I’ve been enjoying discussions around the new Talkback Law proposal and following the situation in Israel closely. Currently, all Israeli News Sites allow commenting on every one of their online posts. They are extremely successful, drawing hundreds of people to write their thoughts and opinions for every post. But as one can imagine, having a combination of such an open wall with an engaged audience can be at times unfriendly and rude. Just like an open wall in the city can contain a masterpiece graffiti or someone’s pee stain, the variance is high. The government should be thrilled that people are so engaged when consuming news, and choose to take an active role rather than a passive one. But to my chagrin, instead of thinking through the problem and proposing a sensible solution, they choose to constrain people’s online behavior by means of a law.
In its essence, the new law proposal in Israel deals with liability and anonymity, and provides a solution that will lead to a reduction of freedom of speech. The government wants websites to take full responsibility for their user generated content. In the actual Law proposal, legislators compare new technologies with old conventions. They define a website with an average of 50,000 hits or more per day is like a traditional newspaper, and go on to claiming that newspapers have always been liable to all their content, editorials and letters which were published. They conclude that like in the traditional media, online “newspapers” should not allow unedited content and be liable for everything that is published on their pages. When faced with legal liability for all content, most sites will obviously choose NOT to take the risk of displaying.
There are so many flaws in their logic.
First of all, its definitions are vague. What constitutes 50,000 hits on a website? Is it unique hits? per page? for the whole site? Under the current definition, many sites go in and out of being a ‘newspaper’ as their popularity shifts daily. What about foreign hosted sites, with Hebrew content? How can they prevent people from being anonymous online? In order for that to happen, unsecured wireless networks would have to be banned, an act which does not make sense and will not go well with the general public.
Secondly, they fail to understand that the web mirrors social behaviour. Israelis are loud in virtual space just like they are in the streets of Tel Aviv. Especially when given an online wall to scribble upon, Israelis like to be heard. This behavior is not going to vanish, just like web-participatory tools are not going away.
Finally, technology is like water – it cannot be stopped. It eventually finds a through route. It will most llikely adapt and change, before users change their behavior. We are all aware of the numerous technologically based solutions around censorship which are used in places like China, for instance.
Israel is an interesting space to explore technological advances, as its laws are highly intertwined with religion. As technology progresses and allows us to create light by flicking on a switch, it is no longer considered hard ‘work’ as it used to be when one needed to generate a fire in Biblical times. I say this because during the Sabbath, one is forbidden to do any sort of work, thus, historically, not light a fire. But what happens when generating a light becomes so easy? Is it still considered “work” ?! Yes and no. One must still not flick on a switch during Sabbath, but can use a timer-based system which turns on/off by itself. Social norms around Biblical rules have changed with the rise of technology. They just did not make sense anymore. The exact same thing is happening with the web. Old definitions of traditional media entities are no longer accurate. The landscape is constantly changing, and the solution, in my eyes, is a technological one.
There are numerous ways to implement ranking algorithms in which “good” content bubbles up. These kinds of tools can engage and teach people how to react if they want their words to be seen. These systems compensate users for good behavior and provide no incentives for those who are imprudent to the conversation. I am disappointed by my government’s inability to take this topic seriously, research, discuss and create a system that makes sense, rather than take the easy route of placing a law that forbids. I’d like to believe that such a law would never pass in Israel. But as the country faces so many other problems, sometimes laws like this easily slide through legislation, misunderstood by the general public.