The 463: Inside Tech

China (Finally) Makes Move to Officially Regulate Online Video

This week, many wrote about China's now official stance that will only China will allow only state-run Web sites to broadcast video or radio content.  While the turn of events to does create huge risk to the Chinese national obsession with Paris Hilton (or women who look like her), it shouldn't have surprised anyone.

Why? 

Nearly 18 months ago, we wrote...

The same regulatory body that makes rules for TV and movies is going prevent sites from showing online videos unless the site is government approved....

And, we quoted the WSJ:

China's official Xinhua news agency yesterday reported that the country would "issue new regulations against Web sites which broadcast short films without state permission," citing the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or Sarft, as its source....

The Xinhua report said popular Web portals Sina, Sohu and Netease will be "authorized providers of online video programs" under the new regulations, while other sites "face an uncertain fate as the administration will inspect the online video contents they release."

After the recent move, AP considered YouTube's fate in China:

Adhering to the new rules could be daunting for YouTube, where about 10 hours of online video on a wide range of topics are uploaded every minute.

None of YouTube's video-hosting computers are in China, but the government could still block access to the site.

YouTube, owned by Google Inc., hopes the rules won't cut it off from the rapidly growing number of Chinese residents with Internet access, spokesman Ricardo Reyes said.

"We believe that the Chinese government fully recognizes the enormous value of online video and will not enforce the regulations in a way that could deprive the Chinese people of its benefits," Reyes said.

Of course, YouTube deprivation was the order of the hour during last year's Communist Party Congress.

While You Were Out: Australia Makes Plans to Censor the Internet

Ah, those Aussies. It doesn't seem to matter who is in charge. Someone is always trying to block content on the Internet in the Holy Name of The Children. So much so, that Mike Masnick at Techdirt thinks that too much of a fuss is being made about the new-ish plan announced this Monday.

I respectfully disagree. The new Labor government has taken it up a notch or two with their still exceedingly vague plan to create a mandatory ISP filtering regime. The effort, announced by the new Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy, would:

(make it) mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material... the scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites. (ABC News)

Conroy also dispenses with all the typical niceties that befit a politician and jumps straight to the classic punch-line when discussing "inappropriate material":

"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road. [and drum roll, please...] If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."

Aussie TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley responds:

Whilst no one would disagree with the notion that kidde porn is abhorrent, it should be noted that the Australian Government’s censorship regime is going to be much broader than sites that show activities that are already illegal to distribute and watch across the world.

In fact, Conroy defends the measure by saying that the UK and Scandinavia also have "clean feed" ISP filtering efforts. However, as The Australian notes, "in Britain, only between 200 and 1000 child pornography sites have been included on a blacklist."

And, Conroy is talking about potentially millions of general pornography sites (however defined) and other sites that depict violence (ditto). Plus, Australian sensibilities are hardly "European" when it comes to community standards.

Another zinger to this plan is that the government is suggesting that it be opt-out and not opt-in as previously considered by the Conservative government. That means that a citizen would have to actively inform his ISP (which is in coordination with the government) that he or she wants to receive what is deemed "inappropriate material"). Maybe the government will force them to put a sticker on their window to protect the neighborhood children from their laptops.

One Australian professor takes apart the plan in an op-ed in The Age:

IGF: Rio Wrap

David McGuire in Rio -- Well that was entertaining. I'm sitting in the lobby of the Windsor Barra hotel in Rio de Janeiro, and all around me (iPhone photo from my balcony above), the detritus of the Second Annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is being disassembled and packed away. (Ed note: Detritus? WTF, who is this McGuire guy?)

Hard to draw any real conclusions out of the event and that's probably a good thing. In one of the final sessions of the day, Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet, remarked on what made the IGF a good thing.

"It's a non-negotiating climate. Sometimes people disagree, and that's ok."

I certainly can't put it any better than that. In the end, those who had concerns about the current state of Internet governance were heard, as were those opposed to wholesale changes. Companies, advocates and governments were able to collaborate and share best practices, and no chairs were
thrown. Mission accomplished.

If there was any worrisome note in the whole thing, it came toward the end, when one of the Russian delegates announced his intention to ask the UN to create a special working group charged with transitioning control of ICANN to a multinational bureaucracy.

That would obviously be a nightmare scenario, but he's got a tough row to hoe, and it seems unlikely the UN would want to reopen this can of worms so soon after the conclusion of the controversial two-year process that created the IGF.

For the most part, the IGF stayed true to its original purpose. As long as it keeps to that path, it will be remain a unique and worthwhile component of the global Internet governance discussion.

More News from Rio

Greetings from lovely Rio de Janeiro!

At least I assume it's lovely. No matter where you go in the world, all hotel conference facilities look alike. I could be sitting in Arlington for all I know (I realize your hearts bleed for me).

