Online free speech doesn't exist

There is no freedom of speech on the Internet.

Many of us labor under the false believe that our society and our legal system will defend our right to speak the truth – in person or on the Internet – as long as we are in the right. Yes, there are consequences for bearing false witness against our neighbors, but as long as you say things, even controversial things, that can be supported with facts, the truth will out and justice will be served. Right?

Wrong. The truth is no defense if that defense cannot be offered.

On the Internet, it's not what you can prove that is important. Even whether you have a legal case against someone isn't important. What does matter, if you truly want to infringe on someone's online free speech, is what you can threaten, and whether the parties you threaten are easily intimidated. In most cases, the average citizen will find that he has only as much free speech as his host company's cowardly legal department allows him ... and perhaps less.

Julian Assange and his infamous website "WikiLeaks" found this out the hard way. Whether you believe Assange is a wrongly pilloried messenger fighting for transparency in government, or a leftist agitator whose leaks of classified documents make him no better than a terrorist, is irrelevant. The actions taken against WikiLeaks have, to this point, revolved almost entirely around legal and financial pressures that don't even begin to address whether the site and its participants have committed a crime.

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Let me say that again: We haven't yet reached the point at which WikiLeaks is held legally accountable for its activities. The truth, falsehood, legality, or illegality of Julian Assange's actions are not yet on trial. The site has nonetheless lost multiple battles on ancillary fronts unrelated to the truth or falsehood of its revelations.

The BBC's Jane Wakefield wrote recently of WikiLeaks' struggle to stay online. First, the site's host (the company that provides it with space online, and which provides the services that connect that space to the rest of the network of networks that is the Internet) withdrew access to its servers, saying that WikiLeaks was violating the host's Terms of Service. WikiLeaks went to another company, EveryDNS, which pointed the WikiLeaks domain name to servers located elsewhere. EveryDNS, however, recently withdrew its service, on the grounds that Denial of Service attacks were threatening the company's network integrity. In other words, WikiLeaks was violating the new domain server's Terms of Service, simply by being the target of attacks from outside the network in question. EveryDNS pulled its services because it didn't want to be involved in others' efforts to shut down WikiLeaks.

Assange and his website continue to have infrastructure problems. Previously, PayPal cut its business ties with Assange and his organization. Now finance giant Visa has suspended payments to WikiLeaks, cutting the site off from the donations that keep it running. Swiss authorities even closed a new bank account opened by Assange.

Most of these steps are due solely to the political heat and controversy over WikiLeaks' existence and activities. In other words, the companies involved are taking sides based on political pressure, making judgments about freedom of speech and political opinions that have very real consequences for Assange and his organization. WikiLeaks is, in the eyes of PayPal, Visa and his former domain servers and Web hosts, guilty until proven innocent – and even were he to prove his innocence, he would not be given the chance to offer his case. The companies that terminated service to Assange and WikiLeaks did so regardless of what he had to say. They simply cut him off, arguably because they did not wish to be part of the circus surrounding him.

If I sound like I'm defending Assange, I am not. I consider him little better than a terrorist. I have, however, experienced the same legal pressures used in the same manner to infringe on my own freedom of speech online.

As a freelance writer, I publish articles on a variety of topics, including exposé pieces on noteworthy individuals' political and trade-specific claims. One such individual, angered by my truthful article, filed a complaint – not with my lawyer or with me, but with my Web hosting company. That company's legal team initially seemed inclined to dismiss the complaint as without merit – until they received four more complaints, simultaneously, in nearly identical language. My critic had solicited complaint letters from every registered member of my blog's feedback section, misrepresenting my website as a "hate site" and suggesting to my contacts that they complain to my host's legal department.

Overnight, I was forced to remove the "offending" material – which, in some cases, contained individual words the offended party didn't like – or face the termination of my account and the loss of my website. To lose years of work over something so foolish, without even the opportunity to present my case or defend myself, was disheartening. It also taught me a valuable lesson. Online, free speech isn't about the truth or about what you can back up. It is, instead, about whom you can threaten and whether you can bully them into folding.

Arguably malevolent front-page "news" organizations like WikiLeaks have learned this lesson. Individual conservative journalists like me have learned this lesson. You, too, must understand it. You have no true freedom of speech online. To fight for the truth is harder now than it ever was. The technology that gives us a voice and helps us reach an audience is itself vulnerable to lies, subject to intimidation and only as strong as the frightened legal functionaries whose job it is to protect your online services from imagined liability. Those people and those companies do not exist to protect you, nor do they care if you are in the right. They want only to stay out of trouble and to remain free of controversy.

That is the truth, even if no one wants to hear it.