US Gets 60 Countries to Sign 'Declaration for the Future of the Internet'
The US and dozens of other governments around the world have signed a declaration that says they will cooperate to keep the internet “open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure.”
The calls for action in this "Declaration for the Future of the Internet," announced Thursday, might not seem controversial, but the last few years have seen increasing moves by governments to raise regulatory barriers that may splinter the global network, while others have restricted or outright blocked internet access for their citizens.
The roughly 2,000-word document (PDF) reflected a year or so of consultation by Biden administration officials with other governments, as well as with private-sector, academia, and civil-society representatives.
In addition to its calls to refrain from “government-imposed internet shutdowns or degrading domestic internet access,” and “blocking or degrading access to lawful content, services, and applications on the internet,” the declaration backs measures to promote “affordable, inclusive, and reliable access to the internet," plus a variety of privacy, security, and human-rights goals.
For example, the document condemns using surveillance tools to develop “social score cards or other mechanisms of domestic social control or pre-crime detention and arrest,” a clear jab at China’s social credit-score system. It also calls for action against cybercrime and online attempts to compromise voting infrastructure and influence elections with propaganda, all things that Russia has repeatedly been caught doing.
Sixty other countries—the list includes Argentina, Australia, every country in the European Union, Canada, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine—as well as the European
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