| Recorded at | July 12, 2011 |
|---|---|
| Event | TEDGlobal 2011 |
| Duration (min:sec) | 14:31 |
| Video Type | TED Stage Talk |
| Words per minute | 160.92 slow |
| Readability (FK) | 25.88 very difficult |
| Speaker | Rebecca MacKinnon |
| Country | United States of America |
| Occupation | reporter, journalist |
| Description | American activist and journalist |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
In this powerful talk from TEDGlobal, Rebecca MacKinnon describes the expanding struggle for freedom and control in cyberspace, and asks: How do we design the next phase of the Internet with accountability and freedom at its core, rather than control? She believes the internet is headed for a "Magna Carta" moment when citizens around the world demand that their governments protect free speech and their right to connection.
| 1 | 00:15 | So I begin with an advertisement | ||
| 2 | 00:18 | inspired by George Orwell | ||
| 3 | 00:20 | that Apple ran in 1984. | ||
| 4 | 00:32 | (Video) Big Brother: We are one people | ||
| 5 | 00:34 | with one will, one resolve, | ||
| 6 | 00:37 | one cause. | ||
| 7 | 00:39 | Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, | ||
| 8 | 00:42 | and we will fight them with their own confusion. | ||
| 9 | 00:47 | We shall prevail. | ||
| 10 | 00:52 | Narrator: On January 24th, | ||
| 11 | 00:54 | Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. | ||
| 12 | 00:57 | And you'll see why 1984 | ||
| 13 | 01:00 | won't be like "1984." | ||
| 14 | 01:02 | Rebecca MacKinnon: So the underlying message of this video | ||
| 15 | 01:05 | remains very powerful even today. | ||
| 16 | 01:08 | Technology created by innovative companies | ||
| 17 | 01:11 | will set us all free. | ||
| 18 | 01:14 | Fast-forward more than two decades: | ||
| 19 | 01:17 | Apple launches the iPhone in China | ||
| 20 | 01:20 | and censors the Dalai Lama out | ||
| 21 | 01:22 | along with several other politically sensitive applications | ||
| 22 | 01:25 | at the request of the Chinese government | ||
| 23 | 01:27 | for its Chinese app store. | ||
| 24 | 01:29 | The American political cartoonist | ||
| 25 | 01:31 | Mark Fiore | ||
| 26 | 01:33 | also had his satire application | ||
| 27 | 01:35 | censored in the United States | ||
| 28 | 01:37 | because some of Apple's staff | ||
| 29 | 01:39 | were concerned it would be offensive to some groups. | ||
| 30 | 01:42 | His app wasn't reinstated | ||
| 31 | 01:44 | until he won the Pulitzer Prize. | ||
| 32 | 01:47 | The German magazine Stern, a news magazine, | ||
| 33 | 01:50 | had its app censored | ||
| 34 | 01:52 | because the Apple nannies deemed it | ||
| 35 | 01:54 | to be a little bit too racy for their users, | ||
| 36 | 01:57 | and despite the fact that this magazine | ||
| 37 | 01:59 | is perfectly legal for sale | ||
| 38 | 02:01 | on newsstands throughout Germany. | ||
| 39 | 02:04 | And more controversially, recently, | ||
| 40 | 02:06 | Apple censored a Palestinian protest app | ||
| 41 | 02:09 | after the Israeli government voiced concerns | ||
| 42 | 02:12 | that it might be used to organize violent attacks. | ||
| 43 | 02:15 | So here's the thing. | ||
| 44 | 02:17 | We have a situation where private companies | ||
| 45 | 02:19 | are applying censorship standards | ||
| 46 | 02:22 | that are often quite arbitrary | ||
| 47 | 02:25 | and generally more narrow | ||
| 48 | 02:27 | than the free speech constitutional standards | ||
| 49 | 02:29 | that we have in democracies. | ||
| 50 | 02:31 | Or they're responding to censorship requests | ||
| 51 | 02:34 | by authoritarian regimes | ||
| 52 | 02:36 | that do not reflect consent of the governed. | ||
| 53 | 02:38 | Or they're responding to requests and concerns | ||
| 54 | 02:41 | by governments that have no jurisdiction | ||
| 55 | 02:45 | over many, or most, of the users and viewers | ||
| 56 | 02:48 | who are interacting with the content in question. | ||
| 57 | 02:51 | So here's the situation. | ||
| 58 | 02:53 | In a pre-Internet world, | ||
| 59 | 02:55 | sovereignty over our physical freedoms, | ||
| 60 | 02:58 | or lack thereof, | ||
