self-hosting-advocacy/harmful-communications-201910
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Releases Wiki Activity

Progress

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
Éibhear Ó hAnluain 2019-09-08 15:28:59 +01:00
parent ba1fa453d0
commit 909f59763d
1 changed files with 115 additions and 9 deletions
Show stats Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

124
HarmfulCommunications201908.org
View file

@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
#+TITLE: Submission to the Committee on Justice and Equality on /issues of online harassment, harmful communications and related offences/.
#+AUTHOR: Éibhear Ó hAnluain
#+EMAIL: eibhear.geo@gmail.com, 086 8565 666, http://www.gibiris.org/eo-blog/
#+OPTIONS: ^:{} toc:2 H:4 num:t author:t email:t
#+OPTIONS: ^:{} toc:2 H:4 num:t author:t email:nil
#+TODO: CONSTODO CONSNOTES | CONSDONE
* Planning :noexport:
@ -245,16 +245,122 @@
* Abuse, child sexual exploitation, hateful conduct, private information, Sensitive media, voilent threats
* => 60,000 account reported/day
* => 0.02% of accounts reported
* CONSTODO Introduction
* CONSDONE Introduction
In this submission I am seeking to highlight 2 core concerns with
respect to /issues of online harassment, harmful communications and
related offences/.
- How new laws could affect small or hobbyist services
- How regulations can be abused by bad-faith actors
My name is Éibhear Ó hAnluain and I have been working in software
engineering and IT systems design since 1994. I thank you for the
opportunity to submit this contribution to your analysis of /issues
of online harassment, harmful communications and related offences/.
I would like to outline some initial thoughts on these matters first
before addressing the specific questions of the consultation.
In this submission I am seeking to highlight 3 core concerns:
- The distinction between user behaviours and online services.
- The nature of the online services from the perspective of small
operators
- The potential damage legislative measures can have on small
operators of online services
However, prior to addressing these topics, I would like to raise
some ambiguities that this wider discussion will encounter.
- The first is the meaning of the term /self-regulation/. If a
measure of self-regulation to address these concerns is
acceptable, then it would be necessary for public-perception
reasons, to be clear on what that means. /Self-regulation/ could
mean either where each service operator manages matters of
harassment and harmful communications according to their own rules
and processes. This is currently how the large service providers
we're most familiar with operate. However, /self-regulation/ may
also refer to regulation by a non-governmental industry-funded
body, following the model of the press council or the advertising
standards authority, where rules and processes are agreed among
the operators as a set of standards, and where decisions of
compliance to these are made by this body.
In order to avoid this ambiguity, I will use the term
"self-moderation" to refer to the former, and the term
"industry-regulation" for the latter.
* CONSTODO The distinction between user behaviours and online services
The internet is awash with online harassment and harmful
communications, and responsible governments and legislators have
been trying for decades to do something about it.
However, it's no less true in this sphere than in any other that
"doing something" is not necessarily enough to address the problem:
doing only the /right thing/ it what's required.
In the first of his 6 Laws of
Technology[fn:6laws:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Kranzberg#Kranzberg's_laws_of_technology],
Dr. Melvin Kranzberg determined that "Technology is neither good nor
bad; nor is it neutral." The tempation on observers is to decide
that the extent of online harassment, abuse and harmful
communications is because of the existence of online services, and
that if only we could force the services to implement their
technologies in a particular manner, all the problems will be
solved.
For instance, the United States of America recently enacted a law
known as the "Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act", or
/FOSTA-SESTA/[fn:FOSTA-SESTA:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Enabling_Sex_Traffickers_Act]. This
was a law to show that the U.S. Congress was doing something to stop
sex-trafficking. The law made it an offence for online services to
"knowingly [assist], [support], or [facilitate]" sex-trafficking,
and it removed from online services speech-related protections that
had been previously provided under another U.S. law known as the
"Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act".
Accounts show, however, that doing *this* was not effective, and has
been counter-productive. As expected, a number of websites that had
been used to legally advertise sex services in the United States
either shut down that section of their service (e.g. Craigslists'
"Erotic Services"), or shutdown completely[fn:SOSTAEffect:Lura
Chamberlain, FOSTA: A Hostile Law with a Human Cost, 87 Fordham
L. Rev. 2171 (2019). Available at:
https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol87/iss5/13]. If the goal of the
law was to protect sex workers, and women in particular, it has had
the opposite effect:
- Independent sex workers now have no online means to promote their
services, forcing them to turn to pimps for this.
- There has been a notable increase in the number of sex workers who
have gone missing.
- Some sex-workers have died by suicide.
- Assault and rape of sex workers has increased, and many fear that
murders of sex workers are also
increasing[fn:craigslisthomicide:http://www.econlib.org/archives/2018/01/craigslist_redu.html].
- Sex workers have no means to learn about their potential clients
prior to the client knowing about them: where they could vet
people who made contact with them over these services before
identifying themselves, this is not possible anymore, and
dramatically increases their risk.
- Ironically, one of the negative effects of /FOSTA-SESTA/ is that
it is now much harder for the police to investigate rapes,
assaults and murders of sex workers than before, because a
critical trail of evidence -- the online communications between
offenders and sex-workers -- now can no longer be
laid[fn:FOSTAPolice:https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180705/01033440176/more-police-admitting-that-fosta-sesta-has-made-it-much-more-difficult-to-catch-pimps-traffickers.shtml]. This
is not least because the websites are no longer there, but because
when they were (e.g. Backpage), they assisted the police
investigating these crimes against sex workers; advertising was
legal back then, and now it's not, the police won't get the help
from web sites when they need
it[fn:SESTAPolice:https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180509/13450339810/police-realizing-that-sesta-fosta-made-their-jobs-harder-sex-traffickers-realizing-made-their-job-easier.shtml].
This was predicted, but by advocates for sex workers and for free
speech, and legislators failed to heed the warnings. In fact, when
considering this law, legislators were presented with statistics
that were false, and misrepresented the landscape prior to enacting
/FOSTA-SESTA/[fn:buzzfeed:https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jennyheineman/sex-trafficking-myths-sesta-fosta].
I highlight this law in particular because it is both recent
(early 2018) and relevant. However it's not alone, and as we look at
pending legislation coming to us both domestically and from the EU,
it's hard not to see the same failures repeating:
- Pat Rabbitte's and
- The EU Terrorism Content Directive...
- The new Copyright Directive...
-
** CONSTODO The nature of the internet from the perspective of the technology