IGF 2012 - WS 191 - The influence of politics over internet users' access and diversity
Channel: Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
Date: 2012-11-26

Today we are facing several issues on the access of people to several antent and services over the Internet, causing from the direct affects (and side-effects) of political actions and decisions made by politicians. While politics is mainly a tool for governments to argue against each other, people are harming these arguments as a result of being victims of the decisions made by the government bodies, because of their authority and control on communication resources and internet as well. Control over the content over the internet has always been an idea broadly talked about. Forbidden content has always been a place of arguments among internet rulers. While some type of content such as child pornography, violation of intellectual property rights and other cybercriminal activities are known as an illegal online activities worldwide, some countries' governments consider internet as a dangerous multipurpose media which is not enough under their control, trying to use different high tech methods and tools to control the access of their own internet users to such contents. On the other hand, some countries do the same access blocking activity for other countries' internet users based on political sanctions and inter-governmental arguments. Despite of the logics behind each of these blocking type activities, there are common characteristics on both types:
 1. Both type of blocking activities are a result of political thoughts,
 2. The result would be the same in both: affecting the users' access to the internet (as a right for everyone), resulting in a significant negative impact on the diversity of internet.
In this workshop the panelists would like to discuss more about this issue, its affects and possible solutions.

http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/content/no191-influence-politics-over-internet-users-access-and-diversity