Presentation of UNESCO report for UNESCO's Conference on Freedom of Expression on the Internet in Marrakesh, Morocco, with support from the Morocco Internet Society, 15 February 2013.

1. Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression:
The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet
William H. Dutton
Oxford Internet Institute (OII)
University of Oxford
Presentation for UNESCO Conference with
Moroccan Internet Society on Freedom of Expression
over the Internet, Marrakech, Morocco, 15 February
2013.

2. UNESCO Request to Critically
Review Status of Research on
Freedom of Expression:
• Some Pioneering Studies
Report Launch
• More Advocacy v Research at UNESCO,
Paris, 30 May
2011; Arabic
• Political Minefield (e.g., the trans. 2013.
McBride Commission 1977)
•Too Single-Issue Focused

4. The Internet Reconfigures Access in Ways
that Can Empower Networked Individuals
A Fifth Estate?

5. Ecology of Choices Shaping
Free Expression

6. Balancing Digital Rights
• Access – Freedom of
Connection
• Freedom of Expression
• Censorship
• Equality (media literacy)
• Freedom of Information
• Privacy & Data Protection

7. Technical Innovations:
Worldwide Diffusion of
Technologies of Connection
• Internet
• World Wide Web
Percent of global Internet population
• Mobile and Mobile Number of Internet users (mio.)
Internet penetration within region
Internet 100% 825 900
Total number of Internet users in region (mio.)
800
80% 77% 700
%Internet users
61% 600
60% 58%
475
500
400
40% 35%
266 30% 42% 300
205 22%
20% 200
24% 111
21 63 11% 100
14% 6%
1% 10% 3%
0% 0
North Oceania / Europe Latin Middle Asia Africa
America Australia America / East
Caribbean
Source: Internet World Stats - www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. Penetration rates are
based on a world population of 6,845,609,960 and 1,966,514,816 estimated Internet users
for June 30, 2010.

8. Percentage of Internet Users Across Regions of the
World

9. Regions as Percentage of the Worldwide Population of Users

10. Number and Proportion of Internet Users by Region
90% 1200
79%
80% 1017
1000
70% 68%
Total number of Internet users (Mil.)
61%
60% 800
% of Internet users
50%
600
40% 45%
40% 501 36%
30% 26% 400
273
20% 236
22%
14%
200
139
10% 12% 77
10%
24
1% 3% 6%
0% 0
Percentage of global Internet population Number of Internet Users (mio.)
Internet penetration within region
Source: Internet World Stats- www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. Penetration rates are based on a world population of
6,930,055,154 and 2,267,233,742 estimated Internet users for December 31, 2011.

11. Technical Innovations:
Technologies of Disconnection
Meta-analysis of Internet filtering surveys:
• Global growth of filtering (and increasing worldwide)
• No single country
• Variety of Objectives:
• Political
• Moral
• Commercial
BUT: Potential to Decentralize, e.g.,
Home Hubs

12. Industrial Policy and Regulation
• Technology-led Industrial Strategies, support economic growth
• ICT for Development (ICT4D)
• Competition Policy
• IPR: Copyright
• IPR: Patents

13. Industrial Policy and Regulation
Copyright enforcement:
• ‘Three Strikes’ policy in France
• Digital Economy Act (UK)
• Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
Countered by:
• The Pirate Party
• Brazilian Copyright Reform Bill
Copyright Mot

14. User-Centric Policy
• Child Protection Policy
• Decency: Pornography
• Libel: Defamation
• Prevention of Hate Speech
• Consumer Protection: Fraud
• Section 127 of the UK Com
Act 2003 – electronic com that
is ‘grossly offensive or of an
indecent, obscene or Copyright Mugley
menacing character; …’

15. Internet Policy
• Internet Governance and Regulation (Multi-stakeholder Approach)
• Domain Names and Numbers
• Net Neutrality
• Licensing, Regulation of Service Providers: Intermediaries
• Internationalised Top-level Domain Names

16. Internet Policy:
Standard-setting: Identity, Anonymity, Real Name
Registration

17. Security
• Secrecy, Confidentiality
• Security against Malware
• Counter-Radicalisation
• National Security
– Blackberry Use
– WikiLeaks: Confidentiality-Security
– UK Data Communications Act

18. Ecology of Choices Shaping
Free Expression

19. Encouraging Themes for Freedom of Expression
• Internet Empowering Networked
Individuals – Enhancing Freedom of
Connection and Expression (5th Estate)
• Major Issues of Human Rights are
Increasingly Being Centered on the
Internet and Web
• The Internet Space is not the ‘Wild
West’ – much regulation exists

20. Countervailing Themes
•Freedom of Expression is not an Inevitable Outcome of
Technological Innovation
• Continuing Global and Local Digital Divides in Access
and the Production of Content
• Global Increase in Content Filtering and Censorship
• Freedom Shaped by Choices in the Wider Ecology of
Actors, Objectives and Policies
• Use of Inappropriate Models for Internet Governance
and Regulation threatens to Foster ‘Over-Regulation’,
e.g., fear or complacency of the ‘Old Internet World’

21. Directions for Policy
• Reduce Digital Divides
• Broaden Perspectives on Freedom of Expression
– the Larger Legal and Regulatory Ecology
− ways to democratize content control
• Renew and Inform Debates over:
– Appropriate Regulatory Models for the Internet
– Global and Local Approaches to Internet Governance
– Ways to Inform the Public and Elected Officials about
the Internet and Legal-Regulatory Issues

22. Renew Research on
Freedom of Expression
• More Systematic and Sustained Monitoring of
Innovations in, and Use of, Internet Filtering
• Need to Track an Expanded Range of Policies
and Regulatory Issues in this Ecology
• Critically Explore Relationships between Freedom
of Expression and other Core Values and Rights
• Study Impacts on the Ground, including Public
Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behavior
• Understand Assaults on Freedom of Expression
as efforts to protect other Values and Interests