In the Internet collision now, the ITU would be a tool used by those in power frightened by the Internet--and because it's a global medium, their need for an international lid put on this pot of free expression.
Russia's scheme at the conference, according to the Associated Press, was to get a resolution passed with language requiring "member states to ensure the public has unrestricted access and use of international telecommunication services "except in cases where international communications services are used for the purpose of interfering in the internal affairs or undermining the sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity and public safety of other states, or to divulge information of a sensitive nature.'".The wording of this provision could allow a country to repress political opposition while citing a UN treaty as the basis for doing so." http://www.boston.com/business/technology/2012/06/22/battle-for-internet-freedom-meeting-nears/BcNPc1uWF6Po5nw7fuUMUI/story.html
In my lecture, I go back to the oldest of "old" mass media--the newspaper--and its slow growth after Johann Gutenberg invented his printing press around 1440. It took more than a century for newspapers to then come about, and I cite the literature that explains how this first occurred in places with weak or tolerant governance. I quote Edwin Emery from his book The Press and America: An Interpretative History of the Mass Media that: "It is significant that the newspaper first flourished in areas where authority was weak, as in Germany, at that time divided into a patchwork of small principalities, or where rulers were most tolerant as in the low countries."
I discuss the tyrannical control of the press by monarch after monarch in America's mother country, England, and how they kept a tight lid on the press by requiring licensing, and punishing those expressing the slightest dissent.
I quote from that great plea for a free press in England, by poet John Milton, in his Aeropagitica in 1844, in which he said "we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting." There need be free expression, said Milton, and with it would come truth and falsehood, too, but "in a free and open encounter" truth would triumph.
It was under the powerful monarchs of England that a press system began termed "authoritarian" by three communications professors in their 1956 book Four Theories of the Press, a seminal media analysis.
Under the authoritarian press system, they write, the "chief purpose" of the press is "to support and advance the policies of the government in power; and to service the state." Forbidden is "criticism of political machinery and officials in power."
This, unfortunately, is still the media system in many nations of the world today.
Arriving subsequently was what they term the "libertarian" press system. Under it, the function of the press, they relate, is "to inform, entertain, sell--but chiefly to help discover truth, and to check on government."
The conflict when it comes to the Internet has been going on for some time. "Worldwide Battle for Control of the Internet" was the headline in 2009 of an article in the British magazine, New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327224.100-worldwide-battle-rages-for-control-of-the-internet.html
"When thousands of protesters took to the streets in Iran following this year's disputed presidential election, Twitter messages sent by activists let the world know about the brutal policing that followed," the article started. "A few months earlier, campaigners in Moldova used Facebook to organize protests against the country's communist government, and elsewhere too the Internet is playing an increasing role in political dissent. Now governments are trying to regain control. By reinforcing their efforts to monitor activity online, they hope to deprive dissenters of information and the ability to communicate."
It went on to outline the "Internet clampdown" by "governments across the globe." It cited the work of organizations that have sprung up to keep the Internet free, including the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, a representative of which was quoted in the piece as saying, "Political filtering is the common denominator."
Other organizations include, notably, OpenNet Initative (in which the Berkman Center is one of three participant institutions). The website of OpenNet Initiative-- http://opennet.net// -- chronicles situation after situation of nations censoring the Internet.
China has developed a comprehensive program of rigid Internet censorship.
As the New York Times reported in an article in December: "Internet censorship in China is among the most stringent in the world. The government blocks Web sites that discuss the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement, and other Internet sites. As revolts began to ricochet through the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, and homegrown efforts to organize protests began to circulate on the Internet, the Chinese government tightened its grip on electronic communications, and appeared to be more determined than ever to police cellphone calls, electronic messages, e-mail and access to the Internet in order to smother any hint of antigovernment sentiment."
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