[bestbits] [governance] Remarks at UNESCO Closing Ceremony of "Connecting the Dots Conference"

David Cake dave at difference.com.au
Thu Mar 5 04:31:03 EST 2015 

On 5 Mar 2015, at 4:54 pm, Jean-Christophe Nothias <jeanchristophe.nothias at gmail.com> wrote:

> Love your "some civil society persons”.

	Well, its not the phrasing I would have used had it not already been used.

> Love you 'some issues" as well.
> Perhaps it is just "some you".
> I am sure everyone will enjoy your  manière de faire

	Something lost in translation there. I understand the literal meaning, but I guess I am missing something colloquial.

> JNC, contrary to the people who are funded by big US money, are accepting no money from either the US government or corps or status-quo institutions such as ICANN

	So, is it your contention that if ICANN gives financial assistance to civil society to increase civil society participation, that is wrong? Or, for that matter, developing nation governments or technical community, etc?
	I cheerily accept ICANN travel funding as a way to participate in ICANN, and I am pleased that ICANN does fund some participants to increase participation from civil society and the global south. I’m not sure why you are implying that is a bad thing. I think it fairly obvious that if ICANN did not give out travel funding, it would increase the influence of wealthy western governments and corporates.
	And there are certainly worse governments to accept money from than the US! Not that I’ve accepted any money from the US, or even the Australian government.

> or any other foreign governments or corporations. It would be so interesting to disclose the funding powers behind the multistakholderist faction: of course, if you wish us to be of some help with this, we are ready to provide you with a detailed list of the lucky funded folks in our CS world. Shall we go into that? Ready?

	Sure. My organisation is primarily membership and donation based and publicly post our financials. I know most of the active NCSG colleagues are either working for academic institutions or for membership or donation funded organisations - and virtually everyone involved in ICANN processes has a public SOI on file. There are certainly orgs that accept corporate donations, and many of them have very open finances (CDT, for example).
	I’m curious about the membership and funding of plenty of groups in CS, including some in JNC, though curiosity alone isn’t always sufficient justification. But FWIW, I suspect your implied 'threat’ there is based on the assumption that everyone shares your opinions that all corporate funding on civil society by corporations you dislike makes them tainted - and I think that is simply a minority view based on a fairly rigid ideological position. Sometimes corporations, including large US internet ones, will ally with civil society when we have shared concerns, sometimes corporations will support civil society because they wish to support effective processes, sometimes corporate social responsibility programs might even imply a degree of altruism.

	Cheers
		David

> US money, British money, Swedish money ... let's follow the money for once. We will all learn a lot and some will have to stop pretending being true CS.
> 
> Who pays for the musicians...
> 
> JC
> 
> 
> Le 5 mars 2015 à 09:35, David Cake a écrit :
> 
>> 
>> On 5 Mar 2015, at 12:39 am, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>>> .The fact that some  'civil society' persons sided with US and its allies (who as the key power-holders in the global IG realm have their obvious reasons) to do so indeed makes it a sad day for public interest advocacy.... parminder
>> 
>> 	I really find some civil society persons siding with Russia and the KSA on some issues to be a bigger long term concern for support of democracy within civil society, but perhaps that is just me.
>> 
>> 	Regards
>> 
>> 		David
>>>> 
>>>> M
>>>> 
>>>> From: bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net [mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net] On Behalf Of Jeremy Malcolm
>>>> Sent: March 4, 2015 7:42 AM
>>>> To: Jeremy Malcolm
>>>> Cc: Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus - IGC; Nnenna Nwakanma;<bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>
>>>> Subject: Re: [bestbits] [governance] Remarks at UNESCO Closing Ceremony of "Connecting the Dots Conference"
>>>> 
>>>> On Mar 4, 2015, at 4:33 PM, Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm at eff.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> You’re right, but you can nevertheless thank UNESCO for the opportunity to participate on a multi-stakeholder basis and acknowledge that the outcome document is a lot richer than it would otherwise have been because of this.
>>>> 
>>>> Also, please clarify that the Just Net Coalition does NOT represent all of civil society.  This given that Richard Hill on behalf of the coalition has just disrupted the meeting with a formal objection to the document due to its omission to qualify references to multi-stakeholderism with “democratic” (which he incorrectly stated was not objected to during the last drafting session), and its omission to include a reference to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  Other than his objection, the document was adopted by the meeting by consensus.
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Jeremy Malcolm
>>>> Senior Global Policy Analyst
>>>> Electronic Frontier Foundation
>>>> https://eff.org
>>>> jmalcolm at eff.org
>>>> 
>>>> Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
>>>> 
>>>> :: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::
>>>> 
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>>>> 
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