China charges U.S. monopolizes the Internet...

[Firefox]

Link.

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

China's ambassador to the United Nations last week called for international controls on the Internet.

Chinese Ambassador Sha Zukang told a UN conference that controls should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations.

"It should ensure an equitable distribution of resources, facilitate access for all and ensure a stable and secure functioning," he said at the conference on Internet governance.

Sha said China opposes the "monopolization" of the Internet by one state, a reference to the Untied States, which ultimately controls the digital medium.

"It is of crucial importance to conduct research on establishing a multilateral governance mechanism that is more rational and just and more conducive to the Internet development in a direction of stable, secure and responsible functioning and more conducive to the continuous technological innovation," he said.

China's communist government fears the Internet would dilute Beijing's control over its population, as information passes unfiltered throughout the country and outside of strict government censorship.

China strictly prohibits any public criticism of the ruling communist party and closely monitors and censors Internet usage. Periodically, Chinese security forces raid Internet cafes and arrest people who violate Chinese rules.

Sha said China has 94 million Internet users out of a worldwide total of about 810 million.

Should I be surprised by this reaction, or is there a reason that, only now, they are coming out with this accusation?

(Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere.)

[Montcalm]

Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Chinese Ambassador Sha Zukang told a UN conference that controls should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations.

Every time i see the word DEMOCRATIC coming out of a commie it makes me laugh

[Ma Deuce]

Idiots: I wonder how far they think they're going to get with this. Besides, the PRC is hardly one to talk of monopolies: they're already well on their way to having a monopoly on the manufacture of cheap consumer goods, what with them pegging the value of their currency to the that of the US dollar and all...

BTW, while we're on the subject of the Internet and the PRC, behold the Great Firewall of China:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/ ... chart.html

We all know the internet is heavily cencored in the PRC, but apparently, about 12% of all internet hosts are blocked by ISPs in China (by government order, of course). For comparison, Saudi Arabia only blocks 0.01% of internet hosts...

[Wicked Pilot]

I believe I speak for the majority of Americans when I say 'Fuck Off China!'

[InnocentBystander]

I believe I speak for the majority of Americans when I say 'Fuck Off China!'

Just ignore them, maybe they'll go away

[Darth Wong]

If it was anyone other than China making this accusation of ICANN being an unaccountable US-centric organization, how would you people respond?

[InnocentBystander]

If it was anyone other than China making this accusation of ICANN being an unaccountable US-centric organization, how would you people respond?

Hrm, I think I'll keep the provincial attitude, it's just more fun that way.

[White Haven]

At the risk of sounding chauvanistic, the US made the damn thing. Now, if someone was coming out with specific complaints of abuses, that'd be another story, but as it is they're saying 'Hey you! You, with the Internet regulation stuff! Fork it over, man, you could do nasty things there, sometime!'

[Gustav32Vasa]

At the risk of sounding chauvanistic, the US made the damn thing. Now, if someone was coming out with specific complaints of abuses, that'd be another story, but as it is they're saying 'Hey you! You, with the Internet regulation stuff! Fork it over, man, you could do nasty things there, sometime!'

I didnt know CERN were in the States.

[Joe]

Meh...this is World Tribune. I've seen them post some pretty wacky stuff that doesn't show up on any other sites. They're not high on the credibility chain, I'm not really going to believe this until someone else picks it up.

[Darth Wong]

At the risk of sounding chauvanistic, the US made the damn thing.

That's not just chauvanistic; that's stupid and ignorant. Did the US also build the entire world's telecommunications networks, or create all of the w3c protocols? This is like saying that the first guy to set up a computer on your dorm's LAN made the entire dormitory LAN and everything on it. In perpetuity.

[Stravo]

What is it with Communists and their need to control anything that doesn't need controls? The internet is humming along just fine, whether its all based out of the US who really cares? Has US control done anything to stunt Internet growth or usage? Admittedly I'm pretty ignorant on how this all works and just how the US really 'controls' the Internet. I mean isn't the internet a global construct and not really a centralized thing? Its got servers all over the world that make it a worldwide web, no? And International control over something rarely leads to anything good. Imagine UN beaurcracy imposed on the Internet. No thanks.

