Some Countries Want To Ban 'Information Weapons'

DrgnDancer sends in an NPR piece on recent efforts to control so-called "information weapons" on the Internet. What's interesting is that the term "information weapon," as defined by many of the countries trying to limit them, doesn't mean what you would think. It's closer to the old Soviet term "ideological aggression." "At a UN disarmament conference in 2008, Sergei Korotkov of the Russian Defense Ministry argued that anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government — even in the name of democratic reform — it should qualify as 'aggression.' And that, in turn, would make it illegal under the UN Charter. 'Practically any information operation conducted by a state or a number of states against another state would be qualified as an interference into internal affairs,' Korotkov said through an interpreter. 'So any good cause, like [the] promotion of democracy, cannot be used as a justification for such actions.' The Russians, and a lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat. One that must be managed by treaty."

Comments

Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra

[Wyatt Earp]

So Germany isn't reunited, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic don't have free multiparty elections now?

The pushing of democracy in the Cold War, along with a healthy cultural push from film, tv, radio and music helped spur the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe.

So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.