The march of liberty and freedom was with doing away with Westphalian concepts of sovereignty. And beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we have seen the doing away of Westphalian understandings of what we can and can’t do.
Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes have done fairly well with catching up to and keeping up with the activities of the internet. And there is a certain degree of Western complicity at play as well, with companies selling software to countries where it is used to track down bloggers.
We have somewhat started to move backwards, with authoritarian regimes becoming more aggressive. The Westphalian rules are getting revived at the ICU. The saddest result would be that we ended up with two internets because Western governments would never go along with the above.
The other thing is the legislation, which is getting very old. In the EU we are operating in essence with a body of data protection legislation from the 1950s. We still have insufficient protection of correspondence and private information in the EU. We have to realise that protection of privacy, fundamental issues that we have grown up thinking of as paper, need to be revised.
Q: We can be very free, but if others are increasing their efforts to limit same, do we actually feel the benefits of the global internet?
Q: Do we need private companies to decide what should be allowed or is it better that organisations like the ITU make general rules for everyone?
Ilves: There is no justification for controlling the internet. The modern rationalisation that democracy and human rights are cultural constructs is made only by authoritarian regimes. So I think of all this as kind of an excuse.
Mothander: I believe it is possible to make money and still have a soul. An important part of creating trust is not being a money grabbing parasite.
We are a global company and try to operate under a global set of rules and this gives us more liberty to move around and we can react very quickly as opposed to the ITU.
Dunja: Censorship in Iran is also affecting the free flow of information in countries with a free flow of information. So I would not try to find excuses for countries who are trying to restrict it. People will always try to reach out and beat the technologies that are restricting them and so it is somewhat a lost cause.
Q: Should we establish the internet as a universal human right?
Q: Should we have regulation that you can’t publish something without verifying it?
Q: Freedom of expression is very selective. What do you think about this?
Q: Does protecting freedom of speech mean that less attention is paid to the protection of other rights? For example the balance with criminalizing hate speech, or data protection reform.
Dunja: The Internet as a human right is a topic that is debated all across the world. It was recently recognised that freedoms offline and online are the same. There are many countries moving in that direction but also many that are opposing it.
The issue of the UK is a very hot topic. I think what happened has nothing to do with freedom of expression, it was just a criminal act and I do not think that a decade long practice should be affected and restricted because of this incident.
Hungary is high on my priorities and I do not think that they are setting a good example. I do not think that we should be promoting a utopian understanding of this but these things should be taken care of by the judiciary, not some other organisations.
Ilves: There are two sides to the internet as a universal freedom. One is technological accessibility and the other thing freedom of speech. I don’t see a difference between what you write on paper than what you see on screen, so the limitations should be the same.
As a principle (does not affect my decisions as a president) I do not believe in the criminalisation of speech. We had a case here because there was a law that would have increased the cases of civil suits in cases of journalism and it became huge. We are one of the few countries that have not criminalised libel. I do not believe in criminalising any form of speech. You can be sued for saying something libellous but putting people in jail for it is fundamentally abhorrent.
Mothander: We have to be critical, you can’t believe everything that is on there. Valid information is a competitive edge that will be used to make a living. I would not want to be the one who decides what is correct and what is not.
Q: From the perspective of the private sector how do you see the data protection regulation interfering with your activities, especially the right to be forgotten?
Q: What is the panel’s opinion about anonymity?
Q: What can the third sector do to influence politicians in their decision making about questions regarding the internet?
Mothander: The review of privacy regulations is long overdue. Data portability is one of the key elements in creating a competitive environment about users’ information. Being forgotten is a right that is very much similar. But as I understand, this would mean that we would need to be the cleaners on the internet, so as a pragmatic point it does not seem reasonable, though on a theoretical level it should be pursued.
On the internet you need every so often to reveal who you are in a legal capacity. There are cases where there is a good reason to identify yourself and there are cases where it is not necessary (like commenting on newspaper sites for example).
Dunja: We are trying to do that, there are provisions and laws that are fit for a digital era.
Ilves: The right to be forgotten is an interesting issue. If I was to demand the right to be forgotten, it would probably not work. So how do you establish the criteria for that? Do politicians have the right to be forgotten?
I think the issue is to remain active and monitor very carefully what is being developed. After the ACTA debacle the government has realised that you need to start early with having discussions with people. We are actually at a new stage here in Estonia, the old model is slowly being forced to become more responsive to civil society.
On the issue of anonymity: forcing people to identify themselves is kind of silly, but on the other hand people should not get away with something just because they’re anonymous. So you should have the opportunity at reparatory actions through the court system – not criminal justice, but civil justice. This also forces the private sector to invest in having monitors so that the most offensive things don’t get published. We shouldn’t force anyone to identify themselves until there is a judicial reason for it.
Q: Your views on the digital divide?
Q: How has the situation developed between China and Google? And how effective is blocking something at all?
Q: What will the future look like, if we observe what is going on at the ITU right now?
Ilves: What I really don’t want is a non-liberal closed society. I don’t mind if they do it in their country, it’s not nice but it would be a lot worse if they had the chance to influence how I use the internet in my own country.
Dunja: The digital divide has been a hot topic for a decade now and certain places don’t even have access to telephones. The other thing is education and literacy on the medium.
I would also not like to see certain countries saying what can and can’t be done in other countries.
Ilves: There are actually two digital divides. There is the international digital divide and the domestic digital divide between rural and urban and poor and rich people. And each country has a responsibility to deal with it.
Mothander: Promoting the internet economy is something a lot of effort will be put into in the countries where there is this divide.
China is an interesting issue. In the beginning we were in China but then we pulled out. The question is, do we try to work there to do at least some good or do we pull out entirely?
Ilves: We should rely more on the concepts of freedom of speech and not get too caught up in the medium, whether it is paper, sound or bits.
Mothander: During the uprising in Egypt, the internet was shut down but services to tweet were set up. And it’s an example of creative ways being used and we shouldn’t have too gloomy a view.
Dunja: The internet is not free from censorship. The good news is that there are more and more people and governments out there who are more and more aware of the good that come with freedom of speech.