Democrats celebrated the Obama administration’s efforts to promote Internet freedom abroad, according to the language of their newly approved, previously godless party platform.
The platform — which, unlike the Republican Party platform, makes no mention of banning Internet pornography — celebrates the Obama administration’s efforts to provide Internet access to the majority of Americans through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or stimulus.
It also hails the Obama administration’s efforts to lead the world to “recognize and defend Internet freedom — the freedom of expression, assembly, and association online for people everywhere — through coalitions of countries and by empowering individuals with innovative technologies.”
“The administration has built partnerships to support an Internet that is secure and reliable and that is respectful of U.S. intellectual property, free flow of information, and privacy,” the platform language says.
“To preserve the Internet as a platform for commerce, debate, learning, and innovation in the 21st century, we successfully negotiated international Internet policymaking principles, support the current multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance, and oppose the extension of intergovernmental controls over the Internet,” it said.
The platform language also hails the administration’s efforts streamline regulations regarding the Internet.
Republicans who opposed President Barack Obama’s Federal Communication Commission’s net neutrality ruling in December 2010, however, may beg to differ. Amid the Obama administration’s talk of reducing outdated and irrelevant regulations, it also added new ones — net neutrality included.
Republicans also framed the embattled Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which was shot down in the Senate prior to the August congressional recess, as an additional regulation upon companies whose networks were tied to critical infrastructure.
Democrats and lobbyists in support of the failed effort to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act earned the ire of activists and citizens on both the left and the right, who saw the bills as massive attempts to expand executive branch powers to censor the Internet.
Still, libertarian and left-leaning Internet freedom activists are viewing the Democratic platform language as a win.
David Segal, executive director of the digital civil liberties advocacy group Demand Progress, cautiously applauded what he viewed as a “bipartisan commitment” by both parties to an open Internet. Demand Progress led an effort to ensure that both parties included Internet freedom language in their respective party planks. But given the past attempts by politicians to pass restrictive legislation governing the Internet, Segal said, “words are not enough.”
“It is clear that the Internet community is coming of age politically, and we will be paying close attention to which party works harder to implement these new party planks,” said Segal.