[discuss] [I-coordination] New: How do we dissect Internet governance?--

parminder parminder at itforchange.net
Mon Jan 6 08:20:45 UTC 2014


On Monday 06 January 2014 04:22 AM, Bertrand de La Chapelle wrote:
> Hi Michael,
>
> Interesting Declaration by the Community Informatics. Could you 
> elaborate on the following concepts:
>
>     /We aspire to an Internet effectively owned and controlled by the
>     communities that use it and to Internet ownership that evolves
>     through communities federated regionally, nationally and globally.
>     (...) /
>


I think it is a more expressive way of saying that the Internet is to be 
treated successively as a local, national and global commons...

>     /The access layer and the higher layers of applications and
>     content should be community owned and controlled in a way that
>     supports a rich ecology of commercial enterprises subject to and
>     serving community and public interests./
>
>
> What do you concretely mean?

  And that profit making on and off the Internet while a legitimate 
activity must be subordinate to Internet's larger social purposes as 
decided by various community/ political processes..


parminder
>
> Best
>
> B.
>
>
>
> "/Le plus beau métier des hommes, c'est d'unir les hommes/", Antoine 
> de Saint Exupéry
> ("/There is no greater mission for humans than uniting humans/")
>
> BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE
> Internet & Jurisdiction Project | Director
> email bdelachapelle at internetjurisdiction.net 
> <mailto:bdelachapelle at internetjurisdiction.net>
> email bdelachapelle at gmail.com <mailto:bdelachapelle at gmail.com>
> twitter @IJurisdiction <https://twitter.com/IJurisdiction> | 
> @bdelachapelle <https://twitter.com/bdelachapelle>
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> www.internetjurisdiction.net <http://www.internetjurisdiction.net>
>
> A GLOBAL MULTI-STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE PROCESS
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 7:36 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com 
> <mailto:gurstein at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Mike,
>
>     And of course, I could be wrong, but my understanding of the
>     task/desired outcome of the Brazil meeting at least as articulated
>     by Pres. Rousseff, was a set of high level principles to govern
>     (or perhaps better, orient the governance) of the Internet... i.e.
>     in what directions should those who are or may be in a position to
>     have such impact, as for example through public policy, be
>     (attempting to) direct these developments...
>
>     So, to go back to my initial point, following on from the Baack
>     and Rossini analysis, in what areas could/should there be
>     "principles" developed which aren't being currently covered by the
>     20 or so statements of principles that they reviewed in their work?
>
>     A few that I pointed out were:
>
>     * how should the overall societal benefits being derived from the
>     Internet be distributed---so as to increase or decrease social and
>     economic inequality?
>
>     * what should be the overall direction for the evolution of the
>     Internet---towards increasing centralization/concentration or
>     towards decentralization and empowerment at the edges;
>
>     * should there be interventions so as to reduce the likelihood of
>     the evolution of the Internet towards being the underlying
>     platform for a global "Surveillance State"
>
>     (the first two of which were prominent in either or both WSIS and
>     the WGIG I believe, but which evidently have fallen off the agenda
>     for an artificially narrowed (and dare I say ingrown) civil society...
>
>     The Community Informatics community has adopted a Declaration
>     <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1099/1065>
>     which attempts to address some of these. The 12 points listed
>     there may not be perfect but I/we believe they are rather more
>     comprehensive and inclusive of the interests of all of those
>     impacted by the Internet either directly as users or indirectly
>     including those who are not yet or currently users than the, dare
>     I say "consensus" principles being artificially promoted here as
>     elsewhere, which overall are simply a reflection of an
>     increasingly unacceptable status quo.
>
>     Best,
>
>     M
>
>     *From:*discuss-bounces at 1net.org <mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org>
>     [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org
>     <mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org>] *On Behalf Of *Mike Roberts
>     *Sent:* Monday, January 06, 2014 12:21 AM
>     *To:* discuss at 1net.org <mailto:discuss at 1net.org>
>     *Subject:* Re: [discuss] [I-coordination] New: How do we dissect
>     Internet governance?--
>
>     r
>
>     The arrival of each new generation of communications technology
>     enables and expands the power of various social, political and
>     economic interests.  The Internet is just the latest such arrival,
>     although the conjunction of the technology of moving bits with
>     that of stored logic in computers has raised the bar considerably
