[IRP] Blogpost: Egypt and the Complicated Ethics of the Telecommunications Industry

[Norbert Bollow]

Lisa Horner <LisaH at global-partners.co.uk> wrote:

> 	Thus while the primary responsibilities under the Charter
> remain with governments, the Charter also provides guidance to
> governments about how they must ensure that 	private companies are
> respecting human rights, and guidelines to companies about how they
> should behave so as to respect human rights in the Internet
> environment."

One aspect that in my mind has been highlighted strongly by
the developments in Egypt is the importance of the technical
and economic structure of communication networks and of the
technical standards which to a large extent determine this
structure.

My conclusion is that there are important human rights reasons
to insist that internet related technology must from now on
be developed in a manner that is much more decentralized and
thereby much more robust against censorship and shut-down
attempts.

For this reason, I would suggest that the Charter should not
only address governments and businesses, but also technology
governance entities, such as in particular standardization
groups, and declare it their responsibility to work towards
robustness against censorship and shut-down attempts.

Greetings,
Norbert