How much of what we see on the internet can be taken at face value?
Tuesday afternoon at the Annenberg School of Communication, Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google, presented her work with Google’s Transparency Report and discussed just that. This was the first seminar of the Center for Global Communication Studies’ series at the Annenberg School.
Chou discussed how the report shows that governments around the world are trying to manage the influx of seemingly unfiltered information being viewed by their citizens. It also yields data regarding internet freedoms and government interference with online information.
The transparency report was created through Google’s “20 percent time” project — a program designed to allow Google engineers to spend one day per week working on company-related projects of their own design.
In the wake of the outrage over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), Chou’s presentation proved especially relevant to the future of internet censorship and government relations with companies like Google.
While the nuances of government laws affect Google’s compliance with government requests for information, the underlying sentiment of Chou’s presentation revealed a movement towards exposing the public to the almost uncharted territory of governing the internet.
As a proponent of “universal principles of freedom to access information,” said Chou, Google opposed SOPA and PIPA’s goal to allow the United States government increased control over intellectual property online.
First-year Ph.D. student David Conrad said, “I think it’s encouraging that a company like Google is taking steps toward transparency and is open to engaging with academics and the public in discussions on the processes that are behind their policy decision making and relationships with governments.”
Google currently publishes breakdowns and charts of various countries’ traffic patterns and government requests for content removal.
Looking towards the future of internet transparency, Chou said, “I would like to have more governments and companies doing what Google does.”
She added, “Governments should be making policies based on data rather than selective information.”
The transparency report also exposes internet users around the world to the often unnoticed government tampering of their YouTube video selection or their daily news streams.
According to Chou’s presentation, Google complies with 67% of Brazil’s online removal requests.
Chou suggested that students at Penn start asking questions about how the University might be reviewing online activity and affecting accessibility here on campus.
The scale of Google’s Transparency Report is far-reaching and enormously influential to the future of internet users everywhere, Chou emphasized, but the same principles of non-confidential interference with the internet can be applied to students’ lives at Penn.
