A proposal, made at a conference in Dubai with backing from the Arab nations as well as Russia and China would censor the web.
“The conference has been hijacked by a group of countries that want to extend regulation of the internet,” said one person familiar with the US position. “This is completely unacceptable to the US point of view.”
Although countries are already free to impose national regulations, the US and its allies argue that enshrining the approach in a treaty would extend international legitimacy to repressive regimes that want to limit internet communications, while also making it easier for countries to co-operate on censorship and other restrictive practices.
Tariq al-Awadhi, head of the Arab states delegation, said that it made sense for internet companies to be included in the regulations since this would help force them to work together with network operators.
“They need to come to commercial agreements with one another anyway,” he said.
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