[bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG governance

[Ian Peter]

Hi Avri and John,

I'll confine my comments to the context of the document Andrew is working 
on, rather than a wider ranging discussion on ms-ism.

I do not think we should abandon multistakeholderism, not do I think 
Andrew's statement should suggest that. However, nor do I think we should 
give it a carte blanche endorsement or believe it is a panacea for solving 
every internet governance issue.

If multistakeholderism is going to help us, I think we need to examine it in 
the context of the dominant underlying tensions here.

One underlying tension is between large corporations and nation states, each 
of which thinks it is best placed to solve the internet's problems. Another 
tension is between dominant nation states and smaller less powerful nation 
states. Another is between large dominating corporations and new players and 
start-ups.

And to be honest, I think in that context the opinions of the technical 
community, civil society and academia are not necessarily going to be 
helpful unless they directly address these issues, which are largely about 
inequity.

My comments were in the context of statements which I know you have both 
heard that we should keep governments out of this. I am glad to see Avri's 
clear statement below that governments must be involved. Not all champions 
of multistakeholderism believe this however, which is why I think we need to 
be clear that our understanding of ms-ism does involve an appropriate role 
for governments.

And in the context of representative governance I think we all know there 
are a lot of issues, and I am not sure which of the dominance issues 
mentioned above are going to be usefully addressed by establishment of an 
equally weighted fully supported body of stakeholders (should such a 
miraculous body emerge).

Avri, I also agree with you re civil society not being powerless. We can be 
very powerful in advocacy and in activism. But I am not sure that a role in 
internet governance we are likely to achieve will ever replace the need for 
activism and advocacy.

I hope that helps to clarify!



Ian Peter




-----Original Message----- 
From: Avri Doria
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2014 1:51 AM
To: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [bestbits] substantive proposals for Brazil summit - IG 
governance

Hi,


On 03-Feb-14 09:05, Carolina Rossini wrote:
> Agree. It would be important to incorporate this in our contributions.
> March 1st is the deadline.
>
>

Very much agree that we need to substantive and need to submit
substantive comments that are from the CS perspectives by the deadline.

> On Monday, February 3, 2014, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org
> <mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org>> wrote:
>
>     On 3 Feb 2014, at 3:51 am, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com
>     <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ian.peter at ianpeter.com');>> wrote:
>
>>     Multistakeholderism is, to at least some parties, a wonderful mask
>>     to aid industry dominance with no governmental involvement
>>     whatsoever.

This does not make sense to me.  In all of the multistakeholder models,
there is great care to include governments.  There is a strong desire on
the part of many to get more parts of government included such as their
parliamentarians, regulators and data protection officers, among others.

I think that any model that does not include the multiplicity of
stakeholders including government, isn't a multistakeholder scheme, and
to use it as an example of a multistakeholder scheme just sets up an
easy target.


>>     And I think we need to be honest about the fact that not all
>>     stakeholders have equal power in this – civil society arguments do
>>     not carry the weight of the large internet corporations, and to
>>     pretend that ms-ism somehow changes this imbalance is either naive
>>     or deliberately misleading.

Well at the risk of running into accusations of naivete or worse, I
think it depends.  Civil Society can have great power when it uses it
uses it. And we have seen it do so in many areas of advocacy. But when
CS cannot organize itself in a way that allows it to use its incredible
power, then it doesn't have power.  Our power takes many forms but
usually involves coordinated activity on a particular goal in a similar
direction.

But until we figure out what we want to direct ourselves toward, we
can't coordinate our actions.

If killing the multistakeholder model is our goal, a model I believe CS
has the power to kill, I believe we will weaken CS, not strengthen it.



>>     I mention this here because, by the looks of Brazil and the way
>>     the agenda is shaping up, we are going to talk about principles
>>     for governance, and this word multistakeholderism is going to be
>>     front and centre. I think we need to unwrap it a little and state
>>     clearly that the real issues going on are between governmental and
>>     industry control, neither of which of itself is of itself a
>>     satisfactory model.

Which is the reason I thought we were working toward a multistaekholder
model that includes all stakeholders.


>
>     Brilliantly put Ian.  Agree that this will be a key differentiator
>     between what civil society puts forward for the meeting and what (if
>     anything) 1net may put forward.

/1net is only providing a aggregation point to make the process
scalable.  Of course CS is going to put out it own
statements/contributions with its own messages.  I do not think anyone
ever said anything other than that.

I look forward to contributing to BB efforts on a statement.  I just
hope its focus is not the destruction of the multistakeholder model.
That I would not be able to support.

avri







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