In Europe the internet is free — except when it’s not

Should the web be censored to protect individual privacy? What about to protect society at large? In America the answer is usually very simple: free speech trumps all. But the situation in Europe is far more complex, as two examples in the news right now show.

A British parliamentary committee published its report into whether the nation’s privacy laws are fit and proper. The joint House of Commons and Lords science and technology committee — a ragtag group that mixed titled engineers and researchers with a handful of career politicians looking to score political points — made a number of recommendations about the law and regulation relating to privacy, spinning off a series of recent cases including the case of fidelity-challenged sports star Ryan Giggs. But the group saved its real zingers for a response to testimony from Google, Facebook and Twitter executives, who had argued that censorship of the vast information flow they dealt with was almost impossible. That line, said the report, was “totally unconvincing,” and suggested that the law could be used to compel internet platforms to build filtering and censoring tools.