WILLIAMSBURG – Nearly three months to the day after two masked gunmen stormed the offices of Paris-based satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 11 and wounding another 11, The College of William and Mary hosted a panel discussion focusing on the protection of free speech and free press.
Three experts —Drew Dernavich, a cartoonist for The New Yorker; Max Fisher, content manager and reporter for the general news website, Vox; and Andy Purdy, chief cybersecurity officer with Huawei USA and former chief cybersecurity director under President George W. Bush — were joined by a costumed interpreter portraying Patrick Henry to present their opinions and perspectives about topics ranging from online harrassment to an editorial cartoonist’s right to exercise or suppress free speech.
In reference to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Dernavich said while no one deserves to die for drawing a cartoon, artists should take care not to mock individuals or be blatantly offensive.
Good art is saying what you want to say undertheir terms,” Dernavich said, “their” meaning individuals who wish to control or limit artistic expression. The Charlie Hebdo attacks were carried out in response to the magazine’s decision to publish satirical images of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
Dernavich also said that we need free speech protection in today’s social media landscape because many images or soundbites the general public may find shocking or profane are heavliy shared and do not simply go away.
“Shocking images that go away after three seconds are OK,” Dernavich said. “But captured images have long-form meaning that takes (the images) out of context.”
Fisher suggested free speech in media — in the form of online harrassment — has the potential to suppress others’ rights to voice their opinions online.
Fisher cited “gamergate,” an August 2014 event in which several females within the video game industry were subject to online threats of rape and violence in online forums such as Reddit, 4chan and 8chan. He described online harrassment as “criminal speech you would be arrested for if you said it in person,” and said it is the antithesis to free speech. The only way to confront the issue of online harrassment is for people to be aware that it does restrict free speech.
Fisher noted that Vox does not allow readers to comment on its stories.
“People on the internet get upset about everything, but you tend to get more responses from groups that control the status quo,” Fisher said. Story comments tend to get a furious response from users when the article deals with race or gender equality.
Purdy took issue with Fisher’s assersion that public comment sections should be closed.
“Dialogue makes us stronger,” Purdy said. “What we need is better accountability, responsibility. The government isn’t going to mandate responsibility.”
Patrick Henry chimed in, saying anonymous missives were present in the past but conceded that most published attacks were written with a bit more “gentility.”
Purdy pivoted from personal attacks to large-scale cyber attacks, such as the one committed against Sony Pictures in November 2014. In the first phase of the attack, hackers released the personal and private information about Sony employees and their families, as well as their emails and copies of previously unreleased films. The hackers then demanded Sony halt the release of the film “The Interview,” a satirical comedy about a plot to assasinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
After the hackers suggested they would respond with violence towards theaters that chose to screen “The Interview,” Sony pulled the film, a decision that drew immediate criticism from prominient figures in Hollywood. President Barack Obama even weighed in on Sony’s decision to pull the film, urging film producers to not give in to acts of cyber intimidation.
Illustrating his point, Purdy said that during The Cold War the U.S. and the Soviet Union strengthened their military defenses as a deterrence. Today, Purdy said, deterrence is a soft response to acts of cyber-intimidation.
“Deterrence in cyberspace is problematic because there’s no international protocol for how a nation should respond,” Purdy said.
Purdy said if the international community could reach an agreement on standards, practices and norms of conduct in cyberspace future attacks might be deterred, especially when paired with a strengthening of our cyber defenses..
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