Have you ever thought of google as a quasi state, because that is what is has become. In 2010 the New York Times wrote an article called “Google Searches for a Foreign Policy”. This concept of google having a foreign policy is still relevant today. The most recent example would be the current hype around the Muslim “hate” video. The article written over two years ago discusses the idea that companies like google need to have a foreign policy for the US government has yet to come up with a solid foreign policy in the digital world. This is still true today. The article brings up a very good point,
“...the fact that the World Wide Web is no longer just a force for freedom and diversity but also a tool for repression. Governments use it to spy on dissidents, human rights activists, and other troublesome elements.This change happened so fast that it left the foreign policy establishment gasping to catch up”
It seems that companies like Google should be sitting at the tale with government leaders writing foreign policies and deciding what information should be free and to whom. Does everyone realise that a corporate company, where there are no elected officials and no representation by the people has the control over our freedoms!
NYU College professor, who studies internet social effects, Clay Shirky said "What forces Google to have a foreign policy is that what they’re exporting isn’t a product or a service, it’s a freedom,”
Remember, this discussion is all going on over two years ago in regards to Google moving its base out of China, into Hong Kong and lifting its censored material. Yet all of this sounds exactly like what is going on today, two years later. The situation we are dealing with currently is in regards to a youtube video that caused riots and sadly deaths in the middle east. And all of this information, censorship and freedoms are controlled by a publicly traded company called google.
Now we look closer at what is going on today with Google’s foreign policy. Another article posted on the New York Times website written about Google in 2012 titled, “ Free Speech in the Age of YouTube” by SOMINI SENGUPTA brings up some very similar points but in reference to the current foreign affairs involving google (for those of you who don’t already know, Google owns Youtube).
Somini brings up the idea that companies who sell goods are accountable to only their shareholders. While companies like google that are trafficking information are held accountable for allowing and censoring speech for everyone. Google has a responsibility way beyond the shareholder.
During the incident with china and the current issue the middle east Google is trying to stick to their Terms Of Service and allow as much information on the web as possible. The “hate” video is still on the web, just blocked in certain countries because it does not violate google’s Terms of Service. Although google has no formal written foreign policy, the closest written law that they try to abide by are their Terms of Service, which is posted on their website.
A Columbia University law professor has a very interesting perspective on the controversy over governing in cyberspace. He said, “We are just awakening to the need for some scrutiny or oversight or public attention to the decisions of the most powerful private speech controllers”. Mr. Wu has even gone to the lengths of proposing a solution. He wrote a blog post for The New Republic called “When Censorship Makes Sense: How Youtube Should Police Hate Speech”. In this blog post Wu describes his solution to how Google and specifically Youtube should govern when it comes to “hate speech” and other hard to define areas. He writes,
“A better course would be to try to create a process that relies on a community, either of regional experts or the serious users of YouTube. Community members would (as they do now) flag dangerous or illegal videos for deletion. Google would decide the easy cases itself, and turn the hard cases over to the community, which would aim for a rough consensus. Such a system would be an early-warning signal that might have prevented riots in the first place.”
I believe Mr. Wu has a very good idea. Google must develop some sort of defined foreign policy beyond its Terms of Service. The world has not caught up to the fast moving pace of technology and the world wide web has yet to have a standard law. Whether Google uses Mr. Wu’s proposal or not, something must be done to prevent controversy and attrocities in the future. A very similar discussion was brought up over two years ago, and we have yet to see much change. Now is the time to make a change and the people must put pressure on our governement to inforce a standard foreign policy. As things stand now, Google is in charge of your speech freedoms, not the US Government.