[governance] Facebook profiles blocked and content removed in Brazil

William Drake william.drake at uzh.ch
Fri Jun 1 04:41:51 EDT 2012


Hi Marilia

On May 31, 2012, at 11:28 PM, Marilia Maciel wrote:

> I am totally in favor of achieving "harmony" on this and other topics. But this is a crossborder issue that involves private forces and public interest. Tell me the place where we can globally tackle this issue, all together, in a multistakeholder fashion and I will be the first to attend and try to contribute so that “harmony” can come about. But first we probably need to fight for such a space to exist.

I guess I'm with Roland and others who'd note that the Internet is not the web and the web is not FB, so while FB's TOR are overly paranoid and restrictive, there are other places to post stuff, and it's at least debatable whether this rises to the level of being global Internet governance.  But I have different questions.  In conversations in Geneva and here (and the IT4C letter did the same), you've cited FB policies as evidence there's an urgent need for enhanced cooperation in the form of a platform under the UN.   But why not organize an online campaign---per ACTA SOPA PIPA—of fellow FB users to put pressure on FB directly (and for that matter, use the IGF in parallel to stoke the debate), rather than creating a centralized uber mechanism responsible for this and all else?  Why do you think a WG/CIRP/whatever that would be populated inter alia by Geneva reps of the very governments that make FB paranoid in the first place would be more likely to agree that nudity is ok and FB should allow it without fear of government reprisals?  

There are many CS and other actors who share your concerns about individual issues---FoE IPR privacy surveillance etc---and the meta issue of concentrated power but just have trouble seeing a one-stop shop in the UN as the right solution.  Since the case for why it would be really hasn't been made in any detail, isn't there a risk that insisting it's the only option left-minded people may consider (and in some tellings, that any nonbelievers are morally suspect, don't care about developing countries, etc) just limits coalition building?  Can we agree that at the Baku pre-event and beyond, it'd be useful to work through the relative merits of different institutional designs?  Personally, I've always favored WGs in the IGF & strengthening/connecting advocacy coalitions working in different spaces (although as the APC network of networks effort showed, that's difficult), but there are other options, a new UN body being just one.   So let's compare and contrast?

Best,

Bill


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