The Hague, Netherlands (CNN) -- Challenging the private sector to protect Internet freedom, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged companies to ensure their Internet technologies are not used as tools of repression.
"Whether you like it or not, the choices that private companies make have an impact on how information flows -- or doesn't flow -- on the Internet and mobile networks," Clinton told an audience at the Freedom Online Conference. "They also have an impact on what governments can and can't do."
More than 20 countries and international organizations attended the conference, which aimed to foster greater cooperation between governments, businesses and civil society to advance Internet freedom around the world.
Since taking office, Clinton has made the spread of information technology and Internet freedom a cornerstone of her foreign policy, hoping both will serve as catalysts for spreading democracy and economic development. She has already delivered two major speeches on the topic in which she has pushed for an end to Internet restrictions around the world, warning that nations that suppress online activity will suffer an economic cost.
Clinton told the audience Internet freedom should be considered a human right.
The right to religious freedom, assembly or political activism, she said, should extend to all human beings "whether they choose to exercise them in a city square or an Internet chat room."
Issues of online freedoms have taken center stage in the Arab Spring, as bloggers, political dissidents and protesters used social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to harness support for the revolutions spreading through the Middle East and to organize demonstrations.
But authorities in the region likewise used the sites as a tool of repression. For example, in Egypt authorities used Facebook to shadow and capture members of the opposition. More recently, media reports indicated American companies were found to be selling technology to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to aid his crackdown against the opposition online.
Clinton cited the recent arrest of Syrian blogger Anas Al-Marawi and the detention of Russian blogger Alexey Navalny for his role in protests over the Russian elections as signs of a worrisome trend threatening online activists.
She criticized Chinese companies for pledging to strengthen "self-management, self-restraint and strict self-discipline" in offering web-based services to the Chinese, which she called "code for getting in line with the government's tight control over the Internet." She called for greater efforts to protect online journalists and bloggers, who are increasingly becoming a more prevalent voice in the field of journalism.
Clinton called the private sector a "critical partner" in securing the promise of a free and open Internet and managing the risks that new technologies raise.
The American online giant Google hosted the conference, along with the Dutch government, and its founder and executive chairman Eric Schmidt opened the session.
"It makes easy sense for a government to say 'We don't like that, we're going to curtail them. We're going to shut it down. We're going to censor it.' But we believe, and we organized this conference ... to make the point, that this isn't right," Schmidt said.
In her remarks Clinton argued that a free and open Internet is good for business and protects a company's brand.
Clinton said the "drive for short-term gains must not lead to shortcuts that jeopardize the openness of the Internet and the rights of the people who use it."
Clinton said corporate executives must act responsibly by thinking twice before doing business in repressive countries; developing methods to prevent governments from using their products to spy on their citizens; and protecting information about their users, particularly political dissidents.
Clinton said that efforts by governments that try to control online activity in their own countries could be "disastrous for Internet freedom."
"Governments have never met a voice or public sphere they didn't want to control," she said, warning "more government control will further constrict what people in repressive environments can do online."
Clinton argued further that erecting barriers around national Internets would "change the landscape of cyberspace" and contain individual societies in a series of "digital bubbles, rather than connect them in a global network."
Clinton said that authoritarian regimes which enact laws creating barriers will face a "dictator's dilemma," being forced to choose between letting the walls fall and resorting to even greater oppression in order to keep them standing.
Clinton acknowledged some nations justify their censorship of the Internet in the name of security.
Earlier this year Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan introduced a resolution at the United Nations calling for more government control over the Internet in the name of security.
While Clinton acknowledged more must be done to protect cybersecurity, combat cybercrime, and prevent predators, terrorists and traffickers on the Internet, she said those efforts must be made without compromising the Internet's promise or principles.
She also rejected efforts by other governments to promote online economic activities, while clamping down on political discussions on the internet.
"There isn't an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet," she said. "There's just the Internet."
By "trying to be open for business but closed for free expression," Clinton said nations' educational systems, political stability and social mobility would suffer because the free flow of ideas would be curtailed.
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