Posted by: Frederic Desjardins

Whether it is through the residents of a town who disagree with city officials or a group of citizens who feel abandoned by the traditional media or even the initiative of a Dutch elected official who wants to share his views, freedom of expression is a topic that resurfaces regularly on the mainstream media and the internet.

This is a fascinating question and, overall, a very interesting one for those who are involved in Civil Liberties on the internet. Because on the internet, international laws, national laws, good taste and censorship seem to coexist in harmony. However this harmony can be hard to achieve for those who want to promote a message that is outside the themes usually heard on mainstream media.

A Controversial initiative
One of the best examples these days, is the attempt of a right wing Member of the Dutch Parliament Geert Wilders to broadcast a 15 minute video. Wilders is known for his numerous anti-islam theses. The Dutch Government immediately dissociated itself from the Wilders initiative attempting to broadcast the video criticizing Islam and its sacred book the Koran.

After the Dutch National TV’s refusal to broadcast the documentary, Wilders decided to publish it on the internet. The problem is, in Holland, people are tolerant and are used to these types of discussions, but by promising to broadcast on the internet, Wilders exposes himself to the laws of all the countries and all interest groups in the world.

Of course his film will not be the first of this type to be broadcast on the net. We can already see numerous videos expressing anti-islam views on video portals. One of them is the video of Theo Van Gogh titled “Submission”, which covers violence made against muslim women. The movie abetted a muslim fanatic to murder Theo Van Gogh.

Afraid of being the victims of some islamic fatwa. Web Hosting providers such as Network Solutions, who first accepted to host the official video site Fitnathemovie.com, changed their minds and refused to host the Wilders video.

To explain its decision Network Solutions said that its terms of usage forbids hate propaganda and defamation. They also stated that the Web Hosting Service is commited to respect international and local legislations.

So even if the Dutch are a tolerant people and accept all online documents that serve the purpose of discussion, when another country or government finds the same document offensive, Network Solutions has the right, according to its terms of use, to remove the document and transfer all the legal costs to the web site editor who might have contravened some foreign national laws.

Network Solutions would probably not host websites or blogs describing what is happening in Tibet because it might be against Chinese laws or those criticizing Birmany to avoid displeasing the local administration.

That situation could convince web site editors to choose a local web host instead of Network Solutions. But the local Web Host could also take into account foreign laws, because the web sites of its clients would be accessible in other countries as well, where other laws could be in effect. This situation could be remedied if the web host used a controversial filtering service to prevent the viewers residing in those countries to access specific sites that might be offensive, by fear of lawsuits, just as Google has done in China.

Now, let’s see if the Wilders’ Documentary will be on the web next Sunday or Tuesday.

See also a related post about the muslims student who filed a complaint against Maclean’s Magazine

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