| Abstract |
WHAT'S WRONG WITH women's nipples? Or rather, why do some social-media platforms allow men to post topless pictures of themselves, but ban women from doing the same thing? The answer to this question neatly encapsulates the key issue of online censorship today. We may think of the online world as a global commons, a public space for free expression, but it is increasingly a series of private spaces within which we are given limited permission to act. Our access to each other and to the resources available within these spaces is increasingly being controlled not just by law, but by gatekeepers whose motivations may include political advantage, social control, or simple profit. For example, the Free The Nipple movement was launched in 2012 to highlight the differing ways in which society expects the bodies of women and men to be portrayed, as part of a campaign focused on "equality, empowerment and the freedom of all human beings". When women started posting topless images of themselves using the #freethenipple hashtag on Instagram, their posts were banned for breaching the service's Community Guidelines. In a 2015 interview with Business Insider, Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram, explained that one reason for this was to meet the content guidelines of Apple's App Store. One gatekeeper (Instagram) bowed to another (Apple) to control how a campaign for equality was expressed online. In a sense, this should be no surprise. When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone App Store in 2008, he said that apps would not be allowed to distribute pornography, hog bandwidth, breach user privacy, act maliciously, or otherwise violate rules set by the company. The motivation, Jobs said, was "to get a ton of apps out there". This is fair enough in the context of furthering a business' interests. However, as the web, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Sina Weibo, Snapchat and more gather billions of users and become prime conduits for our communications, the way they are governed and controlled becomes increasingly important to the functioning of society. How big an issue is online censorship? According to estimates by Freedom House, a US watchdog backed by sponsors ranging from the US State Department and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to BAE Systems and Google: . 3.2 billion people have access to the internet . 67 per cent live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family has been subject to censorship . 60 per cent live in countries where ICT users were arrested or imprisoned for posting content on political, social and religious issues . 49 per cent live in countries where individuals have been attacked or killed for their online activities since June 2015 . 47 per cent live in countries where insulting religion online can result in censorship or jail time . 33 per cent live in countries where online discussion of LGBT+ issues can be repressed or punished . 38 per cent live in countries where social media or messaging apps were blocked over the past year . 27 per cent live in countries THIS IIIS MRCI'IIME FIGHTS IMTERλèET SHUTDOWMS #Keej On The pressure group Access Now monitors and campaigns against internet shutdowns Eπgiπaartnthetas 8 Tichnology November 2017 www.EandTmagazine ceπwhere users have been arrested for writing, sharing or even liking Facebook posts . 38 per cent live under governments that disconnected internet or mobile phone access, often for political reasons. In other words, the global commons is increasingly strictly policed, and offending its gatekeepers can lead to harsh punishments. |
