Lotus Says: The Industry Supports Censorship

According to an Australian official, the CEO of Lotus Development Corporation believes:

Industry has no issue with online content regulation. The industry endorses content regulation.

The context is Australia's new system of dumbing the net down for children; here, the words "content regulation" mean simply: "censorship." An excerpt follows.

Senator Alston, Australia's Minister for Communications, is still working to sell Australia's censorship law, which was passed in June and takes effect on January 1st. Essentially the entire continent's internet will be rated like movies, with teeth. Unless something is done before January - which looks unlikely - it will be the worst trampling of net liberties by a Western democratic nation.

One of the compelling arguments against Australia's plan is that it will slow or halt the technology industry - halting progress means losing venture capital and slowing an entire nation's economy; nobody wants that. So Senator Alston has been looking for evidence to the contrary, and in particular he hopes to convince people that the industry itself supports the plan.

In the excerpted speech below, given on September 30, he recalls a conversation with Jeff Papows, CEO of Lotus, and claims Papows voiced support for the plan. (Note that Alston also claims support from Yahoo. Yahoo denies this, but Lotus has not, and had no comment at press time).

The industry itself accepts that there should be these codes of practice and this form of regulation. We have been trying to negotiate it for the last three years with the Internet Industry Association. Their problem is that there are these maniacs - these electronic frontiers outfits - running around stirring up trouble, using quaint expressions and feeding lines to that woman from the Civil Liberties Union [Nadine Strossen] who then gets out there, gets a good run and says that we are global village idiots. This is just a low-grade political campaign. I do not find industry opposing this approach.

I was fascinated when I was in Silicon Valley about two months ago. I waited for industry to raise it, because it was at the height of the furore. It was just after the legislation had gone through and I was doing the rounds of all the IT companies in the valley. I waited for them to raise it with me. The only people who ever raised it with me were journalists who were saying, 'Isn't this a big problem?' I replied, 'Why it is a big problem?' They said, 'It is because it is getting media coverage. It is coming out of Australia. Your Senator Lundy is faxing the New York Times and saying, "Isn't it disgraceful?" and Electronic Frontiers Australia is calling for the minister's resignation. Isn't this an issue?' It is an issue for the media, because it is new, exciting and a lot of fun, but it was not an issue for the industry.

The only people who raised it with me on that visit were Yahoo who thought it was a good idea. I recently saw the president and CEO of Lotus, which is a major player. He was out visiting Australia. Again, I waited for him to raise it with me and he did not. Over the years I have seen a lot of these people and none of them have ever raised it. I thought I might as well ask him what he thinks. His answer was, 'Industry has no issue with online content regulation. The industry endorses content regulation.' In other words, all of the responsible players - and most of these people have kids of their own - do not for a moment want to see the anarchy that is prevailing at the moment.

Lotus' support for this plan comes as a surprise to those who remember that the company was founded by Mitch Kapor, later a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Comments

Of course the industry supports censorship!

[brennanw]

Or, rather, the Industry doesn't care one way or the other.

The Computer Industry doesn't make it's money off of freedom of speech, it makes it's money off of computers that push data around. Whether that data is regulated is irrelevant, because regulated data needs computers to push it around just as much as unregulated data.

Since the industry makes money either way, they don't care. And if the industry doesn't care, it will always make nice noises at the powers that be, because then life is better for the industry.

Companies exist for one reason: to make money. Mitch Kapor may be very ardent about free speech, but he is not now nor has he ever been Lotus Personified. Even if he were still in Lotus that would be Lotus' stance, and he would be expected to back it up publicly or probably lose his job.

Companies only weigh in for rights when it affects their bottom line. That's why corporations are so gung-ho about loosening restrictions in encryption -- they want to sell it. That's why corporations are so gung-ho about whether or not the Govt should reign in Microsoft -- either they'll make more money without Microsoft, or they'll make more money WITH Microsoft.

That's also why Corporations are so hot on doing business in China, despite China's atrocious record on human rights -- they can make money in China. That's also why Corporations fought bitterly against Apartheid Sanctions.

Corporations see the green before anything else. It makes me sick, but that's the way it is.

So if Australia wants to censor the internet, why not? Unless you're an ISP, it doesn't affect your bottom line. So the Computer Industry is fully behind Censorship, as long as they keep making money...

Politician distorts the facts. Film at 11.

[Bilestoad]

Clearly, Senator Alston could not find his arse with both hands, and has conveniently forgotten that:

1. The Internet censorship laws exist for no other reason than to ensure the support of the puritanical Senator Brian Harradine in the Government's quest to pass legislation allowing the sale of a further portion of Telstra. Senator Harradine holds the balance of power in the senate, and can single-handedly reject legislation which the House of Representatives wishes to enact provided the rest of the senate votes along party lines. Hence this religious old Tasmanian holds a very big stick.

2. This legislation was universally opposed at the time it was debated by not only those electronics frontiers "maniacs" but the Australian Computer Society, every ISP, and numerous other professional bodies. Not that there was much debate - they not only rushed it through, they smokescreened it very effectively with "the republic debate" and the Olympic circus.

3. Lotus are now an irelevant producer of software which is almost universally reviled for its poor interface, sorry performance and general instability. Seriously, it's worse than anything Microsoft has done. It survives mainly because there are those IT manager types whose job security depends on nobody finding out about free, better alternatives, and there are those managers who still like to parrot buzzwords like "groupware".

Perhaps the minister was mistakenly talking to theatre groups or bankers on his recent visit - almost everyone I meet who is remotely connected with the net has a good laugh at my government's attempts to treat the net like television. It's not nice to hear my country compared to such freedom-loving nations as Singapore.

I could mention that Australian government departments use net-nanny software which blocks a seemingly random array of sites... I could quote the price of ISDN to residents in Australia... I could contrast some of the salaries that I used to earn in Australia to what software engineers typically make here... I could tell you that Australian companies do NOT give out options... but I'll just say that I am so happy I came to live in the bay area instead of staying in Melbourne. Australia is a great place - and one day I know I will live there again - but with just a little common sense it could be so much better. I look forward to the minister taking over the portfolio for say, agriculture.