>     on deus ex machina considerations.  Jousting occurs as these
>     interests attempt to reshape the landscape to fit their diverse
>     visions of a better future.
>
>     The Internet itself is amoral.  It neither advances nor retards
>     human activities except through the actions of its users
>     (including those who use the technology to provide services).
>      This list seems to be excessively caught up in debate and value
>     judgments over what humans are or are not doing with use of
>     Internet technology.   In the early days of ICANN, we used to
>     refer to this as special interest groups attempting to seize the
>     ICANN agenda for their own purposes, whatever they might be,
>     including those who favor a nihilistic "hands off the Internet"
>     agenda.
>
>     Given the very limited sphere of potential influence of the Brazil
>     meeting on Internet evolution, it might be helpful to focus on a
>     pragmatic assessment of what outcomes of the meeting are feasible
>     and useful and how the list members might advance them, emphasis
>     on feasible and useful.
>
>     - Mike
>
>     On Jan 5, 2014, at 6:15 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net
>     <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     The issue Mike raises goes to the heart of the matter...
>
>     If the present phase (post-Snowden?) is about some real change in
>     global Internet governance, then it has to be of coming out of
>     narrow ideologies that the Internet and Internet governance remain
>     stuck in..
>
>     After a very good start in the hands of early pioneers  of the
>     Internet, the original sin of course was committed when the US
>     establishment characterised the Internet's primary identity  as a
>     global marketplace, which identity forms the basic philosophy and
>     rules of its current governance ... This over-rode the primary
>     role of the Internet in global community building, social
>     mediation, access to knowledge, p2p production models, and so on,
>     which certainly was a very political act if shrouded rather well
>     in 'technical neutrality' and such things.
>
>     Next layer of political clothing for the Internet came, a few
>     years later, as a narrow set of negative rights - mostly, just
>     freedom of expression, no doubt a very important right, but being
>     just one out of many, and often rather meaningless without the
>     larger set of rights. This struggle of what makes FoE meaningful
>     was precisely the struggle that civil society did in the form of
>     communication rights movement, but all those advances seem to have
>     been simply rolled back, unfortunately even by much of IG related
>     civil society.
>
>     Interestingly, the needs for an Internet for global extension of
>     digital trade, and, through digital networks, other forms of
>     trade, seemed to share a lot of points with the conception of an
>     Internet for global freedom of expression, and a very strong
>     alliance of Internet free trade-ists and free expression-ists got
>     built, which has its good points, but very huge limitations as
>     well. Snowden spoiled this party a bit, but the alliance seems
>     rather resilient.... That is the political reality of the Internet
>     that we have right now.
>
>     Well, to come back to Mike's point, if we have to make progress,
>     we have to come out of these safe and comfortable spaces. There is
>     a huge world out there, and the Internet is simply not serving its
>     interests in its full potential. In many ways, it can begin to
>     make things worse for them, unless the interests of disadvantaged
>     people are specifically recognised and articulated in IG spaces,
>     and also judged as often being different from those of the
>     dominant classes. Such an exercise must be the most important
>     thing to do in this current phase of revisiting Internet
>     governance. In default, it would just be  a lot of window
>     dressing, which dominant groups are known to resort to whenever
>     strong challenges to their domination emerge. And that would be
>     such a waste of everybody's time.
>
>     parminder
>
>     On Sunday 05 January 2014 02:39 PM, michael gurstein wrote:
>
>         My apologies if this is a bit out of sequence... I'm only now
>         getting around to reading the fascinating document that
>         Alejandro and George pointed us towards by Baak and Rossini.
>
>         And it is excellent and fascinating work. It is quite
>         remarkable I think in surfacing the pre-occupations and
>         directions that have guided the Internet Governance
>         discussions including those on most lists, the IGF and even
>         the academic research.
>
>         One can only marvel at the strong measure of coherence and
>         convergence that the paper demonstrates so clearly and concisely.
>
>         But I must say I'm struck in reading that document by (as
>         Sherlock Holmes would say) the dogs that aren't barking.
>
>         Where in the collection of themes/principles is there any
>         reference to (responding to) the distributional impact of the
>         Internet---in terms of wealth, power, position, influence; or
