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The irony of US Net freedom

By Philip J. Cunningham

China Daily, March 1, 2011

In this context, Clinton's speech came off like a partisan pep-talk for US business abroad - ill-conceived, unnecessary and unbecoming - akin to the diplomatic gaffe made by George Bush Senior in 1992 when he used the presidential pulpit to shill for "Toys R Us" during a Japan summit. To insist that the world wire itself according to US specifications, however, is more than hypocritical. It begs for blowback and unintended consequences that go far beyond the indignity of foisting US-style big box shopping on reluctant Japanese consumers.

Granted, America's top diplomat has a tough job, especially given the precipitous decline in US prestige in the last decade. A US secretary of state does not enjoy much freedom of speech, as she or he serves at the behest of the president, in this case, the hip, hi-tech Obama who garnered Silicon Valley support to get elected to the White House.

There's something wistful about the idyll of Clinton in Beijing in the summer of 1998 when America's nascent Internet was lashing out against her husband's relations with an intern. Researching the Chinese press at the time for articles in Nieman Reports and the Media Studies Journal, I was surprised at just how "polite" Chinese coverage of US politics was. Now some would say that's censorship, and by American press standards it might well be. But is an absolute free-for-all the only way to go? Aren't there also valid questions of decorum and maybe just old-fashioned editing?

One doesn't have to agree with the particulars of Internet management in China to agree that the Internet need not open all the floodgates or be ubiquitous or identical in every corner of the globe in line with Clinton's proclamation. The call to impose American-style "Internet freedom" on the rest of the world smacks of self-interest dressed up as humanitarian ideology. Far from offering a level playing field, the "free" transmission of information and entertainment as outlined by Clinton would favor established players with deep pockets and technological prowess, not unlike "free trade", another American obsession.

In any case, it's important to distinguish between the free flow of ideas as advocated by upstarts like Wikipedia and WikiLeaks, and the corporate giants who rake in the profits while claiming the high ground of Internet evangelism. Facebook is a corporate behemoth, not a pillar of free speech, ditto for Google and Yahoo. These firms examine and manipulate personal details of people's lives, and are essentially gigantic advertising agencies masquerading as communication gurus. No sooner did Google acquire YouTube, a bustling hub of user-donated cultural product, than it started littering the entire site with obnoxious popup ads.

China, like any sovereign state, has the right to resist honey-voiced US calls to adopt a US-style Internet strategy, just as it has the right to keep multinational firms with questionable ethical standards at arm's length, especially data-mining firms that trade private information for corporate profit.

If the US Internet giants get their way, we will all become as vulnerable as besieged public figures, like Clinton was during that low point in her husband's presidency, when hardly a word, movement, transaction or sigh could be uttered without being pored over and analyzed by others.

Bolstered by the elixir of power, Clinton is now sounding the trumpet in favor of Internet data-miners who are tearing down walls of decorum, stripping away common decency and eroding the integrity of the individual.

Meanwhile, the Internet billionaires are using their new-found ad riches to buy the very privacy for themselves that their business models deny to others. Hidden behind their fortified mansions, teams of bodyguards, legions of lawyers and impenetrable bureaucratic walls, guarded Internet evangelists peddle intrusive technology, stripping away the privacy of the man and woman on the street, putting the hoi polloi on a par with the celebrities of yesteryear, but without the compensatory perks and privileges of celebrity.

The author is a visiting fellow in the East Asia Program, Cornell University, New York.