“We need…a rubber-stamp.”
Is the EU trying to put me off altogether? First the arrogance of the official reaction to the Irish referendum, and now this:
Speaking about her report, Ms Mikko told us “the blogosphere has so far been a haven of good intentions and relatively honest dealing. However, with blogs becoming commonplace, less principled people will want to use them”.
Asked if she considered bloggers to be “a threat”, she said “we do not see the bloggers as a threat. They are in position, however, to considerably pollute cyberspace. We already have too much spam, misinformation and malicious intent in cyberspace”. She added, “I think the public is still very trusting towards blogs, it is still seen as sincere. And it should remain sincere. For that we need a quality mark, a disclosure of who is really writing and why.”
Let’s translate that into a language people will actually understand, shall we? Here’s what Ms Mikko really means:
Speaking about her report, Ms Mikko launched what constitutes an attack on freedom of speech. She feels it’s unfortunate that more people are blogging these days.
It’s her view that there’s too much on the internet that she doesn’t like. This includes criticism of the EU. Much of this “spam” comes from anonymous blogs. She’d seek to challenge this by insisting on a “disclosure of who is really writing and why” - in short, by insisting that people revealed their name and purpose.
So - Mikko wants to protect people from us horrible, horrible bloggers. That the ability to publish anonymously is one of the internet’s great virtues has apparently escaped her; it allows those who’d otherwise fear to speak to speak. It’s liberating, and valuable for that.
Oh, and that the ability to publish anonymously represents a fundamental element of the freedom of speech apparently esconsed in the European Declaration on Human Rights also seems to have eluded her.
Mikko’s proposals would require a blog to gain the seal of approval from the Commission. Blogging would be subject to state censure from the platform down to the posts; a wonderful way to challenge the lack of, “pluralism” in the press that Mikko claims to be so worried about.
This isn’t anything more than a resolution - the European Parliament’s weak equivalent to an EDM. It won’t become law. But the very fact that MEPs are willing to discuss such attacks to the blogosphere worries me. What’s the point in a totally open platform if it’s no longer totally open?
Sifting through the buzzwords (”unrestricted ownership concentration or scarce content pluralism” being a personal favourite), this report seems to be targeting those hiding their motivations, rather than their identities, behind anonymity. I suppose an example could be a lobby group setting up what purports to be a neutral blog disseminating information which is actually biased towards their point of view.
I don’t know if that is currently a problem, or if it’s likely to be in the future. There are a number of blogs which are viewed as credible sources, and perhaps they should be subject to the same laws on libel governing mainstream media - as I understand it, the laws are to protect people who could be damaged by wrongful information being published. There could be a case to be made for extending the laws to cover blogs (if it doesn’t already).
However, it seems a little confused to criticise both the mainstream media for being “concentrated in the hands of a few companies” and the blogosphere for being too independent (and thus more likely to spread disinformation under cover of anonymity) in the same report. I’m not sure they can have it both ways.