User-Generated Content Leads to New Protection Conundrums
User-generated Internet content is raising new issues, panelists said Mon. at a Council of Europe (CoE) conference on how to promote human rights in the information society. Blogs, “Really Simple Syndication” (RSS) news feeds and other innovations are creating a “participatory society” in which “netizens” get information not only from established content providers but from other each other, said Rachel O'Connell, dir.- research, cyberspace research unit, U. of Central Lancashire, U.K. That’s creating a situation where even seemingly innocuous acts can lead to danger, she said.
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There’s little debate about how to handle illegal material online but the border between it and “harmful material” is grey, said Maud de Boer-Bucquicchio, CoE deputy secy. gen. Many govts. outlaw child pornography and/or obscenity, but this week’s conference is part of a CoE attempt to define and deal with harmful content.
Information will evolve as part of an evolving participatory society, said O'Connell, an official reporter for the conference. Pictures of abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison were sent via mobile phone to a blog before hitting the mainstream media, she said. Photographs posted online are digitally fixed forever, leading to a case cited in which, after uploading photos of his daughter, 5, a man received sexually-oriented comments. Parents whose blogs note where their children attend school might be setting up contact from would-be sexual groomers, O'Connell said. And websites touting suicide, anorexia and other social ills are readily accessible.
These may be extreme examples, O'Connell said, but they show actual, practical uses and misuses of online material. How, she asked, can human rights be protected when users are the ones putting information online and are clueless about shielding themselves from abusers? Blogging and other new information forms raise “discoverability” questions: Some users may not know personal data posted on the Internet can be searched, syndicated and sent to others. Mobile phones add a layer of privacy-busting by signaling user locations.
End-users must be added to the list of actors deemed responsible for protecting people online, O'Connell said. These include govts., ISPs, law enforcement, educators, nongovernmental organizations, academia, technology developers and Internet Protocol architects. Industry should play a major role in providing safety information, and govts. must take responsibility for making Internet safety and media literacy a part of school curricula.
Govts. are wrestling with the shift from exerting “command and control” over a set number of TV channels, said a participant. When e-communications laws on communications services providers’ (CSPs') liability for online content were crafted there was no such thing as “happy slapping” -- youngsters recording assaults on their mobile phones and sending the pictures to others -- and other phenomena. Govts. tried to enshrine the principle of free expression into e-communications law, but CSPs shouldn’t have to censor content. It’s easy to say responsible CSPs should take down “dreadful” suicide and anorexia sites, he said, but turning CSPs into censors leads down a “desperate road.”
Australian ISPs are required by law to protect children online, said Peter Coroneos, chief exec. of that country’s Internet Industry Assn. Under a public-private coregulatory scheme, ISPs must give Internet users tools and information to use in deciding what material to access, and must also make a substantial commitment to public education. Industry codes of practice are enforced by an independent regulator, he said.
Vodafone believes self-regulation is a better way to manage content and contacts, said Public Policy Exec. Rob Borthwick. However, because not every industry player comes from the same economic position, Vodafone recognizes the validity of co-regulation, he said.
The Internet Content Rating Assn. (ICRA) is an industry response to content issues, said Chief Technical Officer Phil Archer. It’s no secret that allowing content providers to rate content “has not been phenomenally successful” because no one trusts the labeling, he said, but that’s changing. The World Wide Web Consortium has developed standards for the “semantic Web” technology which powers blogs and RSS feeds. ICRA and others are developing a system able to distinguish between the statements, “Madonna has a husband named Guy Ritchie and a son named Rocco,” and “Madonna has a husband named Joseph and a son named Jesus,” Archer said. The semantic Web will give people trust in ratings systems, he said.
The CoE conference continues today (Tues.)