UN thinks what will happen to the Internet

    October 30 at its first meeting will convene the Management Forum of the Internet (Internet Governance Forum) under the auspices of the UN. On the agenda are many aspects of the future of the World Wide Web.

    The Internet Governance Forum is an international organization established in early 2006 to replace the Working Group on Internet Governance. The Forum Secretariat is led by Marcus Kummer. The main objectives of the organization are “to discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance in order to promote the viability, operational reliability, security, stability and development of the Internet and to facilitate dialogue between bodies involved in various cross-border issues of international public policy regarding the Internet”.

    This week the Forum participants will hold the first meeting to solve the organizational issues of the meeting. It will be fully accessible to the network public: those who wish can follow the Forum through webcasts and the official blog . During the meeting, they will discuss issues of security, network access, freedom of speech, phishing, the fight against child pornography, and control of the Internet.

    Nitin Desai, appointed chairman of the Forum’s first meeting, says in a published webcast that the World Wide Web is still too young, many still don’t understand what can and should be done with it. He compares disputes over Internet governance with disputes over the chemical composition of ink and the appearance of paper at the time the printer was invented.

    “In fact, the importance of the printer as an invention was, of course, not that. And apparently, when we argue about the Internet, we are not raising the issues that should have been posed and resolved. But they will surely appear, ”says Desai. “This is a very young technology. It takes time to get on the right track. ”

    Desai also notes that the Internet has significantly helped the countries of the former Yugoslavia and Iraq provide information. “The role of the Internet in democratizing access to information, as well as in political mobilization, cannot be underestimated.”

    Commenting on disputes over the openness of the Internet and the possibility of control over it, Desai says that such disputes have been and will always be: in the very nature of power and governments there is a desire to control, prohibit, restrict the freedom of citizens.

    The new organization, as its representatives assure, will help develop discussions and find compromises on certain controversial issues. It remains to be hoped that the next structure, which does not have the power to make decisions and is designed to “intensify discussions,” will at least somehow help the governments of different countries learn something new on the question of what to do with “this Internet”.

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