Mueller, Milton --- "Timid Liberalism: A Critique of the Process-Oriented Norms for Internet Blocking" [2012] ELECD 693; in Pager, A. Sean; Candeub, Adam (eds), "Transnational Culture in the Internet Age" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Transnational Culture in the Internet Age

Editor(s): Pager, A. Sean; Candeub, Adam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857931337

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Timid Liberalism: A Critique of the Process-Oriented Norms for Internet Blocking

Author(s): Mueller, Milton

Number of pages: 11

Extract:

6. Timid liberalism: a critique of the
process-oriented norms for Internet
blocking
Milton Mueller*

6.1 INTRODUCTION

The Internet made a major contribution to global society by disrupting
the regulation of media content by nation-states. It took the libertarian
principle of "absence of prior restraint" and globalized it: no one had to
ask for permission, or be licensed, to make their ideas and publications
globally accessible. Open access took states by surprise. The explosion of
ideas, services and expression associated with the Internet's growth in the
1990s happened because states weren't prepared for it and because states
weren't in charge.
Yet even if many of us accept the value of this regulatory breakdown,
certain kinds of expression are still considered taboo, and public authori-
ties want to censor them. The flat, global nature of Internet access, and
the ease with which content can be created and posted in any jurisdiction,
mean that effective prosecution and removal of illegal content can no
longer be restricted to one territory.1 Thus, there is a growing trend for
national governments to block access to websites.2
This chapter is intended to contribute to an argument against all block-
ing of Internet content. It focuses in particular on a new kind of ration-
ale for internet blocking: what I call the "process-oriented approach."
This argument, which has been put forward most systematically by legal


* This is an excerpt and adaptation of Chapter 9 in my new book Networks
...