Online freedom of expression guidelines from Reporters Without Borders

Posted by John Burke on January 9, 2006 at 12:30 PM

In the wake of several crackdowns on freedom of expression and Internet search in China, Reporters Without Borders has called on the United States government to persuade Internet companies into agreeing on a code of conduct for functioning in repressive regimes. Microsoft has recently shut down a Chinese journalist's blog after being pressured by the Chinese government, censors its MSN Spaces blog and Microsoft and Yahoo censor their search engines for words such as "capitalism" and "democracy."

Reporters Without Borders originally showed concern about this matter in 2002, but letters to Internet companies have gone unanswered. It suggests that a code of conduct be drawn up in lieu of a law, which should only be used, according to the NGO, as a last resort.

RWF has written six recommendations that it would like to see included in such a code of conduct:

E-mail services: No US company would be allowed to host e-mail servers within a repressive country*. So, if the authorities of a repressive country want personal information about the user of a US company’s e-mail service, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by US.

Search engines: Search engines would not be allowed to incorporate automatic filters that censor “protected” words. The list of “protected” keywords such as “democracy” or “human rights” should be appended to the law or code of conduct.

Content hosts (websites, blogs, discussion forums etc): US companies would not be allowed to locate their host servers within repressive countries. If the authorities of a repressive country desire the closure of a publication hosted by a US company, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by the US judicial authorities. Like search engines, content hosts would not be allowed to incorporate automatic filters that censor “protected” key-words.

Internet censorship technologies: Reporters Without Borders proposes two options :

Option a : US companies would no longer be permitted to sell Internet censorship software to repressive states.

Option b : They would still be able to market this type of software but it will have to incorporate a list of “protected” keywords that are rendered technically impossible to censor.

Internet surveillance technology and equipment: US companies would have to obtain the express permission of the Department of Commerce in order to sell to a repressive country any technology or equipment which can be used to intercept electronic communications or which is specifically designed to assist the authorities in monitoring Internet users.

Training: US companies would have to obtain the express permission of the Department of Commerce before providing any programme of training in Internet surveillance and censorship techniques in a repressive country.

* A list of countries that repress freedom of expression would be drawn up on the basis of documents provided by the US State Department and would be appended to the code of conduct or law that is adopted. This list would be regularly updated.