Financial Times - Terrorism adds the backdrop to the fight for internet control
the media pirateJune 6, 2017. Jamie Bartlett.
Politicians, the media and tech companies tussle over regulation and freedoms.
The day after the terror attacks in London Bridge, Theresa May issued her sternest and most vague threat to the big internet companies yet: “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed,” she said. “Yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services, provide.” Warlike, she called on “allied democratic governments” to get together and regulate cyber space.
This is in spite of the fact that we have no idea yet what role, if any, online content played, or if any encrypted communication methods were employed; and in spite of the fact that these ‘safe spaces’ are places that millions of people use every day without any trouble; and in spite of the fact that the UK already has some of the strongest powers of any western democracy to monitor the internet.
That being the case, the speed with which senior (or former) government ministers came out to attack the large tech companies indicates that something else is going on. It is the latest round in a fight over who controls the net.
The UK government has long been demanding companies like Facebook and Google (and to some extent, Apple and Twitter) do more to stop hateful material appearing on their sites, and help the authorities access data they need for criminal investigations. The problem is that it’s not clear what exactly these companies are supposed to do without fundamentally changing the very nature of their operations.
If, as some politicians have repeatedly suggested, the big tech firms weaken their encryption standards or build “back doors” so the authorities can access private communications more easily, they weaken privacy for everybody. The terrorists’ safe space is also the Russian activists’ hide-out from the FSB — not to mention the place where all your private communications are held.
If, as some politicians have repeatedly hinted, the big tech firms proactively find and remove all content they consider extremist, (rather than remove it when they are asked to by governments or other users report it) social media would collapse. They would have to employ tens of thousands of legal specialists, and no piece of content would ever be uploaded without going through some kind of legal filtering.
Both these facts are infuriating for a government that, rightly, views its principle role as keeping people safe, and believe internet companies make that job harder. Perhaps it was easier when the Royal Mail and British Telecom were also government owned, but the world has changed. Most people inside government understand these challenges well enough, which is why leaning on the big tech firms is part of the game.
Although they often claim they are doing all they can, there are usually things the big tech firms can do to work more effectively. They could respond more quickly to requests to remove material or to hand over data to the authorities. They could employ more people to check and remove violent content more effectively — Facebook recently announced it would hire another 3,000 content moderators to do exactly that. Calls for greater regulation tends to concentrate the mind on what can be done.
It is not only governments that are frustrated. Many newspapers and to some extent broadcasters (note, for example, the EU’s efforts to introduce tougher oversight for online videos) look enviously at the utter dominance of Facebook and Google in the online advertising world, and feel — understandably, perhaps — that they as publishers take on all sorts of legal responsibilities that tech firms as platforms do not. Expect, therefore, a wave of print stories about what YouTube videos or messaging apps the London terrorists used, and how the big tech firms are responsible. Recall that The Sun said Facebook had “blood on its hands” after the murder of Lee Rigby and the Daily Mail called Google “the Terrorists’ Friend” after the attack on Westminster Bridge earlier this year. Both headlines were unfair hyperbole, but they too are part of that battle for control.
Terror attacks, although they ought to mean such struggles are put aside, are part of this great game. They have become ammunition in what is becoming the biggest struggle of our time: between politics, media and technology over who controls the internet.
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