AW: [governance] Watch out for that hate speech

[JFC Morfin]

Dear Wolfgang,
there are two distinct problemes we have to be aware of. There is a 
free speech issue which is general to every semiotic exchange. There 
is an open network standard issue which is much more preoccupying 
because it engages our future and the practical survival of our 
liberties because ity will be cast in standard, practices; software, 
machines, technical cultures, education.

We have to remind ourselves what modern communications are: assisted 
relations tools. Typing is mechanic assisted, telephone is energy 
assisted, Internet is logical network assisted, the next layer to 
come (Intersem, Multilingual and Semantic Internet of thoughts) is 
semantic networked facilitation assisted.

Today we still do not much feel that new relational revolution 
because this is mostly part of the JTC1/SG32/WG2 work on metadata 
registries (ISO 11179) etc. and also work on brain.

Actually it is a complete new paradigm in the way Khun means it: a 
different manner of thinking by scientists, engineers, and therefore 
users, politicians, lawyers, and already kids. There is since the 
early 80s a great top level research freeze we see in the Internet 
(the deployment of the global 1983 system), in fundamental science 
(the Strings "failure"), litterature, etc. This results from the 
change identified by Von Bertalanffy in the mid-XX: instead of 
thinking analytically, we more and more need to think systemically. 
Something we observe through the example of the International Data 
Network since the mide 70s, changing from a dialog localized society 
to a polylog global diversity.

This can lead to the vision of three great paradigms we are now familiar with:
- Greeks - qualitative thinking - logic thruth is what we see and 
what is necessary
- Copernic, Keppler, Newton, Dirac, Eistein - quantitative thinking - 
mathematics - truth is what we deduce and verify
- now - significative thinking - semantics - truth is undelilmited coherence.

The major image change is that Greeks considered the earth as the 
center of the world, Keppler the sun, and we each and every of us, 
every being (geocentric, heliocentric, ontocentric). This is what the 
WSIS has documented. The Information Society is not defined as such 
(what is information is still nebulous for many), but it has been 
established that it is to be "people centric, à caractère humain, 
centrada en la persona". This deeply differes from the gread current 
thinking like ISOC "user centric", ICANN "money centric", IETF 
"network centric", or even of the scientific fashionable "anthropy" 
(the universe we live in is the one which permits Man to exist).

The way the Internet is designed and governed today is harmfull. Not 
necessarily for a few stakeholders, but as a whole for the Mankind 
and for the Environment. Same as for other pollutions. Except that 
the pollution here is semantic and scientific (norms and standards). 
Up to now we were protected and constrained by fences and walls, then 
by rules and laws. Today we are protected and constrained by the 
complexity of what we develop to match the complexity of our 
virtualized world. Caring about the way China respects the HR is a 
point (and I care more myself about the way the US industry tries to 
unstabilize my personal HR [through GNI] in France). But the more 
important issue is how the IETF, due to those who sponsors it and its 
R&D, is unprotecting these HR in the coming world. IAB raised the 
issue in RFC 3869, in clear and bold terms. I am afraid no one really 
paid attention, with Unicode and GNI consortia as results (i.e. no 
ML-DNS and Google, MCN, Yahoo! signing sales protection agreements in 
China). Trying to use more or less ethically the existing technology 
is one thing. I think that developping an ethical technology is a 
more efficient other thing.

Please read RFC 3935 which defines the IETF mission. It expressly 
says that IETF does not develop the technology that could be, but the 
one which corresponds to its core values. Has anyone but me in the 
civil society considered what are the IETF core values? and if they 
match or not the HR core values? I challenged the IETF on that 
grounds: the IESG officially published (response to an appeal) that 
the IETF has nothing to do with HRs. I think we may have a solution 
to make IETF change their way in the future. It called for work and 
time. We will see in the coming weeks.

Just to remind that an open Internet technology is an absolute 
prerequiste to a free usage of the Internet.
jfc

At 17:42 12/12/2008, wolfgang.benedek at uni-graz.at wrote:
>Dear all,
>I can well understand the cautioning of Milton re arbitrary 
>definition of hate speech. There is always the danger of censorship 
>by self-appointed watchdogs of the proper content.
>
>However, there is also the fact of the "poisoning of the web" by 
>different kind of illegal content, which, like in any society, 
>should not be tolerated. Art. 20 para.2 of the ICCPR on the 
>prohibition of incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence 
>through any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred" is as 
>relevant as is the International Convention on Racial Discrimination 
>of 1965. Still there is a need for competent bodies to interpret 
>such provisions as they do exist on all levels, like in particular 
>the European Court on Human Rights for the European Convention on 
>Human Rights or the Human Rights Committee for the ICCPR. Defamation 
>is a different concept, more open to be abused for dominant 
>interests, and therefore I welcome the news from Miriam that the 
>development moves into the direction of the approach of Article 20:2 ICCPR.
>
>Still, I see a need to be vigilant against hate speech and other 
>illegal content in order not to leave cyberspace to be misused for 
>illegal purposes. Decentralized forms of whistle blowing (hotlines) 
>could be possibility, but there needs to be due process how to deal 
>with the information thus obtained, which seems to me a still not 
>fully resolved challenge. Accordingly, I'm looking for best practice 
>in this regard.
>
>Wolfgang
>
>Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Benedek
>Institut für Völkerrecht und Internationale Beziehungen
>Institute for International Law and International Relations
>Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
>Universitätsstraße 15, A4
>A-8010 Graz
>Tel.: +43 316 380 3411
>Fax.: +43 316 380 9455

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