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Eric Schmidt: UN Treaty a 'Disaster' For the Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Internet freedom and innovation are at risk of being stifled by a new United Nations treaty that aims to bring in more regulation, Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt has warned. In a question-and-answer session at Mobile World Congress 2012 on Tuesday, Schmidt said handing over control of things such as naming and DNS to the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) would divide the internet, allowing it to be further broken into pieces regulated in different ways. 'That would be a disaster... To some, the openness and interoperability is one of the greatest achievements of mankind in our lifetime. Do not give that up easily. You will regret it. You will hate it, because all of a sudden all that freedom, all that flexibility, you'll find it shipped away for one good reason after another,' Schmidt said. 'I cannot be more emphatic. Be very, very careful about moves which seem logical, but have the effect of balkanising the internet,' he added, urging everyone to strongly resist the moves."
Another reason why we have to question why we're in the United Nations in the first place. (Let alone funding the whole Keystone Kops outfit)
This is a hard truth, but it must be said. The world at large is simply not evolved enough for the Internet. Most of Asia and almost all of the middle east are less able to appreciate the ideals of freedom and tolerance. I say this as an Indian whose government is very keen on controlling what's said on the Internet.
Despite the US's flaws, the first amendment is the strongest protection of free expression in the world. It's an achievement of mankind which the rest of the world is actually just not good enough to appreciate. The Internet is in truth something better than what we humans in our current state of evolution deserve. If you hand it over to the UN, it will become something we actually deserve at this moment in time...and that's not a pretty thing.
We accidentally stumbled upon the Internet as it is today. If people had seen it coming, it would never have been allowed to become what it is. But now that it's here, we have to protect it and treasure it because we've been blessed with something that's too good for us. The UN will reverse that and make it just average since all over unevolved countries will have a say in it.
Dear United Nations,
The internet is not broken. Please do not fix it.
Thank you.
Proverbs 21:19
As someone who has watched as youtube, controlled by google last I heard, has slowly whittled away at these supposed freedoms (this birdsong is copyright douchebag corp, your video offends a muslim in malaysia and has been taken offline, your video offends the catholic clergy and has been removed, etc), I find this deliciously ironic.
Clean up your own house first, Schmidt.
Unfortunately, we here in the US often aren't good enough to appreciate the first amendment either.
The question people should be asking themselves is if they want someone like Bashar Assad or Mugabe or China or the next Pol Pot regime to have a say in what you can and can't do on the internet. Because as soon as you bring it to the UN you give equal footing to regimes that shouldn't have any say. Just like when Kadaffi's Libya was in charge of the UN commission on Human Rights.
What a horribly naive and ignorant statement. European research funding and a Brit invented the web, does that mean they should control the web?
What's debt got to do with anything anyway? It's the US and nations most closely aligned to it that hold far and away the majority of the world's debt whilst those nations in the UN whom the US sees as enemies such as China that hold far and away the largest surpluses. Bringing debt into it makes no sense as the US has far more than anyone else. Sorry if these facts upset your ignorant nationalist world view though.
I've said this before and I'll say it again, because people really need to wake up, smell the coffee, and internalize this:
The UN doesn't represent YOU, or any other PERSON. It represents GOVERNMENTS. Governments are their constituents, not humaity.
Let me repeat that: The UN's constituents are GOVERNMENTS, not humanity. If you understand that, you will understand UN policy and why they do things that otherwise seem bizarr or incompetent.
And from the point of view of virtually every government, no matter how "benign" it may appear, the Internet is most certainly broken. Why? Because they cannot easily control it, control the content on it, or control what the people using it see and say. This impacts their ability to govern the way they would like to (and the way they used to) by feeding an official line to the media and have it echoed into every home and automobile, often without much question.
What humanity sees as a working, functioning internet that has democratized information and allowed an unprecedented level of collaboration, cooperation, and exchange of ideas, our governments one and all see as their biggest threat. What better way to reign in that threat than to turn control over to the UN, then agree by treaty how it is to be "governend". What they tried with SOPA and ACTA they'll be able to easily achieve through a simple UN governance mandate.
Sianara Internet, sianara freedom of communication. Welcome your new overlords, same as the olds ones, but with less compunction about smacking you down into place. With perfect political cover to the ostensibly liberal western democracies: to the public: "we regret the UN's decision to implement X, but are bound by treaty to abide their decision. This minor erosion of internet expression won't impact our fundamental freedoms any, and we'll learn to cope", to the Koch brothers (or Soros if you're on the other side of the aisle): "Problem solved. Can I count on your campaign contribution to my superpac next season?" Multiply across every politician, in every political system, in every government, and diversify by whatever means is appropriate to the local political climate, wether it's campaign contributions, secret tribunals, or shells raining down on opposition cities.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's not, an organisation requiring international consensus is not going to be able to pull off controversal decisions because you'd never get that consensus.
Many years ago, when WIPO was created it swayed towards much more relaxed IP laws than we have currently, this is because African nations wanted things like medicine and technology to come down in price faster so that their countries could experience benefits of western society sooner. The US didn't like the fact it got outvoted so side-stepped WIPO and created the WTO which is less democratic so that it could try and force international IP policies to go it's way. This is evidenced in the fact the US uses a lot of weight to try and force nations into the WTO, to force them to accept WTO rulings against them, yet has largely ignored WTO rulings against it on issues such as lumber, steel, cotton, gambling and so forth.
If the internet was in international hands you'd never get the domain seizures authorised that the US currently allows as you'd never get the political support for what is a US agenda. Similarly though you'd never get Chinese style censorship as there are too many nations that would be against it.
Technical issues would still be resolved just as well, because when technical issues arise there's really little political need or desire to hijack the issue and prevent a resolution passing - things like that are purely technical.
So all in all it'd be a much better situation than the current status quo where the US unilaterally imposes censorship on the internet based on it's ethnocentric vision of gambling and IP law.
Really, for the most part the only people who want it to stay in the US are American nationalists, xenophobes, and those with a vested interest in retaining the power it affords. There's a few folk in between who are ignorant about the UN and don't realise that it's far more than just the security council and that it already handles other international tasks like international mailing, maritime rules, air transport rules, telecomms and so forth perfectly well without any such drama that Schmidt is peddling.
I'm pretty sure the U.S. is currently seizing domain names on a regular basis, shutting down web sites and free speech, with absolutely no due process, and was recently well on its way to codifying this practice in law with SOPA/PIPA. They were killed but the DHS is still seizing domains like they were law.
The U.S. is also aggressively push ACTA on governments around the globe, often using blackmail, which can also be used to suppress free speech.
Especially since 9/11 the U.S. simply hasn't been the bastion of free speech you are trying to make it sound like.
Turning the Internet over to the UN would probably be bad for a host of reasons, but its quite obvious that the U.S. isn't even remotely trust worthy any more thanks to America's two pronged obsessions stopping piracy at all costs, including basic civil liberties, and to a lesser extent obsessing over Islamic extremism and terrorism.
All things considered I would prefer Internet control were passed to a country like Switzerland with a strong history of neutrality, resonable though not perfect free speech laws and a track record of supporting international agencies. It would be a better choice than either the U.S. or the U.N.
@de_machina