[bestbits] [governance] Internet - whether to regulate it or not

[Lee W McKnight]

Re net neutrality regulation merits and demerits, this post re 'Why is network neutrality like playing chess with a pigeon?'  might be of interest in this context of what and when to regulate the Internet.


http://www.martingeddes.com/network-neutrality-like-pigeons-playing-chess/


It could be taken to be from a Scotsman's/nearly independent small state point of view....of statistical multiplexing  ; )


Lee

________________________________
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org <governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org> on behalf of Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 5, 2014 2:23 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; parminder; &lt,bestbits at lists.bestbits.net&gt,
Subject: RE: [governance] Internet - whether to regulate it or not



From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of parminder


Throughout this email, you seamlessly move between UN based international law making and US law making, which may get forced on the world bec of the US's economic and technical might, as if there isnt any real substantive difference between the two...

MM: Nope. I make it very clear when I am talking about one or the other. Your point was “the U.S.” was preventing us from talking about certain issues. My contention was simply that the U.S. is talking about those things extensively at its own domestic level, and that indeed, many of those dialogues originated in the U.S. and went transnational. No confusion as to levels.

When did I say there is no global discussion on net neutrality ?

MM: In your original post. Glad to see you backing off here.

... As for the resistance to it and the resources thrown in for that sake I have historical details of how an NN debate and position forming got resisted on the IGC list as well in the MAG, for years, before it was finally taken up this year,

MM: Another factual error. See this, a NN workshop from 2011:
http://intgovforum.org/cms/component/content/article?id=883:ig4d-workshop-183-a-possible-framework-for-global-net-neutrality

Yes, I know the European Commission as well as Council of Europe has been working on it, and I have participated especially in the latter's effort.

MM: So apparently the “US” effort to prevent discussion has failed there, too.

Well, yes. How much ever may I like to, we are just not able to come off the colonial and post colonial yoke. Dont we still take everything of worth from the west?

MM: A typical Parminderism. Someone notes the irony of you claiming the “the U.S.” is stopping us from discussing an issue that is being actively discussed in large part because of US domestic politics, and you transmute that into a claim that everything of worth originates from the West.

Apart from US and its corporate allies being the chief instigators for filtering the debates at the IGF,

MM: The chief instigators of filtering debates at the IGF are those who don’t want to disturb the IG status quo, as you know well. But that camp includes people in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia as well as “the U.S.” I’ve run up against those filters as much as you have, btw, only about 5 years before you. Ask yourself why I wasn’t asked to be on the IANA transition panel at either Netmundial or IGF, for example. But I am from the US. Why didn’t they welcome a fellow imperialist hegemonic white male? How do you explain this, my friend? Maybe there are substantive policy differences at stake that cannot be reduced to 1970s-vintage state-centric worldviews? Maybe “the US” is the wrong label to be using to characterize your enemies? Your whole mentality is still locked into the nation-state mindset.

The US rules the global Internet, politically and economically . Any civil society actor whose chief aim is a better distribution of power (that at least is what civil society used to be) would naturally make the US as its chief target.

MM: But redistributing power to whom, and for what purpose? First, it is obvious that you are talking exclusively about a redistribution of power among nation-states – an approach that is intrinsically hostile to civil society. Further, I don’t think a redistribution that, say, strengthens the Russian or Chinese states is anything to get excited about – or haven’t you kept your eyes on what is happening in Hong Kong? Perhaps you will follow Putin and Xi and blame all the HK unrest of “the U.S.”? All part of our attempt to maintain global hegemony. So let’s suppress freedom and democracy in Hong Kong so we have a better distribution of power?

I don’t think strengthening the Indian or Turkish or South African states is such a great idea, either. All of them seem to be more interested in Internet control than anything else. Again I ask you to frame your debate and discourse in terms of substantive policy choices and not polarized power blocs centered on nation-states. Your mode of discourse is essentially a Cold War mentality, where our political choices are centered on being for or against the US.


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