[Col. Crackpot]

If it was anyone other than China making this accusation of ICANN being an unaccountable US-centric organization, how would you people respond?

well considering the fact that the other nations calling for control are beacons of democracy like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Iran, Libya and North Korea, i'd say my response would be about the same.

[InnocentBystander]

I've always felt the internet works simply because it must. It's a real Frankenstein, bits of this and that just come together and it works, who'da thunk it?

[White Haven]

Look, the organizations and such are in place, NOW, as it stands. We have two choices, we can let that stand with the nation that created it in the first place, or we can tear that down and go through a rocky transition period to a UN-controlled beaurocratic nightmare, all because of a lack of any concrete data on anything that's actually been a problem. No, the US doesn't own the Internet, but that's not what I was saying. They did start it, however, and someone had to get things up and running at an organizational level.

[Stravo]

If it was anyone other than China making this accusation of ICANN being an unaccountable US-centric organization, how would you people respond?

well considering the fact that the other nations calling for control are beacons of democracy like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Iran, Libya and North Korea, i'd say my response would be about the same.

The internet provides what these countries don't want - access to information. Dictatorships like these flourish on making sure they control the flow of ionformation to their population. The internet provides a gap in that control.

[Darth Wong]

OK, so if Europeans also agree that ICANN is much too US-centric and unaccountable, will you concoct an ad-hominem fallacy for them too? In case you're too fucking stupid to figure this out after more than two years on this board, you can't discount an argument by saying "look at the source". You have to explain why it's a bad idea.

[Gustav32Vasa]

Look, the organizations and such are in place, NOW, as it stands. We have two choices, we can let that stand with the nation that created it in the first place,

Were do you get the idea it was the US who invented Internet?

[Joe]

Why don't you explain why it's a good idea? Authenticity aside, this article is not exactly details heavy and I don't really know what you're talking about.

[Darth Wong]

Why don't you explain why it's a good idea? Authenticity aside, this article is not exactly details heavy and I don't really know what you're talking about.

ICANN has been repeatedly accused of being unfair to smaller domain registrars, particularly those outside the US, and these accusations date back many years, long before China made this latest charge. At the very least, it is a FACT that ICANN is not required to be fair, since it essentially operates with no oversight or accountability.

While I don't know if removing ICANN's monopoly and replacing it with a governmental monopoly is necessary the right solution, it is hardly as cut and dried as some of ICANN's mindless supporters seem to think it is. And it is certainly not something you can just wave away by trying to pretend that it's just the Chinese.

[InnocentBystander]

Would it be fair to say that the US deserves more control because a greater portion of their population makes use of it? source

[Darth Wong]

Would it be fair to say that the US deserves more control because a greater portion of their population makes use of it? source

Why does it follow that if the Internet is more popular in the US, then ICANN should have a monopoly on domain name registration? I would like to see how this logic works.

[White Haven]

Please, Wong, I'm hardly known for my pro-China attitudes, but I was /trying/ to keep them out of my points. Do you have any links to articles about those complaints? I was following off the article, which only mentioned a vague 'ICANN might do something later' bogeyman. If you don't have them on hand, I'll look stuff up when I get home, a laptop in the middle of the sales floor isn't the best place to do research from.

[White Haven]

EDIT: And if you were talking to someone else when you mentioned the 'look at the source' bit, I'm sorry, it got all tangled up there and I didn't think long enough before posting.

[Col. Crackpot]

OK, so if Europeans also agree that ICANN is much too US-centric and unaccountable, will you concoct an ad-hominem fallacy for them too? In case you're too fucking stupid to figure this out after more than two years on this board, you can't discount an argument by saying "look at the source". You have to explain why it's a bad idea.

If they made the complaint, then sure, it would be worth looking into. The problem i have is that if all of a sudden these decisions currently made by ICANN had to be rubberstamped by a majority of the nations in the world we run the risk of seriously jeopardizing the free spread of information on the net. Is American dominated control the ideal way of handling this? No. But, you have to agree it is better than the alternative.