurence H. Winer

To ensure their legitimacy, western liberal democracies depend on the fullest protection for freedom of political and electoral speech. Governments should not interfere with or chill these fundamental rights of democratic participation without sufficiently compelling reasons to do so. In the US, however, despite the majestic protections of the First Amendment, anomalously there remains a large class of nonprofit entities that are statutorily precluded from this type of crucial political involvement, and this exceptional restriction on speech is incongruously based in the federal tax code. In particular, spiritual leaders who feel theologically compelled to speak out on critical moral and political issues of the day risk the tax-exempt status of their houses of worship if they cross an amorphous line into explicit or implicit political campaign speech. Both freedom of expression and religious freedom are at stake, and the tax system is a particularly inapt and inept mechanism for restricting speech and influencing the political activity of houses of worship.


2017 ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
ANDRA IFTIMIEI

The Internet is today the main source of information for the individual. Taking such a large scale, the question arises whether Internet access should not be a fundamental right. There is, undoubtedly, an evolution of the catalog of fundamental rights and freedoms, but we are proposing to debate the issue of classifying access to the Internet as fundamental rights. A first step in this direction has been made by the United Nations, through the resolution that states should refrain from restricting free access to the Internet. At the same time, access to the Internet is considered an integral part of freedom of expression. Thus, in this article we will identify incidental legislation and aspects of constitutional jurisprudence and the European Court of Human Rights. Also, the central body of the article focuses on the punctual analysis of the fundamental rights features, and in conclusion we will conclude if Internet access is at the moment or not a fundamental right.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (100) ◽  
pp. 701
Author(s):  
Daniel Capodiferro Cubero

Resumen:El objetivo de este trabajo es confrontar la caracterización constitucional y jurisprudencial de la libertad de información con la realidad de su ejercicio a través de Internet, donde no es posible aplicar directamente las soluciones que el Ordenamiento ha ido construyendo para la comunicación por medios analógicos, ya que ésta se basa en la intervención preponderante de los medios de comunicación como canalizadores de la información y moduladores de la opinión pública, otorgando una mínima capacidad de intervención al ciudadano,que esencialmente venía ocupando una posición pasiva. Las nuevas tecnologías de la información han acabado con el monopolio de estos medios, permitiendo a cualquier no profesional convertirse en sujeto activo y participativo de un proceso que ya no es unidireccional, sino que se articula a través de una Red donde todos los intervinientes son receptores y creadores de contenidos, lo cual plantea nuevos retos desde el punto de vista jurídico que son particularmente difíciles de abordar. La regulación de la comunicación, diseñada para un contextoconcreto, se enfrente ahora a una situación donde los mecanismos de control que permiten proteger los derechos de terceros frente a injerencias excesivas o el propio sistema democrático ya no resultan efectivos teniendo en cuenta que más que un proceso social, la comunicación en el entorno digital se plantea en clave individual. La premisa de la información de origen periodístico que se presentaba a través de un medio, que permitía considerar a las libertades comunicativas como una garantía institucional del sistema y les otorgaba una protección reforzada, ya no se cumple, de manera que es necesario cuestionarse si el alcance de la libertad de información de los individuos debe ser equiparable al de los profesionales o hasta qué punto estos pueden seguir gozando de un papel especial en la sociedad digital. En la Red, la vinculación con un medio ha dejado de ser un requisito previo para poder informar de manera efectiva. Basta con gozar de acceso a determinada tecnología para poder hacerlo, lo que lleva a tener que preguntarse en primer lugar hasta qué punto el poder público debe garantizar a los particulares tal posibilidad. En cuanto a la protección de la libertad de información en Internet, quizá convendría focalizar la atención en la formación del sujeto como periodista para identificar a quienes poseen un determinado conocimiento de la técnica y la deontología y, por tanto, están en condiciones de actuar de manera que su aportación no incurra en excesos y contribuya verdaderamente al debate público en términos constructivos. Del mismo modo, conceptos como la veracidad de la información, que además puede tener una nueva aplicación en relación a la publicidad, o la prohibición de censura deben repensarse para poder ser aplicados al entorno digital, pues en ningún caso parece conveniente prescindir de su vigencia. Summary:1. Introduction. 2. The decontextualization of the freedom of expression and information constitutional regulation in the digital environment. 3. Differences between the citizens’ freedom of information and the journalistic activity. 4. The particularities of exercising the freedom of information in the internet. 4.1 The previous constraints for the full exercise of the right. 4.2 The adaptation of the veracity criterion to the Internet reality. 4.3 The possible control of information contents. 5. The commercial communications as a manifestation of the freedom of information in the internet. 6. Conclusions. 7. Bibliography.Abstract:The aim of this paper is to compare the constitutional and jurisprudential characterization of the freedom of information with the reality of its exercise in the Internet, where the classic legal solutions cannot be implemented directly because they are designed for an analogical communication developed by media, which used to work as the only channels of information and modulators of public opinion, putting citizens in a passive position with a minimum capacity to act. The new information technologies have broken the media monopoly, allowing anyone to become an active and participatory subject of a process that is no longer unidirectional, but articulated through a network where all the participants are receivers and creators of content, which poses new legal challenges that are particularly difficult to address. The communication regulations, designed for a specific context, is now facing a reality where its mechanisms of control, intended to protect fundamental rights against excessive interferences and the democratic system itself, are no longer effective considering that now communication is an individual process more than a social one. The premise of the journalistic information presented through a media that substantiated the privileged position of communicative freedoms as institutional guarantees with a reinforced protection is no longer fulfilled, so key questions now are whether the scope of individual freedom of information should be comparable to the professionals’ oneor what role should play journalists in the digital society. Subjects no longer need mass media for effective reporting. They simply have to get access to a specific technology to do so, which opens a new debate: if the public powers should guarantee the access to it and how. With regard to the protection of freedom of information in the Internet, it may be useful to focus attention on the training of the subject as a journalist to identify who possess certain knowledge of the technique and deontology and, therefore, is able to act in a responsible manner contributing to public debate in constructive terms. Likewise, concepts such as the veracity of information, which may also have a new application in relation to advertising, or the prohibition of prior censorship must be reconsidered to their implementation in the digital environment, since it does not seem appropriate to renounce them in digital communications.


