[governance] RE: Human rights and new gTLDs

[Milton L Mueller]

-----Original Message-----
From: Vittorio Bertola [mailto:vb at bertola.eu] 

>Milton, the position you are pushing is that anyone 
>should be free to get a domain such as ".abortion" 
>(your example) or ".childpornography" or dot-whatever-
>blasphemy, and if there are countries of the world that 
>are unhappy about that, they should censor these 
>domains or break out of the global Internet.

No, I am merely calling your attention to the obvious fact that if
countries have the right to censor one level of the name space there is
no moral, legal or practical basis for denying them the right to censor
any other level. We do not advocate censoring any domains, we have
simply pointed out that countries can and will do that. What you
blithely ignore is that they also do so at the second level. Tell me
again why you defend their right to do this at the top level and oppose
it at the second? I don't recall hearing the justification.

>We live in a time where governments are looking for 
>whatever excuse to start to put licenses, rules and 
>controls over the Internet. Giving them a good one 
>is the last thing we should be doing.

And that is precisely what you have been doing. See below. 

>Moreover, if there is half of the world that is offended 
>by such a visible reference to, say, abortion or blasphemies 
>or whatever, I think that you have to respect that. 

Here is the excuse you offer them. Obviously, this argument has nothing
to do with whether a name or concept is in the top level, the second
level or the content of a web site itself. 

>The basis of living together in a globally diverse 
>world is to respect each other. 

Yes, indeed, and tolerance of diversity is the surest test of this kind
of respect. The right to filter or block access should be devolved to
the user level. 

The basic conceptual mistake you have made is to confer upon TLD
creation some kind of massive global public endorsement. The idea that
there is something "special" about creating a TLD is a
politico-technical myth. The administration of the TLD space is just a
technical coordination function, no different in principle from the
coordination of second level domains. 

>I know that this might in some cases tend to 
>self-censorship, 

Thanks for the honesty. But in your formulation, it does not "tend to"
self-censorship, it is a full-fledged philosophy of self-censorship.

>are just talking about not slapping certain 
>issues in the face of some stakeholders through 
>a highly provocative global political action).

I would invite you and others to examine the logical relationship
between the statement above and the statement below:

>you need to get the www.info.abortion URL to speak 
>about abortion, and that your freedom of expression 
>would be seriously harmed if you had to resort to 
>publishing the same speech at www.abortion.info instead.

In the latter paragraph, you are arguing that there is no difference in
the two identifier formulations and that the issue is trivial. In the
earlier paragraph, you are saying that the mere existence of the TLD
"slaps people in the face" and is "highly provocative." Which argument
are you making, my friend? 

--MM

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