Question: Okay, most of the nominees agree on the subject of the freedom of speech on the internet. But how about racism, child-porn and illegal activities (like the smuggling of immigrants)?

Nominee Replies

Olivier Muron - posted on 2000-10-06 08:05:24 The general problem is beyond the scope of Icann's authority. As you may know, the regulation of content is a hot topic in France: a french judge has ruled that some of the contents (nazi stuff) of a leading US portal is against french law. Three technical experts have been chosen by the judge and the two parties to propose a solution. Jeanette Hofmann - posted on 2000-10-02 13:19:55 Two answers: 1. This is beyond the scope of ICANN's authority. And I believe ICANN should never get involved in regulating content. Questions of use and abuse should be dealt with on a local level. This is even true for those rare cases such as child-porn, which are damned by all cultures and countries. 2. One type of local level is the national jurisdiction; user communities could be considered as informal local bodies. In my view, issues like child-porn and other forms of severe violation of human rights need better cooperation between users and prosecution. However, this is not ICANN's business. Andy Mueller-Maguhn - posted on 2000-10-02 04:30:52 The internet is a global cultural public space, where a lot of different opinions on the question of what is freedom of speech come together. German Governments has itīs sensitivity on nazi-propaganda, chinese government does not seem to like political discussions at all and america has the freedom of speech. This is a process of communication, and for I donīt like any imprisoning of bits, it will need new forms of media competence and ways for the society to handle it. No governments solves a problem through forbidding itīs appearance. I guess we all have to learn what it means to live on a planet together and watch the consequences of our actions. Child pornography is an issue where the governments of this planet agreed, that it is illegal. Still, the problem is not so much the pictures as it is the rape of children. You donīt fight the rape of children by filtering. The free communication space of the internet shows up problems on this planet, and that is good. We have to face reality and work on it, instead of filtering it. The communication space of the internet, based on free flow of information, is excellent for working on reality, to discuss opinions and show up problems. Any filtering and/or blocking of information would be a harm to that. To my knowledge, the smuggling of immigrants does not take place through the internet. As long as molecular transactions are not made through Internet or TCP/IP (beaming), it is not an ICANN issue. Alf Hansen - posted on 2000-09-28 22:53:33 Illegal activities are illegal also on the Internet. Illegal content is not within the scope of ICANN. ICANN must try to limit the possibility for people to use the names/addresses (the domain names) for illegal purposes. Whatever ICANN does in this context, someone will try to misuse the names/addresses, but ICANN should create an infrastructure for names/addresses with robustness against such attempts.