AW: [governance] RE: Blogpost: The-information-society-is-in-crisis-and-what-to-do-about-it

Fri Jul 18 07:02:48 EDT 2014

Hi Wolfgang and Michael,

This is indeed an very important development and plausible goal, but the 
idea that those parties will agree with it 'because it is good for 
everybody' is not idealistic, it is naive. Here is why (quoting from 
Michael's text).. Please note this is in no way critic of the Michael's 
text -- I am trying to highlight the real issues for the benefit of 
discussion.

"One which doesn’t restrict but rather enables the many but not allowing 
the continued dominance of the few; "

The reasons for any (nation) state or a corporation to exist is to 
ensure the continued dominance of the few over the many. The alternative 
has always been called "anarchy" or "chaos" and presented to the many in 
such a way that they should fear it. Therefore, here I do not see any 
way to convince the "few" to give up any of their dominance of the 
"many". In the past, such has happened for very short time during 
revolution, at the end ultimately replacing one set of "few" with 
another set... of few. Internet, by it's very nature threatens the 
dominance of those few. If let by the many, they will try to tame it too 
-- so far, what saves the Internet is it's design, which closely 
resembles inter-human behavior, at the individual level.

"Freedom from Internet surveillance"

There is no such thing as Internet surveillance. Those "few" just 
discovered that more and more people use this new environment called The 
Internet and they set up tools to perform surveillance (and related 
activities) there too. If we want to stop "the few" from doing any 
surveillance in Internet, we should also stop them from doing any 
surveillance elsewhere. If we are happy to be subject of surveillance 
during out off-line life, why should be want any different for our 
on-line life?

"from the domination of a single language"

Is it not the goal of every culture to spread their language/etc 
worldwide? Is this not something every culture does with pride? Forcing 
communities to refuse to (try to) spread their language/culture outside 
their own circle is not going to happen... because it is these cultures 
who need to decide to do it. For Internet, and computing in general 
removing the reliance on ASCII has been achieved by more education and 
developing the relevant tools. Users then would use the result, because 
it is more convenient for them, not because they were ordered to do so 
or because it was some kind of policy. We do not use ASCII on Internet 
for these reasons...

"If the alternative is a fragmented Internet"

There is a reason, why there are nation state borders and why the 
ordinary Chinese citizen cannot enter the Peoples Palace. Left at their 
devices, those "few" will make sure the Internet is fragmented. Calling 
on their common sense will not help, because they do not posses such...

Perhaps, the only way to deal with this and work towards the goal to 
"not let the dominance of few continue" is to empower the individual 
Internet users even more, with tools, education, support. The Internet 
is uniquely different from other communication networks in that all the 
intelligence resides at the end nodes. The network itself can be very 
dumb. Does not matter if someone tries to do their thing by making the 
network "smarter" (able to collect data, to alter data, to do more), as 
long as the end nodes remain fully functional, the Internet integrity 
cannot be compromised. Internet technology is constantly evolving.

I also do not see a situation, where any government would consider any 
cooperation with independent private entities (that is, such that do not 
provide bribing and other services). If they ever "cooperate", that ends 
at the moment when they "already learned it all". Until the day they 
discover "wait, but there is more" and the cycle repeats.

Sorry if I sound too cynical -- but sometimes watching these processes 
can be very entertaining.. if you forget for a moment that it's not 
funny at all.

Daniel

On 18.07.14 13:24, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:
> Hi Michael,
>
> how a global compact (see below from your IAMCR speech) could look like? Who would be the signatories and how it would differ from the WSIS (2005) intergovernmental Tunis Agenda and the NetMundial (2014) multistakeholder Principles and Roadmap?
>
> Such a "global compact" was proposed again and again since the first WSIS PrepCom in 2002. The language "global compact" emerged from the environment movement in the 1990s (remember Franz-Josef Rademacher und Fridjof Finkebeiner in the Geneva WSIS Phase). Would it look like the CS Declaration from 2003? A Global Compact for the Internet was proposed four years ago by (now outgoing) EU Commissioner Nelly Kroes. But nothing happend. Do you have any outline/structure/language for such a compact and who should negotiate such a text and where the Project should be negotiated?
>
> Did you see what the governments on the BRICS countries had to say to the Internet and the global Internet Governance discussion (para. 48 - 50 of the Fortelezza Declaration)last week? They more or less totally ignored the letter from the five civil society organisations and even the words "freedom of Expression" or "civil society" do not appear in the text.
>
> Wolfgang
>
>
> Form Michael´s text in Hyderabad:
> "What is needed is a global agreement, a global compact which sets out the broad framework for an Internet in the public interest, an Internet evolving and operating in support of the public good understood in the broadest possible way. One which doesn’t restrict but rather enables the many but not allowing the continued dominance of the few; one which is based on true Internet Freedom that is the Freedom from Internet surveillance, from the domination of a single language or a single culture, Freedom for a balanced and widely distributed set of benefits from the outputs of the Information Society.
>
> Such a global compact can in fact be a true democratically anchored multi-stakeholder initiative where national governments recognizing their needs for sovereignty and support of national interests, corporations looking for global level playing fields and stable environments for trade and markets and civil society concerned with human rights and economic and social justice can find common cause in building a new and global Information Society for the common good.
>
> Of course, such a development is completely idealistic and yet the Internet is so important to all of us, to nation states, to the private sector in all of its various components and of course to civil society–and even to those who currently might resist such a development as undermining their current benefits and advantages–for surveillance, for control, for “excessive” profits.  If the alternative is a fragmented Internet, one which has no basis of trust, where this fundamental infrastructure develops with huge gaps and significantly weakened connections then, even they might recognize that an Internet that functions is better than one that doesn’t and if the price of doing so is to have some taming of the wild west of digital space then better a solution of compromise and finding mutual interest and benefit rather than one of winner takes all.
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org im Auftrag von michael gurstein
> Gesendet: Fr 18.07.2014 05:17
> An: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Betreff: [governance] RE: Blogpost: The-information-society-is-in-crisis-and-what-to-do-about-it
>   
> I was told that putting arrowheads at both ends would keep the URL from
> breaking... but no such luck... anyway for anyone who was interested and had
> problems with the link here is the TinyURL
>
> http://tinyurl.com/oehhx8q
>
> M
> -----Original Message-----
> From: michael gurstein [mailto:gurstein at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, July 18, 2014 7:16 AM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: FW: Blogpost:
> The-information-society-is-in-crisis-and-what-to-do-about-it
>
> <http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/the-information-society-is-in-cris
> is-and-what-to-do-about-it/>
>
>
>
>
>

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