LATIN AMERICA:
New ‘Cyber Paradise’ for
Pedophiles and Racists?
By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS)
- The crackdown in
eastern Europe and the
United States on
websites posting racist
content or child
pornography could expose
Latin America to the
risk of becoming a new
"cyber paradise" for
on-line pedophilia and
racism, experts say.
The warning was sounded
at the United
Nations-sponsored
Internet Governance
Forum (IGF) in Rio de
Janeiro, which has been
discussing issues like
security, access and
diversity on the net
this week.
Many of the websites
bearing illegal and
harmful content were
hosted by the Czech
Republic. But after the
clampdown they migrated
to countries like
Panama, according to
Thiago Tavares, head of
the non-governmental
organization (NGO)
SaferNet Brasil.
A law professor at the
Catholic University of
Salvador (UCSal),
Tavares receives
information and tracks
complaints about
cybercrime in Brazil,
and has found 100
portals with child
pornography content
hosted in Panama.
"That set off an alarm,"
he told IPS.
The expert fears that
the large gaps in
legislation in Latin
American countries may
encourage sites with
such content.
Among the legal
shortcomings, Tavares
mentioned the absence of
harmonization between
the laws of different
countries.
"There’s no cooperation
network, policy
integration between
different countries, or
strong social movement.
Only a few NGOs are
fighting pedophilia, and
no Latin American
country has created a
plan of action
specifically to fight
crimes like pedophilia
and racism on the
Internet," he said.
"For all these reasons,
the region is highly
vulnerable," he said.
In Brazil the highest
profile case is that of
Orkut, a social
networking site operated
by Google, which
"regrettably became a
paradise for cybercrime
in Brazil. Thousands of
pedophiles and racists
use Orkut to distribute
child pornography,
attract underage
children, and commit all
sorts of human rights
violations," said
Tavares.
Brazil’s 35 million
Internet users account
for over half of those
in Latin America as a
whole.
Some 25 million people
in Brazil visit Orkut,
nearly 70 percent of all
Internet users in this
country of over 188
million people.
According to SaferNet,
1.3 million Internet
users in Brazil are
children or adolescents
who surf the Internet
from their homes. Out of
these, 53 percent visit
social networking and
discussion sites like
Orkut.
There is no evidence
that Orkut carries more
illegal or harmful
content than other
social portals. But
since it is such a
popular site among
Brazilian Internet
users, the overall scale
of the criminal content
is shocking.
In the past two years,
50,000 Internet pages
related to human rights
crimes and violations,
including 19,000
containing child
pornography, have been
detected, according to
SaferNet.
In the view of Tavares
and other experts at the
IGF, the difficulties
the Brazilian
authorities have in
identifying and
punishing Brazilian
nationals who use
international services
like Orkut for criminal
activities is the main
problem.
Until recently, Google
refused to give the
authorities information
about users identified
as suspects by police
and judicial enquiries,
federal prosecutor
Sergio Gardenghi Suiama
told IPS.
The prosecutor, who is
handling the civil
lawsuit against Google
in Brazil, said the
company argued that user
data requested by the
judicial authorities was
stored in the United
States, and therefore
prosecution must be
under U.S. law.
"We argue that if the
crimes were committed by
Brazilians, as there is
no doubt they were, it
is Brazilian law that
applies, and Google’s
subsidiary in Brazil
must answer to the
authorities here," he
said.
But when the Brazilian
government threatened
Google with fines and
penalties, the company
backed down, shared data
on some of its Orkut
users, and is expediting
removal of illegal
content from the web.
The California-based
Google’s net income for
the third quarter of
2007 was over one
billion dollars, a 46
percent increase from a
year ago. This
extraordinary growth was
partly due to the "Orkut
fever" that has swept
Brazil, although the
company has lost
"millions of dollars" in
advertising revenue,
Tavares said.
"Google was selling
advertising space on its
Orkut site, and some ads
ended up on pages
containing child
pornography. When
advertisers found out,
they started to cancel
their contracts,"
Tavares said. "That was
one of the main reasons
why Google changed its
attitude towards
cooperating with
Brazilian prosecutors."
Eduardo Fumes Parajo,
president of the
Brazilian Association of
Internet Service
Providers (ABRANET),
said the association’s
members are working on a
self-regulated code of
conduct, to avoid such
conflicts in the future.
In 2005, ABRANET signed
an agreement with the
office of the public
prosecutor to facilitate
investigations of child
pornography, racism and
hate-mongering, which
included willingness on
the part of Internet
providers to hand over
user information when
requested by the police
or the justice system,
and to store data on
clients for a longer
period of time, in order
to preserve potential
evidence.
"This is a social
question. Providers
approach this issue as
an integral part of
their business. No one
wants criminal content
on their pages or
networks. It creates a
very negative
impression, and
advertisers and users
themselves stop using
the site," said the head
of ABRANET, which
represents 300
companies, including
Microsoft Brazil.
To participants in the
forum, which ran Monday
through Thursday, the
fundamental issue is
getting similar or
harmonized legislation
in an area which
recognizes neither
borders nor cultural
differences, like the
Internet.
Some have proposed a
sort of international
tribunal to deal with
these cases, under a
forum like the United
Nations. Others would
prefer short and medium
term methods, such as
setting up cybercrime-busting
networks between
cooperating countries.
"I don’t think a single
tribunal would be able
to cope with the
cultural diversity of
the whole of humanity,
present on the
Internet," said Tavares,
who pointed out that in
countries like the
Netherlands, erotic
images involving
children are more common
on the Internet, and are
more tolerated than in
Latin American
countries.
Another example is that
in the United States,
online racism is not
such a serious crime as
in Brazil, Suiama said.
"I think the main
limitation is that we
only have national laws
to combat a problem that
transcends national
borders and is in fact
transnational," said the
prosecutor, who added
that he favoured
establishing "truly
global Internet
governance" in the
medium term.
But in the immediate
future, legal loopholes
in countries like Brazil
should be closed, he
said, nothing that this
country still does not
have a specific law
against possession of
child pornography.
The private sector,
represented by ABRANET,
would prefer ethical
self-regulation.
Setting up cooperation
networks involving the
police, the justice
system and civil
society, like those
already in existence in
Europe, is an urgent
priority for Latin
America, Tavares said
for his part.
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