“Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped with barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders. The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.” - Ronald Reagan
This was the conclusion of the, by then, former White House incumbent, during an interview with the Guardian in 1989. It was during that same year that the world witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and, as a consequence, a de facto end to over 40 years of Cold War.
Presumably, many people reading Reagan’s words at the time were simply relieved that the stand-off had been resolved largely by Glasnost, as opposed to a macabre homage to Stanley Kubrick.
Yet, a quick examination of today’s digital world would suggest that ”The Gipper” and his predictions were often surprisingly prescient.
Since the end of the Cold War, the internet and web 2.0, have led to a surge in global communication and the dissemination of information. Whilst repressive states still exist, their attempts to control and manage information has become infinitely more difficult, as recent events in Tibet and Zimbabwe have shown.
In an era of 24-hour news, blogging, mobile phones, Twitter and You.tube, the capacity of governments, or anyone else, to control what individuals hear and say has been significantly reduced. This can only be considered a good thing…right?
As you might expect, there is a flip-side to this new-found freedom of expression: that of moderating content and the issue of accountability for published material. I should at this point make it clear that I do not advocate censorship and overwhelmingly subscribe to Voltaire’s maxim regarding free speech. This is also an ethos promoted by The Daily Telegraph on its blog site MyTelegraph , which, since May 2007, has allowed “anyone” to have their say.
This includes BNP councillor Richard Barnbrook, who (regrettably) finds ample time to regularly air his odious views on everything from immigration to Lily Allen. Of course, it would be all too easy to pillory the Telegraph for allowing this. By allowing the likes of Barnbrook to have their say might imply that you in some way condone or are sympathetic to his views.
The Telegraph’s response is that it has no moral right or desire to determine who can say what, and that the best way to undermine extremist views is by exposing them to public ridicule and contempt. Furthermore, according to MyTelegraph Communities Editor, Shane Richmond, Barnbrook’s posts are closely monitored by the Telegraph’s lawyers for anything that could be deemed illegal.
Such an approach is fine when dealing with relatively high profile individuals such as Barnbrook, but what about the millions of other blogs and social media outlets out there?
Traditional media formats are overseen and regulated by bodies such as Ofcom and the PCC. However, as the relationship between professional media and consumer further intertwines, the lines on contempt and defamation are becoming increasingly blurred.
Indeed, if the recent Manuelgate debacle at BBC Radio 2 is anything to go by, media professionals can sometimes not be trusted to moderate their own content, let alone their audience’s.
By Richmond’s own admission, the MyTelegraph site does not read or moderate the majority of its user content. This is because, perversely, not reading is often the safest approach in terms of legal accountability.
By reading and approving content (or worse still approving and then reading content) media organisations can potentially be held directly responsible should anything of a defamatory and/or libellous nature be published. By not reading what users send in, editors effectively absolve themselves of responsibility.
Surely, we can do better than this?
Web technologies and social medias have advanced so rapidly that the old guard have not had time to work out how to effectively regulate what goes on, or reform laws that will inevitably become outmoded. This it seems will be a challenge the media will have to face for many years to come.
