Back in May, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) seeking public comments and recommendations from stakeholders on its international internet policy priorities. Among other issues, NTIA sought comment on: 1) challenges to the free flow of information online, 2) the multistakeholder approach to internet governance, and 3) privacy and security. Last week, Public Knowledge submitted its comments in response to NTIA’s public notice. If you’re interested in what we had to say, but not so interested in churning through 10 pages of policy analysis, then please enjoy this high-level summary of our comments submission.

Democracy has become a daily visceral online experience. When Philando Castile was shot by a Minnesota police officer his girlfriend’s first instinct was to start broadcasting. Diamond Reynolds chose to live-stream the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook Live, sharing the graphic cries of her four-year-old daughter with over 3.2 million viewers. Live streaming is transforming the growth of citizen journalism, providing a distressing view of shootings like these, and empowering citizens to share their story without the fear of censorship.

Last week, Public Knowledge signed a public release together with other organizations from the Americas on the limitations to fundamental rights online in Venezuela. We are following the developments in that country closely.

Yesterday, April 26, was World Intellectual Property Day. However, in many countries we see extremist proposals to expand copyright and intellectual property, which benefit only a handful of rightholders at the expense of the rest of society. That´s why, together with 13 civil society organizations from the Americas, we published an open letter calling on our governments to protect innovation, preserve fair access to technology and internet freedom, and use copyright to promote social justice.

This week, I was in Stockholm, Sweden for the 2014 Internet Freedom Forum. The Stockholm Internet Forum (SIF) is a conference that aims to deepen the discussions on how internet freedom and openness promotes economic and social development worldwide. This year the forum was focused on two main topics: privacy and multistakeholderism. There were two […]