How Countries Are Regulating Internet Content
Peng Hwa Ang &tphang@ntu.edu.sg&
Nanyang Technological University
Content regulation of the Internet has recently come to the
fore of public debate as an issue that both governments and Net
users are concerned about. This paper aims to answer those
questions by analyzing the approaches adopted by countries that
have attempted to regulate Internet content.
The paper observes that there are various pressures on
governments to regulate the Internet. It then observes that
governments do not regulate using any regulatory paradigm
although the regulators are often also regulators of
broadcasting. The regulatory paradigm in fact sometimes comes
from the print media.
Thumbnail sketches of the regulatory frameworks in several
countries, especially the United States, France, Singapore,
China and South Korea, are then outlined. The paper notes that
although there are more censorship laws being passed around the
world, and often after studying the area, censorship has
actually been light-handed.
It concludes that there is no one universal model for
Internet content regulation. Ultimately, each country's
regulation of the Internet is driven not by technology or law
but by the culture--in the broadest sense of the word--of the
society. Each country has its own specific concerns and it is
this rich variety of concerns that adds to the diversity of the
Keywords: Internet, content regulation, regulatory
issues, censorship, USA, France, South Korea, Germany,
Singapore, legal issues, international aspects.
Content regulation of the Internet has recently come to the
fore of public debate as an issue that both governments and Net
users are concerned about. A recent survey by Georgia Tech
showed that censorship is the number one concern of Net users
The concern is reflected in the recent focus of papers from
private and public sectors on Singapore [2], a comparison of
Japan and the USA, [3], on Australia [4] and on the European
Union [5]. In the above instances, the studies were
country-specific and probably necessarily so. Regulation in this
area is new and so those who seek to regulate the area have to
study the wider implications of even minor changes in law.
Country-specific studies raise the question of how widely
applicable the new rules might be. Can countries considering
regulating the Internet learn from the new rules developed by
those that have blazed the trail? Or must each country, as it
were, reinvent the wheel.
This paper aims to answer those questions by analyzing the
approaches adopted by countries that have attempted to regulate
Internet content. This paper does not argue the merits or
demerits of Internet content regulation: the demerits are too
often pronounced although tangible proo the
merits are often defended by regulators who equally lack
tangible proofs.
Instead, this paper simply studies instances of regulation in
the following countries: United States, France, Singapore, China
and South Korea. Lessons are drawn from what each of these
countries has deemed illegal.
Net users appear puzzled by governments' intention to
regulate the Internet. Often users say that the Net is a
powerful medium that will be stifled by regulation. However, the
power of the Internet is precisely the reason that governments
want to regulate it.
The European Union paper on "Illegal and harmful content on
the Internet" probably best sums up the fears of governments
about the Internet:
national security (instructions on bomb-making, illegal drug
production, terrorist activities);
protection of minors (abusive forms of marketing, violence,
pornography);
protection of human dignity (incitement to racial hatred or
racial discrimination);
economic security (fraud, instructions on pirating credit
information security (malicious hacking);
protection of privacy (unauthorized communication of
personal data, electronic harassment);
protection of reputation (libel, unlawful comparative
advertising);
intellectual property (unauthorized distribution of
copyrighted works, software or music) [ibid].
How widely these fears serve as a rationale for censorship is
considered below.
The most logical start to attempting to regulate the Internet
is to look at the analogies that regulators have attempted to
use. The Internet, by combining the traits of traditional
communication media, poses problems for censorship because it
becomes difficult to classify it and to decide who regulates it
and how. This is the problem of regulatory paradigm.
Should the Internet be treated as a postal service because it
has e-mail? Or do the capabilities of Internet Relay Chat and
voice-telephony make it a telecommunication service? Then does
the presence of electronic newspapers make it a print medium? Or
should the availability of radio and television stations make it
a broadcast medium? Should its use of the computer mean that the
computing model of regulations apply? Can the advertising
model--where advertisements are often screened before they are
placed in the media--be used for censorship?
For censorship purposes, several of the approaches may be
rejected. The postal and telecommunication paradigm may be
rejected because most, if not all, countries do not monitor
all or even a large pa it would be
too expensive for any country.
