The Futility of Censorship

Here's the great irony: There's more censorship -- all kinds, everywhere, involving more media and culture -- than ever before. But it's doomed to fail. As the Net and Web become more commercial, and as parents, government, schools, politicians, churches and corporations have belatedly grown interested in controlling networked computing and the speech and intellectual property therein, battles over censorship and content -- from school blocking filters to music wars to efforts to curb sexual imagery -- have raged throughout cyberspace. That's why Chicago artist Antonio Muntadas' website "The File Room" may be one of the most significant sites ever created on the Web. Despite relentless efforts to curb art, speech, software, writing, thinking and the free flow of ideas, censorship as a contemporary idea is virtually impossible. The Net killed it, and now the Web is becoming a living, global archive of ideas people want to kill.

Artist Muntadas created "The File Room" (discussed in Steven Wilson's book Information Arts: Intersections of Science, Art and Technology as an archive of censorship, a living record of society's ceaseless efforts to control culture and values. The site uses the Web's global scope to collect and store essays, speeches and artistic works from all over the world which have been subject to censorship, from the Republic of Korea's criminal code to high school newspapers to art exhibits in rural areas city halls. "The File Room" classifies its growing holdings by location, date, media and so-called grounds for censorship.

Anybody can contribute new examples of censorship by filling out a short form on the site, which is also part of an art gallery in downtown Chicago.

The strange dichotomy is that the more censors try to curb information, the bigger and richer "The File Room" grows. Sadly, the site makes clear that the United States -- the creator of the modern idea of free speech -- has become one of the world's most ubiquitous censors. "The File Room" literally feeds off censorship, its archived categories growing all the time -- explicit sexuality, language, nudity, political/economic/social opinion, racial and ethnic, religious, sexual/gender orientation and numerous others. Many of these battles involve the so-called protection of children. The access to information and opinion the Net has given kids is one of the most terrifying ideas of the 21st century.

Beautifully organized -- with sections on visual arts, film/video, print, broadcast and electronic media, public speech, personal opinion, even commercial advertising -- the site has become a trove of ideas, opinions and artworks. It also carries an emotional punch. It's truly moving and outrageous to see some of the works (and thoughts) people and institutions are still trying to kill off. What a curious time -- the most sophisticated and open information machinery in history spreading like wildfire, and narrow-minded idiots all over the planet trying to turn back the clock. There are countless governments and institutions who still believe they can impose their views and values on their children and the rest of the world, if only they can practice censorship.

Online rights is a seminal issue, but the smaller fights sometimes obscure the new and much larger reality. Censorship as we used to know it is no longer a viable option as long as there is a World Wide Web.

Comments

as long as there is a World Wide Web

[wiredog]

But how long will that be? If people are getting locked into proprietary interfaces with built in censorship, and lawsuits flying all over the place against ISPs who allow content that might offend someone, will the WWW, as we know it, last?

And what about spam? Is there any way of effectively controlling spam that doesn't also allow the effective controlling of other content? Can we have unrestricted free speech without spam?

Off-topic, this is my one thousandth slashdot comment...

Skeptical

[maelstrom]

Although FreeNet, Peek-A-Booty, Crowds, and other tools make it easier than ever to "route around" the damage caused by censorship, these are by no means a guarantee to freedom. It is more important than ever to stand up for inherit rights at the source of the problem, rather than creating band-aid solutions around them.

Its nice to be able to distribute political pamphlets (for instance) anonymously without fear of retribution or censorship, but its even better to be able to do it in a major newspaper or website and claim authorship knowing you have the freedom to do so.

My gut tells me a government totalitarian enough to curb free speech on the Internet could find ways around these tools and sites. Implementing the death penalty for anyone caught writing an anti-government editorial would have a chilling effect on free speach, simply because like all software, there will be bugs. Would you trust FreeNet enough to protect your life?

Meta-mod

[spellcheckur]

Censorship is just the government abusing it's unlimited supply of moderator points. Unfortunately (in the "free world"), too many voters don't take advantage of their meta-mod capabilities.

I just read my most. Now I know I need to take a break from /.

Your thesis is WRONG

[foo fighter]

. . .censorship as a contemporary idea is virtually impossible.

This is so untrue. So very, very untrue.

Mr. Katz, if you would read Professor Lessig's book _Code_, or even just think about this for a minute, you would realize that the technologies that enable unprecedented freedoms of communication also enable unprecedented censorship.

Technology makes it easier and easier to intercept communications and to punish those who initiated the communications and their intended recipients.

As a community, we (the well education, rich, techno-savvy, elite) like to think we have the moral high ground, and because we have the moral high ground we can sit back, complacent in the knowledge that the good guys always win. Or, we can sit back knowing "someone else" will take care of the problem.

That attitude will result in things getting worse before they get better, if they ever get better.

