[governance] Internet as a commons/ public good

[Milton L Mueller]

From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of parminder

You say that the statement of the problem is not true. I believe that most people here agree with the problem statement  of

“the growing danger for the Internet experience to be reduced to closed or proprietary online spaces.”

[Milton L Mueller] If most people agree, they should be able to provide examples. Yet, I am still waiting for specific examples. Examples of both what specifically is meant by “reduction to closed or proprietary online spaces”, and evidence of the “growth” of this problem.

So far, the only concrete reference I have seen comes from Mawaki, and it is a good example of why I am resisting this statement. Mawaki claimed “that the internet experience of more and more users --maybe the younger ones-- is becoming limited to particular apps, notably those of social media such as Facebook (FB).” Now, I am not a Facebook member and do not particularly like that type of online community. But I would quibble with the definition of Facebook as “closed,” in that joining is free and pretty much open to anyone, and using it does not prevent anyone from accessing anything else on the internet. FB does not alter or in any way enclose the Internet protocols or standards.

If you don’t like FB because people spending time on it are not looking at other things on the internet, the complaint seems churlish. Would one then call the IGC governance list a closed space? If you join you only see messages from a few hundred <cough> brilliant minds debating internet governance, you do not get exposed to, say, an email list of zoologists who specialize in zebras or Hello Kitty fans. By enclosing ourselves in this lovely space are we an example of this terrible phenomenon? Well, we could do something about that – and shut down the list.

Or are we just complaining about young people wrapping themselves up in Facebook, like 1960s parents complaining that their kids watch too much television? Are we telling those folks that we know better than they do how they should spend their online time?

What, exactly, is the political point we are making? What is the policy that is advocated? Are we going to force people to leave FB? Ban private social media? Nationalize FB (as one academic who should know better has suggested)? Oh by the way, which national government will be the one to nationalize it? After we nationalize it, how do we know that the policies will be better? I mean, if it’s run by a government, what could possibly go wrong?

Are we going to start a new social media platform? What if no one comes? What if they like FB better? Will we then complain, as Mawaki seemed to do, that they really don’t know what’s good for themselves and perhaps we should make the choice for them?

You are proposing that we add to the statement the need to save and promote its private (property) character as well. Now, advocacy statements are not made like this. For instance, most global civil society networks will accept an advocacy statement like "we should promote the commons character of knowledge". Almost all of them will scoff at the demand to add to this something like "we do recognise the need to privatise knowledge to provide enough incentives for its further creation and so on", while admittedly, there is some truth in this possible addition. But if you add this, it is not worth making a statement at all. The purpose which was intended is not served.

[Milton L Mueller] Thank you for the frank acknowledgement of the partisan and polarized nature of this statement! So the purpose is to rally global civil society networks who get excited at the “commons character of knowledge” and to alienate and exclude those who do not. You are saying that we are not interested in anyone with a more nuanced understanding of the Internet, and we are not interested in advocacy that educates the public about the unique combination of public and private goods on the internet. We just want to throw some red meat to the people with a set ideology. Is that it?

How could we possibly arrive at a consensus statement if that is the way you want to do things? You are taking the current political divisions as a given and trying to exploit them, rather than defining a new politics of the internet and building something new.

Look, I am sure we can reach agreement if we are trying to arrive at an accurate and constructive understanding of public and private goods on the internet, and if we are trying to advocate policies that promote that balance and have broad support in IGC.
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