The recent hullabaloo over the Nazi-auctions French lawsuit against Yahoo! has brought to light the problematic issue of free speech on the Internet.
Last year, the French court ordered Yahoo to stop Internet users in France from accessing Yahoo auction sites where Nazi artifacts are sold. Yahoo had defended the sale of such paraphernalia, citing historic value as justification.
Yahoo has since reverted its policy concerning the sale of offensive items associated with extremist groups. Taboo items now include Nazi medals, posters, weapons, uniforms and Ku Klux Klan memorabilia.
It has also implemented a new filtering system that screens auction items for potentially offensive content, although many have questioned the practicality of such a system, given the vast quantities of goods placed for auction on the sites.
Online censorship?
Is this, some say, the beginning of the censorship of online speech? Isn't the Internet meant to be a vehicle of communication for all to share their ideas and opinions? Or does free speech have its own perimeters?
Dr Ang Peng Hwa, an associate professor in Division of Journalism, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), believes that freedom of speech on the Net indeed does have limits.
"At this point of legal development, a basic rule is that no one should gain or lose rights merely by going online. To the extent that there is freedom of speech offline, there is freedom of speech online," Ang told ZDNet.
Ang said that the difficulty comes when one loses or gains rights that do not otherwise exist offline.
"The French Government in the Yahoo case is trying to 'correct' the problem by rationalizing the law - if Nazi memorabilia cannot be sold offline, they therefore should not be sold online."
Under French law, it is illegal to sell merchandise with racist connotations. In the US however, the sale of such goods is legitimate, as the First Amendment entails freedom of speech.
Net technicalities
Ang said that the Yahoo case highlights the need to understand some of the technicalities of the Net.
Firstly, Ang believes that it is not true that the Net cannot be effectively censored.
"Experts tell me that it is possible to block off a domain on a country-specific basis with 80 to 95 percent efficiency. It's not 100 percent to be sure but 95 percent is very close," he said.
As a matter of fact, international computer experts have testified to the French court that it is not impossible to block access to the sales for up to 90 percent of people in France.
Although Ang admitted that it is impossible to police as effectively an online market as an offline market, he feels that the approach adopted by the French court is a practical and sensible one.
"There were some comments that Yahoo can ignore France. Up to a point. Yahoo had the .fr domain name so it appears to have an interest in France. If Yahoo wanted to ignore France, it would not have the .fr name," observed Ang.
Ang added that Yahoo had previously managed to block off certain types of products from its auction site - live animals for example - so the filtering system may work to a certain extent.
The key question, Ang says, lies in whether other countries would do the same and restrict what one can and cannot do on the Net.
"There is a counterpoise: if other countries restrict their citizens from access, they will eventually be left out of the information economy. That is, governments may push to restrict freedom of speech but governments are increasingly aware of the long-term costs, even if there are short-term benefits," Ang commented.