The lack of activism, the unwillingness to study the basics of law in our society, the hypocrisy, and the complacency shown by this community makes me very sad and I worry about the type of society in which my children will live.

The bottom line: censorship is more of a threat now than ever, and it is only vigilance and activism on our part that will stop it.

USA leading the way?

[GMontag]

The strange dichotomy is that the more censors try to curb information, the bigger and richer "The File Room" grows. Sadly, the site makes clear that the United States -- the creator of the modern idea of free speech -- has become one of the world's most ubiquitous censors.

This criticism does not sound very well founded.

1. If the USA was actually a big censor state it would not allow the posts to get to "The File Room" in the first place, no matter where the posts originated. The Soviets, Chinese, Cubans, Germans and North Koreans (insert others here) were all very well skilled at this type of prevention. It is well documented that it is possible to some extent and it is obvious when it is happening.

2. In the USA one is protected from GOVERNMENT censorship ONLY, not the censorship by one's next door neighbor nor the censorship by the contributors to the local art gallery.

Misinformation...

[brogdon]

Personally, I find misinformation and omission much scarier than censorship. They're both far more of a threat to us here in the US.

Foucault used to say that he who controlled and influenced the way people think had the real power in the world, because he could control what is true and what is false, since the concepts really only exist in our minds. Media companies and governments know this, and not just in China.

For a modern example, think about Iran. Most Americans, when asked about Iran, would respond that they don't like the Iranian people, and think they're a bunch of terrorists. Why? The average American doesn't know any Iranians. How you can you hate them when you don't know the names of more than one or two at most? Because all you see on Television is Iranians burning flags, holding up pictures of militants, and holding guns. You never see the average Iranian farmer, or baker, or homemaker. You never see the normal, decent people of that country. Same thing goes for North Korea. People have these amazingly harsh opinions about people and countries they don't know anything about simply because of what they've been told by the media.

It works both ways too. Most of what those people see of us is our President saying mean things about them that get repeated over and over by their media, and the business end of our military photographed onto their front page. They never see the average Joe working his construction job, or Mom baking an apple pie.

So now you have two groups of people that barely know each other, but hate the other side with wild abandon.

Like I said, misinformation scares me more than censorship.

who'd have thought it

[skunkeh]

I found this quite amusing. One of the cases detailed in The File Room describes how Brown University closed down a site hosted there called "The Bondage, Domination, Submission, Sadism, & Masochism Web Page". The University computer support staff deemed the content inapropriate:

http://www.thefileroom.org/FileRoom/documents/dyn/ DisplayCase.cfm?id=297

I did a google search out of interest to see if the site ever found a new home. I didn't find the site, but I did find out what became of the intrepid creator of the site, Daniel C. Robbins:

http://research.microsoft.com/~dcr/

Yup, he appears to be working at Microsoft as a 3D User Interface Designer. Strangely enough the BDSM site is noticably absent from his online CV ;)

There are none so blind...

[shilly]

...as the Katz that cannot see.
He writes "Sadly, the site makes clear that the United States -- the creator of the modern idea of free speech -- has become one of the world's most ubiquitous censors."
1. The site makes no pretence of being a full or comprehensive view of censorship around the world.
2. The site is a US project based on the web. It is not surprising that many examples of US censorship are submitted
3. Even a moment's cursory attention or thought (we could only wish for such a thing) would have led our dear scribbler to the blindingly obvious fact that the US doesn't even get *close* to the top of the censorship list when the following countries and regimes are/have been around:
Syria
Afghanistan
China
the USSR
Zimbabwe
Each of these regimes has/had engaged in systematic and comprehensive efforts to control free speech. The scale of these efforts far outweigh anything seen in the US. Buying a copy of the Talmud in Syria, or hardcore porn in Afghanistan, or looking at a anti-government Tibetan website in China, or reading the Koran in the USSR or listening to the BBC in Zimbabwe--these are all illegal acts. *This* is the sort of censorship that should terrify us.

Censorship at schools a good thing

[Wizard of OS]

I've already posted this comment today at another story, but it seemed relevant again :)

In the Netherlands, a big project is going on currently called 'kennisnet' (or, translated, 'knowledge-net'). The idea is to put all elementary schools (I hope I translated that good, schools for children from 4 to 12 years old) on a 'subset' of the internet. They will be linked together and have access to the internet too, but on a filtered basis. Every school may choose which filter they want to have activated (Filternet [schoolfilternet.nl] is the biggest one that claims 99% filtering), to ensure that the children don't see pr0n and such when the teacher is unaware of it.

Frankly, I find this quite a good idea. Ofcourse, I'll have a bunch of people replying on this that information shouldn't be censored and that filtering is evil, but think of this: how would you react if your child, aged 9, interested in technology, viewed this page and accidently clicked on a goatse link?