(Throughout this week, we’ll be presenting posts on our Big Tent and its travels around the world. The first dispatch comes from Ireland.) Big Tent to the famed “Round Room” of Ireland’s Mansion House to coincide with the Organization of Security and Cooperation’s meeting on Internet Freedom. Here the First Dáil assembled on 21 January 1919 to proclaim the Irish Declaration of Independence . This week, here we assembled the Irish high tech community with diplomats and officials from 56 member countries to launch the update of our Transparency Report and to debate the danger of government control over the Net.Open Net Initiative . Our Transparency Report details the requests we receive from governments around the world to censor content or collect information on Internet users. This report has proven a powerful tool for freedom of expression. This biannual update shows how some Western governments, not just the usual suspects are censoring legitimate Internet search results. Vint Cerf outlined the issue in a video address that followed up from his recent New York Times op ed .Toomas Hendrik Ilves and State Department advisor Alec Ross continued to debate the issue. The Estonian president warned of “computer savvy despots” who would destroy Internet freedom, harkening back to another United Nations organization, UNESCO, and its attempt to strangle media freedom with a “new world information and communications order ” in the 1980s.“ In Ross’s view, the free Internet faces an imminent attack from “monsters under the bed.”Michael Morpurgo . He weaved together a tale about illiteracy, libraries and unicorns, ending with the vow to pursue his right to to say what he wants, and even “believe in unicorns.” The Irish band Hudson Taylor , who came to prominence on YouTube, closed the evening.Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
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