Keep the Internet free and open

After thousands of wars peace is understood by everybody, not so about the free and open Internet, which to most is something that just works like electricity, or black magic.

Making more people understand is definitely worth one tweet.

You can improve the visibility by explaining to your friends in non-google circles the importance of this petition to them. That's how this petition is supposed to work, IMO

Google also had a strong interest in stopping SOPA. I don't think that fact diminished the effectiveness of their campaign.

I also think it's a good thing, that "big players" like google take a stand and say what they think. Even if they have financial interests, if Google wouldn't take a stand and rebel against such things, the internet would be much worst than it is today.

> it just means that if this was raised by organisations that don't have a clear commercial interest then it might improve the visibility.

It might improve the thrustworthness, but I doubt anyone else on the planet has more power to increase visibility than Google. Also always, in terms of visibility, big commercial entities > any non-profit, except maybe Wikipedia.

It's been on HN: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=itu... Threads from yesterday/today: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859882 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4861122

Here's Vint Cerf in the NYT 6 months ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/opinion/keep-the-internet-... (2 points, 0 comments)

There's also been mainstream media coverage over the last week.

As a 25yo w/out a TV, this is the first I've heard of it as well.

Given the likelihood of similarly positioned friends on my social networks, I shared the Economist article here ( http://www.economist.com/news/21567340-governments-squabble-... ) as a set up for the link to the petition, should people agree w/ Google's efforts.

I couldn't agree more about Google sticking up for what's best for Google. And while I don't agree that we need more government regulation and intervention, we do need to call Google on their BS.

It gets even funnier if you read between the lines on their "take action" page and translate.

Original: "A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet." ---------------- Translated: "Google's revenues depend on a free and open Internet where we can freely monetize content created by everyone else."

Original: "Some proposals could permit governments to censor legitimate speech — or even allow them to cut off Internet access. Other proposals would require services like YouTube, Facebook, and Skype to pay new tolls in order to reach people across borders. This could limit access to information — particularly in emerging markets." ---------------- Translated: "Who are these governments to censor what appears on the Internet? Only Google and our hand-tuned animal-named algorithms have the right to determine what people see and don't see. And how dare anyone but Google attempt to impose tolls on the Internet? Shocking, the audacity of these governments..."

Original: "Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future." ---------------- Translated: "Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future. That privilege belongs to Google alone."

Original: "The ITU is also secretive. The treaty conference and proposals are confidential." ---------------- Translated: "Only Google is allowed to be secretive. Everyone else must be open."

I think that #STOPSOPA has clearly demonstrated that a lot of people making noise can influence the United States at the very least; and the United States has a number of economic and political tools (I'm not including military tools here) that it can use to influence the decisions of many less than democratic regimes. Politicians are more willing to advocate the use of these tools publically if they think that 1) People care about this; 2) People support using them.