Photo: John Holcroft (Getty Images)
Over 50 countries across the world have pledged to cooperate when it comes to fighting cybercrime. France proposed the new agreement in November. Most of Europe, Japan, and Canada have signed on to cooperate in addressing this new threat.
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The “Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace” has over 150 tech companies as sponsors. The companies include Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. It takes aim at digital election interference and hate speech, two issues we never see online here in America. Ever.
Three Countries Opt Out
Some major countries were not part of the agreement. Russia, the United States, and China all refused to join the proposal. The three countries did not give specific reasons for not signing the agreement, which is odd.
In the last year, both Russia and the United States have faced criticism around elections. Russia has been suspected of potential interference in the 2016 U.S. election. You know, the one that named Donald Trump as president.
Even if the countries have good reasons for not supporting the effort, it doesn’t look great.
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Technology keeps evolving, and election tampering will continue to be an issue moving forward. It’s obvious that there is no one solution to cybercrime. However, the agreement doesn’t require a financial investment or any concrete restrictions. Therefore, the idea of working together with 50 countries to address these issues doesn’t have a lot of downsides.
It will be interesting to see if the United States creates its own solution to this problem, or if we continue to pretend that it’s not a problem. Time will tell.
