Political-Economic Aspects of Bias

Two examples are provided and discussed in this subchapter in order to relate the bias of digital technology with political-economic aspects. The first such example refers to Internet filtering, and relates to governments’ influence over the information available with digital technology, namely their control over the “free flow of information” that the Internet is popularly said to ensure. The second example refers to the use of search engines for finding and accessing information, and relates to the influence of commercial enterprises. Digital technology enhances the exchange of information across borders, leading people to hold that

“because this process is not bound by space or time, national boundaries no longer play a role, which means digitalisation is a catalyst for the ongoing process of internationalisation.”⁶⁵⁶ Indeed, digitisation is a catalyst in several regards, as discussed later in the dissertation.

However, national borders still play a crucial role, even if the technology gives the impression that they don’t. National governments control the flow of information through a method known as technical filtering, which refers to several mechanisms for controlling the

656 Netherlands Council for Culture, “From ICT to E-culture,” Advisory report on the digitalisation of culture and the implications for cultural policy, English edition August 2004 (The Hague, June 2003), 14, http://www.cultuur.nl/files/pdf/adviezen/E-cultuur_engels.pdf; Some authors use the word “digitalization”

instead of digitization, as in the quotation above but in the context of this present dissertation “digitization” has been used, with “digitalization” referring also to a medical treatment.

information circulating over the Internet, and according to Deibert et al. is applied by governments all over the world.⁶⁵⁷ In a book that forms part of a series on this topic, the authors state that “every country wishes to share in the prospective benefits of the Internet.

However, there are no countries that are completely comfortable with the newfound freedoms of expression and access to information the Internet brings. As a result there are few countries left in the world today that have not debated, planned, or implemented Internet filtering.”⁶⁵⁸ While governments are said to use Internet filtering technologies to block access to content that they consider too sensitive for citizens to access, Deibert et al. provide a lengthy list of country profiles, indicating what type of filtering governments apply and for what purposes.

For instance, in order to protect national security, many governments block websites that promote hatred and terrorism, or in terms of protecting the morality of the citizens, most governments block website related to child pornography. However, there are governments that also block Internet tools such as blogs and wikis that allow the sharing of information, certain types of cultural and religious information, or low-cost online telephone services, in order to protect economic interests.⁶⁵⁹ These examples are not mentioned to deny the Internet’s potential, but rather to highlight how the physical medium can be designed to regulate access to information. According to Zittrain and Palfrey, who analyse the use of digital technology for censorship and surveillance, governments apply both technical and non-technical filtering techniques.⁶⁶⁰ One such example of the latter refers to legislation prohibiting people from publishing information that undermines morality or jeopardises state interests. Sometimes technical filtering is imposed by legislation. As Zittrain and Palfrey explain, states do not have full control over the Internet infrastructure yet impose legal measures on private actors, such as the need to hold a license to provide Internet-related services in that state.⁶⁶¹ To illustrate this point, the authors mention obligations that certain governments have imposed on Google regarding its search engine, which should not disclose certain types of content; for example, in France content related to Nazi propaganda, or in

657 Deibert et al., eds., Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: MIT Press, 2008). The authors provide a comprehensive study of Internet filtering worldwide.

658 Deibert et al., eds., Access Denied, 153.

659 For a comprehensive overview of the scope and targets of filtering see Robert Faris and Nart Villeneuve,

“Measuring Global Internet Filtering,” in Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, ed. Ronald Deibert et al.,(Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: MIT Press, 2008), 5-27.

660 Jonathan Zittrain and John Palfrey, “Reluctant Gatekeepers: Corporate Ethics on a Filtered Internet,”

in Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, ed. Ronald Deibert et al., (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: The MIT Press, 2008), 108.

