Eric Schmidt: Online Communities Will Sweep Down State Borders
Google’s biggest fear is if in the future the Internet turns into a regulated, censored network under the control of a bureaucratic apparatus, with the mandatory authorization of all users. But this is quite possible, as the governments of different countries are trying to gain access to the controls of the World Wide Web and take all regulatory acts. How dangerous such an option is for a free society - explains Eric Schmidt.
In such an "undesirable" situation, says Eric Schmidt, a small number of companies will play the role of guards, forcing people to reveal their identity. If you implement pass-through authorization everywhere on the Internet (as Microsoft apparently plans to do this ), then the Internet will turn into a fully supervised area. The registrar will know the private information about each user, and all citizens can be easily traced. This can not be allowed.
Google's director was invited to lunch at the Carnegie Center , where he gave a half-hour speech about Internet freedom. Eric Schmidt expressed the hope that the above scenario will never be realized, and the Internet will remain a self-governing network of people and communities. In fact, he says, complete anonymity "is found on the Internet very, very rarely ... and it can be very, very dangerous." In other words, you need to find some kind of compromise so that a person can both maintain relative privacy and feel relaxed when communicating with other people.
It is necessary to find a certain “intermediate way”, which is not yet very clearly visible. In addition, we have yet to determine the limits of freedom of speech on the Internet. Problems can arise when individual countries prohibit access of their citizens to certain information (for example, France and Germany prohibit Nazi information, Brazil - racist, India - information about insulting Mahatma Gandhi, and China has a very large list of prohibited topics), while as on the Internet, this information can be freely distributed without any obstacles. Problems arise with those state regimes that restrict freedom of speech in the media, because these prohibitions also become meaningless.
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In the end, Eric Schmidt said, online communities can shake up the state borders on which state power rests. "If a billion people come to MySpace, won't they have their own government?", The Google director asks a provocative question.
In such an "undesirable" situation, says Eric Schmidt, a small number of companies will play the role of guards, forcing people to reveal their identity. If you implement pass-through authorization everywhere on the Internet (as Microsoft apparently plans to do this ), then the Internet will turn into a fully supervised area. The registrar will know the private information about each user, and all citizens can be easily traced. This can not be allowed.
Google's director was invited to lunch at the Carnegie Center , where he gave a half-hour speech about Internet freedom. Eric Schmidt expressed the hope that the above scenario will never be realized, and the Internet will remain a self-governing network of people and communities. In fact, he says, complete anonymity "is found on the Internet very, very rarely ... and it can be very, very dangerous." In other words, you need to find some kind of compromise so that a person can both maintain relative privacy and feel relaxed when communicating with other people.
It is necessary to find a certain “intermediate way”, which is not yet very clearly visible. In addition, we have yet to determine the limits of freedom of speech on the Internet. Problems can arise when individual countries prohibit access of their citizens to certain information (for example, France and Germany prohibit Nazi information, Brazil - racist, India - information about insulting Mahatma Gandhi, and China has a very large list of prohibited topics), while as on the Internet, this information can be freely distributed without any obstacles. Problems arise with those state regimes that restrict freedom of speech in the media, because these prohibitions also become meaningless.
')
In the end, Eric Schmidt said, online communities can shake up the state borders on which state power rests. "If a billion people come to MySpace, won't they have their own government?", The Google director asks a provocative question.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/3061/
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