The world has been watching anxiously as Google withdraws from China as a result of the country’s Internet censorship laws. While it appears most net users are aware of China blocking its citizens from certain websites, but it was the Google issue that truly brought it to the forefront of the news. Of course, this isn’t only happening overseas. Right now, the Australian government is pushing for mandatory Internet filtering, a proposal that has been met with much protest from Internet users. We have a very good reason for wanting see the World Wide Web open and accessible for all. This paper will look at specific examples where the average person has utilised Social Media applications such as Twitter and blogs to bypass all gatekeepers and publish information and alternative viewpoints which would otherwise not enter the public sphere. These examples illustrate exactly why it is we need to keep the Internet uncensored.

Last year, a base metal company called Trafigura were questioned in British parliament about the illegal dumping of toxic waste in West African country, Côte d’Ivoire. The New York Times reported that 8 people had died and 85,000 had sought medical attention as a result of the dumping (Jolly, 2009). A super injunction imposed by a judge meant that journalists were unable to publish any details of the Trafigura case, a decision that many argued went against the 1688 Bill of Rights granting freedom of speech. British newspaper, The Guardian were reduced to publishing an article that said that an MP who they cannot name asked a question that they cannot publish and that,

“The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret” (Leigh, 2009).

It is not entirely clear exactly how the details were leaked. Some reports suggest that a whistleblower submitted the details to Wikileak, a website dedicated to exposing “significant injustice in the world” while others suggest that Bloggers and Twitterers banded as one to piece together the truth. Either way, within twelve hours of The Guardian’s initial report, Trafigura had become a hot topic online. British entertainer, Stephen Fry, who is considered one of the most popular users on Twitter relentlessly updated about the case, broadcasting to hundreds of thousands of followers and helping #Trafigura to become a “trending topic.” For those not familiar with Twitter, this meant that the word Trafigura was repeated in Tweets more times than any other keyword in that 24 hour period, with the hash tag symbol keeping all related tweets indexed together. The company, well aware that it was fighting a losing battle, withdrew its’ request for the gag order, leaving traditional media to report without the fear of a jail sentence. (How the Trafigura, 2009)

When the Trafigura case was unfolding online and eventually in the mass media, many people would be asking the same question; what else don’t we know about? If it weren’t for an angry Guardian editor who published the initial hint that something was being hidden, combined with the person or persons who submitted the information to Wikileaks or the bloggers who hyped the information until parliament and Trafigura admitted defeat, we never would have known that any metal company had been involved in any payouts after illegal dumping. The Internet gives opportunity for stories like these to be revealed through anonymity – whether actual or not. In response to the Chinese censorship, Google has revealed that it regularly receives requests from government agencies wanting information on its users as well as requests to remove content (Vascellero, 2010). It seems like every country has made some sort of request, whether it is to deny or to gain information. This shows the power that Google, who also own Youtube, appears to wield in terms of openness of information. If they chose to block any information surrounding Trafigura from their search engine, then this may have hindered the speed that the story was dispersed amongst Web users. However, I think the fact that other popular social media applications exist make it almost impossible for a single organisation to block information. While we couldn’t use Blogger, we could still use Wordpress. While we couldn’t Youtube, we could still Vimeo. And just as Trafigura were forced to accept they could not block the dam of information, Google would be forced to back down too. However, this still relies on the Internet being open and free. Government interference whether it be blocking certain pages or applying law limits the opportunity for a free exchange of information and leads to censorship on the Internet, social media and its users.

Blogging has also become an important feature on the reporting on the Iraq war. While embedded journalism generally only encourages a strong pro-American stance in Western media, blogs by Iraqi citizens and journalists with limited or no ties to news corporations bring new perspectives and experiences to the public. Early in the war, freelance journalist, Christopher Allbritton became frustrated by the lack of interest in the Kurds living in Iraq. He began a blog and wrote independently without editors or advertisers to impress. He focused on getting a direct source for any story he published and attempted to avoid his own commentary. While he acknowledged his antiwar stance and the fact that he could not remain entirely objective, he did aim to report as unbiased as possible. “When a crowd of Kurds shouted how glad they were that the war had started, I reported it as they said it. When they told me how much they liked Fox News because ‘Fox News is true!,’ I reported that, too.” (Allbritton, 2003) He appears to be a strong advocate for blogging to compete with and run in line with traditional media and believes that “if blogs are ever going to be taken seriously as a journalistic medium, their authors will have to be as conscientious in their reporting conduct as any mainstream outlet.” The problem of the “truth” is a major one online and possibly the largest downfall of Web 2.0. However, this is also true of traditional media today. The choices editors make about what to publish shows that while objectivity is a journalistic standard, it is impossible for news media to be entirely so. At least Web 2.0 comes with a warning label and encourages us to evaluate what is “true”.