| 61 | 03:00 | was controlled almost entirely | ||
| 62 | 03:02 | by nation-states. | ||
| 63 | 03:04 | But now we have this new layer | ||
| 64 | 03:06 | of private sovereignty | ||
| 65 | 03:08 | in cyberspace. | ||
| 66 | 03:10 | And their decisions about software coding, | ||
| 67 | 03:12 | engineering, design, terms of service | ||
| 68 | 03:15 | all act as a kind of law | ||
| 69 | 03:17 | that shapes what we can and cannot do with our digital lives. | ||
| 70 | 03:21 | And their sovereignties, | ||
| 71 | 03:23 | cross-cutting, globally interlinked, | ||
| 72 | 03:25 | can in some ways | ||
| 73 | 03:27 | challenge the sovereignties of nation-states | ||
| 74 | 03:29 | in very exciting ways, | ||
| 75 | 03:31 | but sometimes also act | ||
| 76 | 03:33 | to project and extend it | ||
| 77 | 03:35 | at a time when control | ||
| 78 | 03:37 | over what people can and cannot do | ||
| 79 | 03:39 | with information | ||
| 80 | 03:41 | has more effect than ever | ||
| 81 | 03:43 | on the exercise of power | ||
| 82 | 03:45 | in our physical world. | ||
| 83 | 03:48 | After all, even the leader of the free world | ||
| 84 | 03:50 | needs a little help from the sultan of Facebookistan | ||
| 85 | 03:53 | if he wants to get reelected next year. | ||
| 86 | 03:56 | And these platforms | ||
| 87 | 03:58 | were certainly very helpful | ||
| 88 | 04:00 | to activists in Tunisia and Egypt | ||
| 89 | 04:03 | this past spring and beyond. | ||
| 90 | 04:05 | As Wael Ghonim, | ||
| 91 | 04:08 | the Google-Egyptian-executive by day, | ||
| 92 | 04:11 | secret-Facebook-activist by night, | ||
| 93 | 04:13 | famously said to CNN | ||
| 94 | 04:15 | after Mubarak stepped down, | ||
| 95 | 04:17 | "If you want to liberate a society, | ||
| 96 | 04:19 | just give them the Internet." | ||
| 97 | 04:21 | But overthrowing a government is one thing | ||
| 98 | 04:23 | and building a stable democracy | ||
| 99 | 04:25 | is a bit more complicated. | ||
| 100 | 04:27 | On the left there's a photo taken by an Egyptian activist | ||
| 101 | 04:30 | who was part of the storming | ||
| 102 | 04:32 | of the Egyptian state security offices in March. | ||
| 103 | 04:35 | And many of the agents | ||
| 104 | 04:37 | shredded as many of the documents as they could | ||
| 105 | 04:39 | and left them behind in piles. | ||
| 106 | 04:41 | But some of the files were left behind intact, | ||
| 107 | 04:44 | and activists, some of them, | ||
| 108 | 04:46 | found their own surveillance dossiers | ||
| 109 | 04:49 | full of transcripts of their email exchanges, | ||
| 110 | 04:52 | their cellphone text message exchanges, | ||
| 111 | 04:54 | even Skype conversations. | ||
| 112 | 04:56 | And one activist actually found | ||
| 113 | 04:58 | a contract from a Western company | ||
| 114 | 05:01 | for the sale of surveillance technology | ||
| 115 | 05:03 | to the Egyptian security forces. | ||
| 116 | 05:05 | And Egyptian activists are assuming | ||
| 117 | 05:07 | that these technologies for surveillance | ||
| 118 | 05:09 | are still being used | ||
| 119 | 05:11 | by the transitional authorities running the networks there. | ||
| 120 | 05:15 | And in Tunisia, censorship actually began to return in May -- | ||
| 121 | 05:18 | not nearly as extensively | ||
| 122 | 05:20 | as under President Ben Ali. | ||
| 123 | 05:23 | But you'll see here a blocked page | ||
| 124 | 05:25 | of what happens when you try to reach | ||
| 125 | 05:27 | certain Facebook pages and some other websites | ||
| 126 | 05:29 | that the transitional authorities | ||
| 127 | 05:31 | have determined might incite violence. | ||
| 128 | 05:34 | In protest over this, | ||
| 129 | 05:36 | blogger Slim Amamou, | ||
| 130 | 05:38 | who had been jailed under Ben Ali | ||
| 131 | 05:40 | and then became part of the transitional government | ||
| 132 | 05:42 | after the revolution, | ||
| 133 | 05:44 | he resigned in protest from the cabinet. | ||
| 134 | 05:47 | But there's been a lot of debate in Tunisia | ||
| 135 | 05:49 | about how to handle this kind of problem. | ||
| 136 | 05:51 | In fact, on Twitter, | ||
