[governance] Where are we going?

[wcurrie at apc.org]

Those of us who have been subject to empires understand one thing very clearly: no empire ever permitted freedom of speech. :) 

That said, the point is that if ICANN is reponsible only for the technical regulation of the internet (as was repeatedly insisted upon by ICANN's ultimate authority, the USG, during WSIS), then the moment it makes a decision on a matter that is not technical but semiotically, ideologically and connotatively loaded, e.g. on a TLD for the global pornography industry, it is moving out of technical regulation and into the sphere of public policy.

This is one of the reasons why the EU placed the issue of public policy principles for the management of critic internet resources on the Tunis agenda. It is not going to go away by ignoring or downplaying it as an issue. It is  the elephant in the room.

The .xxx decision is a mere symptom of the global public policy malaise on developing globally acceptable rules for governing the internet in the global public interest. As others have observed, the USG missed an opportunity to deal with this issue head on at WSIS. I'm afraid the issue is now doomed to recur in the form of endlessly-recurring morbid symptoms until the next opportunity or crisis arises to deal with it - unless ICANN takes the initiative to discuss it openly through an approriate public, transparent and administratively fair process, in which all stakeholders can be heard.

Willie
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld  

-----Original Message-----
From: "Milton Mueller" <Mueller at syr.edu>
Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2007 12:09:52 
To:<george.sadowsky at attglobal.net>,"Karl Auerbach" <karl at cavebear.com>, <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
Subject: Re: [governance] Where are we going?

>>> george.sadowsky at attglobal.net 4/4/2007 9:26 AM >>>
>I worry that the "free speech imperialism" that 
>characterizes some positions regarding TLDs and 
>the segmentation of the domain name space 
>espoused today is an unproductive attempt to foist a 
>moderately narrow and parochial view of the world 
>onto a global structure, and that it will be 
>counterproductive.

George, 
Name-calling of this sort is strangely Orwellian. You are calling me
and other liberals who are concerned about the obvious resitrctions
being imposed on TLD strings  "imperialists" and "free speech nazis"
(this is what you called me in Lisbon, remember?). 

By resisting ICANN's TLD policy all I am trying to do is leave the door
open to diversity, contending ideas, controversial ideas and not have
anything that powerful people don't like immediately thrown out of
consideration. Tell me how this is "imperialistic," if you care to
engage in rational discourse. Who am I forcing to do what by telling a
global authority that it shouldn't censor domains? 

On the other hand, won't the policies you advocate reward intolerance?
Aren't you are saying that any entity in the world that doesn't like
someone else's label or speech will have grounds to challenge it and
kill it. Is that not more akin to the policies of imperialist and
fascist states than anything we are advocating?

I do not, of course, believe that you are either an imperialist or a
nazi and would never use those terms against you. Instead, I suspect
that you believe that you can avoid controversy and make ICANN's life
easier and gain political acceptance for it. You are thus advocating
self-censorship and deference to authority, in the hopes that that will
buy ICANN some time. The attitude is, "don't do anything that will
provoke people." Apparently you fail to recognize that the price of this
kind of appeasement of power never works long term, it only feeds their
appetite for more control.

And the subterranean anger you express by using unfair and strong terms
such as "imperialist" and "nazi" indicates nothing about me, only how
threatened you must feel by these efforts to clearly identify the
implications of what ICANN is doing.

There is no such thing as a "free speech nazi," George. Freedom of
expression and action are the antithesis of those concepts and the only
real safeguards against the intolerance and top-down control associated
with those ideologies. 


____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance