Free expression and controversial content on the web
Posted by Rachel Whetstone, Director of
Global Communications and Public Affairs, EMEA
Our world would be a very boring place if we all agreed all the
time. So while people may strongly disagree with what someone says,
or think that a particular newspaper article is total nonsense, we
recognize that each of us have the right to an opinion.
We also know that letting people express their views freely has
real practical benefits. Allowing individuals to voice unpopular,
inconvenient or controversial opinions is important. Not only might
they be right (think Galileo) but debating difficult issues in the
open often helps people come to better decisions.
While most people agree in principle with the right to free
expression, the challenge comes in putting theory into practice.
And that's certainly the case on the web, where blogs, social
networks and video sharing sites allow people to express themselves
- to speak and be heard - as never before.
At Google we have a bias in favor of people's right to free
expression in everything we do. We are driven by a belief that more
information generally means more choice, more freedom and
ultimately more power for the individual. But we also recognize
that freedom of expression can't be — and shouldn't be –
without some limits. The difficulty is in deciding where those
boundaries are drawn. For a company like Google with services in
more than 100 countries - all with different national laws and
cultural norms - it's a challenge we face many times every
day.
In a few cases it's straightforward. For example, we have a
global all-product ban against child pornography, which is illegal
in virtually every country. But when it comes to political
extremism it's not as simple. Different countries have come to
different conclusions about how to deal with this issue. In Germany
there's a ban on the promotion of Nazism — so we remove Nazi
content on products on
users) products. Other countries' histories make commentary or
criticism on certain topics especially sensitive. And still other
countries believe that the best way to discredit extremists is to
allow their arguments to be publicly exposed.
All this raises important questions for Internet companies like
Google. Our products are, after all, specifically designed to help
people create and communicate, to find and share information and
opinions across the world. So how do we approach these
challenges?
It should come as no surprise to learn people have different views
about what should appear on our sites. How and where to draw the
boundaries is the subject of lively debate even within Google. We
think that's healthy. And partly because of this, we realize
that creating a flawless set of policies on which everyone can
agree is an impossible task.
Google is not, and should not become, the arbiter of what does and
does not appear on the web. That's for the courts and those
elected to government to decide. Faced with day-to-day choices,
however, we look at our products in three broad categories: search,
advertising and services that host other people's
content.
Search is the least restricted category. We remove results from our
index only when required by law (for example, when linked to
content infringing copyright) and in a small number of other
instances, such as spam results or results including unauthorized
credit card and social security numbers. Where feasible, we tell
our users when we remove results.
At the other, most restrictive, end of the spectrum, we have what
might be called commerce products –- the text of the advertisements
we carry, which are subject to clear
ad content policies.
The most challenging areas are where we host other people’s content
– offerings like Blogger, Groups, orkut and video. On the one
hand, we're not generating the content and we aim to offer a
platform for free expression. On the other hand, we host the
content on our servers and want to be socially responsible. So we
have terms that we ask our users to follow. (See
for examples.)
So the question becomes: how do we enforce those terms? In general,
Google does not want to be a gatekeeper. We don't, and
can't, check content before it goes live, any more than your
phone company would screen the content of your phone calls or your
ISP would edit your emails. Technology can sometimes help here, but
it's rarely a full answer. We also have millions of active
users who are vocal when it comes to alerting us to content they
find unacceptable or believe may breach our policies. When they do,
we review it and remove it where appropriate. These are always
subjective judgments and some people will inevitably disagree. But
that’s because what’s acceptable to one person may be offensive to
another.
We also face the added complication that laws governing content
apply differently in the different parts of the world in which we
operate. As we all know, some governments are more liberal about
freedom of expression than others. These legal differences create
real technical challenges, for example, about how you restrict one
type of content in one country but not another. And, in extreme
cases, we face questions about whether a country's laws and
lack of democratic processes are so antithetical to our principles
that we simply can't comply or can't operate there in a way
that benefits users.
But it's not only legal considerations that drive our policies.
One type of content, while legal everywhere, may be almost
universally unacceptable in one region yet viewed as perfectly fine
in another. We are passionate about our users so we try to take
into account local cultures and needs — which vary dramatically
around the world — when developing and implementing our global
product policies.
Dealing with controversial content is one of the biggest challenges
we face as a company. We don’t pretend to have all the right
answers or necessarily to get every judgment right. But we do try
hard to think things through from first principles, to be as
transparent as possible about how we make decisions, and to keep
reviewing and debating our policies. After all, the right to
disagree is a sign of a healthy society.
Tags: , Communications, Director, Global, Posted, public, Rachel, Whetstone