Topic: Net Neutrality
Country: Algeria
Delegate Name: Andrew Lu
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Algeria position papers GLIMUN 2016 committees
With the rise of technology in the 21st century, the amount of internet users has increased exponentially. With the numbers rising from 6.8% of the world population being internet users in the year 2000 to 46.1% in 2016, the traffic and content of the internet is in more need of rules and regulations. Net neutrality is the idea that all data on the internet should be viewed equally, with no laws or regulations prohibiting certain information. Net neutrality also embraces the idea that all servers, content, and websites can be ran at the same speed. Many countries such as China monitor and restrict the information viewed by the citizens without their consent. The argument on whether country governments should have such a control over their citizens and their internet privileges is debated through time. The UN has addressed the problem before. In 2012 the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) organized the 12-day conference to discuss the issue of spam in the internet as well as equal rights of countries to the internet. However, the treaty proposed was not signed by over 80 countries.
We, the democratic republic of Algeria, oppose net neutrality. We believe that governments should have control over the laws of internet in regards to their own nation. The power of internet surveillance should be left in the hands of the individual nations, not a universal law that is imposed on all nations. Content on the internet should be censored if it imposes harm to the public. With our increasing numbers of internet users in Algeria, from .2% to 37% over 16 years, laws regarding net neutrality will affect a large portion of the population, not only those who can afford it. Regarding the internet as a utility is not beneficial to the economy. Pricing of internet should be left to the companies and not be universal. Forcing the internet to price at the same level is restricting the rights of a free market and prevents economic growth and investments. A universal law on net neutrality should not be imposed on all countries as the situations in each country are different. This decision should be left to the government.
The UN should not impose a law that affects all the countries internationally. This right should be left to the decision of the countries themselves. The UN should be focussing on providing internet to those in need rather than restricting the use to the people who have access to it. All the countries are not in the same situation so passing a resolution that benefits all universally is nearly impossible.
