Laidlaw, Emily
(2012)
Internet gatekeepers, human rights and corporate social responsibilities.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
Access to the Internet and participation in discourse through the medium of the Internet
have become integral parts of our democratic life. Facilitation of this democratic potential
critically relies on a governance structure supportive of the right to freedom of expression.
In western democracies, governance is largely the preserve of the private sphere. This is
because of two reasons. First, the communication technologies that enable or disable
participation in discourse online are privately-owned. In order to find information, we use
search engines. In order to sort through the clutter, we use portals. In order to access the
Internet, we need to use Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Thus we inevitably rely on these
companies to participate in discourse online and they thereby become gatekeepers to our
digital democratic experience.
Second, governance of such technologies has been largely left to companies to address
through corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks such as in-house codes of conduct
found in Terms of Service, through the work of bodies such as the Internet Watch
Foundation (IWF), and industry initiatives such as the Global Network Initiative (GNI). The
state has stayed out of it, rigidly retaining the focal point of free speech laws on
government. This has fractured the administrative structure of free speech between free
speech as a legal concept and as an experienced concept. It is in this fissure that CSR has
grown and taken shape.
This thesis argues that the CSR frameworks that currently govern the activities of these
information gatekeepers are insufficient to provide the standards and compliance
mechanisms needed to protect and respect freedom of expression online. Equally, topdown legal controls are too blunt a tool for this tricky arena. What is needed is a framework
that embraces the legal and extra-legal dimensions of this dilemma. To that end a new
corporate governance model is proposed to help mend the deficiencies identified in the
case studies and move forward with a democratic vision for the Internet.
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