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The recent judgment in an Italian Court, finding three (3) Google executives guilty of wrong doing should be a wakeup call for all of us.  The essence of the case is that a video of a boy with a disability being harassed was posted on Google Video and even though Google took the video down after being requested by the Italian government, the three executives were still found guilty and could be facing jail time. Read More At: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/02/google-three-italys-personal-attack-intermediary-0

This type of thinking, where a social site is considered a publisher of media, and not a place where people gather has the potential of Killing the Internet.  We can expect to see more of this type of reaction when governments try to pigeon hole the Internet into old concepts of past mediums such as Television, and Periodicals.  The Internet by its very nature needs to be un-censored and let the users decide what’s inappropriate; in short: Crowd Sourcing.  Fortunately for us here in the United States we have “Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act”.  This basically states that the web site that allows comments can not be held liable for what a visitor to the site posts as a comment.  Here is the excerpt from Wikipedia:

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (a common name for Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996) is a landmark piece of Internet legislation in the United States, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 230. Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an “interactive computer service” who publish information provided by others:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

In analyzing the availability of the immunity offered by this provision, courts generally apply a three-prong test. A defendant must satisfy each of the three prongs to gain the benefit of the immunity:

1. The defendant must be a “provider or user” of an “interactive computer service.”
2. The cause of action asserted by the plaintiff must “treat” the defendant “as the publisher or speaker” of the harmful information at issue.
3. The information must be “provided by another information content provider,” i.e., the defendant must not be the “information content provider” of the harmful information at issue.

Geeks Are Isolationists

Generally speaking those of us who ‘Get It’ are not the most politically active, but tend to be more A-Political.  This needs to change.  If we do not start helping those who ‘Don’t Get It’ and continue on our merry way, we may find that the freedom of the Internet we currently enjoy may be a thing of the past.  Back in 1996, John Perry Barlow of Grateful Dead fame, authored a document called: A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.  Considering the document was written in 1996, it quite prophetic in its predictions.  Below is a small excerpt:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear…

You can read the full document at: http://www.ibiblio.org/netchange/hotstuff/barlow.html

Action Required

There are too many who are trying to control what they don’t understand.  The Internet needs to be open and un-censored.  As a first stop we would like to suggest the support of ‘Electronics Frontier Foundation (EFF) http://www.eff.org/.  This is a non-profit group dedicated to protecting our digital rights.

About EFF:

From the Internet to the iPod, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers. When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990 — well before the Internet was on most people’s radar — and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.

I am now off my soapbox, I hope you help by supporting the groups that are fighting this battle.