Just a few months after the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and the PROTECT IP Act, or PIPA, ignited Internet protests against the government’s attempts to curb online piracy, a new bill in the U.S. House of Representatives is working to free up the Internet from the control of any government.
The bill, which passed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously last week, stems from a proposal by some United Nations member nations to amend a telecommunications treaty to allow Internet censorship for security purposes in their countries.
U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., sponsor of the bill, said Russia and China, known for their control of the media, are trying to control Internet content by taking their concerns to the U.N.’s global reach.
“Most worrisome to me are efforts … to provide the United Nations with unprecedented new authority over the management of the Internet,” Bono Mack said in a statement after the bill was passed. “(We) must fight any attempts to fundamentally alter the governance and operation of the Internet.”
The World Conference on International Telecommunications will be held in December to discuss Internet rights and potentially change a treaty that regulates telecommunications worldwide, according to reports by the Associated Press.
But Internet regulation is different around the world, which makes an overreaching form of regulation difficult to achieve, according to Johannes Bauer, MSU professor in the Department of Telecommunications, Information Studies and Media.
Some European countries struggle compared to the U.S. when fostering entrepreneurialism and innovation and are less likely to use the Internet for experimentation, he said. Other countries around the world allow fewer freedoms.
“They’re struggling to come up with frameworks that really solve the issues,” Bauer said.
After Congress proposed the SOPA and PIPA bills last year, several high-traffic websites blacked out for the day in opposition to government reach. Bono Mack’s resolution aims to prevent a similar situation happening with Internet providers worldwide.
Bono Mack and other legislators called on other member nations to also stand up for Internet freedoms, citing the Internet’s importance of protecting human rights and moderating global commerce.
Kinesiology senior Amanda DeGraaf said it was a good idea for the U.S. to stand up against Internet regulation, but it might be difficult to determine a single solution for regulation concerns.
“(Some) sites could maybe be monitored for things like threats against our country,” DeGraaf said. “But I do think that it would be hard for them to regulate the Internet because there is so much out there.”
Any amendments to the treaty must be agreed upon by all member states before changes can be made. If the proposals come to the forefront at the conference, it will require a consensus vote.
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