Authoritarian governments across the world are looking to censor the Internet in order to “control people”, a senior official from ICANN has said.
David Huberman, a senior official within the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has accused authoritarian governments across the globe of looking to fracture the Internet in the hopes of controlling people.
Legally registered as an NGO, ICANN is responsible for making the international system of IP addresses function correctly, with the organisation describing itself as being “dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable”.
Those within the organisation are now claiming that authoritarian governments are starting to get in the way of this goal, with Huberman telling the Cloudfest industry meeting in Germany that some states now aim to cut up the Internet in order to better control their populations.
“The potential fragmentation of the Internet is a worrying topic,” Der Spiegel reports the expert as saying, before discussing the impact that such governments could have on the Internet.
“They are authoritarian governments that want to control their people,” he said.
Hellbound and Down 