[governance] Networkworld: ICANN Sets Up A Coalition to address new Internet governance challenges

[Garth Graham]

On 2013-11-20, at 9:27 PM, michael gurstein wrote:

> [ICANN has]... an interest in/responsibility for supporting the weakest link in that multi-stakeholder Internet ecology i.e. Civil Society.  

The weakest link in the Internet Ecology is NOT civil society.  That’s just one more abstraction at that particular layer of social construction. The weakest link is actually a phrase that’s still so horrible as to be almost useless in analysis – the individual Internet user.
 
Soon, more than half the human race will be basing capacity to relate on using the Internet.  Policy makers need to figure out how to adjust the consequences of that enormous shift in peer-to-peer relationships without degrading the naturalness of the ecosystem that provides it.  How are they doing so far with other natural ecosystems?
 
However clumsy in addressing the needs of the individual Internet user to be “represented” in the domain name system ICANN might be, at least it still recognizes the problem. And the rise of the ALAC within ICANN provides some evidence that progress towards a useful dynamic balance in remembering and addressing the problem is being made.
 
I would submit that the critical “link” in the Internet ecology is actually the stewards of the uses of ICTs for community development.  Their creed to “share” the experience of what they are learning, rather than to control or regulate, is always left out of the governance debate.  But they are still there, learning and sharing, whether anyone “resources” them or not.

GG
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