[governance] Internet Governance Debate (Silence and Fatigue)

[Karl Auerbach]

Danny Butt wrote:

You ask good questions.

Let me try to give a couple of observations that are in themselves too 
simplistic to rise to the level of answers.

> 1) If we accept that Internet Governance is a policy issue with a 
> complex scope and few urgent levers, there seems to me to be no great 
> pressure to come to the agreement Karl seeks on "What Internet 
> Governance includes or doesn't include." 

The reason that I mentioned "doesn't include" is that I look at this 
issue as one of allocation of authority and power.

And I share the fear expressed by writers of the 18th century, many of 
whom were not of North American origin, of excessive concentrations of 
such authority.  I do not think that the 21st century internet is immune 
from such concentrations.

This is not to say that there should be "no governance" - but rather 
that structures of governance should be carefully designed to limit 
their powers and to genetically embed into them systems that constrain 
the growth of powers.  We could all benefit by re-reading many of the 
18th century works on these matters.

A while back I suggested that it might be wise for internet governance 
to begin by hewing close to matters that have a firm base in technology 
and a lesser base in social or economic matters.

The reason for this was not that such issues should be avoided, but 
rather that my own preference is to begin in small, constrained contexts 
in which mistakes will naturally tend to be less extensive and can be 
made obvious because the technology just won't do what governance demands.

Once we've learned how to create appropriate institutions in a limited 
context then, again my own feeling, is that it would then be sensible to 
expand governance to issues that have greater ramifications.

> I have yet to see this group agree convincingly on who or what we are 
> supposed to be accountable to as "civil society".

I push hard for the individual voice because I want there to be an 
escape valve.  I do recognize that the lone individual amplifies his/her 
voice by combining with others.

There is difficulty in measuring the weight to give any such aggregation 
of people.  My answer has always been that internet governance should 
look past the aggregation (whether civil society or corporate) and ask 
the people who that aggregation claims as members or employees or 
"stakeholders".

	--karl--
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