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Imagine A UN-Run Internet
Damon Dimmick writes "Small countries in the United Nations have been arguing to put the Internet under the control of the UN so that countries can more easily monitor (read: control) Internet content. It's on hold for now, but this could become a very real censorship problem, very soon. Some nations have gone so far as to suggest "monitoring boards" for internet content. Here is the link to the Financial Times article. It briefly describes the current situation. Just something to keep an eye on."
Imagine A UN-Run Internet
A prophetic subject line? If they run it as well as other things, the internet may be un-run.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
However, the US and the European Commission are staunchly defending the Icann model, which is based on minimal regulation and commercial principles. Icann members are predominantly drawn from industrialised countries and the established internet community.
So now, we're rooting for the much-maligned ICANN institution... I guess that's not such a cognitive dissonance now that they've actually faced up to Verisign -- though the end of that story is yet to be written.
Interesting that this should come up on the same day that NPR's Morning Edition (just audio, sorry) reported that the US is blocking an attempt by UNESCO to allow countries to subsidize their national film industries to preserve cultural identity.
In one corner, we have the US: protector of political free speech and homogenous corporate culture.
In the other, we have the rest of the world: protector of political speech restriction and diverse cultural heritage.
Damn, it's hard to know what side to root for these days.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Replace one sluggish bureaucracy with another one that's even larger and more sluggish. Then stand back and watch the fights about funding and budgetary contributions. That should be very helpful.
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While I have no love for the idea of China or Saudi Arabia telling me what I can see on the net, nor do I have any love for the current situation of the *IAA or the enforcers of the DMCA and the PATRIOT Act telling me the same. So there are legitimate concerns on both sides, to say the least.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Exactly how would the international control improve the internet? What control is currently placed on it by the US? Besides assignment of IP's and domain names, what US control is affecting you? Most of the internet is privately owned. Its controlled by whoever owns the routers.
no, an internet controlled by the UN would be controlled by a council that is under control of the general assembly. a straight up or down vote can determine who is on it, and given that the human rights council is run by every country that gives no rights to its citizens, I would not hold my breath for a council run by the UN to be anything resembling fair and Free.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The UN can try to regulate things all they want. In the US at least, it's all but meaningless. Why?
Well, for the US to even recognize a UN ruling requires approval of the president and 2/3 of the House and Senate. Technically, UN rulings are considered treaties. Even when it's recognized, it still requires an act of Congress to enact some sort of legislation before anyone can be prosecuted.
The one thing our government does well is ensuring that we're the only ones making bonehead laws that are enforcable in this country.
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The 3rd world countries should work on getting less corrupt goverments installed first.
They could also try working on the ability to feed themselves before they do another inet.
with their choice of putting Libya as the Human Rights chair.
Luckily the UN is a flaccid organization with no territory or armies of its own. What would it plan to do? Begin a humanitarian mission to the Web by dropping a bunch of Kenyan and Spanish troops near all the root servers?
Yeah right.
What is music when you despise all sound?
huh? says who? i thought it was a network of networks.
some of those networks most definately have controls/policies against free speech.
FUD. The Internet is far from being under the control of the U.S.
In most ways it's under the control of wherever the lines happen to run.
Examples:
--China has no problem effectively blocking 3/4 of the Internet from viewing.
--Germany/France have effectively censored certain portions of the net.
--Many countries have unique top level domains hosted within their countries.
The list goes on...
The point being, while the U.S. is definitely HEAVILY involved in the development, maintenence, and overall culture of the Internet (not surprising given the history of the network) it also far from being in any real control of it. Certain members of the U.S. government would like us to sieze control through a variety of means (primarily applying economic pressure to other countries), none of it has been particularly succesful (it turns out that most politicians A) don't care or B) 'get it').
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Nope, just a whole bunch of "little" wars in non-Western-European nations that have killed millions over the years.
Is the world's first supra-national organization and, more remarkably, has had its power seriously challenged only a few times.
What about the League of Nations? Or for that matter, the Hanseatic League?
Finding God in a Dog
I support the concept of world government, but before the UN can assume that role, a few things need to happen.
- The UN needs a split houses concept similar to the US and other democratic nation. One house gets a number of representatives dependent on a nations population, and in the other house all nations have equal numbers of representatives. This is the ONLY fair way to ensure that all nations are heard regardless of size or population.
- Abolish the security council. It made sense 50 years ago, but not today.
- All representatives should be ELECTED by the people in their nations, with reasonably limited terms (5 or six years max). If these people are going to determine my fate and run my Internet, I'd damned well better get a say in who represents me. Undemocratic nations that don't allow their citizens to vote should NOT get voting seats in the UN.
- It should respect the constitutions of its member nations. The UN should not have the ability to override, veto, or limit decisions or rights made or granted by their sovereign member states.
You'll pardon me for not holding my breath for these changes. The UN is a flawed, crippled organization that tries to grab onto any semblance of real power that it can, and it's in the interests of this worlds powerful nations to make sure it stays right where it is.There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
God Bless America, with the worst crime levels in the first world
Where even criminals have civil rights.
God Bless America, so happy to violate international laws
When those laws are put together by the dictator's club called the UN, you bet. You know, the place that puts Syria and Libya on the "human rights committee"?
God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK
Where freedom of speech applies to EVERYBODY, even the ones with unpopular causes. Hint: popular causes don't NEED freedom of speech.
God Bless America, with barely 300 years of dire history and culture
Hint: we're still on our first Republic. France is on their fifth, with intervening Reigns of Terror, anarchy, kings, emperors, and Nazi collaborationist regimes.
Hint: our popular culture dominates the world. Deal with it.
God Bless America, with the highest obesity levels in the developed world
Where food is so cheap that even the poorest can (over)eat.
God Bless America, wasting billions to attack foreign countries
They're ours to "waste", Saddam-lover.
Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
The Leauge of Nations and the Catholic Church both predate the UN, and both are very arguably "supra-national" organizations
An excellent comparison: when you get right down to it, the UN is like the Vatican, but for atheists. (With the predictble results.)
Carthago delenda est!
Agreed, I'm not sure I trust the bureaucracy of the UN to be able to how to properly run the Internet.
But I don't understand the intense negative reaction to this idea, particularly by the submitter. The UN is not a repressive dictatorship. Sure, some of its members are, but I highly doubt that a UN-controlled Internet administrative body would have been to stupidly designed that it would impose restrictions on the 'Net just because some UN member applied pressure.
In any case, why can we trust the U.S. government to take a hands-off role towards the Internet any more than we can trust the UN?
Wouldn't it be even better if the internet were simply an amorphous social mass that couldn't be directly controled by anyone?
Open standards that can be implemented by any geek in his mom's basement and distributability.
These are the real enemies governments are fighting. They want control for the purpose of control, not insure openess to the international community.
As for the UN being an international orginisation of nations you have to bear in mind that they have always been nothing more than a permenent meeting hall to engage in otherwise normal diplomatic practices. A permenent base for ambassadors, not a governing body of any kind.
It doesn't change anything about historical diplomatic process between nations other than creating a central point for participation in a city known for really good delis when they break for lunch.
KFG
> > Where freedom of speech applies to EVERYBODY,
> > even the ones with unpopular causes. Hint:
> > popular causes don't NEED freedom of speech.
>
> If it applies to everybody, then why would
> there be a need for a 3-day shutdown of London
> so that protesters don't get a chance
> to "peacably assemble?"
I may only have a US education, but I'm pretty sure London is in another country. It's the one with Radiohead and Boddington's.