Censorship, the word in English is close to an epithet, it calls to mind the worst excesses of dictatorships throughout history. It is no accident that the first of the Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution deals with freedom of the press. It was the experience of the founders with getting the grievances of the Colonies heard that made them acutely aware of how arbitrary governments can act if unrestrained by law.
Yet, not all censorship is equal, nor does all arise from government or external force. People self-censor all the time, it is part of the price of rational dialogue. Ben Shan's poster illustration reads: "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." Silence can indicate a forced assent, or conversely, it can be contemplative, a necessary part of dialogue that rises above the din of quotidian life.
To understand censorship, and the impulse to censor, it is necessary to strip away the shock epithet value that is attached to the word at first utterance. For just as the freedom to speak and publish freely was part of the first Ten Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Divine Injunction to censor was part of the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain" is clearly an early attempt to set Divine Limits on what would be acceptable limits of speech. Just as "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" is an attempt to set limits on what can and cannot be represented about the Divine. (And no one, in any land, should think this is anachronistic. Today across the world, some form or appeal to divinity is an oft-used reason for banning the dissemination of a broad range of materials). In this sense, understanding censorship crosses the line into understanding and accepting the unknowable because the religious effort at censorship, no matter which denomination practices it, is proceeding from that very early injunction against using the name of God, and representing God, the ultimate unknowable.
This does not mean that censorship is any more acceptable for being practiced in the name of religion than for national security (which is certainly an acceptable secular substitute for religious rationales in the 20th Century). It only indicates that confronting censorship must always involve confronting some part of ourselves and our common history that is painful and shot through with contradictions.
One of the most useful litmus tests on the censorship issue is the "Haßsprache" (hate speech) law in Germany. It is illegal, under German law, to depict any kind of glorification of the Nazis or even to display the emblem of the swastika. The law is enforced to the point where even historical battle simulations may not use the actual emblems that were used during World War II (by the Waffen SS, for instance). And there are people who are First Amendment Absolutists in the United States who are perfectly comfortable with that law existing in Germany. So, if you would seek to understand censorship, ask yourself if you are more comfortable with that law in place, or if that law conveys an unwarranted glamour and all the mystique of the forbidden, about a philosophy and time that has haunted the world ever since? And if you think the law is wrong, ask yourself then how you would convince the German Government, which is, of course, composed of people who grew up under Allied or Soviet Occupation, that it would be better to let the genie out of the bottle and to trust in the reasoned discourse that half a century of democracy in 2/3 of the country, and not quite a decade in the other 1/3, would bring? In your arguments, do not forget that almost all of Germany's close neighbors and allies have similar laws, passed for similar ends.
The questions in Germany and elsewhere in the European Union (EU) form a particularly hard case because of the historical background and because the situation in the EU is fast-moving. That is why this series of snapshots of what conditions are in various countries/regions, will first deal with other areas and levels of censorship and access problems, and then return to the situation in the EU.
In a global context governments have used a powerful array of techniques and arguments to martial support for their censorship efforts. The first, and earliest, and one that was part of an attempt to censor the Internet in the United States as well, is the religious argument. Certain things are deemed to be offensive in the eyes of the Deity. These things vary from country to country, religion to religion, even sect to sect. They are mostly, though not always, sexual in nature. The commentaries on the nature of the impulse to be censorious towards sexual expression are too numerous even for a wide ranging project like this. The curious reader is urged to read far and wide in the classic texts to see that the problem of governments and citizens reacting in this way is not a new one. What is new are the potential global consequences.
National security/defense runs a very close second to the religious impulse here. While nowhere near as old as the religious impulse to censor, in its more modern form it has been even more pervasive. And while the influence of religion on secular affairs is muted in certain parts of the world, the influence of governments is not necessarily muted. It is difficult to think of any government that would forego the right, in perceived extreme circumstances, to censor all media, not simply those that appear online. The question, asked in a real world scenario, is what could be considered extreme enough circumstances to justify such action?
There are also forms of censorship that are not so obtrusive, and that have to be examined very carefully to define. "Censorship through intimidation" can be anything from threats against individuals to a government proposing to monitor all activities online (as in one proposal current at the time of this writing in Russia). If citizens feel their activities online will be screened by governmental agencies in their country, their inclination to engage in either economic or social activities will be much less than if their government stays away.
"Censorship through consensus" is also a real possibility. There are countries where the adherence to a shared social, though not religious, code is a fact of life. Understanding that entails understanding where the boundaries of expression are, and where they might be interfered with in a consensus situation.
Economic Censorship is a harder category to define. The Roman essayist Cicero used the immortal phrase "Cui bono?" (Who Profits?), the ancient version of our "Follow the money." But numbers may tell only part of a story. In a situation where there is economic censorship is it alone or in conjunction with some type of political censorship? Is there a monopoly within a certain country that is threatened by competition, or a class of oligarchs that is threatened by the emergence of real economic opportunity for smaller firms? Is the economy in a locale more prone to large "crony" or monopolistic arrangements than to genuine competition and innovation?
