The United States is refusing to sign a proposed international treaty that could result in Internet censorship.
- December 13, 2012 05:22pm EST
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A firestorm is brewing over the recent proposals from the United Nations-sponsored meetings regarding the new Internet treaty that the United States is refusing to sign. The treaty would entertain censorship, which we cannot tolerate despite the fact that the Internet is incredibly censored already.Let me quote some of the assertions made in the media about all this. Then I'll try and explain what it all means.
From SFGate.com: Western countries led by the United States are pushing back. Washington has made it clear it won't sign a treaty that leaves room for censorship and government control. It's a simple and direct message: Leave the Internet alone.
From ZDNet: When I spoke to Ambassador Kramer, I asked him what happens now? Will other countries route around the U.S. desires for an open Internet? And, I also asked, could this lead to what might essentially be two Internets, one open, and one closed?
From CNET: ...a key concern is that putting topics related to Internet speech and surveillance to a majority vote of ITU's 192 member nations may not end well. Many delegates to the ITU summit have less-than-favorable views toward Internet freedom...according to Reporters Without Borders's ratings, suffer from significant "problems" with press freedom...U.N. and ITU meetings often result, of course, in more rhetoric than substance. During a U.N. conference in Tunisia in 2005, for instance, Iran and African governments proclaimed that the Internet permits too much free speech, with Cuba's delegate announcing that Fidel Castro believes it's time to create a new organization...
For years, ICANN, the independent Internet overseer, has been telling anyone who will listen that the UN is going to try and wrest control of the Internet and create some sort of über-organization to supposedly make the Web more fair. There seems to be some belief that the dominant player, the United States, is using the Internet to foment revolutions around the world and the mechanism in and of itself needs to be better controlled.
Let's try and understand the problem using a realistic analogy. Say a closed society like Saudi Arabia clamped down on public discourse. In so doing, it regulates all news outlets, whether in print or on TV. For some crazy reason, it allows the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times, and the Oregonian print and distribute papers freely within the boundaries of the country.
That's not going to happen, but that's exactly what happens if we see the Internet as a distribution device, pushing those same publications into the country in electronic form.
The nations that want more control and oversight are closed societies that cannot tolerate all this miscellaneous material pouring into the country. So, they set up elaborate monitoring, site blocking, and other systems just like Net Nanny on steroids. They successfully block most of it, although some sneaks through just as would happen with print, too.
The problem with blocking is that it makes the public suspicious. Why is Saudi Arabia preventing me from reading this? The real goal of these countries is to become part of an onerous overlord running the DNS servers and blocking further down the pipe so their citizens cannot blame them. They kill the New York Times further up the pipe and make it close to impossible to burrow through the network to get it.
Ideally, an international treaty would also incorporate cooperation agreements where you would have to adhere to local laws. When you have a country where it is illegal to criticize the almighty king of the place, then American content would have to obey the same laws online. The idea is to make the international media even more namby-pamby.
I can assure you that any attempt to change the Internet with some sort of treaty will stifle more than a few revolutions or even things as mundane as consumer protection. It'll all heading toward local filtering and the creation of balkanized Intranets pretending to be the Internet.
Nobody likes that idea, but it is the only thing that makes sense. Every other solution is too arduous.
You can Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter @therealdvorak.
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