Tech & Biz

Skype and the Freedom of Speech

by bloggi | April 1, 2007 at 09:48 am

3646 views | 10 Recommendations | 9 comments

Let me tell you an innocent story of three friends who wanted to hold a Skypecast. Skypecasts are Skype's version of teleconferencing. A theoretically unlimited number of people should be able to audio-conference on any topic.

Two friends and I thought that the Iran-Situation was getting somewhat imminent, so we felt the urge to invite guests to a conference through our web pages. About a week before March 25, 2007 we registered a Skypecast titled: "Die Iran-Situation" (the Iran Situation).

When we tried to enter the audio chatroom, none of us was admitted.

Well, OK, I thought, it is Sunday evening, and so Skype's servers may be at their bandwidth limit. So we held a private conference, and were not too worried.

For today, about an hour and a half ago, we had registered another chatroom under the same topic. We did not get access.

So I registered a chat under the title

Hully Gully Tralala

at Skypecasts. It took us not three minutes to get access to this chatroom, plus around 20 other participants.

Next, I tried to register a Chatroom called

Politics and News

yet again, we were all refused access.

Of course, all of this could be just a regrettable coincidence. From my viewpoint it apparently begs some other questions which I do not address to Skype directly, since I think they are unprepared to handle them as a direct request.

Instead, allow me to ask here:

does Skype employ content filtering mechanisms by keyword?

is there any restriction to the lawful freedom of speech in Skypecasts?

if, so, what is Skype planning to guarantee a minimum level of freedom of speech?

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:55 on April 1st, 2007

At NowPublic, this is high praise from NowPublic editors! Great first-hand account, and definitely food for thought. Anybody else out there encountering this sort of thing?

Your story is now on the home page for awhile, and everywhere else the “good stuff” box shows up. Many thanks for your great work.

bloggi

at 20:13 on April 1st, 2007

Concerning Skype, please also take a look at this blog entry:

http://www.oreillynet.com/etel/blog/2007/04/skype_revenue_from_national_se_1.html

Its publication date is April 1st, but then again...

matte

at 23:48 on April 1st, 2007

is there any restriction to the lawful freedom of speech in Skypecasts?

if, so, what is Skype planning to guarantee a minimum level of freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech according to whose rights? This is a pertinent question. But I guess one could assume US speech freedoms...

Plus there has not been any claims about security on skype - in fact it is more famous for its lack of security!!

bloggi

at 00:36 on April 2nd, 2007

Hello Matte, well, I was thinking more about the "idealtypische" constitution of an average western country, be it the U.S., Germany or France. In one way or another they all provide for freedom of expression.

matte

at 02:50 on April 2nd, 2007

I guess even with keyword blocking, if it exists, is still greater freedom than say opposition government in Zimbabwe!!

nimini

at 09:06 on April 2nd, 2007

Trackback:

Sehr interessanter Blogpost: Skype and the freedom of speech. Vielleicht hat es ja nichts zu bedeuten.

chaz

at 06:07 on April 3rd, 2007

I'm not so sure that FREEDOM of SPEECH is the correct venue for this. If your using my megaphone and I don't want it used at your leisure, I can take it away and leave you to shout your words, without infringing on your Constitutional free speech. The issue might be better presented as a case of EQUAL RIGHTS, this might be discrimination, or even border on the edges of the hate laws, depending on what the Internet site management was thinking when they chose to ban/limit or impede one subject and not another. Is it Cultural, Religious, sexual or race? While the manager might be guilty of poor ethical decisions, it's not likely to be Constitutional violations.

You might also wonder why we can't get a clear picture of GITMO on Cuba with Google SAT pictures, the rest of the Island is viewable. How about the other sensitive US sites no SAT views?

Just another point of view.

matte

at 16:38 on April 3rd, 2007

the Feds will be knocking at your door in about 15 mins Kearny ... LOL

chaz

at 05:32 on April 4th, 2007

Try that test again and use "child porn" as the name, or try "sex with babies", or some other combination like that and see what happens. I'm betting you won't get on then either. It seems the internet is a wash with censorship. I'd bet that "die" was a poor choice to name anything.

There's a panic that blames... freedom to speak your mind on the internet. It implies it's more dangerous than doing it face to face. More of that "give up some freedom to save the children" stuff that keeps going around like an urban legend. Could someone tell me again why "kids" belong on the internet? Having them here does make it easier to swallow all the censorship, doesn't it.

Then again, it might be that Windows, just needs to be rebooted on your computer.