UN internet talkshop to meet, blue helmets still not poised to invade USA
Twitter bullshitters, porn, other vital topics on agenda
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The United Nations will this week talk about how the internet could be better run, but grabbing the wheel remains off the agenda despite US fears.
Fifteen-hundred delegates will head to Azerbaijan to chat about the web and how to ensure it best serves the world's population. The talks will include questions on how, and if, content can be controlled, the future of journalism, and if the spread of the internet impacts intellectual-property rights.
Popular perception is that the internet runs itself, and is best left free from governmental control, but in fact governments are intimately involved in the management of the internet not least because of their own reliance on it. Although the annual Internet Governance Forum has no decision-making capacity it enables everyone involved to exchange experiences and discuss what works best.
Content filtering is a prime example; few companies subscribe to the US model of unlimited free speech. In the UK, for example, most fixed ISPs use the Internet Watch Foundation to block the worst of the worst, and mobile broadband providers block access to pornography until one's age is proven. Many countries worry what unrestricted access to knowledge, as well as the darkest corners of the web, will do to their population.
Another hot topic this year is journalism: what it is and if it needs to be protected in some way. The use of Twitter to spread fake photos of Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath, and a string of lies about power supplies traced to a Republican political consultant having a laugh, demonstrates how citizen journalism can go wrong - but whether anything can be done about it is one of the issues to be discussed.
The IGF is just a talking shop, but one that is available in theory to all even if they can't make it to Azerbaijan: the site should be streaming video from tomorrow until the end of the week, but at time of writing, it has crashed. ®
COMMENTS
Not true
"most fixed ISPs use the Internet Watch Foundation to block the worse of the worst, "
No, they "block" (solving unproven problems for unclear motives) *anything* that the IWF says may be illegal under UK law. Not "worst of the worst"... just anything the non-judicial IWF fears may be illegal.
... few companies subscribe the to the US model of unlimited free speech.
Really, so how are those Gambling sites doing in the US?
What is this shit?
> Content filtering is a prime example; few companies subscribe the to the US model of unlimited free speech.
Unlimited free speech in the US? Just a political talking point. For one, there are legal limits [hell, you may go to prison for publishing lewd comics in Pennsylvania] and then there are "things you just don't say" unless you want several TLAs on your ass. Foreigner bashing and outright National-Socialism, even from the Prez and Prez hopefuls, is A-OK, I will grant that.
> Many countries worry what unrestricted access to knowledge will do to their population.
I would say that many countries worry what unrestricted access to knowledge will do to their STATE APPARATUS. Remember the shitstorm about Wikileaks and its pretty mild exposure of the nest of craven idiots that are in the bureaucracy? Yes, that kind of worry.
> demonstrates how citizen journalism can go wrong
Unfortunately the last ten years of unlimited warfare and clueless economic policy and the next four years which to all indication will be far worse, possibly with a few nukes being popped off [and not by Iran because it doesn't have any] show how mainstream journalism is consistently wrong in its message or assessments. Does anyone discuss that? Should we ban the Neocon Post and the War Street Journal from the Internets?
This looks like another discussion round of wankers who know they want more statist control but don't yet know how to sell this program. Or maybe they just want a nice holiday in Baku.
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