Monday, October 10, 2016

Anna Czyzewski - Have We Lost Control of The Internet?

Summary: A transfer of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which regulates domain names and keeps track of people and websites, to a group of global stakeholders is planned. The purpose for this is that it would guarantee that the internet remains open for everyone. This transfer is being opposed by people such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz because many countries don't protect free speech and could take part in the absolute censorship of the internet. ICANN (Internet Corporations for Assigned Names and Numbers) argued that they cannot regulate Internet speech. In addition, it is important that we make this transfer now so we can maintain the trust of the UN and the international community.

Analysis: What Trump and Cruz fear is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts in 1798, which banned the writing of vindictive articles scrutinizing the government. Although it's true that many other countries do thoroughly censor the internet, the U.S. is not totally innocent. Media constantly censors everything to make the world around us seem what they call "normal" (straight, able-bodied, white) as if there's any such thing as "normal". Trump and Cruz are the people who think that this current representation is normal, because that's all they care about and they wouldn't dare to look around. I can see why they would be worried, it is extremely bad to have such censorship in our media, but I'm not totally sure that this transfer will really put us in danger.


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