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Tuesday 23 June 2009
Green Dam and Leaky Dam: Public Power and Social Rights
Mandatory installation of blocking software is an administrative act without sufficient moral and legal ground. From a legal point of view, this is a tussle between public power and social rights.
Green Dam and Leaky Dam: Public Power and Social Rights
Mandatory installation of blocking software is an administrative act without sufficient moral and legal ground. From a legal point of view, this is a tussle between public power and social rights.
Hu Shuli, editor of Caijing 23 June 2009
It has been odd from the start: the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a directive on the pre-installation of “Green Dam Youth Escort”, requiring all PC makers and marketers to comply by the end of June 2009 pre-installation testing, and make monthly report to MIIT on the number of PC sold and software installed. For those who miss the deadline for installation and reporting, make false report or refuse to report, MIIT will order them “to submit reports and make amends by new deadline”.
As the time was running out, the above directive was still an “internal document”. Finally 20 days later, MIIT issued the “official directive” on June 9. By this time, only 20 days were left before the deadline.
The directive elicited a few nods of approval for its avowed purpose of protecting youth from “pornographic and vulgar” content. However, the overwhelming response was negative. Some professionals say the “Green Dam” technology is crap and it makes PCs vulnerable to hi-jacking by hackers and spreading greater risks. Some commentators say the scope of filtering by “Green Dam” is so wide and the contents so vague, it comes across as excessive control; some analysts opine that the “Green Dam” software without going through open bidding may have violated “Government Purchase Law” and suspect that it enjoying favoritism, and so on. Business organizations summed up the problems as relating to “security, privacy, system stability, free dissemination of information and the right to choose by users.” (see article on Green Dam in the current issue of Caijing).
Almost no critics play down the importance of protecting the youth, but who should be the protectors and how to protect spark heated debate. The short notice given by the directive angered the public. Instantly the “Green Dam” was dubbed “Leaky Dam”. Almost everyone is up in arms.
There are many levels and angles for analyzing this matter. We think the most important part is to review how the government exercises its power. Is there adequate moral and legitimate ground for mandatory pre-installation of filtering software? From the legal perspective, this is a tussle between public power and social rights.
As we all know, citizens need to collect all sorts of public and proprietary information for their daily life and work, which is a basic right. In the process of collecting information, they can filter the unwanted information according to their own judgment. This behavior is a right not an obligation. Whether the information collected is legal or illegal depends on the channels of collecting the information, the methods used and the information content. As long as the information is within the public domain or access authorized for non-public information, the right for collecting information has legitimacy. In that sense, judging the information as “good” or “bad” is subject to debate according to social customs, policy and political ideas, which have ample latitude. Most of this type of civil behavior falls outside the purview of the law. The social right to collect information by citizens should be protected.
To be sure, this is only one aspect of the problem. Because of reasons such as strong commercial interest, “bad information” can spread around. Controls at the sources or channels of distribution are not only difficult but subject to varying standards. How to prevent the “pornographic and vulgar” from corrupting the youth is challenging even in the times of traditional media and the task becomes more serious and complex in the Internet age. With the Chinese civil society still in the growth stage and the self-governing ability of the society limited, one cannot rule out the abuse of the social rights on information. And the Internet opens a new arena in the high tech era. How to prevent the use of the Internet from spreading violent and vulgar information to corrupt the youth is beyond the ability of the social organizations to handle by themselves. In this realm, social rights need the assistance of public power.
However, this assistance must be rendered as a service, not as coercion; it must be on the voluntary basis from the society. Otherwise, public power is exceeding its limit and the effort is bound to fail because its action is not compatible with the long-range goal of fostering the growth of civil society. Here the crux is how the government departments define the public power. MIIT has the good intention to “build green, healthy and harmonious Internet environment, avoid harmful information on the young people”. But the way it defines public power is inappropriate, overlooking the social rights of the public in collecting information; inept operation, belated announcement and imprecise procedure make it unacceptable to the public. The lesson is there.
At the moment, “Green Dam Youth Escort” is set to go. MIIT, after long silence, finally states that this software is “included or saved on the PC”, not as mandatory pre-installation. This shift is a response to the public outcry. The deadline confirmation is to be released soon and the directive is likely to become basically null and void. We think the most suitable measures to correct the missteps can be as follows:
MIIT, following the strict legal procedure, will apply fair, open and transparent administrative measure to acquire the best filtering software through competitive bidding; it will disclose the type of information to be filtered. Any PC buyer can get this free software and make his own decision to install or not. Also worth considering is the suggestion by some software engineers that the government can make the filtering software open source. This way, after the needless detour and uproar, MIIT can become a model for balancing between public power and social rights.