661 E.g. Internet companies, content providers and publishers, telecommunications services, etc.

China, a broad range of politically and culturally sensitive issues.⁶⁶² Indeed, many authors have pointed out that searching one term with the same search engine in two different country locations will return different search results.⁶⁶³ However, what is important in the context of this subchapter is to explain how digital technology is involved in all these by blocking

“packets from reaching the intended destination.”⁶⁶⁴

Filtering can be applied at different components of digital technology. When packets are sent over the Internet they are directed through specialised computers known as routers, which identify computers by their IP (Internet protocol) address, usually consisting in numbers but associated with the so-called DNS (Domain Name System), which allocates domain names.⁶⁶⁵ For example, the IP address of Google is 173.194.78.94, whereas its domain name is google.com. Routers can be used for filtering, because they can be configured not to direct information associated with certain IP addresses.⁶⁶⁶ Routers examine packet names rather than the content of packets, but with additional technical components content can also be examined for banned keywords and subsequently blocked. Filtering can also take place in the so-called DNS server where domain names are banned. Another method of blocking content is through so-called proxy servers, which are placed as an intermediary between a user’s request and the requested information, and can filter out also web pages rather than the entire domain. Moreover, blocking can also take place by overloading the server, and through some other technical mechanisms, in addition to social mechanisms; for example, the placing of computers in libraries so that the screens are visible to the librarian and thus discourage users from accessing inappropriate sites.⁶⁶⁷ While governments have always censored informational materials, the emergence of digital technology has now led to new and not always explicit methods. Accordingly, this has rendered it important to be aware of this bias of digital technology, rather than critically accepting that it provides universal access simply because this could technically be possible. As Lawrence Lessig argued regarding code,⁶⁶⁸ acting as a

662 Zittrain and Palfrey, “Reluctant Gatekeepers,” 108; Problems faced by Google in China have been discussed also in Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 52-55.

663 E.g. Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits.; Indeed, searching the same term on, for example, google.de, google.fr, and google.hu does not turn up exactly the same results.

664 Zittrain and Palfrey, “Reluctant Gatekeepers,” 108.

665 Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson, “Tools and Technology of Internet Filtering,” in Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, ed. Ronald Deibert et al. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London:

The MIT Press, 2008), 57.

666 Murdoch and Anderson, “Tools and Technology of Internet Filtering,” 59.

667 Murdoch and Anderson, “Tools and Technology of Internet Filtering,”64-65.

668 It is a short form from “source code” defined as “the human-readable form of a computer program, which is converted into binary computer instructions by a compiler or interpreter” and it is usually opposed to machine code, which is “the machine-readable form of a computer program, produced by conversion of the

human-control mechanism similar to written legislation: “in real space, we recognize how laws regulate — through constitutions, statutes, and other legal codes. In cyberspace we must understand how a different “code” regulates — how the software and hardware (i.e., the

“code” of cyberspace) that make cyberspace what it is also regulate cyberspace as it is.”⁶⁶⁹

Since the privatisation of the Internet in the 1990s, commercial enterprises have similarly had a strong influence in giving digital technology a further bias in how access to information can be regulated through the manipulation of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing or others. Abelson et al. maintain that search engines are a new paradigm for finding information, yet criticise that “we have given search engines control over where we get reliable information – the same control we used to assign to authoritative sources, such as encyclopedias and ‘newspapers of record’.”⁶⁷⁰ Based on studies of how different search engines are used, they explain that people tend to look up the first three pages, and if the search results are not satisfactory they subsequently change the search term rather than looking up the other pages.⁶⁷¹ People tend to believe that something is wrong with their search term and not with the search engine, but Abelson et al. argue that since people look up only the first pages, getting on the top of the list has become highly important for content providers. Consequently, Abelson et al. explain that “manipulating the ranking of search results is one battleground where the power struggle is played out. Because search is the portal to web-based information, controlling the search results allows you, perhaps, to control what people think. So even governments get involved.”⁶⁷² The involvement of government was mentioned above when search engines were briefly said to be used as filtering technologies. However, the influence of commercial enterprises is obvious not in how they filter search results but rather in how results are generated. Web pages are shown based on their relevance to a search term, yet exactly how relevance is determined is not an entirely transparent process. As Abelson et al. maintain, “no search provider discloses the full details of its relevance and ranking algorithms. The formulas remain secret because they offer competitive advantages, and because knowing what gives a page high rank makes abuse

written program (source code) into binary code by a compiler or interpreter”; Italics in the original. For these definitions see Davies and Riley, “Glossary of ICT”.

