Community and Freedom

Information Society: Voices from the South

Summary of discussions on the topic
'Freedom, rights, laws and ethics'

Prepared by Partha Pratim Sarker
Co-editor, Bytes for All
& Moderator, Information Society Discussion Forum

Time Frame: June 16 to July 31, 2003
Number of Subscribers (Until July 31): 372 members

Main theme line of discussion

2. Freedom, rights, laws and ethics: How to address these issues for Information Society in the South?

Sub-topics:

(2.A.) Community and Freedom
(2.B.) Development and Self-Expression
(2.C.) Issue of Censorship and Self-Censorship
(2.D.) Issue of Patent and Copyright
(2.E.) Wi-fi, Internet and other technology issues
(2.F.) Right to Communicate

There has been an early debate on the concept of 'Community', as the concept is directly linked to the issues of freedom and censorship.

David Wendt emphasizes the diversified nature of communities and case studies as to how information is collected, shared and used in different communities. He added, 'I think we should be sure to re-emphasis that communities are not homogeneous or cohesive. There are many power differentials and the way information is shared, created, and used is part of the (as you've pointed out) unique situations of these communities. I think there is a lot of room to bring in lessons learned in some strands of participatory development on this issue (especially gender analysis tools) to look at winners and losers within the community given certain strategies for working with information society'.

Pam McLean forwarded an extract of an email of Chief Adejumo, chairman of OOCD 2000+ committee, while setting up her views on community. She also reminded an important issue of not repeating the unnecessary part of an email while reply to a mail. This unnecessary thread of messages creates enormous problems of downloading for many users in the Third World with slow connectivity.

Ajit Maru brought in a fresh and interesting dimension of 'participation' in the community. He says, 'When we discuss existing tools for participation, we must make our assumptions of the "community" where the tool is to be used explicit. Communities include and exclude not only on the basis of gender but also creed, race, caste (in my own culture this can be a major cause for exclusion), age, class, color, but in an information society exclusion could also be by inability to access, share and exchange information. It could be due to illiteracy, lack of skills to use technology, economic conditions of users, lack of infrastructure, inadequate bandwidths etc.'.

While setting up examples about diversified communities, Olajide Francis Ayodeji from Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, talked about Nigeria's situation. He writes, 'In Nigeria, common people which constitute majority of the country's population have no access to information that is crucial to them, and their rights to communication has been infringed by the little elites in the society. Take a look at some villages without access to social amenities such as good road, telephone, electricity, safe water. How do you want to get information across to them as part of Nigeria'? He also brought the example of increased fuel pump price that led to a strike organized by Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). But that too is threatened by the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) to shelve the strike and to identify the workers who're involved with it. He added, 'what this means is that if you as a worker participate in the strike you would either be sacked or not get paid over the period of the strike. Freedom of expression is being killed here. Moreso, media are not left out. Some of them who venture into writing something about the corrupt happenings in the government are censored'.

Thomas Tichar of FUNREDES of Dominican Republic spoke on the role of Government as to what extent communication can really break the barriers for individuals in many of the developing countries where democratic practices or institutions are yet to develop. He says, 'If under an authoritarian rule such as is Nigeria's (although I admit I am not an expert on Nigeria politics) these borders are continually reinforced, then this global form of communication cannot truly be spoken of. If an NGO were to implement a means of communication between villages, and this plan was disallowed by the government, or only allowed under heavy sanctions, could the NGO still enter and implement change? Probably not'.

John Chacko of One World, South Asia, has extended the arguments to Indian situation. He pointed out that even in India, state governments can suspend SMS on mobile phones 'ostensibly to prevent a law-and-order or communal situation from deteriorating'. Its true though in India, these sorts of censorship or obstruction is short-lived as there is independent judicial system, strong media but in many countries these question of freedom of expression and media is all too real. He particularly mentioned about Chinese Internet activists who're being jailed on a regular basis.

Frederick Noronha of Bytes for All forwarded an interesting message on the Internet situation in India, particularly its vulnerable position through the Information Technology Act in 2000. Through this act, hacking is punishable by up three years in prison and heavy fines. Cybercafés and the homes of Internet users can be searched at any time without a warrant if cyber-crime is suspected.The press revealed in March 2001 that police and government agencies were regularly harassing ISPs to provide personal information about their customers.
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Information Society: Voices from the South is an online discussion forum run by Digital Opportunity Channel in partnership with Bytes for All. The forum will run until December 2003 and will discuss a number of broad themes related to the emerging information society and the process of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).