This is not censorship

It started off as a highly emotional write-up on a Web site you`ve probably never heard of. With good reason: Censorbugbear.com is not the kind of site from which you would expect analysis, although you may scroll through it for entertainment value on a lazy Friday afternoon.

[VIDEO]The site is a mixture of conspiracy theories and slanted news, all of which show a fundamental distrust of the South African government. It is not surprising that this site would see the apocalypse in the proposed new Interception and Monitoring Bill.

Of course this is not the wellspring: Censorbugbear got its information on the Bill from WorldNetDaily, which in turn must have had a South African source. The mind boggles at the eventual length of the information chain, particularly as the longer the chain, the more opportunities there are for distortion.

Regardless, by this stage there were two major, glaring and dangerous fallacies in the truth on the Bill as Censorbugbear saw it: that the Bill amounted to an attempt to censor the Internet in SA, and that it was being quietly slipped through Parliament because those involved knew it would provoke public outrage.

And so, in a few short paragraphs, this site turned the Bill into a freedom of speech issue.

Suffice it to say that the site was wrong on both counts. See Ivo Vegter`s column for more details, or this column by Jason Norwood-Young in June, which in itself should tell you that the issue has not been rushed through the legislative process.

The mind boggles at the eventual length of the information chain.

Phillip de Wet, News Editor, ITWeb

When the Censorbugbear take on the Bill was posted to IOZ, a discussion list for Internet professionals, many journalists picked up on it. Unfortunately, some also took it at face value.

Three days after the first IOZ post, Computerweek.co.za, a fellow IT news site, ran its now infamous story, headlined "SA government wants to implement Internet censorship law".

The Censorbugbear article had made the leap to a mainstream news Web site, giving it a legitimacy it could never have on its own site or in e-mail discussion forums.

Computerweek took things at face value, never questioning the label of "Internet censorship law". It appears that the writer never set eyes on the Bill itself.

From there the story took on a life of its own, seeming to spread out in a deliberate and malignant fashion to poison any rational discussion on the Bill. It made an appearance on Media @ SAFM, a Sunday morning radio show on the public broadcaster, with columnist Michael de Souza glibly referring to the censorship Bill. De Souza says his sources, including Computerweek, were all referring to it as attempted censorship, and he never thought to question it.

Local portal itsasheep.co.za was quick on the draw, throwing up an "anti-bill" page quoting from Computerweek and urging readers to sign a petition against the Bill. It is reasonable to assume that nobody there read the Bill either, as the site`s link to the "actualll" Bill pointed to a media release soliciting public comment on it.

But the most impressive evidence of how far such disinformation can spread came yesterday, with a page three article by The Citizen, headlined "We will foot snooping bills". Although focusing on valid financial issues, the paper quoted Computerweek as saying the Bill seeks to "implement a draconian Internet censorship law that will allow officials to censor, curtail, eavesdrop on, monitor, intercept, and in fact completely regulate all the country`s Internet and post communications."

These were the exact words used by Censorbugbear.

There is one problem though: Computerweek`s original article is no longer accessible at the Computerweek Web site. It has been replaced with a far more rational piece extensively quoting lawyer Michael Silber, who has from the start been the voice of reason in the debate around the Bill.

The site now informs its readers that it is "replacing our initial article with this one, which takes what we believe to be a more balanced view of the legislation". Yet it never seeks to actively debunk the original article.

The result is that thousands of people are now under a misimpression about the implications of the Bill, because the members of the media did not read the Bill, but simply cannibalised each other.

Why are we so concerned? Because the Bill is indeed an important piece of legislation, which needs to be looked at carefully. Some provisions, such as that telecommunications providers should bear the cost of monitoring, are worth causing a fuss about.

However, confusing the issues by referring to censorship where there is none can only do harm. In fact, that is one sure way to have otherwise reasonable objections overlooked as just more nonsense from the lunatic fringe.

So whom do we blame for the resulting mess? Unfortunately it is not that easy to find a scapegoat, as many individuals and publications along the chain could have changed things for the better, and each one that didn`t, helped aggravate the situation. We can only hope that this will serve as a sharp kick in the rear to prevent it from happening again.

Related stories:
Big brother isn`t so bad
Censorship hysteria breaks out in local media