PART 5

TO THINK ABOUT...

Throughout its reflection on the Internet, the MAPI group entered into profound discussions on social questions which go beyond the mere regulation of the network to reach the very essence of democracy.

Through the following two texts, we make you aware of these questions hoping that, wherever you are, you can reflect more deeply on them and enrich them with your ideas.

5.1. Instead of forbidding,let's try to refuse !

We are undoubtedly passing through a deep social crisis marked by unemployment, poverty, loss of values, etc. Such considerations seem to take us away from our specific aim which is the fight against child pornography on the Internet. However, rejecting specific situations which are part of a general phenomenon amounts to tackling a problem without dealing with its source.

Everyone is evading their responsibilities. Whether in relation to our job, fellow citizens, spouse or even children, we increasingly believe that all the bad things which happen are the fault of others. We will limit ourselves to a reflection on the interaction between Internet users, the legislative power and the organizations which would be responsible for implementing laws in the matter.

Every democratic system is, among other things, based on the notion of the State governed by law. In such a state, the citizen does not dispense justice himself but leaves it to the legal institutions of his country.

One can ask if this does not lead the individual to usually consider these institutions as the only ones responsible for justice. This subtle question enables the citizen to escape his responsibility. He is, on the one hand, no longer responsible for dispensing justice, but he also progressively releases himself from the responsibility of knowing what is just (and consequently from the establishment of laws) and to promote the respect of laws (within the context of his life in society in general, and of his educational role of parent towards his children in particular). People even come to consider that institutions, legal or otherwise, are directly responsible for the breaking of the law.

Yet, in every society there are always malicious people ready to turn the law to their advantage and to the detriment of others. The opportunism of some and lack of involvement of others make it necessary for the lawmaker to modify the law in order to explicitly envisage more cases. This results in an increasingly complex law, which makes it easier to bypass because it is impossible to provide for everything, and increasingly incomprehensible to the average citizen who will then feel even less concerned.

As a result, a law can only be respected if most citizens consider it valid and are ready to defend it, or if a more or less dictatorial power is established.

Enacting laws on what is permitted or not on the Internet is a condition indispensable to its very existence. These rules must contribute to freedom of expression on the Net and not to the muzzling of opinions. It will only be possible if users, final users included, really take action and feel personally responsible for the purposes for which the Internet is used.

Fortunately, unless we live under a dictatorship, if users really assume their responsibilities, they can successfully reject violations of freedom of expression as well as misuses of the Internet.

If we take the example of child pornography, suppose each user feels sufficiently shocked and responsible as to inform providers of what they give access to and even, possibly, to threaten them to subscribe elsewhere if they do not block the access in question. Providers would be more easily informed of the sites which diffuse such information and would be keen to personally look for them. If they clearly knew that keeping on distributing such infomation could result in a loss of customers, they would ensure the banning of access to such sites. The authorities would then intervene more rarely since most users disapprove of this sort of diffusion.

In the same way, if users are sufficiently attached to freedom of expression, any violation of it which did not reach a sufficient consensus from the community of users would require on the part of the authorities an intervention all the more important since users would be more unanimous and motivated.

If users are not made aware of their responsibilities, we expose ourselves to child pornography and to a use of the Net by a minority who will commercially benefit from it (which is already the case) or politically (with all the abuses that such a tool would allow).

Is short, instead of having others forbid, let's try to refuse on our own initiative.

5.2. About freedoms

The control of information on the Internet is closely related to freedom of expression in general and more particularly on the Net.

If we take into account any action, three kinds of freedom are to be considered at first:

• one can think about the action: freedom of thinking;
• one can talk about the action: freedom of expression;
• one can undertake the action: freedom of action.

Each freedom has an impact in the "real world", including freedom of thinking without the possibility to express oneself. For instance, it is obvious that a teacher in charge of teaching a doctrine in which he does not believe cannot teach it as well as if he believes in it. It is the same for a soldier, a sportsman or a businessman.

Far more than freedom of thinking, freedom of expression can influence the "real world" since a person, by expressing himself, can manage to convince other people and even have them act in accordance with his ideas. It is therefore not surprising that violations of freedom of expression are more frequent and drastic than those of freedom of thinking.

Ultimately, as regards freedom of action, everyone admits that it is essential to impose limits if life in society is to go on.

These issues are nothing new. The invention of the Internet only brings in new modalities. We think its originality is elsewhere: it consists first and foremost in the ease of access to information and the exceptional possibility to interact with this information by becoming an Internet "active" actor as opposed to a "passive" actor, as the reader of a newspaper is.

Let us come back to the question of freedoms. As soon as we consider that something is sufficiently harmful that it must be banned, we violate the freedom to commit it (the ban on thinking, expressing ideas or acting). These are choices related to different convictions or interests that a group of people or of decision-makers can have within a society. When one wants to legitimize one interdiction or another, it can only be in reference to these convictions or interests. For example, if today we consider it essential to recognize Human Rights, others judge it is a Western invention which does not suit their culture.

Two issues arise. The first is the lack of consensus on what is punishable or not (otherwise it would be totally useless to forbid it !). The second is connected with ethical or interest criteria which are sometimes conflicting and on which compromises must therefore be reached. For instance, if we defend freedom of expression, we may wish it to be complete. However, if we consider some ideas as really too harmful, we may wish to ban their diffusion precisely because we fear a majority of people could be attracted by them (for example fascist doctrines, revisionism, etc.).

We must therefore admit that the dilemma of choosing between granting or refusing others one freedom or another to do something is necessarily based on a number of arbitrary judgments.

Consequently, either we consider that a superior authority knows what is good and what is not and we leave it to this authority to make laws, or we think that our ideas are worth defending and we fight to have them recognized.

The second solution consists in making use of the principles of democracy:

• first, politicians must assume their role and establish laws enabling freedom of expression to what is acceptable in the users'eyes to be effectively limited;
• secondly, each user must feel responsible for the appropriateness of the laws and must be ready, if necessary, to contest them with politicians either for their excessive laxness or lack of rigour;
• thirdly, each Internet user must feel responsible for making laws effectively respected, as far as they are able.

However, such a solution is difficult to implement: it requires that everyone participate and assume their responsibilities. Nevertheless, is it not the only way which would enable freedom to be reconciled with life in society ?

Finally, we would like to highlight the double aspect of our responsibility: preventing an excessive laxness and guaranteeing enough freedoms. Both aspects are to be considered for the Internet. Besides, if we must feel concerned by the problem of child pornography on the Net, we must be aware that there are already problems of freedom of expression on the Internet, even in our country. One must therefore make sure that one does not give the authorities the means of control which they could use later to restrict freedom of expression or control citizens'opinions.