UN Report From Internet Governance Forum In Egypt

An official report has been circulated from the first day of the 15-18 November United Nations-led Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Among the developments was the announcement by Tim Berners-Lee of a World Wide Web Foundation – “an international, non-profit organisation that strives to advance the Web as a medium that empowers people,” according to the IGF report. Berners-Lee led the team that created the World Wide Web at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva in the early 1990s. The IGF, which meets yearly but may be at the end of its mandate this year, arose from the 2003-2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Not included in the official report was a flare-up that arose later over the alleged takedown by UN security of a poster pitching a new book that is critical of the Chinese government for its censorship of internet content. The book is “Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace,” edited by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain.

IGF first-day report here.

MIT Press “Access Controlled” website here