Cybersecurity vs censorship --- Ndeye, Vladimir, Guillaume - this is a very important discussion, and you raise the primary argument/concern raised by the West: framing cybersecurity so broadly may allow embedding content control (possibly being used for censorship) into the negotiations agenda.

But, let's look at this from the Russia/China perspective - let me play devil's advocate a bit.

The Internet, which emerged from the US, has been used for decades now to promote the Western values and cultures (whether as part of a formal US strategy or not) - through dissemination of the popular culture over social media, youtube, etc. It is perceived by Russia, China, some Arab countries, and many other states (or parts of the governing elites) as an information and cultural aggression of a sort - impacting very fabric (cultural, religious, moral, etc) of their societies. Undoubtedly, the promotion of personal freedoms and rule of law puts autocratic governments around the world in a tough position; but the impact of online content goes beyond that.

Interestingly, the West is also increasingly worried about online content - particularly in form of terrorist propaganda, violence and hate speech: such content goes against values of the West, and brings national security at risk. So we may see convergence of positions towards including some elements of content policy to international deals - but devil will be in details.

One term closely related to this aspect of negotiations is 'open Internet', or 'openness'. The key documents adopted by the UN GA - such as the OEWG and the GGE reports that we will discuss later in greater details - all reaffirm "open, secure, stable, accessible and peaceful ICT environment". What remains to be discussed, however, is what exactly "open" means for various parties, particularly in relations to state sovereignty.

Source author: Vladimir Radunovic vladar@diplomacy.edu