Internet protest

AMERICAN lawmakers on Friday backtracked on two anti-piracy bills — the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act — after the proposed legislation caused a global outcry. Popular websites such as Wikipedia, Google and Twitter took up the gauntlet against the bills that cyber-activists claimed would amount to censoring the Internet, while Hollywood, the US recording industry and controversial media tycoon Rupert Murdoch supported the legislation. Proponents of the bills said they were meant to fight online piracy and protect US intellectual property, while critics argued that the language of the bills was vague and would stifle free expression, for example by holding websites responsible for links posted by users. The public reaction to the bills was tremendous, with reports indicating that millions of people recorded their protest. Countless websites joined the movement. It appeared to be an ideological and economic battle between the traditional forces of old media and the tech-savvy supporters of new media.

We in Pakistan have gone through similar experiences, for example when access to certain websites was blocked due to content deemed ‘blasphemous’. The protest against the proposed American laws indicates that the Internet is still young and the rules of engagement for the wide-open realms of cyberspace are still developing. While there indeed exists a need to protect intellectual property from online pirates — a considerable task — this should not be used as an excuse for governments to police the web and block sites they don’t like. It remains a great challenge for governments the world over to balance the need for protecting intellectual property rights without playing Big Brother. And as the recent protests have shown, global ‘netizens’ will not take kindly to any move perceived to be a fig leaf for Internet censorship.