[bestbits] [governance] Nominations for IGF closing and opening speakers

Sat Oct 24 14:56:36 EDT 2015

Parminder historically the structure of the imperialist
system has rested on three key and complementary pillars that have allowed
monopoly capitalists to retain and enhance control over raw materials, labor and
services. The retreat/decline in Keynesian strategies in most of Global South
either by design or our incompetency has slowly filled up by a neoliberal
development paradigm that brings to the forefront the nonprofit complex an
integral component and driving force of today’s imperialism. The expansion of
the nonprofit-corporate complex has created a new class of professionals, who are
more inclined to serve the status quo, rather than working for social change. It
has also forced the nonprofit to become more accountable to funders/donors
rather than to our communities. Take a look around and you will see that many
of the nonprofit are forced to become surrogates to their donors, those
involved in the internet governance landscape are no different. 

The one government plus private sector and cherry picked nonprofit
led Internet governance model will not change anything at least for the
marginalised in Global South unless the concept of public interest can be
introduced to override the sectoral interest of certain stakeholders in the
internet governance model.  Best, Arzak 

Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2015 22:49:35 +0530
From: parminder at itforchange.net
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
CC: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [governance] [bestbits] Nominations for IGF closing and opening speakers

Going past nominations by names, I would like to speak about the
substance that I want represented in civil society speeches..

This is the 10th anniversary of WSIS which called for a people-centred
and development-oriented information society. Let us examine if we have
a more people-centric Internet today than we had in 2005, and if not so,
what are the reasons, and what should have been done, and needs to be
done, especially from the point of view of governance of the Internet.
Can we agree to this being a key element that we should be focussed on?

The Internet to me is rather less people- centric in its 'design' today
than it was 10 years ago... Of course so many more people use the
Internet today, which is rather obvious for a such a breakthrough
technical advance, but for the present purpose lets keep the focus on
its design; is it more people-centric today than it was 10 years ago,
and if it is not, does this not point to a failure of its governance (or
non-governance) model or paradigm. (No, I am *not* talking about the
techno- management of the Internet, or of ICANN, which is a very small
and relatively quite an insignificant part of IG, although there are
also so many problems in that part of IG.)

Although the Internet has so many different angles, aspects and
features, to assess whether we have a more or less people-centred
internet, with more or less concentration of power on it, lets just take
two paradigmatic cases;

(1) Email was still the major p2p Internet application in 2005, but
today social media has overtaken it. Email system was based on public
standards written by IETF and other standards organisations, whereby
there were no lock-ins and every email service could interact with all
others based on these public protocols. Compare that with a Facebook or
a Twitter and you will easily see what I am driving at. Yes, such p2p
interactive affordances are quite more complex than an email based
interaction, but then increased complexity is the way technology grows
and it does not mean that public standards in each social media kind,
personal life sharing, or public instant news sharing, are not possible.
They are very much possible. Just that in those early times the
commercial eagles did not have such an evil eye on the basic platforms
of the Internet, but today the latter have been shaped into the key
means for constructing huge economic advantage through rent seeking by
monopolising each 'field'.  (The open email system is also being eaten
up by Google through various kinds of lock-in and other surreptitious
methods.)

(2) In 2005, Web was the unchallenged king on the Internet, today
proprietary apps are increasingly taking its place. Again, I am not
saying that we should not move to more specialised uses of the
Internet;s basic platform, if that is what is more advantageous to us.
However, the more public nature of the web and the largely  proprietary
nature of app and the ecosystem in which they thrive today tells an
interesting tale, on which I would not expand at this point.

As I said, there are just two illustrative examples out of the many ways
in which the Internet is becoming more and more controlled by few
economic actors, which, I would suggest, correspondingly reduces its
people-centric nature. {There is a similar analysis to be made about how
governments have sought to increase their control over the Internet. I
am admittedly stressing one side of the problem, which in my view is
hugely understated in current civil society discourses.)

The next point then is, does such a very significant reduction of
people- centric nature of the Internet, and a hugely increased
concentration of power on it (and the correspondingly distorted 'design'
of it, which is determined by its 'governance'), not speak of a failed
model of governance (or non-governance, as I must always add). If so,
what is our analysis of this failure of IG in the decade post WSIS, and
of what should have been done, and what should be done now.

I think there is a limit to which we can simply keep extolling the great
wonder that the IGF is - we must explain what inter alia has it really
contributed, or failed to contribute, to the mentioned very problematic
development, which have been taking place under its watch, and the watch
of a veritable travelling circus that the global IG scene has become.
Even I, who is trying to cut down my engagements with it, find it almost
embarrassing to be meeting the same set of people (quite friendly though
we are) several times in a year. How does all this square up with a
rapidly increasing concentration of power on the Internet. If may also
not be a mere coincidence that the last decade of the Internet induced
social changes is also the period over which we witnessed one of the
greatest concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands!

In this background, ones heart cringes to witness, as I had to witness
last week in New York, how the UN's WSIS + 10 review process is behaving
as if there is just nothing wrong with the Internet, and the manner in
which it is effecting large-scale structural changes in the world, in
almost all sectors. There was practically no mention at all of the
numerous issues in this regard that we read almost daily in the
newspapers (Volkswagen's software cheating, John Deere claiming that its
tractors are in fact software with mechanical parts, and so on. To
mention just two news that I read over the last 2-3 weeks alone. The
list in fact is unending). There was no political energy at all in the
room (at WSIS review), and everyone seemed wanting the proceedings to
end quickly so that they could leave. This is quite in contrast to the
politically charged discussions during the original WSIS... What has
happened in the meanwhile? What is happening to governance of the
Internet? We must remember that those who, during the WSIS + 1 process,
were needed to make the case for problematic features of global IG today
were unable to do so also largely because those who are supposed to
produce ideas and do advocacy in this regard, especially as representing
those who are most marginalised,  have failed to do so. I mean the civil
society and the academia.
,
I will like to vote for such a person to speak as a civil society rep -
speaking for the interests of those who are marginalised worldwide - who
can bring these critical questions to the table. Someone who can bell
the global IG cat, and tell the world that global IG is not working, and
the Internet is today largely controlled by big business and people are
simply its consumers and clients, and not the owners, which was what a
people centric information society and people centric Internet was meant
to be...

Parminder

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20151024/48b2e62b/attachment.htm>