State Official: 2009 Worst For Net Freedom
April 12, 2010
| 3:34 PM
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top adviser on innovation said Monday that 2009 was the worst year ever for Internet freedom but predicted 2010 will be better because of the growing attention to the issue of ensuring citizens around the world have access to new technologies and the Internet.
Alec Ross made the comments during a speech before the progressive think tank NDN in which he discussed the growing trend of governments around the world taking steps to limit their citizens' access to information on the Internet. He noted that "2009 was the worst year in the history of the Internet as it relates to Internet freedom ... where we saw the behavior of a handful of states grow to several dozen nations."
He noted that as he travels to some countries, he said it is remarkable "the degree to which the Internet increasingly looks like an Intranet. The upward march of technology offers both progress and peril." He added that while technology can be liberating, "it's also the case that government's can become increasingly sophisticated about their own use of technology to suppress freedoms."
Ross underscored many of the issues raised by Clinton during her January speech when she pledged to make Internet freedom a diplomatic priority and urged countries like China and Iran to embrace Internet freedom as a means of promoting economic prosperity.
He was asked after his speech about democratic nations that have begun imposing policies that place restrictions on the Internet such as Australia, where the government has proposed an Internet filtering system aimed at blocking children's access to pornographic Web sites.
Ross said there is concern about what "we think of as ideological cousins having some bad Internet freedom policies." But he added that he is more worried about the "dozens of fence-sitting nations," pointing to Turkey, countries in northern Africa and Latin America in particular. He added that given the increased attention to the issue by Congress and the private sector, Ross said he is optimistic that "2010 will be a dynamic year" as more companies put pressure on countries to respect Internet freedom.
While Ross did not mention it, Google and Yahoo have raised serious concerns about Australia's Internet filtering policy. In their comments on the Australian proposal, both Google and Yahoo voiced concern that the scope of the policy is "too wide." Google attracted headlines around the globe after it announced earlier this year that it would stop censoring its search results for Chinese users. Last month, Google began redirecting users in China to its Hong Kong-based site, which is not censored by the Chinese government.
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