Christopher Wolf, director of the law firm Hogan Lovells’ Privacy and Information Management group, addresses his new book with co-author Abraham Foxman, Viral Hate: Containing Its Spread on the Internet. To what extent do hateful or mean-spirited Internet users hide behind anonymity? How do we balance the protection of the First Amendment online while addressing the spread of hate speech? Wolf discusses how to define hate speech on the Internet; whether online hate speech leads to real-world violence; how news sites like the Huffington Post and New York Times have dealt with anonymity; lessons we should impart on the next generation of Internet users to discourage hate speech; and cases where anonymity has proved particularly beneficial or valuable.
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Over at Computerworld, Ben Rothke makes the case for “Why Information Must Be Destroyed.” “Given the vast amount of paper and digital media that amasses over time,” he argues, “effective information destruction policies and practices are now a necessary part of doing business and will likely save organizations time, effort and heartache, legal costs as well as embarrassment and more.” He continues:
Every organization has data that needs to be destroyed. Besides taxes, what unites every business is that they possess highly sensitive information that should not be seen by unauthorized persons. While some documents can be destroyed minutes after printing, regulations may require others to be archived from a few years to permanently. But between these two ends of the scale, your organization can potentially have a large volume of hard copy data occupying space as a liability, both from a legal and information security perspective. Depending on how long you’ve been in business, the number of physical sites and the number of people you employ, it’s possible to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pages of hard copy stored throughout your company — much of which is confidential data that can be destroyed.
He’s no doubt correct that it makes good business sense to routinely purge data — both physical and digital — to guard against theft, misplacement, leaks, abuse, or whatever else. Of course, in the context of digital information, there are many folks who would like to see digital records purged more frequently to avoid growing concerns about online privacy. I think most of those concerns are over-stated, but it can’t hurt to destroy most collected information after a certain period to play it safe and keep customers happy.
Problem is, as we discussed here last week, if some lawmakers in Washington get their way, it might be illegal to do that! Quite obviously, data retention mandates are at odds with data destruction efforts. [Mitch Wagner has more coverage of the data retention debate over at Information Week and he quotes my PFF colleague Sid Rosenzweig.]
When the history books are finally written, I think it’s clear that outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin will likely go down as one of — if not the — most aggressively pro-regulatory Republican chairman in the agency’s history. Despite his occasional claims of believing in free markets and his support for a couple of legitimately deregulatory decisions, his tenure at the FCC has generally been characterized by a growth of government power, spending, and bureaucracy. But don’t take my word for it; read the report he issued last week called “Moving Forward,” which to some of us looks more like moving backwards (or at least stuck in the same ol’ mud).
Martin, however, touts his regulatory actions and expansion of FCC power as uniformly pro-consumer. Martin is just another in the long line of statists who claims that consumer welfare can only be enhanced by adding layers of government mandates and regulatory red tape. History teaches us a different lesson: That regulation and bureaucracy typically stifle innovation and competition and hurt consumer welfare in the process. Moreover, there are some constitutional considerations and limitations that should trump — or at least limit — the powers of unelected bureaucrats to run roughshod over our rights. But hey, who cares about those meddlesome little things like the First, Fifth, Tenth, or Fourteenth Amendments?! Certainly not Kevin Martin.
What’s equally troubling about Martin’s tenure at the agency is the track record of mismanagement and the bad blood that seemingly surrounds everything and everyone he comes in contact with. The picture painted in the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s 110-page report, “Deception and Distrust: The FCC Under Chairman Kevin J.Martin,” is not a pretty one — although the report failed to mention that waste, mismanagement, and other regulatory shenanigans have been going on at this agency under the days of Democratic rule, too.
Martin’s response to the House report was all too predictable: The evil corporate interests are out to get me! “[M]ost of the criticisms contained in the Majority Staff Report,” Martin says in a letter released a few days ago, “reflect the vehement opposition of the cable and wireless industries to my policies to serve and protect consumers.”
Whatever.
I’m just glad this nightmare is over. Hopefully Martin’s tenure will serve as a cautionary tale for a future Republican administration: If you actually believe in free minds and free markets, try vetting the guy you install at the FCC to make sure he’s a true believer as well.
One of the reasons that so many of us here take issue with proposals to expand regulation of communications, broadband, and media markets is because we have studied the horrendous inefficiencies of economic regulation in practice. We oppose regulatory proposals not because of a “blind faith” in free markets, but because we understand that even when markets stumble they correct themselves quicker and more efficiently than regulatory systems do. One can profess the supposed theoretical benefits of enlightened “public interest” regulation all they want, but the facts are the facts. And the facts do not support the proposition that government regulation generally enhances consumer welfare.
In that regard, Tim Lee’s new Net neutrality report for Cato does a nice job of surveying some of the past unintended consequences of regulation. Also, even though it is now 10 years old, I highly recommend “Economic Deregulation and Customer Choice” by Jerry Ellig and Robert Crandall. It’s an outstanding overview of why economic regulation of various industries failed consumers so miserably in the past.
But if you want even more shocking proof of how horrendously inefficient communications regulation can be in practice, then you must read my PFF colleague Barbara Esbin’s two essays this week on the Universal Service Fund (USF): “The High Cost of USF Support,” and “More FCC Support Fund Follies.” In these two essays, Esbin walks the reader through various grim reports and statistics that have been released recently documenting the failures of the USF.
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.