UN Considering Control of the Internet

Dangerous_Minds writes "News has surfaced in the wake of the WikiLeaks story that the United Nations is mulling total inter-government regulation of the internet. The initiative was spearheaded by Brazil and supported by other countries including India, China, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid commented that while the Cablegate story may be bad, attempting to destroy WikiLeaks would only make matters worse for various governments around the world, given what happened when the music industry shut down Napster ten years ago."

Comments

Re:global standards for policing the internet

[Jason Levine]

To be fair, a lot of right-wingers want government control of the Internet also. They just differ on what they want controlled. The religious right would love it if everything "harmful to children" (read: anything inappropriate for a 5 year old to read) was taken off the Internet. They've tried multiple times to get laws passed enforcing this but it has always been struck down in the courts. (This coming from the father of a 7 year old and a 3 year old... I'll police how my kids use the Internet, I don't need the government to do my job for me!)

Re:global standards for policing the internet

[click2005]

Only until the UN allows then to block these kinds of stories.

Re:How much more

[crunchygranola]

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis

Interesting quote. Here is another similar, but even more revealing, statement by Lewis: "The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent" (from Reflections on the Psalms, Chapter 3.).

We have seen over the last half century a revolution in American political philosophy - that of self-justifying wealth. Ayn Rand style Objectivism/Libertarianism holds that self-interest is the highest moral principle and altruism is evil; wealth is proof of moral rectitude, and poverty is proof of sloth and moral degeneracy. This philosophy has provided us with the perfection of the robber baron, now dominating American political life - cupidity that is never satiated, and extinguishing all moral doubt. Wealth is virtue; there can be nothing wrong with how the wealthy acquire or use their wealth; there is nothing to repent, and thus there is no possibility that the robber baron will change.

UN = Bad Idea

[couchslug]

The United Nations was a horrid mistake like the League of Nations before it.

World government by lawfare in a world mostly composed of anti-freedom governments was never a good idea. People should fear international law more than its absence.

Law is fine locally, useless internationally, because in the international context being free of law is an overwhelming advantage.