[governance] Internet as a commons/ public good

Sat May 4 14:43:46 EDT 2013

Of the intertwining of thought and the geographies of economy...

For whatever it's worth, pre-Socratic Greek thinkers already saw a
connection between geography and philosophy, notably across schools in the
islands of the North-Eastern Mediterranean sea. With a globalized and
further globalizing economy plus several layers of geo-strategic calculus,
natural geography has long become less relevant in terms of providing any
significant independent variables for shaping our thinking (in other words,
in terms of determining the way we think and the outcome of our thinking.)
As the other guy said: It's the economy, stupid! So now, it is not the
natural geography but the economic geography that matters! And with
economic geography (and power) comes political geography, too (in which
"region(s)" Israel or New Zealand belong, again?) Well, power is
everywhere, even within CS, isn't it?

The most intriguing thing for people outside the US is that the people who
seem to be most intent and relentless with every possible argument to shoot
down the state (or disable the state altogether) are those very people
whose state works the most effectively on their behalf particularly on the
international stage, that is, on behalf of them citizens either directly or
through the promotion of and support to their private corporations. Good
for them! But I'd hope things might work better in forging shared interests
and agreements if we could start from a mutual and deep understanding as to
why such is the case in some parts of the world, particularly the US, and
why such is NOT the case elsewhere.

Does anyone here think they fully understand why a certain group of
countries lean toward certain positions, and others the opposite direction?
Might they have some legitimate reasons for that, including self-interest
--whatever that means-- or is someone just plain stupid? If self-interest,
is someone's self-interest more legitimate than others' and how does one
determine that? Does anyone even seek to understand why the split? Why
citizenry in some countries do believe they need the state, and that the
state might even be their best chance to representation on the
international stage? Does anyone really care to bridge the gap? Or are we
just extending the war by all means but lethal weapons? After all, that is
historically a huge achievement: civilization or the replacement of
physical violence by language. Isn't that enough?

We hear about the rule of the victor after a war (I believe there's even a
standard phrase for that, which I'm forgetting.) But what happens before
the war, how does power play out in time of peace? Ideally, the most
powerful must be right! Yeah, things would work more smoothly if we all can
just admit the self-evidence of the superiority of the self-interest of the
most powerful (since no one can really demonstrate whose self-interest is
more legitimate than others'). And if the least powerful want to prevent or
deny them the right to be right, tension becomes high, very high, and
transaction costs follow the same direction especially for those least
powerful. However, I won't go as far as to say the most powerful will wage
a war just to be right, just so that victorious they can rule the day after
the war.  But who am I to know how the most powerful think about such
important things as war and peace, and all the power play in between?

So one thing I seem to agree with MM on is that economy is of prime
importance and determines everything else -- proof is that, along with its
geographical variability, it is so deep-seated in our brains that it
determines our way of thinking. Right? Truth be told, I only doubt about
the might of the economy and economic motivations when I am visiting my
mom's village... anyway, I've always suspected those people to be out of
time, so don't mind them, an economic anomaly history shall rid us of.

mawaki

On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 1:19 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

>
> On Monday 29 April 2013 11:33 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
>  ** **
>
> ** **
>
> I can't say if this is what Mawaki meant, but there are many mobile
> Internet services around the world (including mine, Maxis here in Malaysia)
> that give you free or cheaper access to Facebook than to other social
> networking websites. ****
>
> OK, so this is at least a substantive issue, but this is a classic
> nondiscrimination issue that is typically debated in the context of network
> neutrality. It has absolutely nothing to do with the "public goods"
> character of the internet or with "the commons." You do not get any
> traction on that debate by slinging those words around. If you want to make
> a net neutrality statement, make a net neutrality statement, at least
> people will know what you are talking about.
>
>
> Net neutrality (NN) is a sub issue of the larger commons/ public good
> framing. Well, now that you tell me that we should make a NN statement so
> that people at least know what we are taking about, I cant but take you to
> a few months back when we tried to make an NN statement; as a workshop
> proposal to the IGF. Then some IGC-ians, including some of those who now
> also oppose a common/ public goods statement, opposed the NN statement
> using the same argument, that NN is a term without a clear enough meaning
> !? Never mind that a few countries have NN legislations.  Consequently, IGC
> could not use the term NN in its workshop proposal.
>
> Now, that tells us two things.
>
> One, *beyond a point*, which concept is clear and meaningful and which not
> is a specific political preference. (For instance, many of those who find
> NN and Internet's commons/ public goods character as unclear or meaningless
> formulations never hesitate to use multistakeholder-ism or MSism in their
> statements. Now I know for sure that many times more people - at least
> outside the IGC - are clearer about what NN or commons/ public goods
> character of the Internet means than they are about what does MSism really
> mean.)
>
> Second, it is perhaps now established that this group is clearly unable to
> articulate any advocacy view which has political economy implications, or
> touches positive rights .  It would remain confined to procedural issues,
> mainly promoting MSism, which is a code word for removing governments from
> wherever they can conceivably be removed from. (This connects to larger
> anti-political trends which I wont go into here.) At the most, it can
> support a statement on freedom of expression, which, in absence of
> articulation of at least the connected communication rights  framework,
> look suspiciously close to US's hegemonic 'internet freedom' agenda.
>
> This is very disappointing, and would IMHO compromise the legitimacy of
> IGC as a premier global civil society group. If people have to go elsewhere
> to talk about and articulate political economy issues with respect to the
> global Internet and its governance, it is not a good thing. For one, there
> seems to be no elsewhere to go right now. That is a gap which may need to
> be filled.
>
> parminder
>
>
>   ****
>
> Also, devices such as phones and game consoles typically allow a
> gatekeeper to approve what apps you can use to access the Internet.  For
> example I have an iPhone, and I want to use a Bitcoin client on it - but I
> can't, because Apple decided I can't; and I want to install a Bittorrent
> app on my PS3, but I can't, because Sony decided I can't.  I presume that
> you have read Zittrain's "The Future of the Internet", which although
> becoming dated now gives many other examples.****
>
> Again, this is a matter of the benefits or costs of the platform operator
> having the authority to internalize the externalities of the internet by
> making decisions about which apps/services can be excluded and which
> cannot. There are two sides to that debate. The platform operators argue
> that they should have editorial discretion; some consumer groups actually _
> *want*_ platform operators to make those decisions; many economists and
> regulators feel that competition among platform operators is enough to keep
> abuses in check. There are various examples of where public pressure has
> ended some arbitrary incidents of discrimination. My purpose here is not to
> take either of those sides, it is to point out that that debate has little
> to do with the "public goods" character of the internet. Nor do I see what
> we contribute to that debate with a vague invocation of "the commons."****
>
> An app platform operated as a "public good" or "commons" would mean what,
> exactly? That it is run by the government/public sector? Or that there was
> no management at all, anyone could put anything on it, including malware,
> phishing exploits, advertising driven stuff, and no one would have any
> right to remove it, even if thousands of consumers complain about it? But
> if there is selection, then who decides what is selected and under what
> criteria? The government? Think that'll be better? Which government? ****
>
> In sum, the policy prescription implied by such characterization is not
> clear. This is still a meaningless statement. ****
>
> Also, we are still lacking evidence that this is a growing problem. 6
> years ago, when I first started studying mobile network neutrality, mobile
> walled gardens were the NORM. Most mobile operators confined you to a
> restricted set of special services they had deals with. The advent of the
> iPhone completed eliminated that model. The mobile internet is far more
> open now than it was then. Where is the evidence of a "growing trend?"****
>
> ** **
>
>
>
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