Disappointing OECD proposals on Internet

The Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council (CSISAC), an alliance of more than 80 NGOs that took part in an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conference on the Internet’s impact on innovation, the economy and social development, refused to sign the two-day conference’s final conclusions when it ended in Paris yesterday. Reporters Without Borders joins the CSISAC in calling on the OECD to revise the proposals that it issued in a press release yesterday at the end of the conference. The press freedom organisation also urges OECD-member countries to reaffirm their commitment to a free and open Internet by endorsing the Joint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and the Internet issued on 1 June by representatives of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of American States and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Reporters Without Borders insists above all on the need to modify the OECD position on copyright violations. The OECD has not ruled out the possibility of denying individuals access to the Internet although this violates the right to information. In a 16 May report on online free expression, UN special rapporteur Frank La Rue called it a disproportionate form of punishment. And any curbs on Internet access must be subject to strict legislation and regulation and must always be approved by a judge. The OECD final communiqué urges member states to adopt legislation that makes companies that provide Internet technical services liable for the content circulating online. This would force these so-called technical intermediaries to take decisions about the legality of online content, thereby violating the right to due process and opening the way to arbitrary filtering mechanisms. Private-sector companies cannot be recruited as Internet cops. Such restrictive mechanisms run counter to the promotion of Net neutrality and an open and interconnected world network that the OECD itself advocates in the same communiqué.