[bestbits] OPED: Brazil: the New Internet Freedom Champion?

[Chinmayi Arun]

>
> We can't overlook that the United States is also a member of the Freedom
> Online Coalition.  Not to mention say Tunisia, which is ranked a full point
> lower than India in the Freedom House survey.  Given that the "Internet
> freedom" slogan has suffered a serious blow from the NSA revelations, it is
> quite debatable what was the "wrong direction" to take in opposition to the
> status-quoist position on Internet governance taken by the FOC states.


I could not agree more. Even the much-vilified ITU treaty did not really
undermine Internet freedom (Article 1.1 (a) says “These Regulations do not
address the content-related aspects of telecommunications”) in the end.

It appears from her speech that President Rousseff does want UN oversight
of countries with respect to the Internet. Given that her concern seems to
be that there should be some accountability with respect to human rights, I
sympathise. The Indian government seems to be in I-told-you-so mode now,
pointing out quite correctly that while everybody else was being told off
for human rights violations, the countries telling them off were also
committing huge violations. While I certainly do not subscribe to the idea
that one nation's human rights violations somehow justify another's (I
still would not support the resolution that India presented to the UN last
year), I can see why Brazil and India are unwilling to accept do-nothing as
the best model.

I have never been comfortable with thinking about issues purely in terms of
who is on which side. This was my discomfort with the ITRs debates - that
many were stepping away from the actual text and merely pointing out who
was signing as an argument for not signing. Isn't it better to just discuss
the specifics of treaties and organisations and determine on that basis
whether it is necessary, helpful or terrible to subscribe to them?

Best,
Chinmayi


On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org> wrote:

>  On 16/10/13 08:49, Eduardo Bertoni wrote:
>
>   For instance, if Brazil were to join the Freedom Online Coalition<http://www.freedomonline.tn/Fr/home_46_4>,
> a group of governments committed to advance Internet freedom, it would send
> a positive message to the international community. Countries that join the
> coalition endorse a statement supporting the principle that all people
> enjoy the same human rights online as they do offline. From Latin America,
> only Costa Rica and Mexico are part of the coalition. On the other hand,
> other countries that are not members of the coalition, such as Russia,
> China and India, have taken steps in the wrong direction. For example, in
> the past, they have presented draft resolutions to the UN General assembly,
> which would have put in risk Internet governance. For Brazil, joining the
> Freedom Online Coalition would be a turning point and a step in the
> opposite direction, demonstrating that it takes some distance from its
> partners in groups such as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and
> IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa).
>
>
> It would be very interesting to read a reply from the perspective of
> India.  We can't overlook that the United States is also a member of the
> Freedom Online Coalition.  Not to mention say Tunisia, which is ranked a
> full point lower than India in the Freedom House survey.  Given that the
> "Internet freedom" slogan has suffered a serious blow from the NSA
> revelations, it is quite debatable what was the "wrong direction" to take
> in opposition to the status-quoist position on Internet governance taken by
> the FOC states.  Hmm.
>
> --
>
> *Dr Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Policy Officer
> Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers*
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