Call For Leaders to Stand for an Open Internet
Global Netizens Mobilize, Call On Leaders to Stand for
an Open Internet
With only
weeks to go before governments gather at the World
Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) — an
event that could determine the future of the internet —
tens of thousands have mobilized to demand that their
leaders oppose handing over decisions about the net to a
government-dominated UN agency called the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU.)
Internet advocacy groups Access and Fight for the Future have launched whatistheITU.org, which features an informative video about the ITU and an action tool that allows users to challenge their governments directly to stand for an open internet. Since the site’s launch, people from over 150 countries have viewed the video and used the tool to contact their governments.
“Expanding the ITU’s mandate to empower it to make key decisions about the internet has the potential to endanger users’ rights to freedom of expression and privacy online, by fundamentally changing the way that internet policy is made in the future," said Brett Solomon, Executive Director of Access.
Several governments
with troubling records of censorship and human rights abuses
have submitted proposals to the WCIT, but because of the
agency’s closed nature, only some documents have been
leaked. Some of these proposals could:
• Allow
governments to cut off access to the internet for broadly
and vaguely defined reasons
• Enable governments to
monitor internet traffic, raising privacy concerns and
possibly slowing down the global internet.
• Change the
payment system for internet traffic, increasing profits for
telecommunication companies while driving up the costs for
internet users.
“Governments shouldn’t control the
internet,” said Holmes Wilson of Fight for the Future,
“It creates the potential for human rights abuses, media
censorship, and surveillance that undermines democracy and
free speech all around the world.”
The video on
whatistheITU.org was created in collaboration with TED
speaker and video remix artist Kirby Ferguson, and raises
awareness about the possible expansion of the ITU’s
mandate and the growing global movement for internet
freedom.
ends