Argument: Western democracies have a moral duty to aid the liberation of oppressed people where it can effectively do so

Western democracies make frequent declarations about the universality of certain rights, such as freedom of speech, or from arbitrary arrest, and that their system of government is the one that broadly speaking offers the most freedom for human development and respect for individuals. They make avowals in the United Nations and other organizations toward the improvement of rights in other countries and the need for reforms. Take for example Obama addressing the UN General assembly in 2012 where he said “we believe that freedom and self-determination are not unique to one culture. These are not simply American values or Western values; they are universal values.” [1]

By subverting internet censorship in these countries, Western countries take an action that is by and large not hugely costly to them while providing a major platform for the securing of the basic human rights, particularly freedom of speech and expression, they claim are so important. Some potential actions might include banning Western companies from aiding in the construction of surveillance networks, or preventing Western-owned internet service providers from kowtowing to repressive regimes’ censorship demands. [2] Few of these regimes would be able to build and maintain their own ISPs and all the equipment for monitoring and tracking they use. [3] Other actions might include providing software to dissidents that would shield their identities such as Tor. [4] All of these are fairly low cost endeavours. The West has an absolute duty to see these and other projects through so that their inaction ceases to be the tacit condolence of repression it currently is.

[1] Barak Obama, ‘President Obama’s 2012 address to U.N. General Assembly (Full text)’, Washington Post, 25 September 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-09-25/politics/35497281_1_libyan-people-benghazi-diplomatic-facilities/2

[2] Gunther, Marc, ‘Tech execs get grilled over China business’, Fortune, 16 February 2006, http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/15/news/international/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

[3] Elgin, Ben, and Silver, Vernon, ‘The Surveillance Market and Its Victims’, Bloomberg, 20 December 2011, http://www.bloomberg.com/data-visualization/wired-for-repression/

[4] Tor, Anonymity Online, https://www.torproject.org/

Candidate 1: "Any country’s first duty is to its own citizens, and this includes countries that promote human rights and freedom abroad. It is difficult to see why pronouncements by a country should morally oblige it to act in a particular way. Rhetoric and high minded pronouncements are the bread and butter of politics, as is not living up to that rhetoric. These countries may act in response to the desire of their own people to act but this is then done not out of a duty to those in other country but to the electorate of their own."
Candidate 2: "As with all messages this will not make a “clear and emphatic statement about free speech” rather it will be a message that is muddied by hypocrisy. Autocratic ‘repressive’ regimes are not the only states to enable some form of censorship on the internet. Britain has a blacklist that is not even run by the government but left to a charity called the Internet Watch Foundation, [1] Iceland is considering banning internet pornography, [2] and western European countries have bans on holocaust denial which apply online as well as offline. [3] The message is then anything but clear. States on the receiving end of such action will rightly accuse their antagonists of the hypocrisy of wanting to control their own internet while not allowing other that they deem to be ‘less free’ to do the same. As a result the statement is if anything one of aggression that may cause retrenchment or even a dangerous reaction.

[1] Davies, C.J., ‘The hidden censors of the internet’, WIRED, 20 May 2009, http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2009/06/features/the-hidden-censors-of-the-internet/viewall

[2] Associated Press, ‘Iceland seeks internet pornography ban’, guardian.co.uk, 25 February 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/25/iceland-seeks-internet-pornography-ban

[3] See the Debatabase debate ‘ This House would block access to websites that deny the holocaust ’"
Candidate 3: "Internet censorship is a problem, but it is hardly the biggest one facing people in these countries. Internet access is often limited to only the more affluent segments of most poor countries, and it is thus not the best mode of building grass roots movement for reform. This means it is often not even the best platform for dissent, it is notable that the ‘twitter revolution’ may have had some of the organisation through the internet but it was action on the ground through protests that overthrew Ben Ali. [1] At best Western intervention in this case would simply prompt oppressive regimes to utilize more conventional, often more violent methods of quelling dissent.

[1] Ash, Timothy Garton, ‘Tunisia’s revolution isn’t a product of Twitter or WikiLeaks. But they do help’, The Guardian, 19 January 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/19/tunisia-revolution-twitter-facebook"

Any country’s first duty is to its own citizens, and this includes countries that promote human rights and freedom abroad. It is difficult to see why pronouncements by a country should morally oblige it to act in a particular way. Rhetoric and high minded pronouncements are the bread and butter of politics, as is not living up to that rhetoric. These countries may act in response to the desire of their own people to act but this is then done not out of a duty to those in other country but to the electorate of their own.