2 comments:
Green Dam and Leaky Dam: Public Power and Social Rights
Mandatory installation of blocking software is an administrative act without sufficient moral and legal ground. From a legal point of view, this is a tussle between public power and social rights.
Hu Shuli, editor of Caijing
23 June 2009
It has been odd from the start: the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a directive on the pre-installation of “Green Dam Youth Escort”, requiring all PC makers and marketers to comply by the end of June 2009 pre-installation testing, and make monthly report to MIIT on the number of PC sold and software installed. For those who miss the deadline for installation and reporting, make false report or refuse to report, MIIT will order them “to submit reports and make amends by new deadline”.
As the time was running out, the above directive was still an “internal document”. Finally 20 days later, MIIT issued the “official directive” on June 9. By this time, only 20 days were left before the deadline.
The directive elicited a few nods of approval for its avowed purpose of protecting youth from “pornographic and vulgar” content. However, the overwhelming response was negative. Some professionals say the “Green Dam” technology is crap and it makes PCs vulnerable to hi-jacking by hackers and spreading greater risks. Some commentators say the scope of filtering by “Green Dam” is so wide and the contents so vague, it comes across as excessive control; some analysts opine that the “Green Dam” software without going through open bidding may have violated “Government Purchase Law” and suspect that it enjoying favoritism, and so on. Business organizations summed up the problems as relating to “security, privacy, system stability, free dissemination of information and the right to choose by users.” (see article on Green Dam in the current issue of Caijing).
Almost no critics play down the importance of protecting the youth, but who should be the protectors and how to protect spark heated debate. The short notice given by the directive angered the public. Instantly the “Green Dam” was dubbed “Leaky Dam”. Almost everyone is up in arms.
There are many levels and angles for analyzing this matter. We think the most important part is to review how the government exercises its power. Is there adequate moral and legitimate ground for mandatory pre-installation of filtering software? From the legal perspective, this is a tussle between public power and social rights.
As we all know, citizens need to collect all sorts of public and proprietary information for their daily life and work, which is a basic right. In the process of collecting information, they can filter the unwanted information according to their own judgment. This behavior is a right not an obligation. Whether the information collected is legal or illegal depends on the channels of collecting the information, the methods used and the information content. As long as the information is within the public domain or access authorized for non-public information, the right for collecting information has legitimacy. In that sense, judging the information as “good” or “bad” is subject to debate according to social customs, policy and political ideas, which have ample latitude. Most of this type of civil behavior falls outside the purview of the law. The social right to collect information by citizens should be protected.
To be sure, this is only one aspect of the problem. Because of reasons such as strong commercial interest, “bad information” can spread around. Controls at the sources or channels of distribution are not only difficult but subject to varying standards. How to prevent the “pornographic and vulgar” from corrupting the youth is challenging even in the times of traditional media and the task becomes more serious and complex in the Internet age. With the Chinese civil society still in the growth stage and the self-governing ability of the society limited, one cannot rule out the abuse of the social rights on information. And the Internet opens a new arena in the high tech era. How to prevent the use of the Internet from spreading violent and vulgar information to corrupt the youth is beyond the ability of the social organizations to handle by themselves. In this realm, social rights need the assistance of public power.
However, this assistance must be rendered as a service, not as coercion; it must be on the voluntary basis from the society. Otherwise, public power is exceeding its limit and the effort is bound to fail because its action is not compatible with the long-range goal of fostering the growth of civil society. Here the crux is how the government departments define the public power. MIIT has the good intention to “build green, healthy and harmonious Internet environment, avoid harmful information on the young people”. But the way it defines public power is inappropriate, overlooking the social rights of the public in collecting information; inept operation, belated announcement and imprecise procedure make it unacceptable to the public. The lesson is there.
At the moment, “Green Dam Youth Escort” is set to go. MIIT, after long silence, finally states that this software is “included or saved on the PC”, not as mandatory pre-installation. This shift is a response to the public outcry. The deadline confirmation is to be released soon and the directive is likely to become basically null and void. We think the most suitable measures to correct the missteps can be as follows:
MIIT, following the strict legal procedure, will apply fair, open and transparent administrative measure to acquire the best filtering software through competitive bidding; it will disclose the type of information to be filtered. Any PC buyer can get this free software and make his own decision to install or not. Also worth considering is the suggestion by some software engineers that the government can make the filtering software open source. This way, after the needless detour and uproar, MIIT can become a model for balancing between public power and social rights.
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