Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom [Hardcover]

MacKinnon, a former journalist in Asia with CNN, is an Internet policy expert at the New America Foundation. She is both well-informed and insightful and has written an excellent examination of what is - in the words of the book's sub-title - "the worldwide struggle for Internet freedom".

She explains clearly how governments like Burma, Syria and Egypt have managed to close down the Internet locally for short periods and how governments like China and Russia exercise what she calls respectively "networked authoritarianism" and "digital bonapartism". She sets out how even democratic governments are increasingly wanting to exercise more control over the Net with her native USA opposing the WikiLeaks material going online and having some 50 Internet-related Bills in Congress. She assesses the power and responsibility of what she calls the "sovereigns of cyberspace" such as "Googledom" and "Facebookistan" and highlights how discretonary are their terms of service and how opaque are their processes for removing content.

Like so many books critiquing uses and abuses of the Internet, however, the solutions proposed are very partial and lack detail. The problem is that there are fundamental contradictions in our attitudes to the Internet, even if we broadly share the same 'Western' values of individualism and liberty.

So anonymity on the Net is vital if political activists are to be free to use social media to challenge repressive regimes as during the Arab spring or today in countries like China with its 'Great Firewall'. Yet that same facility to be anonymous enables pedophiles to exchange sexual abuse images of children or professional workers like teachers to be libelled or cyber-bullied with impunity. This is why Facebook insists on all users identifying themselves. On the one hand, we want our Internet services such as Google and Facebook to be free and we casually click on statements authorising terms of use but, on the other hand, we want our personal data to be protected and private and do not like the monetisation of such data as in behavioural advertising. Net users love to be able to download music and films for nothing but lack an appreciation that, without a sensible application of copyright law online, the source of this creativity will be diminished. Governments and copyright holders threaten cutting off customers from the Internet, while increasingly being connected is essential to full citizenship and empowered consumerism.

MacKinnion understands how the Internet works and how political activism operates, so she is sober and realistic in her assessments, writing that "If the events of 2011 taught the world anything, it is that although the Internet empowers dissent and activism, it is not an instant freedom tonic that, when applied in sufficient quantities, automatically results in freedom". Her central thesis is that "the corporations and governments that build, operate and govern cyberspace are not being held sufficiently accountable for the exercise of their power over the lives and identities of people who use digital networks". Yet - perhaps inevitably - the models she examines and supports for strengthening accountability of the Internet are very limited in reach and effectiveness. She admits that "The potential answers are daunting in their complexity".

She explains the role of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and she describes the work of organisations like the Global Network Initiative (which only Yahoo, Google and Microsoft have joined) and Global Voices and political movements like the Pirate Party (especially in Sweden). She looks briefly at initiatives such as Britain's Internet Watch Foundation (which I chaired for six years) and mentions things like the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between the USA and 34 other countries and British and French legislation on online copyright enforcement. She outlines the provisions of a Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet which is both very broad-brush and unrealistically ambitious.

MacKinnon asserts: "It is imperative that voters, politicians, and companies of the world's democracies gain greater awareness of the need to find innovative ways of addressing problems that will not require citizens to pay for security with their freedom". I could not agree more. Maybe "Consent Of The Networked" will help a little in raising such awareness but sadly it does little to advance innovative solutions.