sion of the work of the Citizen Media Law Project to thoroughly document filtering
and censorship by online service providers beyond the United States. Global Voices
Advocacy, which now maps the accessibility of social media Web sites in different
countries, may need to start mapping Web sites that ban users from certain countries.
To the extent that confusion over U.S. Treasury and export restrictions is leading toward the removal of Web sites and the understandable uncertainty of users in sanctioned countries, it may be worth pursuing clarifications from the U.S. government.
Clinical students at the Berkman Center at Harvard are pursuing a formal request to
the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control to clarify the restrictions that social
media and Web hosting companies face in providing services to users in sanctioned
countries. If the Berkman Center receives useful clarifications, it will need to develop a
strategy to communicate these guidelines to the affected companies.
Intermediary censorship by U.S. companies appears to be experiencing a steep and
sudden rise. In May 2009, Vineetha Menon reported that Microsoft had turned off its
Windows Live Messenger service in Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, and North Korea, citing
OFAC sanctions. 38 It is likely that Microsoft, BlueHost, and LinkedIn are not acting entirely independently—they may all be coming under pressure from the U.S. Treasury
Department or another government authority. It would be useful for journalists or
researchers to determine whether there is an organized campaign to remove users
from these five sanctioned countries from U.S.-based tools. Given the use of these tools
by human rights activists and ordinary citizens, a policy of removing all users in sanctioned nations from these tools merits careful public debate. It is possible that the
most interested opponent of U.S. Treasury policy might be the U.S. State Department,
anxious to hear opposition voices in repressive nations.
Imbalanced Incentives and Free Speech
So long as it continues to be possible for for-profit OSPs to terminate difficult clients for
arbitrary reasons, it is likely that we will see providers ‘‘optimizing’’ their client base,
providing services to customers who do not attract DDoS attacks or copyright or trade
complaints. In a recent New York Times article, Brad Stone and Miguel Helft introduce
the troubling idea that social media sites may start restricting memberships for users in
developing nations because they are finding it difficult to target ads to these users. 39
If these trends increase, organizations dedicated to free and open speech, especially
in developing nations, may find themselves needing to create OSPs specifically oriented toward the needs of users who are less fiscally appealing to social media and
Web hosting companies. We can imagine supporters of human rights creating OSPs
explicitly to provide services for human rights organizations.
This is probably a poor idea. The cost structures of these organizations will be significantly higher than for traditional hosting providers, as they are likely to attract users
Intermediary Censorship
81
and censorship by online service providers beyond the United States. Global Voices
Advocacy, which now maps the accessibility of social media Web sites in different
countries, may need to start mapping Web sites that ban users from certain countries.
To the extent that confusion over U.S. Treasury and export restrictions is leading toward the removal of Web sites and the understandable uncertainty of users in sanctioned countries, it may be worth pursuing clarifications from the U.S. government.
Clinical students at the Berkman Center at Harvard are pursuing a formal request to
the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control to clarify the restrictions that social
media and Web hosting companies face in providing services to users in sanctioned
countries. If the Berkman Center receives useful clarifications, it will need to develop a
strategy to communicate these guidelines to the affected companies.
Intermediary censorship by U.S. companies appears to be experiencing a steep and
sudden rise. In May 2009, Vineetha Menon reported that Microsoft had turned off its
Windows Live Messenger service in Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, and North Korea, citing
OFAC sanctions. 38 It is likely that Microsoft, BlueHost, and LinkedIn are not acting entirely independently—they may all be coming under pressure from the U.S. Treasury
Department or another government authority. It would be useful for journalists or
researchers to determine whether there is an organized campaign to remove users
from these five sanctioned countries from U.S.-based tools. Given the use of these tools
by human rights activists and ordinary citizens, a policy of removing all users in sanctioned nations from these tools merits careful public debate. It is possible that the
most interested opponent of U.S. Treasury policy might be the U.S. State Department,
anxious to hear opposition voices in repressive nations.
Imbalanced Incentives and Free Speech
So long as it continues to be possible for for-profit OSPs to terminate difficult clients for
arbitrary reasons, it is likely that we will see providers ‘‘optimizing’’ their client base,
providing services to customers who do not attract DDoS attacks or copyright or trade
complaints. In a recent New York Times article, Brad Stone and Miguel Helft introduce
the troubling idea that social media sites may start restricting memberships for users in
developing nations because they are finding it difficult to target ads to these users. 39
If these trends increase, organizations dedicated to free and open speech, especially
in developing nations, may find themselves needing to create OSPs specifically oriented toward the needs of users who are less fiscally appealing to social media and
Web hosting companies. We can imagine supporters of human rights creating OSPs
explicitly to provide services for human rights organizations.
This is probably a poor idea. The cost structures of these organizations will be significantly higher than for traditional hosting providers, as they are likely to attract users
Intermediary Censorship
81