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1 <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> 2 <!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 --> 3 <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> 4 <!--#set var="TAGS" value="essays cultural society" --> 5 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> 6 <title>World Summit on the Information Society - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 7 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/wsis.translist" --> 8 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> 9 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> 10 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> 11 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> 12 <div class="article reduced-width"> 13 <h2>World Summit on the Information Society</h2> 14 15 <address class="byline">by <a href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard 16 Stallman</a></address> 17 18 <div class="introduction"> 19 <p>At <abbr title="World Summit on the Information Society">WSIS</abbr>, 20 in a climate of suppression of dissent, the score is 0-0.</p> 21 </div> 22 23 <p>The World Summit on the Information Society is supposed to 24 formulate plans to end the “digital divide” and make the 25 internet accessible to everyone on Earth. The negotiations were 26 completed in November, so the big official meeting in Geneva last week 27 was more of a trade show and conference than a real summit 28 meeting.</p> 29 30 <p>The summit procedures were designed so that non-governmental 31 organizations (mainly those that promote human rights and equality, 32 and work to reduce poverty) could attend, see the discussions, and 33 comment. However, the actual declaration paid little attention to the 34 comments and recommendations that these organizations made. In effect, 35 civil society was offered the chance to speak to a dead mike.</p> 36 37 <p>The summit's declaration includes little that is bold or new. When 38 it comes to the question of what people will be free to <em>do</em> 39 with the internet, it responds to demands made by various governments 40 to impose restrictions on citizens of cyberspace.</p> 41 42 <p>Part of the digital divide comes from artificial obstacles to the 43 sharing of information. This includes the licenses of nonfree 44 software, and harmfully restrictive copyright laws. The Brazilian 45 declaration sought measures to promote free software, but the US 46 delegation was firmly against it (remember that the Bush campaign got 47 money from Microsoft). The outcome was a sort of draw, with the final 48 declaration presenting free software, open source, and proprietary 49 software as equally legitimate. The US also insisted on praising 50 so-called “intellectual property rights.” (That biased 51 term <a href="/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty"> 52 promotes simplistic over-generalization</a>; for the sake of clear 53 thinking about the issues of copyright law, and about the very 54 different issues of patent law, that term should always be 55 avoided.)</p> 56 57 <p>The declaration calls on governments to ensure unhindered access to 58 the public domain, but says nothing about whether any additional works 59 should ever enter the public domain.</p> 60 61 <p>Human rights were given lip service, but the proposal for a 62 “right to communicate” (not merely to access information) 63 using the internet was shot down by many of the countries. The summit 64 has been criticized for situating its 2005 meeting in Tunisia, which 65 is a prime example of what the information society must not do. 66 People have 67 been <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2777389.stm"> 68 imprisoned in Tunisia for using the internet to criticize the 69 government</a>. 70 </p> 71 72 <p>Suppression of criticism has been evident here at the summit too. 73 A counter-summit, actually a series of talks and discussions, was 74 planned for last Tuesday, but it was shut down by the Geneva police 75 who clearly were searching for an excuse to do so. First they claimed 76 that the landlord did not approve use of the space, but the tenant who 77 has a long-term lease for the space then arrived and said he had 78 authorized the event. So the police cited a fire code violation which 79 I'm told is applicable to most buildings in Geneva—in effect, an 80 all-purpose excuse to shut down anything. Press coverage of this 81 maneuver eventually forced the city to allow the counter-summit to 82 proceed on Wednesday in a different location.</p> 83 84 <p>In a more minor act of suppression, the moderator of the official 85 round table in which I spoke told me “your time is up” 86 well before the three minutes each participant was supposed to have. 87 She later did the same thing to the EPIC representative. I later 88 learned that she works for the International Chamber of 89 Commerce—no wonder she silenced us. And how telling that the 90 summit would put a representative of the ICC at the throttle when we 91 spoke.</p> 92 93 <p>Suppression was also visible in the exclusion of certain NGOs from 94 the summit because their focus on human rights might embarrass the 95 governments that trample them. For instance, the 96 summit <a href="https://www.hrichina.org/en/content/2301"> 97 refused to accredit Human Rights In China</a>, a group that criticizes 98 the Chinese government for (among other things) censorship of the 99 internet.</p> 100 101 <p><!--a href="http://ar.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8774"-->Reporters 102 Without Borders was also excluded<!--/a--> from the summit. To raise 103 awareness of their exclusion, and of the censorship of the internet in 104 various countries, they set up an unauthorized radio station in nearby 105 France and handed out mini-radios, so that summit attendees could hear 106 what the organization had been blocked from saying at the summit 107 itself.</p> 108 109 <p>The summit may have a few useful side effects. For instance, 110 several people came together to plan an organization to help 111 organizations in Africa switch to GNU/Linux. But the summit did 112 nothing to support this activity beyond providing an occasion for us 113 to meet. Nor, I believe, was it intended to support any such thing. 114 The overall attitude of the summit can be seen in its having invited 115 Microsoft to speak alongside, and before, most of the various 116 participating governments—as if to accord that criminal 117 corporation the standing of a state.</p> 118 119 <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary"> 120 <hr /> 121 <p>Originally published on <cite>NewsForge</cite>.</p> 122 </div> 123 </div> 124 125 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 126 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 127 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 128 <div class="unprintable"> 129 130 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to 131 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. 132 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> 133 the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent 134 to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> 135 136 <p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, 137 replace it with the translation of these two: 138 139 We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality 140 translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. 141 Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard 142 to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> 143 <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> 144 145 <p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of 146 our web pages, see <a 147 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations 148 README</a>. --> 149 Please see the <a 150 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations 151 README</a> for information on coordinating and contributing translations 152 of this article.</p> 153 </div> 154 155 <!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to 156 files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should 157 be under CC BY-ND 4.0. Please do NOT change or remove this 158 without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first. 159 Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the 160 document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the 161 document was modified, or published. 162 163 If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too. 164 Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying 165 years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable 166 year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including 167 being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system). 168 169 There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers 170 Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. --> 171 172 <p>Copyright © 2003, 2021 Richard Stallman</p> 173 174 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" 175 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative 176 Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> 177 178 <!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" --> 179 180 <p class="unprintable">Updated: 181 <!-- timestamp start --> 182 $Date: 2021/09/16 16:56:20 $ 183 <!-- timestamp end --> 184 </p> 185 </div> 186 </div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include --> 187 </body> 188 </html>