Asian Yahoos Don't Give a Google About Free Web: William Pesek

Commentary by William Pesek

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Will the Internet change China or will China change the Internet?

Events in Beijing, where the Olympic Games are getting under way, leave little doubt it's the latter. More interesting, though, is that many Asian governments may be following China's lead. It could be an ominous sign for Asia's economic outlook.

Reporters Without Borders calls China the ``world champion'' of cyberspace censorship. Journalists in Beijing were reminded of that when they couldn't access Web sites such as Amnesty International. The International Olympic Committee pressured China to allow access to blocked sites. Yet Reuters reported that the IOC had agreed to let China block them in the first place.

China's attempts to filter what its 1.3 billion people read or view may serve as a model of sorts for the region.

``Internet filtering has been on the rise in Asia for the past five years,'' says John Palfrey, executive director of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. ``It matters because it highlights the tension between the desire to grow the economy with the desire to control political speech.''

A free press is a key ingredient for economies to thrive over time. It reduces corruption, makes governments more efficient and holds corporate executives accountable. Things don't always turn out that way, as investors in the U.S. are learning. Greater access to information tends to be better than the alternative in Asia.

Internet Filtering

Governments' hearts are in the right place when they try to limit children's access to pornography or sites deemed to aid terrorists and fraudsters. It's a slippery slope, though, and a little censorship tends to pave the way for broader efforts. Here, Asia is a risk, particularly on the political front.

``Internet filtering is an attempt to make the Internet function much as traditional media have, yet where the state can serve as a gatekeeper over what is said and by whom,'' Palfrey says.

There's this Silicon-Valley-inspired view that the combination of the Internet, rapid broadband speeds and capitalism will facilitate a freer world. In theory, that may be true. The Internet does make governments more responsive to public opinion. It's harder today than it was 10 years ago to silence critics or keep scandals out of the headlines.

China's Pros

Here, it's worth noting the good news about China. Asia's No. 2 economy boasts 253 million Internet users, the largest number in the world. The Internet has informed more Chinese at least a bit about the darker chapters of the nation's past, like the Cultural Revolution.

The Internet also is offering a way for over-the-top nationalist rhetoric with no room for debate to be articulated. Yet ``netizens'' in China are helping to highlight corruption and abuses of power. The phenomenon has taken some government officials by shock, and that's a good thing.

Over time, though, advances in filtering also enable governments to skew people's view of the world as never before. The negatives outweigh the positives.

Whether free markets and communications are inevitable forces for good ``depends on specifically how they are deployed, by and with whom, and how transparently and openly that deployment happens,'' says Rebecca MacKinnon, a media professor at the University of Hong Kong and a widely read blogger.

Its Cons

It's troubling that companies such as Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. seem all too willing to help politicians control information. MacKinnon says such efforts are helping to institutionalize and legitimize the integration of censorship into global information technology.

When people think of censorship in Asia, nations such as China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam may leap to mind first. India, Indonesia and Thailand aren't above blocking Web sites or certain content from time to time. South Korea, one of the most wired nations, is working up new Internet-content rules that are raising concerns about transparency and democracy. Japan is making similar noises.

Might Malaysian authorities, embarrassed by a variety of sex, murder and corruption scandals buzzing around cyberspace, try a hand at censorship? Now that jihad has found India, might officials in New Delhi try to rein in the Internet?

China's model seems to be gaining some currency in Asia. The strategy is to harness the Internet's business potential, while minimizing its role in free speech. China is serving as a massive testing ground for methods of filtering content, and Asian neighbors are taking note.

Question of When

It doesn't mean Web users won't eventually win this battle. ``Despite the growth in Internet filtering in Asia, the long-term prospects for censorship on the Web are not great,'' Palfrey says. ``Citizens in Asia, among other parts of the world like the Middle East, have often demonstrated their ingenuity when it comes to evading censorship online.''

The question is how long it takes for Asia to realize the evils of censorship. Two years? Five years? Ten years? Longer? In the meantime, governments and executives won't be held accountable to a level that investors demand.

The upshot will be slower Asian growth, weaker markets and a wider gap between rich and poor. It may just be a few mouse clicks away.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at wpesek@bloomberg.net