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London, January 22, 2001
Will
Cyberspace Look Like France or
America?
By: James K. Glassman, Host, Tech Central
Station
ON Nov. 20, a French court ruled that Yahoo! — the popular
Internet portal — had to bar its French users from visiting American sites that displayed Nazi memorabilia. If not, Yahoo!
would have to pay a fine of 100,000 francs (about ,000) a day. Yahoo! is trying to get a U.S. court to rule that the French judgment is not enforceable but, meanwhile, it has acquiesced — in a complete reversal of its previous principled stand.
Previously, Yahoo! had barred sales of
Nazi memorabilia on its French language site, complying with French law, but not on its English-language U.S. site — to which French citizens, like everyone else, have access.
Obviously, selling Nazi paraphernalia is a disgusting practice. In the U.S., we allow it. In fact, with our tradition of free speech and pluralism, we allow all kinds of nasty ideas to be spoken and transmitted and sold. Europeans and Asians often have a different view. What is troubling is that the power of the state in these less enlightened parts of the world is beginning to set the tone — and the rules
— for the Internet.
The question, to put it baldly, is whether cyberspace will look like France or like the United States.
In an excellent article in its Jan. 13
issue, The Economist magazine, which prides itself on being a
“non-American” voice, sounded the alarm over growing restrictions of freedom on the Internet. It provided many troubling examples:
“In Britain, the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act now gives the
police broad access to e-mail and other
online communications. South Korea has
outlawed access to gambling websites.The United States has passed a law
requiring schools and libraries that
receive federal funds for Internet
connections to install software on
their computers to block material
harmful to the young. … China
recently published sweeping new rules
that require Internet companies to
apply for a license and hold them
responsible for illegal content carried
on their websites.”
The thorny issue with the Internet is often whether it is a common carrier, like a long-distance or local telephone company, and thus not responsible for what might be said over its lines or a medium like a television network or a magazine, which can be sued for anything spoken or written, even a letter to the editor. The answer is that the Internet is both, though even the European e-commerce directive limits the liabilities of companies that act as conduits.
But even so, the Yahoo! case and others like it raise another question: Whose laws should apply on the Net? Those of the most retrograde and restrictive countries, or of the most open? It seems to me that the
French have a perfect right to regulate
French sites — but not American sites.
But is there really a distinction?
This is not simply a legal question. It is a social and cultural one. For those of us who believed that the Internet would bring enlightenment and freedom to the darkest corners of the world, recent developments have been very disheartening.
A. Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami, put it best, uncovering the “great irony about the Internet.” Paraphrasing him, The
Economist wrote:
“What was supposed to be an
anarchistic and liberating technology
may in fact make the world less
democratic, by forcing a huge increase
in legal harmonization.”
That word “harmonization” should raise a red flag every time you read it. While it may seem benign, it represents the efforts of governments, as well as other entrenched interests, to enact multilateral deals — in other words, to prevent competition, in either ideas or commerce — and to foist the worst sort of restrictions on citizens of countries that deplore them.
That seems to be what is happening in the wake of the Yahoo! case. A little over a week ago, Yahoo! put into place new guidelines
“prohibiting items that are
associated with groups deemed to
promote or glorify hatred or violence
… [including] such items
as Nazi militaria and KKK memorabilia.”
Again, let me stipulate this is horrible stuff, but, in the United States, it is perfectly legal to sell. Yahoo! —
like many other Internet firms — had consistently taken the position that it was an intermediary (again, more like a common carrier) without editorial responsibility for the content of its sites, which, after all, are broadly open to the public.
As Jean Eaglesham
wrote in the Financial Times: “The self-censorship marks a U-turn by Yahoo!, which had opposed on principle
[the] French court ruling.”
As The Economist:
“Will these trends turn
cyberspace into a place stuffed with
even more rules than the real world?
… Will litigants and governments
pursue service providers they don’t
like, leading to an ever-tighter
standard for protected speech?”
Right now, it is hard to say. But the portents are not good when we see France, with its continental disdain for freedom and libertarian ideals setting the rules for America’s wonderfully edgy, open, independent Internet companies.
Related items on this website:
Holocaust
survivors sue Yahoo! over sale of Nazi
items Yahoo!
to ban Nazi memorabilia from
website International
Herald Tribune on the yahoo ban: “Who
are the real Nazis?” Index
on Origins of anti-Semitism Will
Cyberspace Look Like France or America?