[bestbits] [governance] Internet Ungovernance Forum Brasil

[George Sadowsky]

Carlos,

Thank you for your comprehensive note and for being a voice of reason.  IGF truly _is_ what different stakeholders make of it.

George



On Jul 6, 2015, at 2:21 PM, Carlos A. Afonso <ca at cafonso.ca> wrote:

> Dear people,
> 
> I write this, as usual, in my personal capacity, now with the help of a
> few other colleagues.
> 
> Personally I have nothing against "unconferences" or parallel meetings.
> Every group has the right to organize events on their own taking
> advantage of the occasion.
> 
> However, the justifications for the "unconference" at the 10th IGF, as
> presented in the announcement message below, start from false premises.
> IGF is a UN event with special characteristics -- it is a pluralist
> space (unlike, for example, the recently proposed Internet Social Forum,
> which requires previous adherence to a letter of commitments, in
> practice excluding many groups and individuals from the dialogue).
> 
> IGF is what the different stakeholders make of it, and organized civil
> society has always had space to propose and participate since the very
> first IGF in 2006. I recommend that the promoters of parallel events
> overview the more than 100 workshops approved for the upcoming IGF to
> conclude that the event is far from being "controlled by business and
> governments". The workshops' list (and descriptions) is here:
> 
> http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshop-proposals/list-of-published-workshop-proposals
> 
> Here are some examples of workshops, among many others, which deal with
> issues of obvious interest to civil society, with multistakeholder
> participation (as required by IGF):
> 
> No. 10 FOSS & a Free, Open Internet: Synergies for Development
> No. 31 The “Right to be Forgotten” Rulings and their Implications
> No. 49 No Grey Areas – Against Sexual Exploitation of Children
> No. 60 Benchmarking ICT companies on digital rights
> No. 68 Can civil society impact Global Internet Governance?
> No. 96 #AfricanInternetRights: whose rights are these anyway?
> No. 134 Organising an Internet Social Forum - Occupy the Internet
> No. 152 Political dissent & online anonymity in developing countries
> No. 186 A multistakeholder and humanrights approach to cybersecurity
> No. 188 Spectrum allocations: challenges & opportunities at the edge
> No. 214 Internet interconnection under regulatory pressure
> No. 224 Civil Society and Information Controls in the Global South
> No. 226 Internet governance and Open Government Data initiatives
> No. 239 Bitcoin, Blockchain and Beyond: FLASH HELP!
> No. 242 The Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability
> 
> Workshops might be flash sessions, panels or roundtables, lasting from
> 30 to 90 minutes. There are also the "dynamic coalitions", organized
> groups of people and entities working together on several crucial themes
> independently of the IGF (but stimulated by it and which hold meetings
> during the event):
> 
> Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability
> Dynamic Coalition on Child Online Safety
> Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values
> Dynamic Coalition on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media on
> the Internet
> Dynamic Coalition on Gender and Internet Governance
> Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change
> Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles
> Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality
> Dynamic Coalition on Platform Responsibility (DC PR)
> Dynamic Coalition on Public Access in Libraries
> Dynamic Coalition on the Internet of Things
> Youth Coalition on Internet Governance
> 
> It is relevant to notice that most of the more than 100 workshops
> accepted this year were proposed by civil society organizations.
> Proposals by governments and intergovernmental organizations were just a
> few. Information on the proposing organizations is on the IGF Web site.
> Also, nearly half of the approved workshops were proposed by
> organizations from developing countries.
> 
> The Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG/IGF) recommends that in every
> workshop and main sessions there should be balanced participation of
> panelists, discussants and other invitees taking into account the
> diversity of nations, continents, sectors (government, business, civil
> society, technical/academic community), and gender. This diversity has
> been a relevant factor in approving the workshops, and the IGF
> secretariat will work together with workshops' organizers to make sure
> this directive is taken into account.
> 
> I notice also that the promoters of the unconference call "on our
> participants to resist seeing the problems of the Internet as only
> technological and void of its materiality." It is quite possible that
> other forums or entities, according to their scopes and goals, treat the
> Internet from a purely technical point of view. This is certainly not
> the case of the IGF, created precisely as a dialogue for non-technical
> questions which do not find space in other forums. A rapid reading of
> the workshops' descriptions listed above illustrates this fact quite
> well. There are just a few approved workshops which limit themselves to
> technical issues. Nearly all try to consider social, cultural, economic
> and political aspects related to the development and use of the
> Internet, always with a multistakeholder approach.
> 
> I strongly recommend that you all participate in the IGF, either
> remotely or in person, without excluding participation in other parallel
> events as you wish, of course.
> 
> fraternal regards
> 
> --c.a.
> 
> On 06/25/2015 12:47 PM, willi uebelherr wrote:
>> 
>> Dear friends,
>> 
>> 2014 we had the Internet Ungovernance Forum in Istanbul in Turkey. Now,
>> this year, this people organize it in Brasil.
>> 
>> I think, this is the most important event in this year to the theme:
>> Internet Governance.
>> 
>> many greetings, willi
>> Porto Alegre, Brasil
>> 
>> 
>> Internet Ungovernance Forum Brasil
>> November 2015
>> João Pessoa - Paraíba, Brasil
>> http://iuf.partidopirata.org/index-en.html
>> 
>> Internet Ungovernance Forum Brasil is for those of us who demand free,
>> secure, and open internet for all!
>> 
>> We're organizing the Internet Ungovernance Forum on November 2015, for
>> everyone who demand that fundamental freedoms, openness, unity and net
>> neutrality remain the building blocks of the Internet. Our objective is
>> to talk about the true and real problems of the internet, how can we
>> solve them and to chart a path for action.
>> 
>> Our forum will be in parallel to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
>> 2015 which will also be held in João Pessoa in november. Interested
>> parties all around the world will join and follow this important event.
>> However, we see that at IGF the most urgent problems of the Internet do
>> not get proper attention. Due to its format, the main perpetrators of
>> many of the Internet's problems, for example the governments and
>> corporations, are getting representation in IGF that they don’t deserve.
>> Given these circumstances, we decided to take initiative to defend the
>> Internet as we know it and to create a parallel space to raise the
>> voices of civil society initiatives, activists and common people.
>> 
>> For us, the most vital problems today are censorship and freedom of
>> speech; surveillance and privacy; excessive commercialization and
>> super-monopolies; protective, prohibitionist and conservative governance
>> approaches; awful governance examples as in the case of Brasil and the
>> list goes on. Further, we do not see any of these problems independent
>> of the greater political, social and economic contexts in which the
>> Internet and related digital infrastructures are embedded in.
>> 
>> We want to reclaim the Internet as a fundamental infrastructure of our
>> societies, cities, education, health, work, media, communications,
>> culture and everyday activities.
>> 
>> We call on our participants to resist seeing the problems of the
>> Internet as only technological and void of its materiality.
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