ASEAN's plan to police the Internet face problems
ASEAN's plan to police the Internet face problems
By Roberto Coloma
SINGAPORE (AFP): Plans to police the Internet in ASEAN member states have drawn mixed reviews in the region, where attempts to curb access or censor content could run into political opposition and technical snags.
Information ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed here last week to send regulators and experts to Singapore within the year to discuss "appropriate responses" to the Internet phenomenon.
Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong urged ASEAN to adopt a "sensitive regulatory framework," coupled with industry self- policing, to check "excesses" in the information web used by over 40 million people worldwide.
His multiracial city-state of three million people -- with 100,000 Internet users -- took the lead when it announced steps to block out smut and license on-line forums on sensitive religious, ethnic and political issues.
Singapore's information-technology industry quickly backed the plan, but reactions to Internet regulation were varied across ASEAN, which also includes Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Internet is widely used to swap electronic mail, mine vast lodes of information, conduct business or play video games. But there is an unsavory aspect, such as child pornography and neo- Nazi propaganda, which alarms even western countries.
"There is a limit to what we can do. My belief is for the inculcation of correct values and discipline," Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in Kuala Lumpur.
"My children are on the Internet and I trust them," added Anwar, who said
Malaysia had no plans to institute censorship, preferring self-regulation by the country's estimated 50,000 users.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad held a cyberspace chat with Philippine President Fidel Ramos in January, further boosting regional interest in the Internet.
"They can police Singapore, but not the entire world, especially cyberspace," said Cecilia Quiambao, a freelance writer and Internet "surfer" in the Philippines, where any hint of media controls can trigger an outcry.
"The web is constantly expanding and there will always be new sites which will be impossible to monitor," she said.
Software that blocks access to unwanted sites is widely available, going by such names as Surf Watch, Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, Cyber Sitter and Cyber Sentry. These can be installed by private users or service providers.
But Allen Lok, a manager at Singapore's Cybernet Cafe, which offers hourly rates for use of Internet-linked computers, said undesirable "addresses" -- the access codes to sites -- will have to be keyed in.
Individuals and groups can thus stay one step ahead of regulators by simply changing addresses, resulting in an endless cat-and-mouse chase.
In Thailand, an estimated 100,000 people subscribe to the Internet. Officials have been considering measures to curb abuses since fake pornographic pictures, using heads of local celebrities, appeared on computer screens.
However, Srisakdi Jamornmarn, managing director of top private Internet provider KSC Commercial Thailand, said regulation "is against the philosophy of the Internet," and users should observe rules of etiquette instead.
Internet use is limited in Vietnam, where there are roughly 1,500 users and only electronic mail is available through local providers.
People wishing further access to Internet have to dial up outside the country, which joined ASEAN only last year and is technologically behind the other members.
Singapore's prime minister Goh conceded that censorship "cannot be 100 percent effective" in protecting users against negative influences.
"But the act of censorship itself establishes what we perceive to be right or wrong and reaffirms to both young and old the values that we hold as a community," he said.