I'm down here with 463's Jim Hock and 2,000 of our closest friends for the second annual Internet Governance Forum where the issue du jour -- if the media reports are to be believed -- is "U.S. control of the Internet." Never mind that the UN bickered about this very topic for two years when they were supposed to be discussing ways to increase technology resources in developing nations (an important topic that still hasn't received enough attention) we apparently need to bicker about it some more.

Now if the IGF stays true to its original vision -- an open forum where government, industry and public interest voices from around the word can speak and be heard on issues critical to Internet development -- there's absolutely nothing wrong with these discussions (though they do get a trifle repetitive). The problem is that some governments are simply not content with the Internet Governance Forum being a "forum." They want it to be a decision-making body and are engaged in all sorts of behind the scenes shenanigans aimed at pushing the IGF in that direction.

The flashpoint is likely to be Thursday, during the "Taking Stock and Way Forward" session meant to wrap up the themes of the conference. That's where we're most likely to see advocates of greater government control push for some sort of negotiated document meant to spin some sort of "findings" or "conclusions" from this whirlpool of opinions. That would be bad news from Brazil.

More to come...

-David McGuire

A Congressional Hearing Dripping With Irony

There are serious and complex issues that companies face operating in markets like China that deserve thoughtful discussion and focus on future solutions. Unfortunately (and perhaps not surprisingly), this didn't seem to happen today at a hearing with a name more appropriate for a nation with no translation for "due process": "Yahoo! Inc.'s Provision of False Information to Congress".

Declan ("Iconoclast") McCullagh of CNET has never been afraid to selectively pull a snippet from a discussion to create an click-worthy angle or push his libertarian bent, but regardless of his clear personal feelings about the issue and his editing skills, he paints a depressing picture of a stacked-deck hearing today in a live-blog. To wit...

Update 11:01 am ET: After being blasted for nearly an hour, neither Yahoo representative has been permitted to say a word so far...

...Update 12:52pm ET: Lantos again, to Yahoo's Callahan, excerpted: "Morally you are pygmies... An appallingly disappointing performance. I think we cannot begin to tell you how disappointing Mr. Yang's and your performance was... attempt to obfuscate and divert... outrageous behavior."

Sarah Stirland also made it back to Washington to cover the hearing for a Wired blog. Her coverage includes a post that suggests a possible Yahoo settlement of the lawsuit levied at them by the wife of the dissident who was jailed after Yahoo provided information about him to Chinese authorities.

Here is a Forbes online wrap-up.

China Blocks YouTube; A Facebook Group is Born

In celebration of the Chinese Communist Party's 17th Congress this last week, leaders there apparently decided that preventing people from seeing cats flush toilets would make the choreographed proceedings run all that much smoother.

Indeed, we wrote here last August, that China was developing rules that could put a YouTube and other "non-approved" video sites out of business in the country.  Now, they have seemingly followed through at least temporally.

Reporters Without Borders says: 

“It is disturbing that these problems are taking place during the party congress.  The blocking of these sites comes at a perfect time for the government. Blogs and video-sharing sites such as YouTube offer ways for Internet users to share situations they may have encountered during the congress. Preventing Chinese citizens from having access to them forces them to rely on the national media for their information. It so happens that on 15 October, the front pages of all the national newspapers were virtually identical.”

The Moonlight Blog covers the blockage here (the screenshot above comes from this site).  I should note that in the post, the author suggests linking here if you are outside of China to see if you can get to YouTube via Google search.  I could.  This may mean that with the end of the Congress yesterday, the curtains on the site have been lifted.  (The Moonlight Blog also notes that, at least temporarily, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google searches were being redirected to the Chinese-owned search site Baidu over the weekend).

Others suggested that the YouTube hit was retribution for Google opening a presence in Taiwan).

Regardless of the reason, IF YouTube is back up, it will bring great joy to the 200 strong (and growing) members of the "Mad That Youtube is BANNED in China" Facebook group.  The description of the group by a high school student in China succinctly speaks volumes to the actual divide between the well-educated Internet-savvy Chinese kids and their Communist Party elders:

"Now that youtube is gone in China, i have nothing to fucking do anymore. I WANT IT BACK"

You Are What You Search

Being lazy by nature, I've long been a fan of the post-generating ability of Google Trends and now Reuters has stepped into the action with a truly remarkable and dedicated effort at investigative journalism.  Here are the countries who search the most for the following terms....

