[bestbits] Re: [governance] netmundial 0.1

Sat Apr 26 17:56:49 EDT 2014

Stephanie, who's trying to be a very positive person in that difficult debate, observed and acknowledged that the SP process (part of it) was not open... Jeanette says that is was...Jeanette writes that next time will be better. - but who's in charge of improving it? Who ever did it? 

I think MS has reached its limits at Sao Paulo. And indeed MSism as a model will never go beyond that type of document. Because MSism has no vision, no values, no philosophy. It is barely a methodology. There is no one serious in politics, social science, economy, law, political science to state that 'equal footing right' makes any sense. From Adam Smith, to Locke, Rousseau, Rawls, Habermas, this concept is empty. And because of the absence of vision, values, philosophy, whether in SP or in Istanbul, MSism will bring no different, no more open, and who could predict that MSism will deliver any serious concrete actions/changes. MSism is Roma brought dictatorship Stephanie, and ultimately ruin.

IT is amusing to notice that everyone tends to claim victory after SP. Fun. Some see in the text the confirmation of the WSIS process, some see a post-WSIS world in the making, some probably nothing - I am thinking of the citizens here. Some will state that this is the first MS document, others will put it into their MS shelve with the plenty Blah MS has produced so far. This is precisely why these last years, very little has been achieved (deadlock?!), specifically because lacking of solid grounds of definition and understanding. All this makes it impossible to progress seriously. Sao Paulo did not derogate to that incapacity. - do we all understand that document in the same manner? Are we sure?

What is more striking is the language and content of Nnenna's speech. This is a language of truth. The outcome document might have move the overall IG community by a millimeter (everyone claiming that this millimeter is his/her victory), the battle of words/concepts/ideas/dogmas/interests is pulling the Internet chariot to nowhere, if you think in terms of public and user interest. Vagueness is failing to have our engine starting and we feel no torque in the IG arena. And I am even not talking of surveillance, rights to privacy, copyright...where the outcome document is in serious jeopardy of going backward. 

I do believe that the concrete gift made to the IG debate in Sao Paulo is not the outcome document. It is "Nnenna's speach" which she claims not to be hers. Everyone could ask what is it in that speech that makes it so easily endorsable. Even for a simple citizen. Check thoroughly that language. This is where there is hope that the IG debate finds its principles, and out of them, a roadmap. The total absence of proposals in terms of IG grand design, - except for one submission-  based upon all what we know and cherish in the Internet venture, is incredibly depressing. Are we a castrated group of IG minds. No vision in terms of governance eco-system has been discussed and reflected on in SP. Multistakeholderism is a method. It is not an eco-system. If we see MSism as a way to make sure that private sector has not only rights but assume more responsibility, then such an MSism would be the holly grail of societal change. I like the idea of an eco-system when it comes to Internet governance. A net is a bit like an onion, and its governance must have some sort of original design. It should embrace all the onion skins. From local to global, from policy making to IP, addressing, naming, cyber security, anti-mass surveillance...Stieglitz just spoke of the asymmetric role of the private sector in the US society, talking to Picketty about revenues, wealth and inequalities (raising). Giving to ICANN, a US driven monopole over an historical single root-zone for the benefit of a few, against all technical odds in terms of architectural innovation, makes me wonder why the Internet governance herd is not more interested to open new paths leading to highly protected root zone, neutral root zone, business root zone... We should have digital turnpike, digital freeways, digital highways, digital overpass and bridge. Why is it that NetMundial failed to listen to new ideas, specially when they are given for free by one of the founding father of the Internet. Even fighting against the simple idea to insert the word 'democracy' in an IG document makes me freak out. Status quo will be overtaken by history if not by us. It will be lost when technical innovation will prevail again. When algorithm will stop to be the drivers of profit. Some algorithm will become part of our global commons, soon or later. Like transportation, roads, channels... When the ever losing value of the click will come to an ever low, what shall we do to make more money, after the diversity of media and opinion will have die to the law of the click. Google is already in danger. So whatever next Internet of things, or humans, of ideas, of feelings we will have to deal with in the near future, if profit is the leading criteria to govern these spaces, then we all will have fail. As we somehow did in SP. Except for the unexpected human voice that suddenly emerged in an introductory speech, and not a concluding document. We had it all during the opening.

Hope there is. Let's look where it stands.

JC

Le 26 avr. 2014 à 17:01, Jeanette Hofmann a écrit :