| 137 | 05:53 | there were a number of people who were supportive of the revolution | ||
| 138 | 05:55 | who said, "Well actually, | ||
| 139 | 05:57 | we do want democracy and free expression, | ||
| 140 | 05:59 | but there is some kinds of speech that need to be off-bounds | ||
| 141 | 06:02 | because it's too violent and it might be destabilizing for our democracy. | ||
| 142 | 06:05 | But the problem is, | ||
| 143 | 06:07 | how do you decide who is in power to make these decisions | ||
| 144 | 06:10 | and how do you make sure | ||
| 145 | 06:12 | that they do not abuse their power? | ||
| 146 | 06:14 | As Riadh Guerfali, | ||
| 147 | 06:16 | the veteran digital activist from Tunisia, | ||
| 148 | 06:18 | remarked over this incident, | ||
| 149 | 06:20 | "Before, things were simple: | ||
| 150 | 06:22 | you had the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other. | ||
| 151 | 06:25 | Today, things are a lot more subtle." | ||
| 152 | 06:28 | Welcome to democracy, our Tunisian and Egyptian friends. | ||
| 153 | 06:31 | The reality is | ||
| 154 | 06:33 | that even in democratic societies today, | ||
| 155 | 06:36 | we do not have good answers | ||
| 156 | 06:38 | for how you balance the need | ||
| 157 | 06:40 | for security and law enforcement on one hand | ||
| 158 | 06:43 | and protection of civil liberties | ||
| 159 | 06:45 | and free speech on the other | ||
| 160 | 06:47 | in our digital networks. | ||
| 161 | 06:49 | In fact, in the United States, | ||
| 162 | 06:51 | whatever you may think of Julian Assange, | ||
| 163 | 06:54 | even people who are not necessarily big fans of his | ||
| 164 | 06:57 | are very concerned about the way | ||
| 165 | 06:59 | in which the United States government and some companies have handled Wikileaks. | ||
| 166 | 07:02 | Amazon webhosting dropped Wikileaks as a customer | ||
| 167 | 07:05 | after receiving a complaint from U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, | ||
| 168 | 07:09 | despite the fact | ||
| 169 | 07:11 | that Wikileaks had not been charged, | ||
| 170 | 07:13 | let alone convicted, | ||
| 171 | 07:15 | of any crime. | ||
| 172 | 07:18 | So we assume | ||
| 173 | 07:20 | that the Internet is a border-busting technology. | ||
| 174 | 07:23 | This is a map of social networks worldwide, | ||
| 175 | 07:26 | and certainly Facebook has conquered much of the world -- | ||
| 176 | 07:29 | which is either a good or a bad thing, | ||
| 177 | 07:31 | depending on how you like | ||
| 178 | 07:33 | the way Facebook manages its service. | ||
| 179 | 07:35 | But borders do persist | ||
| 180 | 07:37 | in some parts of cyberspace. | ||
| 181 | 07:39 | In Brazil and Japan, | ||
| 182 | 07:41 | it's for unique cultural and linguistic reasons. | ||
| 183 | 07:44 | But if you look at China, Vietnam | ||
| 184 | 07:46 | and a number of the former Soviet states, | ||
| 185 | 07:49 | what's happening there is more troubling. | ||
| 186 | 07:51 | You have a situation | ||
| 187 | 07:53 | where the relationship between government | ||
| 188 | 07:55 | and local social networking companies | ||
| 189 | 07:58 | is creating a situation | ||
| 190 | 08:00 | where, effectively, | ||
| 191 | 08:02 | the empowering potential of these platforms | ||
| 192 | 08:05 | is being constrained | ||
| 193 | 08:07 | because of these relationships | ||
| 194 | 08:09 | between companies and government. | ||
| 195 | 08:11 | Now in China, | ||
| 196 | 08:13 | you have the "great firewall," as it's well-known, | ||
| 197 | 08:15 | that blocks Facebook | ||
| 198 | 08:17 | and Twitter and now Google+ | ||
| 199 | 08:20 | and many of the other overseas websites. | ||
| 200 | 08:23 | And that's done in part with the help from Western technology. | ||
| 201 | 08:26 | But that's only half of the story. | ||
| 202 | 08:29 | The other part of the story | ||
| 203 | 08:31 | are requirements that the Chinese government places | ||
| 204 | 08:34 | on all companies operating on the Chinese Internet, | ||
| 205 | 08:37 | known as a system of self-discipline. | ||
| 206 | 08:39 | In plain English, that means censorship and surveillance | ||
