Launches Against Internet Giants For Restricting Freedoms
The president of Mexico, Andrés López Obrador, announced that he will bring to the next meeting of the G20, the bloc of richest nations and the main emerging economies of the world, the issue of “censorship” of social networks.
The president’s position arose as a result of the decision of the great Internet giants such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, to close the accounts of the head of the White House Donald Trump.
Although defending the president who last week incited his followers to storm the Capitol, the seat of his country’s legislative power in Washington, is currently “politically incorrect,” López Obrador said that no private company should interfere with a right fundamental.
Although he conceded that social networks “should not be used to encourage violence, the president said that” this cannot be a reason to suspend freedom of expression. “
A day after the United States House of Representatives approved the” impeachment “or impeachment against Trump for calling the” insurrection “in recent days, after the Internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram blocked their accounts, López Obrador attacked these companies.
” There can be no particular body that decides remove the right to the free expression of ideas “because” it is up to the nation states “to guarantee this exercise.
Therefore, he anticipated that at the next G20 meeting “I will make a statement on this matter” and said that “freedom must be guaranteed, not censorship.”
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said for his part that “there is a worldwide disagreement” about “censorship” in social networks and stated that his country “maintains communication with the European Union and with almost all the G-20 countries” about this topic.
Specifically, Ebrard indicated that the government of Mexico has already had contact with the governments of Germany and France, the EU commissioner and other countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The decision to suspend accounts in social networks “leads to a qualitatively different state. It is not admissible that there is a person or group of people who determine, above national states, who has the right to express themselves and who does not,” said the Minister.
“That would be like admitting that there is a supranational government that determines what are the freedoms of citizens” for which “we do not agree,” he said.
Marcelo Ebrard indicated that he received the instruction from López Obrador to “establish contact” with his counterparts from all possible governments and “share this concern and work to be able to make a joint proposal.”
Specifically, Mexico “will seek a consensus position at the international level as it is not admissible” that a group of companies can determine who has the right and who does not “to use social networks.
” The terms that the user accepts are those established the relationship, they changed, and for today, what you want to protect is freedom, “he said.
López Obrador even spoke of the possibility of creating a” Mexican social network. “
For a week, when the attack on the Capitol took place , which left 5 dead, by angry Trump supporters who protested against an alleged “electoral fraud” to the detriment of the president in the November elections, López Obrador rejected that social networks have silenced him.
The head of state even railed yesterday against the large business conglomerates that dominate the Internet economy and have turned “telephones into microphones.”
“Most of the people have their telephone and speak and do not know that at the same time it is a microphone and that they have encoded each client by means of the words that are used” with which their wishes are interpreted “on everything that has to do with consumption “.
“If I say my shoes are a little worn, a shoe sale comes up on the phone. How did they find out?” He wondered. (ANSA).
Source: ansalatina.com