Cyberspace: The New Combat Zone

Governments seek to control ‘citizen media’
Cyberspace: The new combat zone
By Hector Bryant L. Macale

There is a new arena in the fight for freedom of expression.

This is cyberspace, a new zone where a conflict rages between those who promote free expression and those who seek to restrict it.

At a recent Manila conference sponsored by the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) in cooperation with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), around 80 journalists, Internet experts, and independent online providers of news and information in and outside Asia gathered to address the issue of free expression in cyberspace. The conference titled, “Free Expression in Asian Cyberspace: A Conference of Asian Bloggers, Podcasters and Online Media,” was held April 19 to 21 in Makati City. The conference started a day after the Philippine blogging community held its second summit, “iBlog 2”.

Aside from PCIJ, SEAPA members include the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), the Thai Journalists Association, and the Indonesia-based Institute for Studies on Free Flow of Information and the Alliance of Independent Journalists.

In her keynote address, PCIJ executive director Sheila S. Coronel said, “Cyberspace remains the most promising outlet for the exercise of the most elemental of all our rights: the right to free expression.”

Stressing its potential power, she said PCIJ’s experience with blogging started only last year but has become the top media and political blog in the Philippines. As an indication of its effectiveness, the blog—within the short time that it has been operating—has earned for the PCIJ seven lawsuits, a temporary restraining order from a trial court judge, and threats from the justice secretary.

Participants also discussed the political, legal, ethical, economic, and technological issues involving free expression in Asian cyberspace.

Ying Chan, a journalism and communications professor at the University of Hong Kong, presented a study on the Asian Internet landscape and how the Internet has become a chief source of news and information in the region. Although technological advances can help societies open up, she said, these could also be used to curtail online content.

“There is no automatic conclusion that technology will lead to openness and demo-cracy,” Ying said, explaining the need for a fifth estate to foster a truly independent citizen media.

Most of the delegates related their experiences in attempting to exercise free expression through cyberspace in their respective countries, including those that have strict laws on free press and expression, such as China, Nepal, and Vietnam.

In Vietnam, Chi Dang, a member of the underground group Free Journalists Asso-ciation, said owners of websites in Vietnam “have to submit their content to the government.” This has prompted Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Paris-based press freedom watchdog, to brand Vietnam as one of the 15 “Enemies of the Internet.” Despite this, she said, online media are enabling Vietnamese in and outside the country to discuss news and views on democracy despite strict govern-ment controls.

“Vietnamese see the Internet as a tool for enabling citizens to voice their views on national issues, strengthening connections among them,” she said.

But for Chi Dang’s group and other cyber-dissidents in Vietnam, the battle continues. Two of her co-delegates were arrested at a Vietnam airport on April 18, preventing them from attending the conference. The two were released shortly after.

In Nepal, an information blackout on the news media has been in force since February of last year, according to Kunda Dixit, publisher of Nepali Times. Community radio, a major source of information for many Nepalese, was shut down for four months, newspapers are subjected to censorship, and news broadcast is banned in FM radio. Ironically, strict state censorship has forced the fighting Nepalese press to look for innovative ways in releasing news and informa-tion to the people, including the use of the Internet.

Sein Win of news site mizzima.com told the delegates how new technologies are allowing the Burmese people to discuss issues despite strict access and content controls of the internet imposed by the military government.

In the Philippines, bloggers and the mainstream media have kept the “Hello, Garci” audio files and transcript online, despite threats from the government, according to Manuel Luis Quezon III, Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist and prominent blogger.

The wiretapping scandal that nearly caused Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s fall from the presidency was a turning point for the Filipino blogosphere, Quezon said. As noted by PJR Reports in November last year, he said the year 2005 was indeed the “year of Pinoy blogs.”

“Blogs basically came of age,” he said.

Quezon told PJR Reports that cyber-dissension during Edsa  2 was at its infancy stage. “In Gloriagate, it’s the coming of age. The maturity has yet to come.”

The conference also discussed the legal, economic, and ethical issues involving free expression in Asian cyberspace.

Dini Widiastuti of the London-based group, Article 19 said that media and insult laws in Asia have made bloggers and online media vulnerable to legal prosecution. So too have national security and anti-terrorism laws, said Jeff Ooi of RSF.

Melinda Quintos de Jesus, CMFR executive director, said participants must look beyond the issue of human rights and look at the impact of blogging and Asian cyberspace on society.

“Does blogging invigorate public forum?” she asked. “I think it does. But we want to know how.”

De Jesus concluded her talk with a question: How does blog-ging fit into the larger scheme of human communication?

JV Rufino, editor of the news website inq7.net, discussed the economic pressures affecting online news media.

On the last day of the conference, delegates from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School and the Open Net Initiative (a collaboration among Harvard, University of Cam-bridge, and University of Toronto) conducted technical workshops on the tools and mechanisms for protecting the Asian cyberspace.

The delegates discussed the findings of a survey conducted among them on ways of further defending the right to free expression in Asian cyberspace.

Participants in the conference agreed that Asian cyberspace can be protected by, among other things, training bloggers in investigative journalism, waging an anti-web censorship campaign, supporting media development organizations, and advocating for free expression in the region.

In this latest frontier in mass communication, the stakes are much too high for ordinary citizens to allow interest groups like persons and parties in power to define the limits of what should—or should not—be done to promote the common good. The users of the new medium should speak out, blog in and be counted.

With research from Melanie Y. Pinlac, Jam Marie Y. Razal, and Janice C. Ponce de Leon

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