| 207 | 08:42 | of their users. | ||
| 208 | 08:44 | And this is a ceremony I actually attended in 2009 | ||
| 209 | 08:47 | where the Internet Society of China presented awards | ||
| 210 | 08:50 | to the top 20 Chinese companies | ||
| 211 | 08:53 | that are best at exercising self-discipline -- | ||
| 212 | 08:56 | i.e. policing their content. | ||
| 213 | 08:58 | And Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, | ||
| 214 | 09:01 | China's dominant search engine, | ||
| 215 | 09:03 | was one of the recipients. | ||
| 216 | 09:06 | In Russia, they do not generally block the Internet | ||
| 217 | 09:10 | and directly censor websites. | ||
| 218 | 09:12 | But this is a website called Rospil | ||
| 219 | 09:14 | that's an anti-corruption site. | ||
| 220 | 09:16 | And earlier this year, | ||
| 221 | 09:18 | there was a troubling incident | ||
| 222 | 09:20 | where people who had made donations to Rospil | ||
| 223 | 09:23 | through a payments processing system | ||
| 224 | 09:25 | called Yandex Money | ||
| 225 | 09:27 | suddenly received threatening phone calls | ||
| 226 | 09:29 | from members of a nationalist party | ||
| 227 | 09:32 | who had obtained details | ||
| 228 | 09:34 | about donors to Rospil | ||
| 229 | 09:37 | through members of the security services | ||
| 230 | 09:39 | who had somehow obtained this information | ||
| 231 | 09:42 | from people at Yandex Money. | ||
| 232 | 09:45 | This has a chilling effect | ||
| 233 | 09:47 | on people's ability to use the Internet | ||
| 234 | 09:49 | to hold government accountable. | ||
| 235 | 09:52 | So we have a situation in the world today | ||
| 236 | 09:54 | where in more and more countries | ||
| 237 | 09:56 | the relationship between citizens and governments | ||
| 238 | 09:59 | is mediated through the Internet, | ||
| 239 | 10:02 | which is comprised primarily | ||
| 240 | 10:04 | of privately owned and operated services. | ||
| 241 | 10:08 | So the important question, I think, | ||
| 242 | 10:10 | is not this debate over whether the Internet | ||
| 243 | 10:12 | is going to help the good guys more than the bad guys. | ||
| 244 | 10:15 | Of course, it's going to empower | ||
| 245 | 10:17 | whoever is most skilled at using the technology | ||
| 246 | 10:20 | and best understands the Internet | ||
| 247 | 10:22 | in comparison with whoever their adversary is. | ||
| 248 | 10:25 | The most urgent question we need to be asking today | ||
| 249 | 10:28 | is how do we make sure | ||
| 250 | 10:30 | that the Internet evolves | ||
| 251 | 10:32 | in a citizen-centric manner. | ||
| 252 | 10:35 | Because I think all of you will agree | ||
| 253 | 10:37 | that the only legitimate purpose of government | ||
| 254 | 10:40 | is to serve citizens, | ||
| 255 | 10:42 | and I would argue | ||
| 256 | 10:44 | that the only legitimate purpose of technology | ||
| 257 | 10:46 | is to improve our lives, | ||
| 258 | 10:48 | not to manipulate or enslave us. | ||
| 259 | 10:53 | So the question is, | ||
| 260 | 10:55 | we know how to hold government accountable. | ||
| 261 | 10:57 | We don't necessarily always do it very well, | ||
| 262 | 10:59 | but we have a sense of what the models are, | ||
| 263 | 11:02 | politically and institutionally, to do that. | ||
| 264 | 11:04 | How do you hold the sovereigns of cyberspace | ||
| 265 | 11:06 | accountable to the public interest | ||
| 266 | 11:08 | when most CEO's argue | ||
| 267 | 11:10 | that their main obligation | ||
| 268 | 11:12 | is to maximize shareholder profit? | ||
| 269 | 11:14 | And government regulation | ||
| 270 | 11:16 | often isn't helping all that much. | ||
| 271 | 11:18 | You have situations, for instance, in France | ||
| 272 | 11:20 | where president Sarkozy | ||
| 273 | 11:22 | tells the CEO's of Internet companies, | ||
| 274 | 11:24 | "We're the only legitimate representatives | ||
| 275 | 11:26 | of the public interest." | ||
| 276 | 11:28 | But then he goes and champions laws | ||
| 277 | 11:30 | like the infamous "three-strikes" law | ||
| 278 | 11:32 | that would disconnect citizens from the Internet | ||