On a different level the actions and reactions of large corporations to the Internet has to be factored into any discussion of economic censorship. Certain corporations have paid search engine companies for preferential placement in their particular category when a user makes an online search inquiry. Is the information tainted because someone has paid for it to be there, or, should the definition be that as long as all possible relevant information is included that placement is irrelevant?
There is yet another way to look at economic censorship that comes via the Hollywood studio model. The big studios are often, and justly, charged with stifling innovation and creativity. And yet, the woods are filled with producers and directors who had the "sure" hit in terms of concept and casting. That is why periodically there are films and directors who come from totally outside the studio orbit who are always, for the moment, referred to as "cutting edge." What they really are is refreshing, in the sense that the word implies giving a fresh look and feel. The Internet as a mass medium is still too new for this type of cycle to be a factor, but in dealing with it as a potential moving to actual mass medium, this is a cycle to watch for.
Because so many nations of the world are now looking at the PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selections), a filtering system, as an answer to their concerns, the question of parental controls also has to be addressed, particularly because there are locales where, when the state is carrying out some form of censorship, the state will claim to be acting in loco parentis. That state claim, whether interpreted as "State as parent" or "State as Big Brother," carries through so very much of the restrictions on information distribution across the world.
Parental claims certainly have a place in dialogue, but they can cut across meaningful lines of dialogue as well. Despite the presence of a widespread and deadly epidemic (AIDS), there are parental groups that object to the teaching of safe sex models in public schools, posing a dual problem: do their rights as parents of their own children supercede the rights of all children in a classroom, or library, or online to have access to information that could save their lives, and do their rights as parents, with, let's assume, strongly held beliefs, supercede the right of their own children to that information. The legal record, which usually holds clear guidelines in such matters, is mixed in this one. Courts have ordered operations and vaccinations in the public health interest, but courts have equally ruled that religious beliefs are a compelling answer to public concerns. The question is not whether there are legitimate parental claims, but rather at what point is there a public interest that overrides them? Is it only in matters of imminent and life-threatening danger or does it extend beyond?
That question is usually most clearly seen in the restriction on so-called "obscene" or "pornographic" material online. This is probably the most pervasive type of censorship around the world, even though the behavior it seeks to limit, is, almost by definition, private not public, personal in the most fundamental way. "I know it when I see it," a U.S. Federal Judge once said of pornographic material. The judge spoke more truth than he realized: different nations across the world have different thresholds for what they considered pornographic material. In some locales, it is a bare male torso that crosses the line, in others, any depiction of pubic hair, while still others permit anything that is done between consenting adults.
That last definition might seem, at first glance to be the most reasonable, but it leaves out the biggest current issue in terms of pornographic material: child pornography. Child pornography is another of the "hot button" issues, people trafficking in such material, even in the United States, have little or no recourse to free speech or free expression claims. Yet even in the United States, there is no such thing as a uniform age of consent. Those limits are set by the states and they can vary by as much as six years. The same is true for the member states of the European Union, what is legal behavior in one state may be a violation of law in another.
That difference in consensual age alone sets up a potential entrapment situation across borders. People may agree, in the most fundamental way, that it is unfortunate if a 16 year old engages in explicitly sexual material, but if the age of consent on the ground in that locale is 15, then that feeling becomes censorious, if it is taken to mean that no such activity may be depicted or undertaken.
One of the shocking omissions in the debate on child pornography has been a simple agreement on what it is! For example: suppose child pornography were to mean only the inclusion of infants being depicted in sexual situations, or, pre-pubescent children, who are, almost by definition incapable of consent to a sexual act. If there is a universally agreed on definition (a difficult, though not impossible task), then the debate shifts to what acceptable mechanisms are available to nations to control such traffic without compromising the privacy of the majority of citizens who may have equally compelling reasons for wanting their online activities to be personal and private?
Balancing compelling national interests with compelling individual interests (as well as competing national interests) in the online world is going to be the work of generations. In the past, nations were able to legislate certain types of behavior. Those who were affluent enough, or desperate enough, to need to be in a place where different laws or customs were in effect became refugees or expatriates. But the Internet pushes against national, or even, supranational borders in a way that no medium before it has ever done. The potential for expansion, or opening economic and political opportunities where there had been none before, is vast on a scale beyond imagination. So, too, is the potential for calamitous misuse, by governments and by corporations.
That is where we look to, several separate trails, each following a widely different path. If nothing else, these essays and reports from the cyberfronts that may give more of a unified picture. What we will come up with then will probably be the moment when we see how much and how far the interlinkings have grown.