> From my perspective, it is not correct to say that the process was not open. There were many people in the room when we modified the text after the first and the second set of track sessions.
> 
> During the second drafting session on the afternoon of the 24th there were conversations taking place as to whether or not the HLMC would insist on a final round of looking at the draft statement before it would be announced. I don't know where this conversation took place and who exactly talked to whom but the result was that the governments engaged in the HLMC wanted to see the document beforehand. In a way this was only fair since they were tasked with "setting the tone" of the text.
> 
> That last session before we presented the statement was semi-public. Many people were in the room and listened in to the discussion among people around the table. The people around the table were members of HLMC but also session chairs such as Anriette and me and the board.
> 
> What happened there is that some governments expressed vetos to specific wording of the draft doc. One country expressed reservations to the entire document. The ICANN CEO wanted one  sentence to be changed and one word removed. At that point, it seemed at least to me that the process was about to collapse. The only chance to prevent the whole process from failing was to remove or tone down certain paragraphs.
> 
> What I got to understand during the text editing process is that many if not all governments would not be able to go beyond text and positions that are part of agreed language as expressed in UN resolutions etc. The gov reps simply don't have the mandate or authority to go beyond agreed language in areas that matter to them.
> 
> Frankly, I don't find this surprising. Multistakeholder implies taking into account the constraints of the other stakeholders. Within the process of collectively drafting a statement, such limits obviously become very visible.
> 
> So, the best we could do during the editing process is phrasing our positions in ways that would resonate with established multilateral language. In some areas, this worked quite well. The obvious example is the UN resolution on privacy in the digital age. Here we could clearly go beyond that what the private sector wanted to see in the document.
> 
> Some of the last minute changes could have been prevented if we had better understood the limits of what government reps in this process can do.
> 
> In other parts, civil society could have done better by simply submitting concrete wording and back that up with several statements by several organizations. So many interventions during the track sessions were made for the transcript only since they did not refer to specific paragraphs or did not suggest concrete wording!
> 
> Instead of lamenting about the specific outcome, I think we should be more pragmatic and have a discussion about how to do better and become more effective when the next opportunity of multistakeholder drafting comes up.
> 
> Jeanette
> 
> Am 26.04.14 19:30, schrieb Adam Peake:
>> The last meeting of the HLMC was open to observers.  But it was a shame we didn't think to put cameras and mics in the room for the drafting sessions so they could have been webcast.  Just that it wasn't thought of at the time.
>> 
>> Adam
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Apr 27, 2014, at 12:33 AM, Stephanie Perrin wrote:
>> 
>>> Unfortunately that process was not open, and perhaps for good reason.  They also realize they made an error in the last minute rush, and put the wrong older text in for one clause.  Business is actually arguing to put a better one for us back in.  Will let the list know if it happens.
>>> Despite the hairiness of this process, I think folks should remember that there was a remarkable production of good will achieved by all the open drafting sessions….this is really an unusual way to do business.  Rome wasn’t built in a day…
>>> Stephanie Perrin
>>> Cheers stephanie
>>> On Apr 25, 2014, at 2:38 PM, Izumi AIZU <aizu at anr.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> First, Thanks to ALL who made this impossible possible.
>>>> 
>>>> I was wondering during the last hours of confusion about the last-minute change, as well as sort of HLMC overriding the preceding process.
>>>> 
>>>> My question 1 was, was this finalizing the Outcome document open to observers?
>>>> (I still don't know and appreciate if someone teach me).
>>>> 
>>>> I was wondering, and also now like to propose in the future similar event, to use the
>>>> online tool, I mean online Notepad.
>>>> 
>>>> In addition to the real-time scribes, and using projectors to put the text on the screen,
>>>> it will be very effective to use the online notepad (such as Google Doc or something similar), over the Internet, as we draft. Everyone online can see the process of changing
>>>> the words or sentences, they can keep track of all the changes.
>>>> 
>>>> It will be useful for all the remote participants, or those in different rooms of the same
>>>> venue while small number of drafting committee people do the work, that make it transparent.
>>>> 
>>>> Just a suggestion.
>>>> 
>>>> izumi
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 2014-04-26 2:30 GMT+09:00 Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>:
>>>> and I should have added – thanks too to the BestBits people for a really constructive pre conference get together. Without that we could not have worked together so well at the main event.
>>>> 
>>>> From: Ian Peter
>>>> Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 11:17 PM
>>>> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org ; bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
>>>> Subject: [governance] netmundial 0.1
>>>> 
>>>> The conference is now over, and many of us now go into travel and long flights. But before I do, I want to say that during this conference, and the meeting beforehand, civil society people really worked incredibly well together – far more so than other constituencies. It was great to work with a group of such talented and knowledgeable people. There was a high volume of exchange and consultation between people and speakers on our behalf, with a willingness to take on other perspectives from the group, to stand down to allow a more relevant speaker to address a subject etc. great team work.
>>>> 
>>>> As regards the results – this was version 0.1 of this very interesting – and i think promising – version of multistakeholder consultation. So like all versions 0.1, it was full of bugs and there are a few changes that should be made and improvements. I might say a thing or two about that after I have cleared my head. So I think the process has some lessons for us, and is worth repeating.
>>>> 
>>>> As regards the outputs – as the civil society statement said, there were areas of disappointment. I would say personally that I was very angry at last minute changes made to some sections after the formal processes of drafting and consolidating text had ended and passed through those committees to the final approval stage. This was an example of some governmental players being more equal than others. As one colleague said, more like imperialism than multistakeholderism, from a party who preaches the religion. Oh well. In time I might say more about the detail of that.
>>>> 
>>>> But for now – there was much good as well, and it was fantastic to be involved in this with such a great group of people. All our Brazilian reps, and also our selected reps on various committees, did a fantastic job – ad it was privilege to see how well they did. They worked long and hard on our behalf and deserve a lot of praise. If I start names I will miss someone, but to everyone who represented us, I must say job extremely well done.
>>>> 
>>>> Now to wind down after three days of intense activities. Great work everyone, really worthwhile event.
>>>> 
>>>> Ian Peter
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>>                         >> Izumi Aizu <<
>>>> 
>>>>           Institute for InfoSocionomics, Tama University, Tokyo
>>>> 
>>>>            Institute for HyperNetwork Society, Oita,
>>>>                                   Japan
>>>>                                  * * * * *
>>>>            << Writing the Future of the History >>
>>>>                                 www.anr.org
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>>> 
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>> 
> 
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