Moving Net Control From ICANN to Governments?

a whoabot writes "The BBC has a piece by Bill Thompson suggesting that "control" of the internet should move away from corporate groups(ICANN and the Web Consortium) and to governments. We previously had an article on ICANN and the UN World Summit on the Information Society. One quote: "We allow images of consensual sex in our cinemas, but not images of bestiality or child abuse. Why should the net be any different?" My personal answer: because the internet should not be another TV or cinema, it should be a free, user-as-peer and user-controllable media; a "reversible" media, as Baudrillard would put it; not user-as-consumer."

Comments

Re:Insane

[NixLuver]

"D you not realize how idiotic your reply is? You are actually begging them to regulate it, if you think out-loud that it should be a haven for criminal content. You do accept that child abuse is criminal, don't you?"

"Idiotic" is a bit strong. The Constitution of the United States says that there is no 'criminal content'. Images of child abuse would be evidence of criminal behavior. Let's not confuse the issue by muddying the waters with emotion. I believe child molesters should be shot; send 'em back, they're defective. But let's examine another 'crime', any crime... like, say, defacement of public property. Does the fact that it's illegal to deface public property mean we should remove all pictures of graffiti from the internet as 'criminal content'?

I have no objection to an investigation into the handles used on graffiti websites; but banning the content is the wrong way to go about it. That's why our constitution opposes censorship.

And I don't care what Baudrillard says; the Internet was the first taste of true expression available to everyone who can get into a public Library.

In the end, that last sentence is what will doom the Internet. Big Business and the Government cannot condone a situation where some geek with a webserver is equal in venue to say, Ford, or Wal-Mart, or CNN... They cannot tolerate a truly free forum, and will do their best to convince you that you cannot, either. In your case, it appears that they have been successful.