Next, the computing paradigm may be rejected because, besides
the notable exception of Myanmar, which recently prohibited
unauthorized use of networked computers [6], most countries
impose minimal regulations on computers. Until recently, censors
saw computers as yet another manufactured product, just
The advertising model may seem an ideal for censors as most
countries have a regulatory scheme to prevent fraudulent or
misleading advertising. Even in the United States, where the
advertising has been deregulated, the response of the television
or radio station to complaints about advertising is a factor
that is considered in the renewal of the broadcasting license
There are, however, two problems with using the advertising
model. First, contents on the Internet cannot be analogized to
advertisements because they are not all commercial speech.
Second, there is no one to screen all postings. And no one,
certainly not the Internet access provider, would want the
responsibility of vetting all content.
That leaves two possible approaches: print and broadcast. In
all countries, there is some experience of content regulation
with one or both media. The difference may not be trivial. At
the time of writing, Germany was debating whether the Internet
is a print medium and therefore to be regulated at the state
level, or a broadcast medium to be regulated at the federal
level [8].
For practical purposes, perhaps because the Internet is seen
as a modern electronic medium, many countries--starting with the
USA, France, Australia and Singapore--have placed the Internet
under the regulators of the broadcast industry. However, in the
execution of regulation, the functions of the Internet may be
broken up so that, as will be shown below, parts of the Internet
are regulated under different approaches.
All electronic communication in the USA is regulated by the
Federal Communications Commission. In general the United States,
in line with the free speech principle expressed in the First
Amendment, has minimal content regulations. It does not mean,
however, that the US has no regulations for the Internet.
The USA is the country with the most sophisticated
regulations for the Internet. Its very sophistication is
illustrated in the fact that it has laws of such broad
definitions that even without amendments, the Internet can be
captured. For example, a computer user in the USA can go to jail
for transmitting and receiving pornography. A three-year Federal
Bureau of Investigation crackdown that began in 1993 has
resulted in 80 arrests, 66 convictions and more than 200
searches [9]. Keeping in mind that the telephone and the
computer, the heart of the Internet, were invented in the USA,
this sophistication should not be surprising.
As will be shown below, a number of countries have had to
amend their laws to capture the Internet.
France has attempted to regulate the Internet through using a
mechanism established for policing the Minitel. It has proposed
using inspectors of its famous Minitel to prowl the Minitel
system inspecting content to ensure that information providers
comply with the terms of their contract with France
T&l&com. If the approach is implemented, France
will join countries in the Communist bloc to manually inspect
Internet content as a matter of course [10].
Currently, however, the legal position is uncertain because
the section of the French law that created the policing
mechanism was declared unconstitutional for vagueness by the
French Conseil Constitutionnel (Constitutional Council)
France's well-used Minitel system is regulated by the CST (le
Conseil Sup&rieur de la T&l&matique). This
body ensures that each content provider abides by the contract
signed with France T&l&com. The surveillance
function is reportedly done by five to eight persons working in
France T&l&com. [ibid]
In early 1996, the French government set up a commission to
study regulating the Net. In the main, it recommended
self-filtering as opposed to filtering at the source. Where
necessary, it recommended international cooperation in policing
the Net. It also recommended regulations to enhance French
presence and language on the Net [11].
The recommendations, however, were overshadowed by a
proposal, called the Fillon amendment, named after the minister
of telecommunications, Fran&ois Fillon, to regulate the
Internet. In a style perhaps peculiar to France, regulation is
through a "negative option"--IAPs do not have to abide by the
code of conduct drawn up by the CST but those who abide by the
code will be absolved of legal liabilities for text, images and
documents transmitted. As legal liabilities are uncertain, the
implications of such a law are uncertain [10].
Internet organizations and professionals were scheduled to be
members of the new CST. In its "Minitel" form, the CST has 20
members made up of magistrates, ministry officials, France
T&l&com representatives, Minitel providers, family
and consumer organizations. IAPs who do not respond to the
blacklist of Internet sites or newsgroups will be held
responsible for what it is carrying. It is this law that
empowered the CST to censor that has been ruled unconstitutional
In the wake of the promulgation of the law and the arrest of
two managers of French IAPs, the French Association of Internet
Professionals (AFPI), an ISP interest group, has decided to ban
18 obscene, pedophile, and neo-Nazi newsgroups from their
servers. The AFPI, which has four members but claims to
represent "more than 50 percent" of the French market, was
afraid that IAPs could be held responsible for the content they
transmit. A representative of the AFPI said that this ban could
not be called censorship because "every subscriber is free to
choose another Usenet server" [ibid].
