The Scriptorium

2/18/2006

U.N. Still Trying to Control the Internet

Filed under: — Jennifer Rast @ 2:20 pm

The U.N. failed miserably at their attempt to take control of the internet, so they’re trying a new approach – global treaties. Wising up to the lack of public support for a regulated internet, they’re trying their new approach by using an activity people will be more willing to have regulated. A global treaty against cigarette advertising could be extended to cover advertising on the internet. Like many people, I can see the benefit of not advertising things like cigarettes and alcohol, but I also see the dangers of letting the U.N. get a foot in the door. Now it’s cigarettes, but what will they propose regulating in the future? You can bet it won’t be pornography they regulate next. It’ll be “hate speech”. And, hate speech will be defined by the United Nations, an organization that can’t come up with a definition for terrorism and calls terrorists freedom fighters.

Health officials from more than 100 countries have agreed to study widening a global tobacco control treaty to target advertising over the Internet and satellite television, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which came into force a year ago, bans advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products, blamed for five million early deaths a year.

But officials from 113 countries, meeting in their first conference of the parties, which ended on Friday, found that the May 2003 pact failed to cover all cross-border advertising, senior WHO officials said.

Tobacco will prematurely end the lives of 10 million people a year by 2020 if current trends are not reversed, the WHO says. There are currently some 1.3 billion smokers worldwide.

Working parties will study legally-binding protocols to clamp down on cross-border advertising as well as illicit trade, and report back by mid-2007, the officials told a news briefing at the end of two weeks of talks.

“The blindspot was identified that there are other forms of advertising coming from non-party states being beamed into parties — Internet communication and sports sponsorship which maybe comes from satellite television,” said Douglas Bettcher, coordinator of the WHO’s Framework Tobacco Control Office.

One Response to “U.N. Still Trying to Control the Internet”

  1. Theway2k Says:
    February 20th, 2006 at 10:41 am

    I do not trust the U.N. with anything that might control anything in America, especially the Internet. For the most part the U.N. has become a necessary evil that the US must maintain a membershipor the U.N. would run amok globally against U.S. national interests. The U.N. for the most part is dominated by third world despots and Islamofascist nations. None of which bode well for America. It is only our presence on the Security Council that keeps the U.N in check. Not to mention America pays most of the U.N. bills.