Author(s):  
Eli Rohn ◽  
Connie M. White ◽  
Guy Leshem

Socio-technical forecasts that materialized are of particular interest, as they are based on basic principles that must hold true for a long time, and thus worthy of special attention. The exploitation of the Internet as a vehicle for psychological and physical battle has been anticipated ever since the Internet became a world-wide phenomenon. Its potential for abuse by terrorist groups motivated Valeri & Knights to compile a list of key predictions, without the benefit of the hindsight afforded by the post-millennial terrorist attacks on the USA & Europe, and before social media was conceived. This paper evaluates some of their predictions in light of the massive social media and network attacks that occurred in Israel and Syria. Additionally, the paper examines how attacked governments and nations respond. The authors find that some of the key predictions advanced by Valeri and Knights have proven accurate. Offensive information warfare attacks have and will continue to influence policies, budgets and civic voluntary participation to counter such attacks.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor M Gonzalez ◽  
Luis A Castro-Quiroa

Migration has gained considerable attention in the past few years all over the world. The migratory phenomenon has already affected many countries and is likely to deeply reshape forever their societies and regulations. Of particular interest is the migratory flow from Mexico to the USA, which is identified as one of the most important labor related worldwide. It has been found that migration can potentially have a major impact on individuals leaving home as they can experience nostalgic feelings. As a result of physical distance, family members look for closeness to prevail by maintaining in permanent communication. This paper offers an analysis of web sites from Mexican diasporic communities living in the US, aiming to reveal the level of presence of those communities on the Internet as well as to characterize the support they provide for living-away members of the communities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Samhita Korukonda ◽  
Hiranmayi Pantula

This article aims to statistically analyze misinformation regarding dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) on the internet and discuss common trends amongst falsities. The internet is the most common source of medical information and is largely used by the general public to seek information about a condition/treatment. Dementia is one of the most searched conditions across online platforms. AD is the most common cause of dementia in the US and accounts for 75% of dementia cases. As the prevalence of AD increases, more patients turn to the media to seek information about its implications and treatments. With the increasingly important role that media plays in the field of medicine, families need to be aware of potential sources of misinformation. This paper analyzes one hundred total sources, then categorizes each source into one of three groups (with varying degrees of falsities): misleading, partially misleading, and reliable. The sources were collected using the keywords “Alzheimer’s disease” and included 50 videos from YouTube and 25 recommended sources from Google and Firefox respectively (Google and Firefox are some of the most used web browsers in the USA). Subsequently, a misinformed source was thematically classified based on the type of misinformation found. To verify results, all sources were reviewed by a senior geropsychiatric consultant from London, who specializes in dementia care/treatment. [Further elaborated in ‘methods’ section]   The results indicate that there is systematic misinformation on the internet. It highlights the importance of patient awareness towards this issue. On this basis, it should be recommended that provider’s offices alert their patients of this problem.


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