"Jihad" - Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan

"Terrorism" - Pakistan, Philippines, Australia

"Hangover" - Ireland, United Kingdom, United States

"Burrito" - United States, Argentina, Canada

"Iraq" - United States, Australia, Canada

"Britney Spears" - Mexico, Venezuela, Canada

"Homosexual" - Philippines, Chile, Venezuela

"Love" - Philippines, Australia, United States

"Botox" - Australia, United States, United Kingdom

"Viagra" - Italy, United Kingdom, Germany

Being an advanced Internet researcher, I wasn't content in Reuters filling my daily (monthly?) quota for posts, I also plugged in the following terms and got back these juicy results:

"Internet Censorship" - United Arab Emirates, Iran, Malaysia

"Music Piracy" - Singapore, Philippines, Australia

"Bart Simpson" - Australia, Sweden, Chile

"463" - Columbia, United States, Italy

Flickr photo attribution

Australia Loves its Children More than Your Country Does

Right up there with fighting gay marriages and Hindu prayer is Australian Prime Minister John Howard's push against "pornography and foul language" online says The Australian Age.

If this could be a campaign issue there, it can be here. (Though, Australian regulators at the highest levels seem to have a particular focus here -- see: "Excuse Me, My Pipeline for Perversion is Ringing" and "Big Brother Made Me Do It, Mate")

From The Age:

Prime Minister John Howard has made a strong pitch for the Christian and family vote with a $189 million package to provide a free internet filter for every Australian family.... Mr Howard used a live web-cast last night to between 80,000 and 100,000 Christians across the nation to announce the policy: "Net Alert protecting Australian families online".

That is something like $9 spent on this program for every Austalian. And, BTW, in an inauspicious start to the campaign, the NetAlert Web site is down until August 20.

CNET says:

The lion's share of the cash--$71.8 million--will go into a filtering program offered to individual homes and public libraries. Parents will be able to choose either to install filtering software on their home PCs or to request a "clean" connection from their service provider, which will be responsible for blocking pornographic content at the ISP level.

The government will post a list of approved filtering software providers on its Web site and mandate that all sanctioned vendors update their products as the threat landscape changes.

While individual filters will be available beginning later this month, ISP-level blocking may take some time to implement. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is currently planning a trial of ISP-level filtering in Tasmania that will inform the government's decision on a national launch.

The federal government has already examined the potential ISP-level filtering three times, starting in 1999.

Mike Masnick at TechDirt says:

None of it will stop predators from trying to lure children. There's this belief that if we just hide it away, these things will actually disappear. That's simply not true. Just as it makes sense to teach kids some sense of street smarts as they grow up, it makes sense to teach them internet smarts as well -- and then they'll be prepared to deal with whatever they come across, whether or not there are filters.

Now I Know Why Subtitles Don't Bother Me (The FCC May Disagree)

Interesting times. On one side of the Atlantic, you have FCC commissioners calling for more regulation of sex and violence on TV. And, on the other side, you have the EU proudly posting a PG-13 video of Made-in-Europe sex scenes (see the above).

Oh, but it would be so easy if things were that black and white. In fact, while the video has currently been viewed approximately 3 million more times than the EU's gripping "Road Safety is Everyone's Business" clip, the sex video does have it's fair share of critics in Europeland. Der Spiegel reports:

A Polish member of European Parliament from the conservative party League of Polish Families says the commission is using "immoral methods" to connect with European citizens.

A number of MEPs from the UK have also complained in the British press about the video. "They do have an image problem," Conservative MEP Chris Heaton-Harris told the BBC in reference to the EU, "but I think cobbling together 44 seconds of soft porn on the Internet is not a brilliant way of solving it." Euro-skeptic MEP Godfrey Bloom told the tabloid Sun that it was "cheap, tawdry and tacky."

BTW, have I hallucinated on trips to London, or doesn't the tabloid Sun have a feature called Page 3 that prominently displays topless woman? Must have.

Regardless, a EU spokesperson responds in the International Herald Tribune:

"The European Union is not the Bible Belt. These clips come from award-winning films and they show the EU's rich cinematic heritage, which we can all be proud of."

Okay, maybe there really is a continental divide. Can you imagine someone at the FCC spitting out a "we're not in the Bible Belt" line in between cigarette drags?

Which brings us to the all important segue. Media and television industry analyst Shelly Palmer reminds us. He was at a dinner recently that featured FCC commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate. She remarked, according to the Palmer that “the biggest issue” she faces is....

A Flat World is Hard Work

The US has plenty of its own very real and looming competitiveness issues.    But, as the Word Economic Forum noted at the end of March, those who will soon supposedly be running the world, India and China, still lag well behind in competitiveness metrics.

To underline the point, AP's Tim Sullivan filed an interesting piece on the dearth of skilled employee's in India over the weekend:

Nearly two decades into India's phenomenal growth as an international center for high technology, the industry has a problem: It's running out of workers.

There may be a lot of potential — Indian schools churn out 400,000 new engineers, the core of the high-tech industry, every year — but as few as 100,000 are actually ready to join the job world, experts say.

Instead, graduates are leaving universities that are mired in theory classes, and sometimes so poorly funded they don't have computer labs. Even students from the best colleges can be dulled by cram schools and left without the most basic communication skills, according to industry leaders.

Not sitting on its hands to wait for the educational system to turn around, Indian tech leader Infosys has built its own massive training center: