Inside Story

Who rules the web?

As WikiLeaks comes under fire, Inside Story asks who controls the flow of information on the internet.

 

WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange are under fire. About a week ago, Assange turned himself in to British authorities. He is wanted in Sweden for a sex crimes investigation and is now embroiled in a legal battle to secure bail and fight extradition.

Meanwhile, Australia and the US are considering legal action against Assange and his website. Visa, MasterCard and PayPal have already blocked donations to the site. Assange has labelled these companies “instruments of US foreign policy”, while WikiLeaks’ supporters have called for the websites of these companies to be hacked.

They tried organising the attacks with the help of Facebook, which promptly took the page down. Facebook says it violates the terms of service, which prohibit material inciting illegal acts. But they have not removed WikiLeaks’s own Facebook pages – which brings us to the issue of policing online content.

Inside Story, with presenter Folly Bah Tibault, asks: Who controls the flow of information on the internet? Who sets the rules and under what terms?

Joining the programme are Barry Fox, an internet security and technology analyst in London, Bill Dutton, the director of Oxford Internet Institute and a professor of internet studies at Oxford University, and Pavan Duggal, a cyber law expert in New Delhi.

This episode of Inside Story aired from Tuesday, December 14.