France has proposed developing a code of conduct for the
Internet [12] [13]. Users, however, have not been invited to
participate [10].
Singapore, which has a reputation for censorship, has made
headlines for its recent attempt to regulate the Internet. Like
most countries, Singapore had to amend its laws to capture the
Singapore has adopted a multipronged approach to Internet
censorship. First, the Singapore Broadcasting Authority, which
regulates Internet content, has said that the regulations are
targeted only at the function of the Internet that is of a
broadcast nature. Second, it has adopted the peculiar, perhaps
even unique, idea of the class license: certain classes of
content are deemed to be automatically licensed provided a code
of practice is abided by. In effect, censorship is after, not
before, publication. Matters of race, religion and politics are
given special attention on the Internet. When the code is
breached, the license is revoked [14].
Although the regulators carry the name "broadcasting," the
mechanism employed resembles those that apply to the print
media. Singapore's regulations are, in the main, an attempt to
rationalize regulation of the Internet with regulation of the
print media.
In keeping with the reliance on technology, Singapore IAPs
have to use proxy servers that have a refused-access list to
block access to blacklisted sites--currently a little more than
100, mostly pornographic sites [15].
China has publicly declared that it is looking at Singapore's
attempts at media regulation [16]. China's regulations, however,
go much further than Singapore's: only the comp and sci
ne access is through filters and even then
using a handful of government-control
besides pornography, political and linguistic matters are also
censored [17].
The Chinese have relaxed censorship recently. At one time,
all users had to register with the police, a requirement that
has since been waived [18].
A common reply from those who argue against Internet
censorship is that users can simply connect to the Net using an
international call [19].
However, a Chinese law promulgated in February 1996 bars such
international calls. Violators face first a warning, then a fine
of up to 15,000 yuan or about US$2,000, equivalent to a year's
salary of an average worker in China.
It appears that the laws that apply to the Internet are a
subset of laws that apply to electronic media. Recently, China
passed a law that compelled all economic news services provided
by foreign companies, such as Reuters and Knight-Ridder, to be
distributed only through the official Xinhua news agency [18].
Probably the first country to have any Internet-specific
censorship law is South Korea. In 1995, South Korea passed the
Electronic Communication Business Law, which established the
Information & Communication Ethics Office. The Office has
broad powers to censor: its scope of coverage encompasses
material on bulletin-board services (BBS), chat rooms, and other
"public domain services" that "encroaches on public morals,"
"may cause a loss of national sovereignty," and "information
that may harm youths' character, emotions and the sense of
Under the law, the Minister of Communication can order an
information provider to delete and restrict the material. By one
count, one of the three service providers for online and
Internet content counted more than 220,000 deleted messages in
the first eight months of 1996 [20].
South Korea stands out for its unique regulation of political
speech: contact with and even expressions of sympathy toward
North Korea are forbidden. Prosecutors in South Korea have
stated that stern measures would be taken against anybody trying
to access North Korean home pages on the World Wide Web [21].
A newspaper reported a government official as declaring that
should a South Korean meet a North Korean on the Internet, he
would have to report to police within seven days [22]. Anyone
can be arrested for speaking in favor of North Korea (Kim citing
NYT). According to a nonprofit activist group, at least one
person has been denied access to the Internet under South
Korea's National Security Law to prevent such contact [23].
In the recent grounding of the North Korean submarine, South
Koreans who went online and questioned the official version were
investigated [24].
Germany recently drafted a "multimedia" law that, among other
things, censors pornography and anti-Semitic propaganda. Acts
already prohibited in Germany--such as denying the Holocaust,
distributing hard-core pornography to minors and conducting
fraudulent business--will also be illegal in electronic form
The German law puts responsibility for suspect content on
"suppliers," but this is not clearly defined. One interpretation
of the new provision is that online services such as CompuServe
and America Online could be held liable for legally questionable
material after being warned that such material can be accessed
through their systems, if they have the technical means to block
the material but fail to do so [ibid].
The German moves have come about first because a ban on a
Dutch Web site () led to
the site being mirrored by at least nine other sites all over
the world. The site had been banned because it carried a Web
page of a magazine that was banned in Germany, Radikal
Then there was also the much discussed suspension of
CompuServe access to newsgroups [26]. The new law therefore has
the function of clarifying the legal liabilities of IAPs when
illegal material passes through them.
