När behövs reglering? Vem skall reglera vad, varför, hur och när?
Vad kan du göra? Gå till internetcoup.org, fyll i din e-postadress och tryck Send e-mail för att göra din röst hörd.
Stora frågor och från och med 3:e december försöker mängder med länder, organisationer och diverse intressen enas om hur dessa frågor skall besvaras avseende Internet.
Stiftelsen för Internetinfrastruktur (IIS) – de som reglerar Sveriges topdomän (.se) skrev i somras “inför ITU-mötet i Duabi“:
Arenan för mötet är internationella teleunionen ITU, där principen om ett-land-en-röst gäller. Samtidigt har ITU:s ordförande Dr Touré förklarat att han vill se konsensus i de beslut som tar sig igenom processen. I det globala Internetsamfundet har WCIT fått en stor uppmärksamhet just därför att det inbegriper möjligheten/risken till global ’hård’ reglering av nätet, något som annars är ovanligt i de processer som rör nätets styrning.
Vidare skriver de i en publikation på ämnet “Styrning av Internet” (sida 21):
Det har efter WSIS 2005 kommit att målas upp en bild av pro- cessen för styrning av Internet som en institutionell dragkamp mel- lan FN-sfären (ITU) och ICANN. I den bilden är ITU en traditio- nell politisk organisation där styrning sker uppifrån och ner av re- presentanter för nationalstater och regeringar i FN. Samtidigt får ICANN representera ett civil society-perspektiv, baserat på styr- ning nerifrån och upp och utrymme för många olika intressenter (multistakeholder-styre eller mångfaldsmodell).6 En sådan förenkling är givetvis halsbrytande och ger inte allting rättvisa, men präglar många intressenters bild av utvecklingen de senaste fem åren.
UNESCO skriver i ett öppet brev till ITU:
UNESCO, as enshrined in our Constitution, promotes the “free flow of ideas by word and image”, and is accordingly committed to enabling a free, open and accessible Internet space as part of promoting comprehensive freedom of _expression_ online and offline. We take our lead especially from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, as well as the Windhoek Declaration on a Free, Pluralistic and Independent Media endorsed by our General Assembly in 1995. Following from these, UNESCO works as the dedicated agency within the wider UN family to promote freedom of _expression_ and its correlates of access to information and press freedom.
och
We are concerned that this article, in its phrase to “information of a sensitive nature”, designates a criterion for limitation in the access to services that is hitherto unrecognized in international standards (see below). The phrase entitles Member States to exercise related constraints on the right to freedom of _expression_ online, which in turn would also limit public access to the range of information allowed on the Internet. The limitation could also impact on the boundaries for the media to operate independently.
In particular, the phrase does not conform to the accepted international standards as set out by the Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is widely accepted as the binding elaboration of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Forbes skriver:
A newly-leaked internal document provides the most direct evidence yet of UN efforts to seize authority over the Internet as part of a secret conference taking place next month in Dubai.
New York Times skriver Keep the Internet Open:
The Internet stands at a crossroads. Built from the bottom up, powered by the people, it has become a powerful economic engine and a positive social force. But its success has generated a worrying backlash. Around the world, repressive regimes are putting in place or proposing measures that restrict free expression and affect fundamental rights. The number of governments that censor Internet content has grown to 40 today from about four in 2002. And this number is still growing, threatening to take away the Internet as you and I have known it.
Against this background, a new front in the battle for the Internet is opening at the International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations organization that counts 193 countries as its members. It is conducting a review of the international agreements governing telecommunications and aims to expand its regulatory authority to the Internet at a summit scheduled for December in Dubai.
Such a move holds potentially profound — and I believe potentially hazardous — implications for the future of the Internet and all of its users.
Wall Street Journal beskriver det i artikeln “The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom” såhär:
[…] a diplomatic process […] that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year’s end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish “international control over the Internet” through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.
If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet’s flourishing regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.
Från Los Angeles Times, “Can the web survive the ITU?”:
In short, what’s happening at the ITU seems less about assuring the functionality of the Internet than about redividing the spoils and limiting the Web’s power to disrupt established regimes. There also seems to be some geopolitical score-settling, as countries in the developing world seek to reduce what they see as the United States’ disproportionate influence over the Internet. Those forces, however, have different interests from the public, which has been well served by a free Internet whose technical issues have been left to nongovernmental groups to manage. The secretive ITU is the wrong place to address the complaints of governments and industries that see an open Internet as a threat, not an opportunity.