UN Internet Governance Forum Focuses on Resources, Access, Privacy – and More
The second meeting of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) focused on future Forum tasks and emerging Internet issues, before the four-day event concluded yesterday.
The dangers and opportunities of the world wide web dominated discussions on the final day of the forum, at which many of the nearly 1,400 participants, ranging from skeptics to supporters, provided a glimpse of what might lie in the future.
The British writer Andrew Keen warned “the future is not good.” Despite much talk about the profound democratic transformations wrought by the Internet, he said there were also “unintended consequences” and the technologies of what is often described as “Web 2.0″ – the second generation of web-based communities and hosted services – would bring less, not more, democracy.
User-generated sites are the future of the media, Mr. Keen said. But the explosion of user-generated content was not benefiting the talented. Profit was not going to the creators of content, but to a tiny corporate minority.
Reconciling the free flow of information with intellectual property law topped the agenda on Wednesday, whereas Internet access for the next billion people dominated the discussions the day before. On Monday, the opening day, critical Internet resources, access, openness and using the world wide web to assist development were among the issues tackled.
More news is available at the UN news website.
A comprehensive news story of the summit is available here.
The chairman’s summary of the conference is available here.
Source: UN
