Report on UN conference on Internet and racism

[Declan McCullagh]

[Forwarded with permission, first few grafs deleted by request. --Declan]

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 10:40:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Margarita Lacabe <marga at derechos.org>
Subject: UN Conference

[The lineup from the conference]

-Debra Guzman, a long-time american human rights activist, gave a general
appreciation of hate sites online. She said that it was very difficult to
find them and unlikely that one would stumble on them.

-Teresa Peters, another american from the Organisation for Economic
Co-Operation and Development Information Computer and
Communications Policy Committee talked about a study that her organization
had made about regulating speech on the internet, and about the problems
this lead to. I think the study is not public, and she did not go much
beyond what the study concluded. I didn't take good notes on her speech,
however :-(

-Philip Reitinger, a prosecutor with the US DOJ, summarize US free speech
legislation and made clear that hate web sites are protected under US law.
He also addressed the likely constitutional protections of anonimity, but
left open the question of whether the US could cooperate with other
countries in investigating people who violate speech laws abroad.

-Timothy Jenkins, who as far as I can tell is mostly a consultant and
someone who is trying to get the black leadership interested in the
internet, talked about how the real problem here was that internet access
is disproportionatelly held by white (males?) in the US and Europe, and
how the lack of access to computers might be a form of racial
discrimination. He did not agree with censorship of web sites BUT he
introduced the issue of anonimity, being for restricting anonimity so as
to be able to tell who the authors of racist speech were (this was
followed by a strong denunciation by the US delegate and yours truely)

-ERic Lee, from the  Commercial Internet eXchange, an association of ISPs
talked about why ISPs shouldn't be held responsible for content and also
gave a good explanation of how the internet works.

-Agha Shahi, a member of the  Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, gave a forceful opinion on how the Convention applies
online and how countries must criminalize hate speech online.

-Rudiger Dossow, from the Council of Europe, talked about what the Council
has been thinking about the issue and warned about potential pitfalls.

-Maya Sooka, from Sangonet in SA, questioned the code of conduct idea that
had been proposed several times

- Anthony M. Rutkowski, now from Magic, talked about how the internet
works, how impossible it is to regulate it, and how it should not be
regulated differently from other media.

At some point there was a presentation by the Simon Wiesenthal center on
hate sites online, and another by the ITU, which I did not quite
understand, about how hundreds of satellites are being launched.

In addition to the experts, the conference had representatives from some
UN and Int'l bodies, including the department of public information, the
OHCHR, the ITU, the Internet Society and others who remained mostly
silent. There were representatives from several countries, including the
US, Sweeden, Germany, France and Cuba. Most representatives were embassy
people, but those from Sweeden, france and germany were from different
ministries in their countries. These three representatives who were among
the most vocal in the conference seemed to be the only ones who were
actually aware of the legal issues concerned, as well as to what the
internet is :-)  The NGOs were badly represented, there was no one from
the groups that watch hate speech online (except for the brief appearance
of the guy from the simon Wiesenthal center). In addition to the three of
us, article 19 - the free speech organization - in England was
represented, there was a guy from the World Jewish Conference who was
there half the time, a couple of people from this organization for adult
education, a professor from the Universtiy of Geneva who spoke a few
times, and some assorted people from Geneva based groups who were mostly
silent.  There was also a guy from Indigienous World Association who
missunderstood pretty much everything said, but was very passionate.

(to be continued)

Margarita Lacabe - Derechos - marga at derechos.org - http://www.derechos.org
____________________________________________________________________________

        The governors as well as the governed are bound by the law and
    by the established system of making, changing and interpreting the law
                             AKA The Rule of Law