>         where are there proposed principles that deal with the
>         increasing concentration/centralization of power that is such
>         a characteristic of the current Internet and away from what
>         was a fundamental element in the design of the Internet its
>         decentralization, distributed governance and control migrating
>         to the edges; or (and of course most of these documents are
>         pre-Snowden), where is there any reference that even hints at
>         the rise of the Surveillance State and what if anything that
>         can/should be done about this.
>
>         So perhaps the convergence and coherence rather than something
>         to be celebrated should be seen as a problem to be addressed.
>
>         Is this perhaps a reflection of a false and narrow, even
>         artificial consensus, among those proposing IG principles.
>         Moreover is this "consensus" something that can truly provide
>         the range of principles that would respond to Pres. Rousseff's
>         call to "harness the full potential of the Internet" including
>         in ensuring universality, diversity, democracy, development
>         and human rights in and through the Internet and its governance.
>
>         Mike
>
>         *From:*i-coordination-bounces at nro.net
>         <mailto:i-coordination-bounces at nro.net>
>         [mailto:i-coordination-bounces at nro.net] *On Behalf Of *George
>         Sadowsky
>         *Sent:* Wednesday, December 18, 2013 2:25 AM
>
>         *To:*Nigel Hickson
>         *Cc:* I-coordination at nro.net <mailto:I-coordination at nro.net>
>         *Subject:* Re: [I-coordination] New: How do we dissect
>         Internet governance? [Was: Europe at a tipping point?]
>
>         It really worth looking at the paper that Alejandro suggested:
>
>         in
>         http://bestbits.net/wp-uploads/2013/10/ChartConceptNote_MB_CR.pdf Jeonghyun
>         Baak and Carolina Rossini present a compilation of principles
>         (for Internet freedom, mostly). They have also made public
>         tables with a detailes, issue-by-issue compilation of
>         statements from a very broad set of organizations. Very high
>         quality work.
>
>         George
>
>         On Dec 17, 2013, at 2:01 PM, Nigel Hickson wrote:
>
>
>
>
>         Nick; great idea; we have some from OECD; Council of Europe
>         and European Commission. A coordinate input to Brazil would be
>         great!
>
>         *From: *Nick Ashton-Hart <nashton at ccianet.org
>         <mailto:nashton at ccianet.org>>
>         *Date: *Tuesday, December 17, 2013 6:45 PM
>         *To: *William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch
>         <mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch>>
>         *Cc: *"I-coordination at nro.net <mailto:I-coordination at nro.net>"
>         <i-coordination at nro.net <mailto:i-coordination at nro.net>>
>         *Subject: *Re: [I-coordination] New: How do we dissect
>         Internet governance? [Was: Europe at a tipping point?]
>
>         To Bill's point in the first instance it would be useful to
>         identify those principles that exist to date and their source
>         and scope. Perhaps 1net could host a wiki environment or the
>         like where those with knowledge of one or more could get a
>         list together?
>
>         On 17 Dec 2013, at 18:34, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch
>         <mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch>> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>         Hi George
>
>         On Dec 17, 2013, at 6:24 PM, George Sadowsky
>         <george.sadowsky at gmail.com <mailto:george.sadowsky at gmail.com>>
>         wrote:
>
>
>
>
>         Bill,
>
>         You say: "Do we really have nothing more important to be doing
>         here at this point than redefining the wheel as just a round
>         thingy?  I thought this list was supposed to be for
>         coordination of multistakeholder dialogue on Sao Paulo and
>         beyond, but it seems to alternate between being a troll
>         paradise and the site of a lot of meandering debates on points
>         that are generally being addressed more systematically
>         elsewhere.  Or am I alone in this perception?"
>
>         I agree that we need to address points systematically.  Can
>         you provide a list of systematic points (dare we call them
>         issues?) that it would, in your view, be useful to discuss?
>
>         Well, why not start with the question of principles?  The
>         initiators of the SP meeting have been saying from the outset
>         they'd like to have a sort of multistakeholder declaration of
>         principles.  Presumably it'd be helpful if 1net participants
>         were to provide some input on this, and presumably we'd like
>         it to be more than just nice fluffy words.  Why not discuss
>         the range of options to make this a useful exercise, and see
>         where there's cross-stakeholder consensus and where there's
>         not?  It's something concrete that needs to be done, and they
>         want input by 1 March.
>
>         Cheers
>
>         Bill
>
>
>
>
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