Humanism, atheism and other freedoms

Spotted this today in the right-hand panel of Facebook (which I normally ignore). I’m not sure why Facebook is recommending the page ‘I LOVE ALLAH’ (note the uppercase shouting). I’m even less sure why I was quite so amused by the comment ‘Many who like Facebook Security like this’.

I mean, seeing the words ‘Allah’, ‘security’ and ‘What are you planning?’ in close proximity should be sinister, no? Oh well, maybe it’s just me.

A comment by Virgin Media’s new boss that net neutrality is “bollocks” could have repercussions for the company. Let’s hope so.

Virgin’s CEO Neil Berkett is far from unusual, aside from the stupidity he displayed in being so blunt about his attitude to the Net. Businessmen do not view the Internet as a public good: to them, it is simply a way of making money. And they will seize every opportunity they find for exploiting the Net, and their customers. That’s business.

The suggestion, by Berkett, that Virgin will charge major content suppliers for faster access to its customers means that the company gets two bites at the cherry. It would be charging customers for access to the Internet, and then charging suppliers on the Internet for access to customers. It is like a car dealership charging GM or Ford for selling its cars to members of the public.

It is also a form of extortion. What Virgin (and other companies considering this approach) are saying is, “cough up or no-one will get to see your site”.

No doubt Virgin will argue that it isn’t banning sites or preventing its subscribers from reaching them. But these are typical corporate weasel words. The fact is, if some sites are so slow to load that people give up, then that is de facto censorship. It is censorship not for political or moral motives, but for pure commercial gain.

This puts Virgin in the position of deciding what you get to see. That’s bad enough. Worse, not even Virgin will decide this: the selection will be made by market forces. And experience shows that this will lead to the prioritising of the crass, the populist, the lowest common denominator. In terms of quality, the Internet will go the same way as TV. Down.

Infomatics quoted Cory Doctorow, internet activist and journalist as saying:

“As a Virgin customer, I am not paying to see those services that bribe Virgin to reach me. I am paying to reach the entire web, whichever bits I think are useful, as quickly as Virgin can deliver them.”

Doctorow says any move in this direction would be a breach of his contract with Virgin, leaving him free to ditch the company as his ISP and look elsewhere. Hopefully, others will join him.

The storm brewed up by activists like Stop Virgin is already having an effect. Virgin has issued statements trying to water down Berkett’s words without actually changing the company’s position – in other words, they’ve been indulging in the usual corporate PR bullshit in an attempt to avoid bad publicity while carrying on with their original plan.

ISPs are a kind of choke point between the general public and the Net. That’s why governments target them when they want to impose filters or implement spying programmes. Maybe it’s time for an official investigation into the power of ISPs to control what we see and what we can do on the Internet. They are in a privileged position. It’s time we had ways of preventing abuses of that privilege.

In the meantime, maybe Virgin Media should consider whether Berkett really is suited to this job.

The process of destroying freedom often starts with steps that seem reasonable. If you want to strip everyone of their civil liberties, start with a group everyone despises. Few groups fit this bill better than paedophiles.

There is a famous and oft-quoted text that reads:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then … they came for me … And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

The poem is generally attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), though there is some debate about both the attribution and the wording. But no matter: the sentiment is clear – it’s important we recognise dangers even when they are not targeted at ourselves.

But the poem has a weakness. It addresses our need to consider the fate of ‘others’, but it doesn’t extend that unambiguously to ‘despised others’. And this is where the erosion of our freedoms more typically starts.

The greatest resistance to an attempt to take away a freedom we cherish occurs when the law or regulation is first made. Once a rule is established, prohibiting this or regulating that, then many will see the battle as lost and will put their energies into the next fight. Little by little, freedom becomes eroded.

The trick, then, as far as the authorities are concerned, is to make the regulation seem reasonable. Phrases such as ‘for your safety’ or ‘good for society’ are often deployed whenever the result of a new law is to place limits on your freedoms.

It works even better if the restrictions affect a minority group within society that the majority despise or fear or for whom they can raise no compassion. And paedophiles are to today’s society what the Jews were to the Nazis. Who cares if paedophiles have their freedoms stripped away: they brought it on themselves, right? Surely they don’t deserve the same benefits and liberties as the rest of us.

The latest proposed restrictions in the UK would ban convicted paedophiles from social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo. The ban would be implemented by the sites themselves, based on email addresses supplied by the Government. Paedophiles would be obliged to supply details of the email accounts they use.

Presumably, this is an attempt to prevent the cyberstalking of children. There is some debate about the extent to which this happens, and whether it presents a genuine threat. But I have sympathy for the attitude that one case is one too many.

The scheme is clearly unworkable. Computer forensic experts can tell you that the most active (and potentially dangerous) paedophiles are technically adept. They would know how to use proxies, TOR, wardriving, cyber-cafes and other technologies and techniques to hide their identities. Gmail and Hotmail accounts can be created in seconds. And most social networking sites are based outside the UK’s jurisdiction.

It might also have the opposite effect to the one desired. The restrictions would affect only convicted paedophiles. Those yet to be caught could still roam Facebook. And, believing that such sites are now safer places, children might be tempted to let their guard down.

What is more sinister for all of us is that this new rule would establish a mechanism by which the authorities can designate a group that is to be denied the use of some portion of the Internet. And the actual restriction would be imposed not by government authorities but by commercial organisations – the Government gets to keep its hands clean.

How easy it would be to start extending this mechanism to other groups, other parts of the net, other areas of life. If someone notices, just blame it on ‘mission creep’. Because we feel a natural distaste for those branded as paedophiles, who will oppose this regulation? After all, ‘it’s for the children’. Once it is accepted, though, there will be little to stop its expansion to embrace us all.

It seems that Turkey doesn’t quite grasp the concept of free speech. It has again blocked access to YouTube for content it deems insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the country’s founder.

(more…)

I asked Facebook to close my account. And it seems they obeyed. But there was something about the company’s reponse that made me uneasy.

(more…)