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by junklight
5494 days ago
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but the fascinating thing here is that evan Iran, who explicitly see it as an existential threat - which is way more serious than "won't you think of the children", seem unable to even think of disconnecting it entirely. There is a certain amount of political capital in shouting loudly about thinking of the children, and the evils of the net. However, if Iran can't even turn it off because they rely on it for commerce and other key functions, How much worse would a lack of net hit the west? Like the war on drugs the arising war on the net, driven in part by the death throws of big media, will be a lot more bluster, grandiose talk and rather lucrative funding of projects than effective action. (you notice I've ignored spying. I reckon Google know more about me than the government does. My generation will flap about going "ooh ooh the privacy!". My children will grow in a world that has never been different and will find ways to adapt) |
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It probably is. The real question is should the outside let the government of Iran disconnect their citizens to keep their ideals? Should "wilful obstruction of facts known and shared by other humans" become a kind of humanitarian offence, with a bit of leeway for yet-to-be-agreed reasonable law enforcement purposes? Should it become a more pressing consideration the more the difference between rich scientific countries and closed-off/poor/controlled societies grows?
The UN human rights declaration includes Education, and the Cairo declaration of human rights in Islam forbids discrimination on racial, political affiliation and belief grounds, and also "emphasizes the "full right to freedom and self-determination", and its opposition to enslavement, oppression, exploitation and colonialism."
"22(c) states: "Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may [..] disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith."
22(d) states "It is not permitted to arouse nationalistic or doctrinal hatred or to do anything that may be an incitement to any form of racial discrimination."
(Source: Wikipedia). A right to education isn't much good if it only covers being educated in what some people want you to know. Information may not be used to disrupt or weaken the faith of an Islamic society by that convention, which the internet probably would, but censoring it for being "western" seems close to nationalistic and doctrinal hatred. (Iran may have nothing to do with the CDHRI).