Sell Out: Blocking an Open Net

Globalism ought to be a counterforce, democratizing the world and spreading technological and economic equality. Too often, it isn't. Take, for example, the corporatist American and European companies happily selling blocking software to countries like China and Saudi Arabia so their governments can pervert the Net to deny their citizens basic freedoms. This is a significant blow to the notion that technology will forge a more open world. And it might not be all that distant a threat. We have plenty of zealots and fanatics right here, all itching for a model way of blocking a free Net.

Governments in Muslim nations, as well as China, have repeatedly made overtures to and done business with Net-filtering companies. But no nation has used blocking software as vigorously as Saudi Arabia, according to the New York Times. By royal decree, virtually all public Internet traffic to and from the kingdom has been funneled through a single control center outside Riyadh since the Net was first introduced there three years ago. If the Riyadh center blocks a site, a warning appears in both English and Arabic: "Access to the requested URL is not allowed!" Saudi Arabia blocks sex and pornography sites, as well as those relating to religion and human rights.

Now nearly a dozen software companies, most American, are competing for a hefty new contract to help block access to even more sites the Saudi government deems inappropriate for its country's half-million Net users. In fact, the Saudi government is helping to pioneer something once thought impossible -- a sanitized Net for an entire nation and culture.

American software companies are only too happy to help them do it. Software executives say they are only providing politically neutral tools. "Once we sell them the product, we can't enforce how they use it," Matthew Holt, a sales executive for San Jose's Secure Computing, told the Times earlier this week. Secure provides filtering software to the Saudi government under a contract that expires in 2003. The Saudi government is also reportedly talking with Websense, SurfControl and N2H2 of Seattle.

The Saudi government has already spent a fortune to design its centralized control system before permitting Net use a few years ago, selecting Secure Computing's Smart Filter software from four competing U.S. products. SmartFilter came with ready-made blocking categories like pornography and gambling and was also customized to exclude sites the Saudis perceived as bad for Islam, the royal family, or the country's political positions.

This is a radical assault on the spirit of the Net, of its open, point-to-point design, its great promise to democratize information. By allies, no less. And don't for a minute think there aren't plenty of fanatics and zealots in the United States who won't love the idea as well. Remember that the Harry Potter series is now the most banned book series in American libraries.

The Saudi government, along with other non-democratic countries, are notoriously technophobic. They are eager to participate in the emerging global economy, but desperate to stanch the free flow of information that might provide diverse information to their citizens. And they have no problem finding software companies, including American ones, that are happy to help extend censorship. The corporatist rule is simple -- maximize profits at all costs under virtually all circumstances.

Countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia and China have been surprisingly successful at wiring up certain segments of their societies while controlling information deemed insensitive for political or religious reasons. The Net can, in fact, be used to make money and suppress freedom. These governments have undercut the great promise of globalism, prosperity, technology and democracy, allowing corrupt and anti-democratic governments to prosper, in part by censoring information -- something many of us thought the Net would make impossible.

This highlights the menacing way corporatism exploits technology, undermining the most basic American values.

"We have a really serious problem in terms of the American free speech idea," says Jack Balkin, a Yale Law School professor who specializes in the politics of Internet filtering. "But it is very American to make money. Between anti-censorship and the desire to make money, the desire to make money will win out." This is a profound blow to the whole idea of using technology -- especially the Net -- to force a more open society.

That's a bitter indictment of a nation that purports to be advancing democracy throughout the world, that's supposedly fighting a war to protect freedom. The reason money will always win out is corporatism, which subverts almost every other value in the name of profit, and which has made globalism a dirty word.

Umm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me get this straight. You just reported a story as to how Google leaks sensitive information, and you have the nerve to talk about censoring the internet? Get some priorities, people!

Read Between the Lines

[Knunov]

"Take, for example, the corporatist American and European companies happily selling blocking software to countries like China and Saudi Arabia so their governments can pervert the Net to deny their citizens basic freedoms."

Or, look at them as providing the necessary obstacles to encourage entire legions of new hackers. There is no better way to motivate a person, especially a young person, into doing something than by telling him/her that s/he can't do so.

The Americans/Europeans get to profit from these oppressive governments while simultaneously and surreptitiously undermining those very regimes.

Perfectly brilliant plan, in my opinion.

Knunov

Selling Out ? - I Don't think so.

[Astrogen]

I don't think that there is any selling out going on here. There is a difference between globalization and communism.

The fact that people are selling the software to China and elsewhere is proof that globalization is occuring, we are all seeing each other as neighbors, and business partners now. That means if I don't sell them my software someone else will.

It is not up to us to judge our neighbors, we may or may not like how they do things, we may even use other methods to try to "encourage" them to change but Im not going to let my competitor sell them my legitimate product because I disagree with how they use it; thats up to their government.

