![\"Meeting](\"http:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Meeting_Member_Collage-300x168.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Tom: And so goes home another nail in the coffin of free speech and democracy.)<\/p>\n
The United States (US) and 60 partner countries, including the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Australia, and members of the European Union (EU), have signed a sweeping \u201cDeclaration for the Future of the Internet\u201d which commits to bolstering \u201cresilience to disinformation and misinformation\u201d and somehow upholding free speech rights while also censoring \u201charmful\u201d content.<\/p>\n
The White House\u00a0framed<\/a>\u00a0the declaration as something that supports freedom and privacy by focusing on its commitments to protect human rights, the free flow of information, and privacy. The EU\u00a0put out similar talking points<\/a>\u00a0and claimed that those who signed the declaration support a future internet that\u2019s open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure.<\/p>\n However, the commitments in the declaration are vague and often conflicting. For example, the declaration makes multiple commitments to upholding freedom of expression yet also commits to bolstering \u201cresilience to disinformation and misinformation.\u201d It also contains the seemingly contradictory commitment of ensuring \u201cthe right to freedom of expression\u201d is protected when governments and platforms censor content that they deem to be harmful.<\/p>\n Furthermore, many of the governments that signed this declaration are currently pushing sweeping online censorship laws or openly supporting online censorship.<\/p>\n For example, just a few days ago, the Biden administration\u00a0called for private companies to censor online \u201cmisinformation\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the latest of\u00a0many<\/a>\u00a0similar<\/a>\u00a0calls<\/a>. The EU also recently passed its Digital Services Act (DSA) which contains requirements to censor \u201chate speech\u201d and \u201cmisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n Some government officials, including Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne and UK Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) Secretary of State Nadine Dorries, even mentioned their country\u2019s online censorship laws during the live launch of this Declaration for the Future of the Internet.<\/p>\n \u201cThe vision outlined in this declaration aligns very well with the many initiatives we are working on here in Canada, including our Digital Charter,\u201d Champagne\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s Digital Charter<\/a>\u00a0was launched in 2019 and threatens platforms with \u201cmeaningful financial consequences\u201d if they fail to fight online \u201chate\u201d and \u201cdisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am enormously encouraged to see online safety is a key principle of that declaration,\u201d Dorries\u00a0said<\/a>. \u201cAs the UK\u2019s Digital Secretary, doing more to protect people online is one of my main priorities \u2013 and last month, I was proud to introduce a groundbreaking Online Safety Bill to the UK Parliament that will make the internet safer for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0UK\u2019s Online Safety Bill<\/a>\u00a0will give the government sweeping censorship powers, censor some \u201clegal but harmful\u201d content, and criminalize \u201charmful\u201d and \u201cfalse\u201d communications.<\/p>\n Like the commitments to freedom of expression, the declaration\u2019s commitments to privacy are also being made by governments that engage in or allow mass surveillance.<\/p>\n For example, the EU is\u00a0allowing the linking of face recognition databases to create a mega surveillance system<\/a>. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently\u00a0boosted its social media surveillance technology<\/a>. And the outgoing London Metropolitan police commissioner recently\u00a0congratulated herself on extending the surveillance state<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the current signatories of this declaration are governments, the White House plans to work with \u201cthe private sector, international organizations, the technical community, academia and civil society, and other relevant stakeholders worldwide to promote, foster, and achieve\u201d the \u201cshared vision\u201d of this Declaration for the Future of the Internet.<\/p>\n Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Google have already welcomed this declaration.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great to see countries coming together today to launch the Declaration for the Future of the Internet (DFI),\u201d Google\u2019s Vice President, Government Affairs & Public Policy, Karan Bhatia,\u00a0wrote in a blog post<\/a>. \u201cWe are committed to partnering with governments and civil society through the Declaration to disrupt disinformation campaigns and foreign malign activity, while ensuring people around the world are able to access trustworthy information.\u201d<\/p>\n Google and its video-sharing platform YouTube have used the term misinformation to\u00a0justify the mass censorship of content<\/a>. Additionally, Bhatia\u2019s commitment to ensuring access to \u201ctrustworthy information\u201d echoes YouTube\u2019s commitment to boosting \u201cauthoritative sources\u201d \u2013 a practice that creates a huge disparity between mainstream media outlets and independent creators and results in mainstream media outlets being\u00a0artificially boosted by as much as 20x<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Declaration is an important signal from some of the world\u2019s leading democracies,\u201d Nick Clegg, the President of Global Affairs at Facebook\u2019s parent company Meta, tweeted. \u201cThe only way to preserve and enhance the best of the open internet, prevent it from fragmenting further and protect human rights in the digital space is by working together.\u201d<\/p>\n While Clegg\u2019s statement focuses on the open internet and protecting human rights, Meta also\u00a0mass<\/a>\u00a0censors<\/a>\u00a0content on its platforms and\u00a0plans to continue this censorship in its metaverse<\/a>.<\/p>\n And despite the declaration\u2019s commitment to privacy, both Google and Meta\u2019s businesses rely heavily on surveilling users to serve targeted ads.<\/p>\n The current list of countries that have endorsed this Declaration for the Future of the Internet includes Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cabo Verde, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, the European Commission, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, North Macedonia, Palau, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, the United States, Ukraine, and Uruguay.<\/p>\n The declaration isn\u2019t legally binding but is intended to be used as a \u201creference for public policy makers, as well as citizens, businesses, and civil society organizations.\u201d The signatories also intend to translate its principles into \u201cconcrete policies and actions; and, work together to promote this vision globally.\u201d<\/p>\n