The Internet is not an actor in itself and reflects the motives and the will of those who use it, said Cynthia Wong at the WPFC and UNESCO-organised conference in Paris last week, The Media World after WikiLeaks and News of the World.

Wong, Director of the Project on Global Internet Freedom, at the Center for Democracy & Technology, underlined the need to remember this in her opening remarks.

As Frank La Rue, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, explained, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were not 'internet revolutions' - they were facilitated by the Internet, but the Internet was not an actor. Given this however, these events undoubtedly showed how important the Internet has become not just in giving access to information, but also as a main instrument for citizen participation in politics.
Internet facilitates access to political issues and makes it easier for everyone to express their opinions and interact with each other. However, La Rue said, the Internet has also tremendous pitfalls which need to be addressed. Governments, even in the West, are scared about these implications and try to block, filter, monitor and limit the Internet.

What do phone-hacking at the News of the World and Wikileaks have in common from an ethical point of view?

UNESCO's conference "The media world after Wikileaks and News of the World", held in Paris on 16 February addressed this question in its second panel debate about "Professionalism and Ethics in the New Media Environment".

Borja Bergareche, author of the book "Wikileaks confidencial" and London correspondent for the Spanish paper ABC, argued that the connection between the two is that they both involve distrust of the press.
Both cases raised issues about media and ethics and law and put journalistic standards in the spotlight: the News of the World scandal has led to intense scrutiny of journalistic practices, while Wikileaks raised questions about how journalists deal with a huge amount of information.

If there is one industry in which acting professionally has ethical implications, it's journalism, said Bergareche. When it comes to journalistic standards and to dealing with huge amounts of raw data and information, for example the US embassy cables, questions need to be asked about the nature of WikiLeaks.

Liberalization of professional services is on the agenda of the Italian technocrat Mario Monti's government, as part of the wider plans to boost economy, from energy to transport.

Journalists appear to be amongst the professions listed in the regulation reform. Speculations about the alleged changes - the reform bill is a draft and hasn't been approved yet - that will involve the Ordine dei Giornalisti, the professional state-approved body representing Italian journalists, have raised concerns within the profession. It has also provided a boost to reinvigorate the long-time ongoing debate about the possibility of the abolition of the "extraordinary league of journalists".

The state-regulated body defines who, after passing an exam, can officially be called a journalist and has the power of sanction these people in case of ethical misconduct that can lead to their removal from the official journalists' list and a ban on exercising the profession.

The Ordine dei Giornalisti is quite an anomaly within the international journalism landscape and raises questions about state regulation in opposition to a self-regulated approach.

Amidst the fallout of the phone hacking scandal, the debate about media regulation in the UK has gathered momentum and engulfed not only the media and its regulatory body the Press Complaints Commission, but also the police. Yesterday, the head of the National Union of Journalists, Michelle Stanistreet, appeared before the Leveson inquiry and denounced the PCC as "little more than a self-serving gentleman's club", according to Journalism.co.uk.

Stanistreet suggested that the PCC was ineffective due to its failure to represent the interest of anyone but the owners of media organisations and lacked the ability to enforce accountability thanks to its limited powers and the fact that publications were not even obliged to join the regulatory body.

If the PCC is an insufficient regulatory force, then what will do the job properly?