Clashes over censorship

Yesterday’s session on openness resulted in some energetic discussions. Corporate representatives were inevitably quizzed on their ethical principles, particularly their tendency to adjust business plans to accommodate authoritative governments – perhaps most notably the self-censored version of Google for China.

Amnesty International – which is running a campaign opposing efforts to control and censor the internet – also accused the Cisco representative of colluding with the Chinese government by selling surveillence software technologies to its police force.

In their defence, the corporations argued that they had to respect local laws and regulations when they conduct business, and blamed the governments for being closed. And the internet evangelist Vint Cerf – who is now working for Google Inc – argued that the company had at least partially won its battle with China.

Although the moderator, Nik Gowing, tried to take things in hand, much of the session was devoted to China-bashing. Although these criticisms are valid, I fear that this ‘naming and shaming’ approach is potentially detrimental to the mutli-stakeholder process. Rather, shouldn’t we be trying to develop a consensus on how to deal with internet censorship?

[Image: Panos Pictures]