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UN Official Says UN Not Taking Over Internet

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the our-hands-are-clean dept.

kaufmanmoore writes "Hamadoun Toure, the new head of the UN's International Telecommunications Union says that he does not plan to take over governance of the internet and leave it up to groups like ICANN. In his statement he says that the ITU will instead focus on bridging the digital divide, internet security and standardize broadband communications. When asked about Chinese censorship Toure said that issue is beyond the mandate of the ITU."

7 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. As has been said before... by parasonic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The UN needs to have no control over the Internet. They have demonstrated time and time again (e.g. Oil-for-Food campaign) that they are incompetent with managing programs.

    If TLD's are such an issue, let them have their own DNS system. No one is forcing anyone to use ICANN or even IANA.

    1. Re:As has been said before... by Watson+Ladd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The UN actually works. Remember the Korean War? The ITU does an amazing job of managing radio frequencies. And what about all the successful peacekeeping operations the UN has conducted? Do you see smallpox around? A lot of the UN bashing in America is about how badly the UN works when America doesn't cooperate. And I would prefer to have essential functions under the control of a bueracracy that has no effective leadership when it comes to devisive issues then to a bueracracy that caves to special intrests every single time.

      --
      Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
    2. Re:As has been said before... by parasonic · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Who cares about TLDs, what I want to know is who controls the IPs?
      Yes, but the UN doesn't. For all practicality's sake, they don't even know what an IP is. They don't know how the Internet and Web work, but they certainly think that it shouldn't be something that the originator (the US) shouldn't have control of...for whatever reason. Maybe the UN should peitition the US with a list of grievances of mismanagement in order to have a reason for the whole thing to be handed over. Having control over IP addresses is a much more encompassing leash that IANA has and just like ICANN does not abuse.

      It's all black and white to the UN, two dimensional rather than three, and there are so many levels of ubiquity, ambiguity, and abstraction that they do and will continue to fail to see.
    3. Re:As has been said before... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah I remember the Korean War and the failure to either win or negotiate a peace settlement. I remember Oil for Food and all the kickbacks, I remember Darfur, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Former Yugoslavia and all the other genocidal and refugee human tragedies that the UN did and are doing nothing about, I remember all the meaningless resolutions passed against Iraq without any consequences, I remember several individuals at the UN that sold the world famous stamp collection without approval, I remember the Tianamen Square crackdown and the UN doing nothing, I remember the UN peacekeepers being called umbrellas that fold up and go home when it rains, I remember other UN peacekeepers raping young African girls without consequence. I remember a lot of this. I also want others to remember that you can't be UNhelpful without the UN in the lead.

    4. Re:As has been said before... by smilingman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're being disingenuous. The modern UN doesn't have the military power to take on any nation. Its only function in nations like these would be to provide humanitarian support and peace keepers after there was a peace to keep. Speaking of which, in all these conflicts, where was the US?

  2. Re:Like they could by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Funny

    There's so many con-artists, thieves and rapists in there

          They're called politicians.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. Chinese Mandate by descentintomaelstrom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, if the UN were to follow its own Human Rights Declaration, it clearly states in 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." I would suppose that this means freedom from censorship on the internet. The UN has been constantly ignoring its own mandates for the protection of Human rights becuase its councils concering Human rights are consistently run by the countries who violate those rights. Even right now, China is a member of the Human Rights Council. The UN cannot function under the weight of its own political correctness and the weight of its member states violating its own declarations.