Ownership rights to discussion group content and more generally legal responsibilities of conduit providers with regard to safeguarding the freedom of expression of users are unclear at best. As a consequence, preemptive withdrawal of discussion contributions, freezing of email accounts or closing of websites in the face of political pressure, legal quarrels or self-defined standards of morality cannot be ruled out. Again, many of these issues cannot be effectively addressed at a domestic level, but require international co-operation. Most advocacy efforts are still confined to the domestic arena, with the U.S. as most advanced Internet user providing a foretaste for the issues and debates to come. Containing measures Acceptable standards of morality and decency vary across cultures, but child pornography and some forms of hate speech are unanimously considered as illegal material online.
Approaches can take a number of routes.
Conventional law enforcement, coordinated across borders, can help make the spread of these contents more difficult. The choice of technical means and policy strategies need to carefully consider potential conflicts with privacy and communication rights. Protection of minors from what is considered harmful content is another concern of content regulation and has led to a number of initiatives. Filtering software is being developed by a number of private entities but these initiatives receive mixed reviews. Many observers point to the lack of transparency of filter heuristics and blacklisted sites of some software solutions, which in their view introduces an element of insufficient accountability and potential arbitrariness on the part of the filter provider.