He Who Controls The Past Controls The Future

September 3rd, 2006 Davis Posted in Uncategorized |

This week there were two pretty significant set backs in free speech rights. The first was that the Internet Archive settled a lawsuit against them for archiving past web pages. Currently, the Internet Archive gives anyone the option of blocking the archiving of old websites, but it’s up to the publisher to use a code telling them not to do it or which pages to keep out. This is something that the Internet Archive has done voluntarily, yet they were still sued for letting someone get into old web pages that they have a legal right (or at least I think they do) to be keeping records of.

By settling the case, they may be getting rid of a legal headache, but I would have liked to have seen the Internet Archive defend their right to keep records of the net and to establish a legal precident for their right to archive the internet. In the end I can’t blame them for doing what they did, but I think that something much greater could have been accomplished had they fought this lawsuit and sent a clear message that what they are doing is right.

In a second set back for free speech activists, Culver City, CA offered to provide free wifi access to their citizens, but it comes at a price. According to the terms and conditions set forth, if you want to get access to the free juice, you’ve got to agree to give up your first amendment rights.

“It is not the intent of the City or the Agency to allow unlimited access to the entire Internet. Nor is it the intent of the City or Agency to create a traditional or limited public forum ( i.e., a free speech arena).”

Internet access has become the library of the 21st century. It offers opportunities that never existed before and I think that every city should create free WiFi for their residents because the internet is an equalizer in society. It can empower anyone, regardless of their background. When you are online, race doesn’t matter, being poor or rich doesn’t matter, your social status doesn’t matter. What matters is the quality of your ideas and the power of your message. Because of this people can create real businesses and relationships in an environment where they don’t have to worry about the biases that exist in the real world. By giving away free WiFi a city is making it easier for their citizens to take advantage of the still emerging digital landscape and to better enrich their own lives.

When Culver City starts their free wifi program, it will likely be popular. Free is a tough price to ignore compared to $25 a month for cable access and I would be surprised if a lot of people don’t make the switch. Unfortunately though, by restricting free speech, the city is not really providing internet access, but rather a filtered environment where they have the right to effectively control the message to many of their citizens. If something negative comes out about a politician they can have the article nuked in a spam filter. If they decide that Boing Boing is really pornography, then they have the power to eliminate that.

Now I can understand why they would want to keep hate speech and pornography off of their network. In someways it’s not that different then using public airwaves to receive TV. If we can’t show pornography there, then why on a free wireless net? On the other hand, this sets the city up for a very dangerous game of who gets to decide what is pornography and what’s considered hate speach. Whoever has control over that message is the one that can restrict what their citizens can and cannot see. I am sure that when the US was founded that the revolutionaries would have been considered a form of hate speech by the British, yet their determination is why we enjoy the very freedoms that we have today. I can think of at least one small town where a politician could have been tempted to suppress the media, if he could have gotten away with it. It’s still too early to tell how Culver City ends up making these decisions, but it’s a source of control that they don’t really need to have.