It’s been a whirlwind week at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) negotiations as member states scrambled to reach some kind of consensus on the updates to the ITU’s telecom rules by the deadline. As we’ve noted before, some states are intent on using the negotiations to expand the powers of the ITU and legitimize undemocratic practices like Internet surveillance and censorship. Internet content regulation isn’t within the current scope of the ITU’s powers, and some nations like the U.S. and Canada have been strongly resisting any language that expands these powers. That all changed this past week, with a ‘temperature-taking’ (not a ‘vote’, but sort of might have actually been a vote) on a new resolution to “foster the enabling environment for the greater growth of the Internet.” Access explains that this appeared to be an attempt at compromise, where “all references to the internet would be cut out of the actual text... on the condition that this resolution passed instead.” However this shift towards explicitly recognizing the authority of the ITU over Internet content led Canada, among many nations, to refuse to sign the final draft of the treaty.