[Haplo]

Protecting the interests of RIAA and MPAA is one thing. China, Russia and a lot of other countries want a complete different level of censorship and the current USA actions will look quite benign compared to what other countries want. Let me put it this way: things are bad, but they can become orders of magnitude worse.

[hastur]

That's great, except China and Russia can't impose anything. As the article says, the UN body is representative, every of the 190-sth members has a vote, and only some of them are despotic autocracies that will align themselves with China and Russia.

I would much rather have Brazil come up with some other ideas and instead of regulating the Internet, simply deny control to anyone, including the US.

[I recently read an article by Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay fame, and he said that President (now former) Lula of Brazil personally encouraged Peter to move to Brazil, because it has no extradition treaty with Sweden. How can you not love that?)

[hazov]

I am Brazilian and although I believe a international administration of the Internet would be better than what we have now, I would hate if it came in Brazilian hands.

There in too much legalese running in my country and sometimes the judges are not reasonable in their decisions, if this same framework is applied to the internet things for me would be worse than they are now.

[hastur]

No one is suggesting that Brazil should run the Internet.

I'm just saying that Brazil is capable of independent thinking and could be a force for positive change in Internet governance.

And, personally, I would be even more hopeful for EU influence, which would be even more positive in terms of values, but I'm afraid the EU isn't vocal and active enough to be an effective change agent. (Well, maybe at least we'll kill ACTA. :)

[anamax]

> As the article says, the UN body is representative, every of the 190-sth members has a vote and only some of them are despotic autocracies

Only some?

> that will align themselves with China and Russia.

That's your argument? That commie bastards aren't a majority?

The vast majority of world govts are bastards, even if they're not commie bastards. They will happily cooperate to screw other people's residents if doing so helps them screw theirs.

And no, I'm not saying that the US is kittens and unicorns, except by comparison.

[angersock]

I think you give too much credit to the reps.

This is speculation, but I would be unsurprised if China and Russia (the current bogeymen) are able to buy votes from other countries using other tactics. The Great and Glorious Nation of Trashcanistan supports freedoom for her citizens...but she also supports access to cheap oil and rare earths.

As much as everyone might bitch about the missteps in US management of things, we've done a (mostly) excellent job--for example, I don't think that the EU would have anything useful to say about allowing hate speech on the 'net, while we tend to allow that sort of thing.