A new international convention on cybercrime is being negotiated at the United Nations (UN) meeting in Vienna, Austria, and China has proposed the criminalization of the “dissemination of false information.”
The proposal seems like an attempt by China to legitimize its internet controls and is likely going to be contested by Western countries, even though many of them have been copying parts of China’s playbook in recent times.
There is already an existing international convention on cybercrime that was signed in 2001. However, it was not a UN treaty and it has not been signed by Russia, China, Brazil, and India, which are some of the largest countries in the world.
In the ongoing negotiations on the new treaty, the proposals that have been suggested have been put into two categories; those with wide support and those that are contested. Proposals on controlling online content have generally fallen into the contested category and have not been part of immediate discussions.
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