A reception hosted by Open Net Initiative (ONI) was rattled by the United Nations-sponsored Internet Governance Forum (IGF) security, who objected to a poster advertising Access Controlled, which is based on ONI research and due out in March. "The poster was thrown on the
floor and we were told to remove it because of the reference to China
and Tibet. We refused, and security guards came and removed it. The
incident was witnessed by many," Pakistani delegate, Shahzad Ahmed reported.
The poster promoting Access Controlled was removed by the IGF's organizers because a sentence in the poster apparently violated UN policy. The sentence in question reads, "The first generation of Internet controls consisted largely of building firewalls at key Internet gateways; China's famous "Great Firewall of China" is one of the first national Internet filtering systems."
Co-author Ronald Deibert spoke with the BBC about the incident this morning, saying "If we are not allowed to discuss topics such as internet censorship, surveillance and privacy at a forum on internet governance, then what is the point of the IGF?
Professor Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski also posted their comments on YouTube.