This warning label is used strongly in other blogs focused on the Iraq war. These are bloggers who never intended to take the role of journalist, but simply wrote of their experiences as an Iraqi citizen during the war and have thus provided readers with alternative views from that reported by the media. One such blog, A Family in Baghdad updated in both English and Arabic by a mother and her three sons. In one entry she writes, “If those who waged wars thought – what would their hands reap after this foolish venture, perhaps they would have hesitated. If they had a grain of mind and perception, but – greed and avidity blinds their eyes and suspends their minds.” (Al-Arji, 2009) Another blog written by someone who lived in Baghdad at the beginning of the war, but now resides in the UK wrote, “My friend’s father has been killed in Baghdad last week, a bullet in the head, he was in his car when an American soldier shot him. The American soldiers said ‘sorry for that mistake!’ what a simple mistake.” (A.Y.S., 2006) These are two of many blogs that give an internalised view on the war; they focus more on how citizens are affected every day, which contrasts the usual conflict-based reporting that we see in the mass media

In a report, Daniel Calinghaert (2010) wrote about Web 2.0 being a “haven of relatively free speech” (p. 65) in countries where media is restricted. He wrote about everyday citizens publishing content;

“These citizens, on their own initiative, write online journals, produce videos, report what is happening around them, investigate sensitive issues ignored by traditional media, and provide commentary on a vast array of political, social, and other issues. In restricted media environments, bloggers are often at the forefront of efforts to push the bounds of free expression.” (p. 66)

His final point is possibly the most important. Right now, people are trying to see how far they can push and how much they can get away with in terms of blogging. The Great (Internet) Wall of China continues to get stronger, however Chinese bloggers continue to test this wall. One such blogger, Zhang Shihe publishes six blogs on different sites. Since they are censored by people with different ideas and decision making processes, he finds that sometimes a post will be blocked on one of his blogs, but the same post on another blog will be passed through or overlooked. We can only assume that this paper and entire Net Studies forum is blocked from anyone trying to access it from China. However, as the New York Times (2010) reports, this may change as a new law means that anyone publishing using China’s .cn domain must provide identification. This means that anyone pushing those censorship boundaries too far may find Chinese authorities on their doorstep. China may be the extreme in Internet censorship, but they certainly not the only ones. Journalists hoping to gain military protection when reporting in war zones sign contracts with the United States government, “agreeing to allow their reports to be reviewed by military officials prior to release, to be escorted at all times by military personnel, and to allow the government to dismiss them at any time for any reason” (Lindner, 2009). Suddenly the subjective accounts of the war blogged by Iraq citizens seem so much more credible.

While it is easy for us to assume that as a free and democratic country, Australia’s leaders have our interests at heart when they are proposing a system to filter the Internet. Additionally, we may not always consider that the thousands of tweets and blog posts are simply self serving rubbish that is read and quickly forgotten. No, Web 2.0 is empowering us in creating our own versions of the truth. It is important that we don’t write these truths off as someone’s ill-informed opinion, because as we have seen, these opinions often come from citizens who are better informed and more aware from our journalists. Finally, it is important that we continue to question and push our law makers that are trying to limit what we see and hear. Freedom from censorship is important is important in any medium, but I feel that even more so online. The media is generally seen as the Fourth Estate, with their role being to keep the government, church and business in check; however it now seems that Web 2.0 has become the next tier through commenting, criticising and filling in gaps in the media.

References

Al-Arji, Faiza et al. (2009). A Family in Baghdad. Retrieved April 5, 2010 from http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/

Allbritton, Christopher. (2003). Blogging from Iraq. Nieman Reports, 57, 82-85 from Proquest database.

A.Y.S. (2006). Iraq At A Glance.   Retrieved April 5, 2010, from http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/

Calingaert, Daniel. (2010, April/May). Authoritarianism vs. the Internet. Policy Review, 160, 63-75.

Cohen, Noam. (2009, October 19). Twitter and a newspaper untie a gag order. The New York Times.

Collins, Barry. (2009, October 14). Did Stephen Fry and Twitter really score a victory for free speech?  PC Pro

How the Trafigura story came to be told. (2009, October 16). The Guardian

Jolly, David (2009, September 21). Ivory coast toxic-dump case settled, company says. The New York Times

Leigh, David. (2009, October 12). Guardian gagged from reporting parliament. The Guardian

Lindner, Andrew M. (2009) Among the troops: Seeing the Iraq War through three journalistic vantage points. Social Problems, 56, 21-25 from Proquest database.

Robertson, Lori. (2004, October/November). Images of war.  American Journalism Review

Vascellaro, Jessica. (2010, April 20). Google discloses government demands for user data. The Wall Street Journal

Wines, Michael et al. (2010, April 8) China censors tackle and trip over the internet. The New York Times.