669 Lawrence Lessig, Code Version 2.0, (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 5. There are also other authors discussing this aspect, e.g. Ben H. Bagdikian, The New Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004); also James Boyle, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008).; see also Gillespie, Wired Shut.

670 Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 111.

671 Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 146-147.

672 Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 181.

easier.”⁶⁷³ One noted exception is the Google’s ranking algorithm, which is patented and can be consulted, although they explain that in reality it has been adjusted several times.⁶⁷⁴ Abelson et al. still try to suggest a few examples of how selection is undertaken, stating that it can be based on the keywords used in the title of web pages, how often a keyword appears, how many websites it is linked to, whether the page is old or new, if it contains misspellings, etc.⁶⁷⁵ Such factors influence the information people get, and based on the example of Google, the authors argue that its ranking algorithm favours the already rich and powerful; if a business becomes successful online and many sites link to it, this increases its chances of appearing among the first search results.⁶⁷⁶ Therefore, Abelson et al. conclude that “market forces are likely to drive commercially viable search engines toward the bias of the majority, and also to respond to minority interests only in proportion to their political power. Search engines are likely to favor fresh items over older and perhaps more comprehensive sources, because their users go to the Internet to get the latest information.”⁶⁷⁷

Blanchard makes similar arguments in his comparison between Internet search engines and information services offered by libraries:

“What the search engines find tends to be biased toward commercial information and toward web sites that provides online purchase options. This is inherent in the keyword selection process, which is manipulated by commercial web sites to assure that their websites are listed on the first few pages of hits…The search engine sites also display paid advertisements along side of or even within the hits list.”⁶⁷⁸

Blanchard intensively analysed the role of advertising in search engines, explaining that this is the only way for search engines to gain revenues, yet he criticises their influence on search results, as well as the fact that advertisements have invaded the Internet space, including blogs.⁶⁷⁹ While the blog emerged as some sort of a personal diary in digital version, it has since been appropriated for all sorts of uses, and there are now different types, including political and news blogs.⁶⁸⁰ Blanchard maintains that advertisers, taking advantage of this form of digital activity’s success, have started placing paid ads on blogs, or hiring blog writers to pose as consumers and promote their products, with some blogs even being sponsored

673 Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 133.

674 Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 135.

675 Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 133.

676 Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 145.

677 Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis, Blown to Bits, 146.

678 Ralph Blanchard, The Digital Challenge for Libraries: Understanding the Culture and Technology of Total Information, (New York: iUniverse, 2005), 39.

679 Blanchard, The Digital Challenge for Libraries, 61.

680 It is a short form from weblog.

entirely by a single company.⁶⁸¹ Abelson et al. similarly note that the existence of banner advertisements on websites, which are the equivalent of advertisements in newspapers, have changed the appearance of websites, reminding of the discussion provided in the previous chapter regarding Innis’ study of how the design of newspapers has modified with the increasing relevance of revenues gained from advertising.⁶⁸² In their critique, Abelson et al.

explain that money plays an important role in the case of search engines, because

“information access has greater market value than information creation.”⁶⁸³ Indeed, it is possible to agree with this argument, especially in light of the vast amounts of data available over the Internet. However, they also state that it is not simply about technology and money, but also about power to make things visible, to cause them to exist or disappear, to control information and access it. In this regard, the search engines have become “a central point of control in a digital world once imagines as a centerless, utopian universe of free-flowing information.”⁶⁸⁴