Throughout the world there are many stereotypes of different cultures and nations. Being Chinese and British, I have had my fair share of encounters with such stereotypes. I think because of my affiliation with different nationalities, I never really consider the many stereotypes in place about Americans, although I should be more aware of them. Some of the most common stereotypes about Americans, according to eduPASS.org, are that we are boastful, arrogant, insensitive, snobbish, rude, racist, obnoxious, ignorant of other countries and cultures, and think that we know everything.
After reading Lawrence Lessig’s Open Code and Open Societies, I found that at least one of these stereotypes may have some evidence behind them.
Lessig describes to the reader the controversy that occurred between the United States and Canada regarding iCraveTV, an Internet broadcaster based out of Canada which provided rebroadcasted television over the Internet. This free television service, while legal north of the border, is considered illegal in the United States. When some American Internet enthusiasts were able to get their hands on iCraveTV, Hollywood was, to say the least, not very pleased. They filed a lawsuit in Pittsburgh federal court, demanding that iCraveTV, a Canadian site, be shut down because, as long as the site existed, an American might be able to get his or her hands on free, and illegal, television.
Now, the Bill of Rights has provided us Americans with numerous freedoms, such as freedom of religion, right to bear arms, but, most importantly, it can be argued, freedom of speech. From the time that we learned about the Bill of Rights in elementary and middle school, kids, not to be sexist, but mostly boys, have been using freedom of speech as an excuse to say mean comments and basically whatever popped into their heads. But when, say, a girl would throw out an equally mean comment on the playground, the boy would get all bent out of shape and, essentially, deny that freedom of speech was a valid excuse for such utterances.
As Lessig continues his narrative of the iCraveTV controversy, he brings up a similar idea to that which I just presented. He writes:
“Imagine, for example, a German court entering a judgment against Amazon.com, ordering Amazon.com to stop selling Mein Kampf anywhere because someone in Germany had succeeded in accessing Mein Kampf from Amazon. Or imagine a court in China ordering an American ISP to shut down its dissidents’ site, because the speech at issue was illegal in China. It would take just a second for an American to say that those suits violate the concept of free speech on the net; that they undermine the free flow of information; that they are an improper extension of state power into the world of cyberspace.” (11-12)
Following this quotation, Lessig describes how “free speech didn’t register in this Pittsburgh court” (12). The stereotyped American “tunnel vision” was truly manifesting itself in real life.
Is it right for us to criticize other nations for “closing” the Internet and monitoring what happens online when we, in fact, do the same thing? Is the example that Lessig provides just support for foreigners stereotyping Americans?