INTERNET POLICY CONFERENCE

I had a lengthy conference today with the official who is reponsible for setting policy regarding use of the internet for Mongolia.  His name is Khangarid P. and he is referred to as a content specialist for the Regulatory Commission of Mongolia.  I explained the Federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 and its progeny.  Among other things this Act gives immunity to content providers for statements made by bloggers no matter how obscene or false such third party posts might be.  The blogger is held responsible but the website host is not (unless the host decides to edit the info).  Other than that the U,S, allows general civil case law to control defamatory blog posts.  This means that any of you can sue for a defamatory staement made by a blogger but you cannot sue the host.

I suggested a similar path for Mongolia as opposed to attempt some sort of serious regulation that in my judgment would require a large governing body to even attempt some sort of regulation.  Mongolian taxpayers pay 10 per cent of their income as tax but that would be somewhat more if you start a new governing body.  Additionally, most rogue bloggers remain anonymous and tracking them down would be almost impossible.  Even if you did, you would need additional prosecutors and staff to follow through.  He seemed to understand the problem of attempting to do some sort of regulation and I think his report back will maybe guide them into following the U.S. example.

After the meeting, Naara invited me to be their guest at a film festival to be held on Sept 21 (the awards dinner is coat and tie).  Then for this Sunday Naara and the staff invited me to travel with them to see the huge stainless steek statue (250 tons) of Chingiss Kahn erected about 25 miles out of town.  You can walk to the top of the Head and look out over a vast portion of the Gobi desert.  And so it goes...