Can the world ever really keep terrorists off the internet?
French courts have prohibited the display and sale of Nazi materials online in France by Yahoo’s online auction service. After losing a legal case, Yahoo banned the sale of Nazi memorabilia from its website worldwide, though it denied that the move was in direct response to the court ruling.
Even in the United States, local governments have shut down mobile data and cellphone service during protests. In addition, the United States reportedly either is developing or has developed its own internet “kill switch” for times of national crisis.
International collaboration
These types of regulation efforts aren’t limited to individual governments. Groups of countries have successfully collaborated to pursue common goals online.
The Global Privacy Enforcement Network, for example, is a network of representatives from nearly 50 countries including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany. The GPEN works to develop shared enforcement practices related to internet privacy and has reviewed many companies’ online privacy policies. When the GPEN discovers websites or apps that violate a country’s privacy laws, it informs the administrators or developers and encourages them to follow those laws. The group can recommend countries take enforcement action against websites or apps that do not comply.
The European Union, made up of 28 countries, has also worked to regulate harmful messages on the internet. In 2016, the European Commission announceda joint agreement with internet companies Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube. Among other things, the companies agreed to create clear and rapid processes for reviewing potentially objectionable information and removing it if need be.
At the UN
In addition, the United Nations has been pursuing general global regulation of the internet. The U.N.‘s first Working Group on Internet Governance was created in 2004 to propose models for global internet regulation.
Unfortunately, the working group has not been able to agree on how to create new transnational bodies with rule-setting or regulatory power over the internet. Each country has different views on the global political issues raised by the internet’s vast reach. While some countries can find common ground, it may be nearly impossible to create a worldwide model that harmonizes all of these perspectives.
The farthest the U.N. has gotten so far has been creating the Internet Governance Forum, which brings together governments, private companies and individuals to address questions about internet regulation. The group has discussed and reported on internet access, human rights and free speech issues. These discussions are an opportunity to exchange experiences and views, but there are no negotiated outcomes, rules or laws that come from the IGF.
Finding widespread common ground on internet-based issues will likely only become more difficult as the U.K. exits from the EU and the U.S. takes increasingly nationalist positions. Even so, the experiences of smaller groups of countries may inform a broader effort as global policies on terrorism shift, and the world’s approach to internet regulation changes with it.
Shontavia Johnson is Professor of Intellectual Property Law, Drake University. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution / No derivative).
