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Freedom or Controlin Virtual Worlds

Jyrki J.J. Kasvi

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Lessig: Code is law

Tecnhology defines, what we can and cannot do– Law defines what we must and what we must not do

People do not understand that ICT is high politics – ICT and information society are still considered mainly

technological questions by policy makers– Decisions made now define information society as

concretely as railroad, electrical network and social security system defined Finnish industrial society

Legislative process is way slower than technological development– The Finnish modem high jacking law

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Brave new culture

Technologies have built in values that direct the change!– E.g. where were the first versions of Internet core protocols

programmed?– Those hippies are still shaping our societies to their own image

Interactive participative media create new social cultures – SMS, P2P, Wiki, PodCasts, Social networks, Blogsphere– Freedom to select and choose, freedom to create and publish– Freedom to create totally new kinds of communities

Net culture has been overlooked by press and politicians– A whole Finnish generation found its way to Habbo and IRC

gallery without being noticed – More than 100.000 Finns played poker in the web before authories

woke up

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New communities and communalism Traditional social networks become closer

– ”Mobile tribes” are constantly online, communicating – Virtual societies weaken the meaning of time and place

(facebook, LinkedIn)– The concept of privacy is changing as we distribute

private information to our networks (twitter, flicker, …) New global social networks spread around the

world– Global network cultures of like minded people, sharing

the same values and interests and interacting in the Web (Open source movement, Greenpeace, Al Qaida)

– National borders lose their meaning as social barriers(Habbo, 2nd Life)

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Civil rights and freedoms have to be rediscussed and redefined

Now it is too easy to chip civil rights away one by one

E.g. the Finnish national information society strategy (2007-2015) does not mention civil rights at all

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The fear factor

Totalitarian goverments fear the anarchistic freedom of virtual worlds– A single meme disguised as a text message can bring down a

government– Chinese government was shocked by the internet network of falung

gong activists The real motivation of demands for control of Internet?

– Child protection or moralistic condemnation?– Security concerns and Internet crime of political control and

commercial interests? Is Internet access a privilege or a right?

– Is government responsible for providing Internet access?• (Finnish highest administrative court: yes)

– Can access to Internet be cut as a punishment?• (French government: yes)

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Virtual democracy and security

Democracy = privacy & freedom of expression– Ability to get information and express opinions without fear of

retribution – even in the web– e.g. the Finnish Constitution 100 years ago, when censorship of

critical papers lead to civil unrest and political terrorism. Security and economic concerns challenge civil rights

– No central control is possible in a networked world(of course there is the Chinese way – 30.000+ net police)

Legislation comes from a past of hierarchic simplex media– E.g. are service providers responsible for their clients’ web pages

and discussions? Control encourages counter culture

– The Finnish “video law” inspired the most sophisticated splatter culture in the world, based on a huge number of smuggled and copied ultra violent video tapes

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IRL vs. I2L

”Unabomber” terrorised U.S. for 18 years, killing 3 and wounding 29 with his letter bombs.

No-one suggested that we should collect data about our mail traffic in order to make such terrorist campaigns impossible.

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Child protection in virtual worlds

Most of the concerns of politicians and interest groups focus on protection of children – Why do we not trust their parents to do their job?

Children have always adopted new media first– Poetry, novels, theatre, comics, movies, ???music, television,

videos, video games, virtual worlds– And always there has been a public uproar

Teenagers have a right for privacy too!– How to find information about contraceptives, drugs, sexual

orientations or depression if Internet use is constantly monitored? Virtual social networks are an elemental part of generation

identity and youth culture– Parents are not told about problems encountered– Control leads to counter culture

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Of course, children need protection but first and foremost grownups

Have you told your kids what to do when someone suggests cybering?

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In China, authorities maintain a list of subjects to filter from Chinese Internet users – The list spreads fast to Chinese Internet users – The government actually informs the activists

In South Korea, there was no independent media before year 2000– Oh-My-News allowed people to become journalists– The government changed in the 2002 elections and the new

president gave his first interview to Oh-My-News In Germany, yellow press became corrupted

– Bildblog.de open forum exposes errors, lies, tastelessness etc. of Bild-Zeitung

– Now Bildblog.de has expanded to cover other German media as well

Counter culture

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Preventive censorship

We do not tolerate preventive censorship in real life, why should we accept it in virtual realities? Filtering of web content does not, cannot work,

– Gives only a false, bought sense of security Outsourcing of censorship to filtering companies

– Can a private company violate freedom of expression?– Filtering systems are closed trade secrets without public control

Censorship always expands to new subjects – Child pornography => gambling services & Internet pharmacies

Even the best laid plans can backfire– The child pornography filters in use only make it easier for

pedophiles to find child pornography

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Those who are willing to give up an essential liberty for safety do not deserve either safety nor freedom.

- Benjamin Franklin

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Sukupuolten välinen digikuilu?

Discussion

U.S. Army Photo