| 279 | 11:34 | for file sharing, | ||
| 280 | 11:36 | which has been condemned by the U.N. Special Rapporteur | ||
| 281 | 11:39 | on Freedom of Expression | ||
| 282 | 11:41 | as being a disproportionate violation | ||
| 283 | 11:44 | of citizens' right to communications, | ||
| 284 | 11:46 | and has raised questions amongst civil society groups | ||
| 285 | 11:49 | about whether | ||
| 286 | 11:51 | some political representatives | ||
| 287 | 11:53 | are more interested in preserving | ||
| 288 | 11:55 | the interests of the entertainment industry | ||
| 289 | 11:58 | than they are in defending the rights of their citizens. | ||
| 290 | 12:00 | And here in the United Kingdom | ||
| 291 | 12:02 | there's also concern over | ||
| 292 | 12:04 | a law called the Digital Economy Act | ||
| 293 | 12:06 | that's placing more onus | ||
| 294 | 12:08 | on private intermediaries | ||
| 295 | 12:10 | to police citizen behavior. | ||
| 296 | 12:14 | So what we need to recognize | ||
| 297 | 12:16 | is that if we want to have | ||
| 298 | 12:18 | a citizen-centric Internet in the future, | ||
| 299 | 12:21 | we need a broader and more sustained | ||
| 300 | 12:23 | Internet freedom movement. | ||
| 301 | 12:25 | After all, companies didn't stop polluting groundwater | ||
| 302 | 12:28 | as a matter of course, | ||
| 303 | 12:31 | or employing 10-year-olds as a matter of course, | ||
| 304 | 12:33 | just because executives woke up one day | ||
| 305 | 12:35 | and decided it was the right thing to do. | ||
| 306 | 12:38 | It was the result of decades of sustained activism, | ||
| 307 | 12:40 | shareholder advocacy | ||
| 308 | 12:42 | and consumer advocacy. | ||
| 309 | 12:44 | Similarly, governments don't enact | ||
| 310 | 12:48 | intelligent environmental and labor laws | ||
| 311 | 12:51 | just because politicians wake up one day. | ||
| 312 | 12:54 | It's the result of very sustained and prolonged | ||
| 313 | 12:56 | political activism | ||
| 314 | 12:58 | that you get the right regulations, | ||
| 315 | 13:00 | and that you get the right corporate behavior. | ||
| 316 | 13:02 | We need to make the same approach | ||
| 317 | 13:04 | with the Internet. | ||
| 318 | 13:06 | We also are going to need | ||
| 319 | 13:08 | political innovation. | ||
| 320 | 13:10 | Eight hundred years ago, approximately, | ||
| 321 | 13:13 | the barons of England decided | ||
| 322 | 13:15 | that the Divine Right of Kings | ||
| 323 | 13:17 | was no longer working for them so well, | ||
| 324 | 13:20 | and they forced King John | ||
| 325 | 13:22 | to sign the Magna Carta, | ||
| 326 | 13:25 | which recognized | ||
| 327 | 13:27 | that even the king | ||
| 328 | 13:29 | who claimed to have divine rule | ||
| 329 | 13:32 | still had to abide by a basic set of rules. | ||
| 330 | 13:35 | This set off a cycle | ||
| 331 | 13:38 | of what we can call political innovation, | ||
| 332 | 13:40 | which led eventually to the idea of consent of the governed -- | ||
| 333 | 13:43 | which was implemented for the first time | ||
| 334 | 13:46 | by that radical revolutionary government | ||
| 335 | 13:49 | in America across the pond. | ||
| 336 | 13:52 | So now we need to figure out | ||
| 337 | 13:55 | how to build consent of the networked. | ||
| 338 | 13:57 | And what does that look like? | ||
| 339 | 13:59 | At the moment, we still don't know. | ||
| 340 | 14:02 | But it's going to require innovation | ||
| 341 | 14:06 | that's not only going to need | ||
| 342 | 14:09 | to focus on politics, | ||
| 343 | 14:11 | on geopolitics, | ||
| 344 | 14:13 | but it's also going to need | ||
| 345 | 14:15 | to deal with questions | ||
| 346 | 14:18 | of business management, investor behavior, | ||
| 347 | 14:21 | consumer choice | ||
| 348 | 14:23 | and even software design and engineering. | ||
| 349 | 14:27 | Each and every one of us has a vital part to play | ||
| 350 | 14:30 | in building the kind of world | ||
| 351 | 14:33 | in which government and technology | ||
| 352 | 14:36 | serve the world's people and not the other way around. | ||
| 353 | 14:39 | Thank you very much. | ||
| 354 | 14:41 | (Applause) |