a commentary on advertising laws and ethics

We constantly discuss the ASC and CRTC in class as the regulatory bodies in Canada that uphold the standards to which adverts are measured against and then deemed appropriate for public airing. However, it was brought up in class the other day that it is impossible to regulate the Internet because you don’t know where the content is coming from and you don’t know where the content will be viewed. There are a slew of websites that are not condoned yet are still free to exist – why? For the simple reason that it is impossible to regulate the Internet. Your website gets shut down and within ten minutes, you can have all your content hosted on another server, another website, another micro-corner of the virtual world. That prompts the following question: is the Internet the freest place on Earth? Is the Internet where absolute true freedom of speech and thoughts get exercised without consequence?

With the exception of things, such as child pornography, there really are no rules or limitations to what one can write or host on their personal website. If the Ku Klux Klan can have an official webpage, and sites with domains like godhatesfags.com can exist, then where are the boundaries drawn? You can even go onto websites to purchase marijuana from originating areas where it is NOT illegal to grow, traffic, possess, or consume. You can watch all kinds of pornography (there will be no examples given for this) without consequence and they can even charge you money for watching their material, because ultimately, it is a product (streaming film) and it is an e-business (…porn).

If I created a blog and voiced all my personal opinions on people, celebrities, news, politics, the weather, fashion, television, whatever it may be, there would be nothing but maybe a few disgruntled Internet trolls looking for a fight. But there would be no consequence. Unless I explicitly laid out some sort of diabolical plan for a hostile takeover of the world, there is no threat. There is no threat because these are thoughts and not actions. They are thoughts and not plans. They are thoughts and they are beliefs, but they are not explicitly enacted so therefore, I cannot be arrested for the thoughts I have. So if I am extended this courtesy, then the same could be said for the KKK or the severely homophobic anti-gay group that comprises the founding panel of godhatesfags.com. But is this right? Of course it’s not. But if we take away their freedom of voice, then we are not entitled to our own (a concept lost upon these two groups). The point is that there is no selectivity of free speech privileges on the Internet. Working in conjunction with the fact that the Internet is nearly impossible to regulate, groups like those aforementioned get away with what they do and proliferating what they believe because the rest of the world is playing with a double-edged sword when it comes to freedom of speech. And both edges are pointed at the good guy.

So, back to the original question: is the Internet the freest place on Earth?

People can hide behind their screens and be who they want to be and say what they want to say without fear that they are going to have ETF swarm through their windows at any given time. Free speech is considered a basic human right and now, Finland considers high-speed Internet to be a basic human right and mandates that every person living in Finland be granted Internet access that is regulated by the speed.[1] If one country can do it, then there are bound to be others who follow suit – for example, Sweden is already in the process of implementing the same idea.[2] The beginning of the Internet generation has already taken over all first and most second world nations and virtually (no pun intended) every person I know has regular high-speed Internet access. If high-speed Internet access is considered a human right along with freedom of speech, those two combined would theoretically create the freest place in the world.

The future generations are going to need the Internet Police.

Tags asc, crtc, free, freedom, freest, Internet, online, opinion, regulate, speech, standards