China Tries to Push Draconian Web Declaration on Attendees of Internet Conference

Wuzhen in China hosted the World Internet Conference earlier this week, and the state refused to allow the opportunity to push its online censorship agenda to pass. China, home of some of the most oppressive internet regulations in the world, slipped a draft of their authoritarian internet declaration under the hotel room doors of attendees for them to approve. Note that attendees included representatives from Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung.

The declaration draft opens with a generic covering letter, recognising that the internet “has turned the world into a global village and made the international community a highly interdependent community of common destiny.”

The notable stringency appears when the declaration reaches its nine suggestions for regulating the internet. China indirectly defends its right to restrict internet content, through its infamous Great Firewall, imploring people to “respect each country’s rights to the development, use and governance of the Internet, [and] refrain from abusing resources and technological strengths to violate other countries’ Internet sovereignty.”

Side-stepping their own history of cyber-attacks on other governments and media outlets, China also asks to “safeguard cyber security. We should actively cope with challenges to cyberspace security and reject all forms of cyber attacks and Internet theft. We should work together to fight cyber crimes, protect individual privacy and information security, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens.”

Other points seek to protect “the healthy growth of young people” through censorship of pornography and violent content, and “fighting cyber-terrorism,” a crime China are as guilty of as anyone else.

The declaration was set to be officially released at the closing ceremony of the conference on Friday, but was pulled without explanation.

Source: TechCrunch