Business is business, and business in a global economy as in any "free enterprise" economy means you supply the consumer what they want, because if you don't someone else will. This does not mean that business is relieved of any moral obligations; however in this case the businesses are not supplying weapons to terrorists; the business is merely respecting the governments attempts to "protect" (and yes I agree its not the best way to protect) their citizens from outside influences. But what China is doing is not really that much worse than what Australia has been doing in recent years.

Diffrences

[autopr0n]

Well, obviously there's a huge diffrence between controlling what a child sees at home, and controlling what an entire population sees in a nation. When the kid growes up, or the patron leaves the library, they can get the internet unfiltered.

And the fact that they our censoring out political speach is also a Bad Thing.

Re:Diffrences

[morcego]

You are still talking extremes. The question is about the middle point, where the line is drawn.
Is it okey to filter the content of a kid ? What about 2 ? A library ? A company ? A state ? A country ? You can move to other countries.
And don't tell that, for instance, chineses can't. I know a lot of chineses that came to the ocident in the last 10 years.
Have you noticed that people are talking about ENFORCING americans way of things to other countries ? What about their liberties. DO you really think people here is happier ? The avegare John Doe ?
I say, let they have their freedom. At least in Arabi, this kind of filtering is what the population wants.
It's not freedom when it's enforced. There is no such thing as enforced freedom.

Re:Nice rant... but it goes to show...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um.

The idea is that we consider freedom of speech and freedom of the press to be basic human rights which no person or government has the right to deprive another person of. This has nothing to do with "values and morals"; the entire idea is that even if your system of values considers it immoral for anyone at all to view websites critisizing the saudi arabian royal family, you don't have the right to impose that system of values on anyone. And if you happen to have armed guards and tanks and things and you impose those values on others by force, then this is tyranny.

"American values and morals" are obviously not applicable everywhere, no; they aren't even applicable in most of the U.S.A.. The specific tiny set of values and morals that led the bill of rights to be phrased in the negative, however, are basic, human and universal. What's so "ego-centric" about thinking there's a set of things which no government, inside or outside america, has the right to prevent its citizens from doing? Like, say, creating and accessing unbiased journalism?

:shrugs:

Just a thought.

Freedom is an ideological argument in this case...

[GutterBunny]

...and what you're dealing with is a cultural reaction. Cultural conflicts (or civilizational conflicts depending on the scale) are the norm in today's society. The Saudi government is doing what it feels is best for its people's & its stability based on its culture. (i.e its traditions, religions, etc.) China, other Muslim govenments will follow suit. All "the net" embodies is a new technology, as such, it will be used by cultures differently.

To see a more thorough argument read some of Samuel P Huntington's work [coloradocollege.edu]

Re:What's cracking me up...

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, there are people out here who will disagree with everything Jon Katz says from a point of principle. Katz is one of those liberal journalists who believes in 'the American way', namely that we should all before much longer live in the kind of tranquil world that is typified on Television in the later Star Trek series.

It's a popular fantasy world, one in which everybody is all-inclusive and we're so, so happy.

People with cultures and traditions that go back generations tend to look on that sort of happy-smiley utopianism skeptically. And it's really not their problem that they do so.

So who is the 'corporatist'? The people in the Peace Corp who roll out the insecticide and poison the food supply when the locusts arrive? (the food supply is the locusts- yes, the local people will just eat the locusts if the white 'saviors' don't spray poision all over them)

Liberalism is cultural imperialism. It must be stopped.

Democracy

[KjetilK]

Globalism is as buzzy a word as 'democracy' is;

Yeah, "democracy" is pretty buzzy, but in the UN context, it has a pretty clear definition. After WWII, professor Arne Næss, whom I've met several times, lead a committee appointed by the UN to define exactly what was meant by democracy. They presented a huge report, but the definition hasn't stuck, because none of the superpowers liked it a lot....

Putting Nationalism in the way.

[jellomizer]

I wouldn't have a moral issue if I was offered a job make a program that blocks users from acessing information on the internet. Although I beleave that people have the right to read the information. But it is not nessarary good for every country. The First Admenment only aplies to the laws of the United States not for other countries. Other may choose free speach and others may not. And their are logical political desisions for choosing one or the other. Free Speach has its benifits and the concequences. Other countries have goverment with more restriced free speach that allowed for a different set of Beneifits and Concequences. The most basic function of a government is to protect its citizans. And full access to the Internet gives people information that is or could become harmful in their own opionion. So they choose to block the information in an attempt to keep the population safe and the government stable. Free Speach worked great in America but giving it to cultures that is not use to all the information could be harmful. To put it in more geeky terms it is like the decisions you make when setting up a network. for a school enviroment. Do you want the network to have tight security and only allow the students to do what they are expeced to do on the network thus reducing the chances apps being broken and easier long term administration so the computers are available to more people because of less downtime for resintalling the system. Or have the systems in a more open type where the students are allowed to explore and learn past what is expected of them although it risks higher chance of your network being hacked or programs breaking on you and a bunch of silly apps installed on the system filling up space. It is all about choosing the benifits over the conquences.