United Nations Affirms Internet Freedom as a Basic Right

Will Internet companies help or hinder government authorities that try to restrict their citizens from using the Web freely? And will their customers, investors or shareholders care enough to do something about it? That debate was freshly stirred on July 5 as the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a landmark resolution supporting freedom of expression on the Internet.

Even China, which filters online content through a firewall, backed the resolution. It affirmed that “the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice.” The ball, in some ways, is now in the court of the technology companies that produce the tools that countries use to monitor and circumscribe their citizens on the Internet. China’s firewall uses technology from Cisco, for instance. American law-enforcement agencies routinely seek information from Internet companies; Twitter is among a handful of companies that insists on informing users when their data is sought, as it did with supporters of WikiLeaks and the Occupy Wall Street movement.