The net closes in

Melanie Phillips

Further to my post below, it would appear that the YouTube censorship of Palestinian Media Watch (now lifted) is but part of a broader attempt by the Islamic world to censor the net and remove all critical scrutiny of its activities.

On Honest Reporting, Andre Oboler writes that the PMW attack – which follows a similar earlier attack on the invaluable MEMRI site – is part of a general onslaught upon pro-Israel YouTube accounts: It seems someone, or some group of new media anti-Israel activists, are gaming the system. They are taking advantage of YouTube’s automated and semi-automated systems to push their agenda slowly through the system. First one complaint, then a second... until eventually the goal is achieved and the channel itself is shut down. Until YouTube can improve the system, and recognise when people are trying to “trick” the system into doing what they want, rather than what it is intended to do, we all have a serious problem. This isn’t helped when YouTube’s manual override is broken and leaves those who have been targeted in a worse position then they were to start with.

Aaron Eitan Meyer of the the Lawfare Project has provided an excellent overview of the gathering threat. First he provides some background:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the entity responsible for assigning domain names on the Internet, and was established as a non-profit corporation based in California during the Clinton administration so that the Internet's development would be coordinated by a single entity.

ICANN works ‘in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifier system. As part of this mission, ICANN approves Domain Name Registrars, which are organizations that register specific domain names, and assigns IP addresses, the numerical codes by which computers actually connect to each other via the Internet.

From November 25, 1998 until September 30, 2009, ICANN was overseen by the U.S. Commerce Department. The Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Commerce and ICANN was allowed to expire, to be replaced by international, multilateral control.

The Club of Terror and Tyranny, aka the UN, which is now dominated by Organisation of the Islamic Conference countries, has long wanted to get its hands on control of the internet. In 2004 the Cnet site reported on a UN summit

...in which delegates from sundry countries such as Cuba, Ghana, Bolivia and Venezuela lectured North American, Asian and European countries about how best to run the Internet... Iran was also among the delegates hoping to inject the United Nations into the process of overseeing Internet protocols, domain names and network stability.

These paragons of free speech were unable to agree on specifics for controlling the net. However, in 2009 ICANN reported excitedly that it had signed

two historic agreements with UN agencies

namely the Swiss-based Universal Postal Union and UNESCO. Enthused ICANN’s CEO Rod Beckstrom:

‘This agreement with UNESCO will assist the inclusion of as many language groups as possible and, in the process, it will help ICANN fulfil its mission of global inclusivity by expanding our wide arena of international stakeholders.’

Given the nature of the UN and its domination by the OIC, that could well turn into expanding the wide arena of international stake-through-the-heart-of-democracy-holders.

And now, Aaron Eitan Meyer reports, last September ICANN approved the following resolution:

‘The definition of Continent or UN Regions in the Guidebook should be expanded to include UNESCO’s regional classification list which comprises: Africa, Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.’ The new ‘Geographic Region’ definition collapses Europe and North America into a single region, while creating a new ‘Arab States’ region.

The change marks a fundamental shift from what are more or less geographical regions to cultural/ethnic regions.

Should the September 25 resolution become applicable to ICANN’s board of directors, it would mean that the ‘Arab States’ region would be entitled to between one and five directorships, while the collapsed ‘North American and Europe’ region would have a maximum of five seats.

ICANN’s board also removed a reference to ‘terrorism’ from the fourth version of its Draft Applicant Guidebook after complaints were received from several Arab individuals and organizations. Failing to retain the ability to investigate applicants for ties to terrorism would significantly hamper ICANN’s effectiveness, and could lead to a proliferation of pro-terrorist websites.

At the same time, the Obama administration is moving to bring the net under its own control. Purporting to

‘preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet’

Obama’s Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski is about to publish draft rules for policing and regulating the net.

The Washington Times has understood the Orwellian nature of this initiative. Earlier this month, it wrote:

With a straight face, Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the ‘freedom’ of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web. Ordinarily, it would be appropriate at this point to supply an example from the proposed regulations illustrating the problem. Mr. Genachowski’s draft document has over 550 footnotes and is stamped ‘non-public, for internal use only’ to ensure nobody outside the agency sees it until the rules are approved in a scheduled December 21 vote. So much for ‘openness’.


With such a President in the White House, the OIC-dominated UN will surely find an all-too pliable ally in purging the net of unhelpful information -- ie, the truth.

The net is closing in.