Daily Archives: September 3, 2012

Twitter's free speech defender

Posted: September 3, 2012 at 10:14 am

San Francisco:Alexander Macgillivray, Twitter's chief lawyer, says that fighting for free speech is more than a good idea. He thinks it is a competitive advantage for his company.

That conviction explains why he spends so much of Twitter's time and money going toe to toe with officers and apparatchiks both here and abroad. Last week, his legal team was fighting a court order to extract an Occupy Wall Street protester's Twitter posts. The week before, the team wrestled with Indian government officials seeking to take down missives they considered inflammatory. Last year, Mr. Macgillivray challenged the Justice Department in its hunt for WikiLeaks supporters who used Twitter to communicate.

"We value the reputation we have for defending and respecting the user's voice," Mr. Macgillivray said in an interview here at Twitter headquarters. "We think it's important to our company and the way users think about whether to use Twitter, as compared to other services."

It doesn't always work. And it sometimes collides awkwardly with another imperative Twitter faces: to turn its fire hose of public opinion into a profitable business. That imperative will become far more acute if the company goes public, and Twitter confronts pressures to make money fast and play nice with the governments of countries in which it operates; most Twitter users live outside the United States and the company is already opening offices overseas.

That transformation makes his job all the more delicate. At a time when Internet companies control so much of what we can say and do online, can Twitter stand up for privacy, free expression and profitability all at the same time?

"They are going to have to monetize the data that they have and they can't rock the boat maybe," said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington. "I don't predict Twitter is going to lose its way, but it's a moment to watch."

Jonathan Zittrain, one of his former professors at Harvard Law School, called it both a challenge and opportunity for Mr. Macgillivray, widely known as @amac, his handle on Twitter, and one that could influence the Internet industry at large.

"If @amac can help find a path through it, it may serve as a model for corporate responsibility for an Internet where more and more code and content is governed by corporate gatekeepers," Mr. Zittrain said via e-mail.

He added that the challenge for Mr. Macgillivray "is not only to pioneer a wise way through this thicket, but to implement it as Twitter's use continues to explode: it's complex maintenance on a jet engine while the plane is in flight."

Twitter hit some turbulence this summer, when it seemed to forget its principles.

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Twitter's free speech defender

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US Republicans Back 'Internet Freedom'

Posted: at 12:13 am

The U.S. Republican Party has approved a policy statement that focuses on removing regulations and protects personal data on the Internet.

Delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, approved last week a platform that embraces private-sector autonomy on the Internet and opposes efforts to move Internet governance from the current model to the United Nations or other international organizations.

"The Internet has unleashed innovation, enabled growth, and inspired freedom more rapidly and extensively than any other technological advance in human history," the platform reads. "Its independence is its power. The Internet offers a communications system uniquely free from government intervention."

Republicans will also "ensure that personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach and that individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties," the platform says. But new laws or regulations cannot accomplish those goals; instead "the only way to safeguard or improve these systems is through the private sector."

Several groups have been calling on both the Republicans and Democrats to support Internet freedom principles in their party platforms. The Democratic convention takes place next week.

Demand Progress, one of those groups, applauded the Republican platform. Lawmakers sticking to language in the document would have opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that would have allowed U.S. agencies to force payment processors, search engines and other online businesses from doing business with websites suspected of copyright infringement, said David Segal, the group's executive director.

Lawmakers abiding by the platform would have also opposed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a bill that would allow private companies to share a broad range of information about their customers with U.S. agencies in an effort to fight cyberthreats, he said.

"It's important for politicians to know that if they act contrary to these Internet freedom principles, they'll risk the wrath of their party's most committed activists," Segal said in a statement. "It is clear today that censoring the internet or monitoring internet users is wildly unpopular, and we urge Democrats to join the fight to protect the Internet today by forming their own party platform plank."

The Republican Platform also rips President Barack Obama's administration for being "frozen in the past" on Internet and communications policy. The Obama administration has conducted no wireless spectrum auctions, has not given carriers any incentives for investment and has embraced the U.S. Federal Communication Commission's net neutrality rule, which tries to "micromanage telecom as if it were a railroad network," the platform says.

The Obama administration has made "no progress" toward its goal of universal broadband coverage, the platform adds.

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US Republicans Back 'Internet Freedom'

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