Several Internet regulations and proposals for regulations
should also be noted.
The European Commission has recommended a voluntary code of
conduct on the Internet, and suggests using labeling and
filtering along the lines of PICS (Platform for Internet Content
Selection). There are however, at least two problems. First, the
labeling and filtering systems are not compatible. Second, the
European Union has to develop a framework to clarify the
administrative rules and regulations that apply to access and
content providers [27].
Canada's federal regulator says it may regulate content on
the Internet to provide for more Canadian content [28]. This is
similar to the French idea of having more Franco space.
In Vietnam, the Interior Ministry has the power to monitor
contents, including e-mail, flowing over the Internet. Under the
rules, Internet users are held legally responsible for any
information they provide or receive [21].
Recently, a spokesperson from the Middle East state of United
Arab Emirates was reported as attempting to censor the Internet
using Singapore as a model: it wanted to use proxy servers as
filters and issue Internet access licenses through the police,
instead of the telecommunication regulator because the police
monitor data coming into the country [29].
There are commonalities in approaches but no singular model
for Internet regulation. Every country appears to have its own
specific approach to regulations.
Most countries are placing Internet regulations under the
broadcast regime. But it does not necessarily mean that they are
using the broadcasting paradigm of regulation. The broadcasting
regime may be the most suitable because most countries treat
e-mail generally as privileged communication. (Vietnam is a
notable exception among the countries mentioned in this paper.)
Contrary to any perception from media reports of increasing
laws, most countries are trying to censor with a light hand.
China and Germany, for example, have retrenched from an
apparently hardened attitude to censorship. This author has
spoken with some officials who reported that they are drawing up
a code for symbolic rather than substantive value. In other
words, while there may be more laws, the laws are not
necessarily being enforced with the rigidity that a plain
reading would suggest.
Governments seem aware that the controls on the Internet are
limited. If so, those who say censorship and other forms of
content regulation of the Net are futile miss the point [30]:
censorship was never intended to be 100 percent effective. It
was intended as a political statement.
Further evidence of the light-handed approach generally is
that most countries have decided not to hold IAPs liable for
material that may be deemed illegal in the country. Governments
seem aware that to rule otherwise would be to stifle the
development of the Internet.
Some attempts to regulate the Net have sprung out of studies
to rationalize laws in traditional media with that of the
Internet. In some instances, it is in
others, it is to close loopholes. (As an aside, the author is
not aware of any study at rationalization that has not
recommended some regulation of the Net.) Singapore, France and
Germany are examples of regulation springing out of such
rationalization.
The spectrum of regulatory devices may be seen in Table 1
below. It is probably fair to say that Western countries with a
longer and stronger tradition of the free press would tend to
use the first three steps in regulation. Asian and other
countries with a less notable tradition of the free press would
be more inclined to use steps 4 and 5, where penal sanction is
state-endorsed.
Table 1. Regulatory framework
Substantive Rules
1. The actor him/herself
Personal ethics
Self-sanction
2. Second party controllers (i.e., the person acted upon)
Contractual provisions
Various self-help mechanisms
PICS, RSACi, filter software
3. Nonhierarchically organized social forces
Social norms
Social sanctions
Code of Conduct
4. Hierarchically organized nongovernmental organizations
Organization rules
Organization sanctions
Industry self-regulation
5. Governments
State enforcement, coercive sanctions
Adapted from Ellickson (1991) [31].
If such an analysis is accepted, it implies that any common
areas of regulation, such as for example in racial and religious
speech, will be applicable only in culturally similar areas.
Germany, for obvious reasons, is concerned with anti-Semitic
speech. But its concerns are not shared by as many people as is
the concern with child pornography.
This suggests that the European Union's code of ethics for
the Internet is unlikely to be satisfactory to all. Either the
code will have very broad principles or else another layer of
national code will be needed by each European country.
The lesson that seems to emerge is that regulation is not
based on the technology of the Internet. Rather, regulators fit
the Internet into their existing regulatory framework. The
French idea of using Minitel inspectors to inspect Internet
content is perhaps the classic example of the recognition of the
"cultural" aspect of regulation. On hindsight, such an approach
makes sense: it is far easier to adapt the Internet to a legal
culture than to adapt a legal culture to the Internet. Each
regulator therefore has to consider the country's framework and
regulate the Internet to its own perceived needs and benefit.
A new direction in content regulation is the attempts by
Canada and France to balance content imbalance on the Internet.
A major implication from this is that there will not be one
universal model for regulating the Internet. But this does not
mean that the regulatory wheel must be reinvented each time. The
various countries presented in this paper afford enough models
to follow.
An approach to Internet content regulation based on the
cultures of each country makes the most sense. This is what it
means to be an international community, rather than a commune,
or even a barracks. It would require that the world learns to
step back, check the lenses that they use, and try to
accommodate the differences. Perhaps the free-flowing and
anarchistic Internet culture will gradually evolve to include
these pockets of differences.
Georgia Tech (1996). GVU's 6th WWW Survey.
Accessed January 31 1997.
Ang, Peng Hwa, and Berlinda Nadarajan (July 1996).
Censorship and the Internet: A Singapore Perspective.
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 39, No. 7, p. 72-78.
Mashima, Rieko, and Katsuya Hirose. Vol. 2, No. 2. From
"Dial-a-Porn" to "Cyberporn": Approaches to and Limitations of
Regulation in the United States and Japan.
Australian Broadcasting Authority (1996). Investigation
into the content of on-line services: Report to the Minister for
Communication and the Arts.
European Union (1996). Illegal and harmful content on the
Internet: Communication to the European Parliament, the
Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of
the Regions.
Accessed 31 January 1997.
Bardacke, Ted (5 October 1996). High price to pay for
Internet use in Burma. Financial Times.
Lacy, Stephen, Ardyth B. Sohn, and Jan LeBlanc Wicks (1993).
Media Management: A Casebook Approach. Lawrence Erlbaum:
Hillsdale, New Jersey.
Herbert Burkert, Conversation. Information Superhighway
Summit Asia (3 September 1996). Singapore. (Dr. Burkert is
Senior Adviser, GMD German National Research Centre for
Information Technology and Chairman, Legal Advisory Board for
the Information Market, European Commission.)
Reuters (11 December 1996). FBI Searches Internet in
Child Porn Probe.
AUI (1996). Press Release. Working group of the Ministry of
Telcoms for the elaboration of a "Code of good conduct for the
auto-regulation of the Internet by professionals."
French Interministerial Mission on Internet (1996).
Accessed 31 January 1997.
The Straits Times (25 October 1996). France proposes
charter on use of the Internet.
Press Statement from Ministry of Telecommunicatons (23
October 1996).
. Accessed
4 November 1996.
Singapore Broadcasting Authority.
Accessed 30 January 1997.
Tong, Ming Chien (20 July 1996). Device to block out
blacklisted Web sites. Straits Times.
Tefft, Sheila (5 August 1996). China attempts to have its
Net and censor it too. Christian Science Monitor, p. 1.
International Herald Tribune (30 October 1996). The
Net booms in China: But filters block politics and pornography:
Filters in Beijing Shanghai, p. 16.
Wall Street Journal (16 January 1997). B4. cited in
Edupage (17 January 1997).
Reuters (16 January 1997). Unstoppable Internet will
defy controls. 22:31:13 PST.
Kim, Young Sik (23 August 1996). Computer Communication
Censorship in Korea. President, Civil Union Against Censorship.
Presentation at the 8th MacBride Roundtable in Seoul, South
Reuters (6 June 1996). Seoul battles Pyongyang in
cyberspace. 8:50:09 PDT.
Kim (op cit) citing New York Times (10 July 1996).
Kim (op cit) citing Dong-a il bo (March 1996).
Straits Times (26 September 1996). S. Korea hunts for
subversives in cyberspace.
Reuters (11 December 1996). Bonn aims to rein in
lawlessness in cyberspace, 11:01:18 PST.
Walker, Ruth (4 October 1996). Why Free-Wheeling Internet
Hit Teutonic Wall over Porn: Culture Clash. Christian
Science Monitor, p. 1.
BNA Daily Report for Executives (17 October 1996).
European Commission Eyes Internet Regulations A4.
Ottawa Citizen (15 November 1996). Canada Eyes
Internet Regulation D15.
Reuters (25 January 1997). UAE launches service to
censor Internet. 4:31:17 PST.
See Reuters (18 September 1996). Internet guru sees
Asian restrictions failing 11:50:31 PDT, quoting Bill Cheswick
of Bell Laboratories.
Ellickson, Robert C. (1991). Order without law: how
neighbors settle disputes. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press.