[governance] Towards an Internet Social Forum
michael gurstein
gurstein at gmail.com
Fri Feb 6 14:34:56 EST 2015
Thanks for this Tim et al...
We've had this discussion before on the applicability of the ITEF experience
to broader areas of (non) technical Internet Governance.
As I think I mentioned at the time, I would be interested in being pointed
to either an analysis of the IEFT experience which developed a model of the
processes involved at a sufficient level of generality that they could be
assessed against a variety of external criteria such as democratic
representivity, formal accountability, scalability, generalizability across
issue areas etc. (As I recall I was at an earlier time pointed to an
academic thesis recounting the decision making methodology of the IETF but
it was at such a level of specificity that it was impossible (at least for
me) to draw any conclusions from this regarding the possibility of wider
applications.) Alternatively/additionally I would be interested in seeing an
analysis of the IETF experience which seriously looked at how generalizable
that experience might be into other domain areas with quite different
demographic, content associated, cultural and other characteristics.
As I mentioned in my reply to David (Cake) in the absence of such
analyses/information as the above and looking at the IETF only from a very
considerable distance I consider it to be something of a "walled garden"
given what appear to the (invisible but very real) barriers to
entry/participation based on level of technical skill/knowledge, cultural
background, level of education, demography (a very skewed gender ratio)
among others. These barriers to entry are such as to fatally limit the
direct generalizability of the IETF model (these barriers presumably could
not and moreover one assumes, should not be repeated in other instances of
MS implementations). They further suggest that given the particularity of
the IETF experience few or no useful rules or processes can prima facie be
identified for replication in other domain areas so as to achieve the
benefits of MSism that are being ascribed to the IETF example.
My point being that in order for the example of the IETF to be useful as a
basis for a more general argument in favour of MSism it has to be
demonstrated that the experience of the IETF is generalizable across
domains, demographies, cultures etc. I have yet to see any serious research,
analysis or even argument that makes the case for such generalizability.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Ashton-Hart [mailto:nashton at consensus.pro]
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2015 11:01 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Jane Coffin
Cc: Tim McGinnis; michael gurstein
Subject: Re: [governance] Towards an Internet Social Forum
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And from me too.
On 6 Feb 2015, at 19:48, Jane Coffin <coffin at isoc.org> wrote:
> +1 to this.
>
> On 2/6/15, 3:31 AM, "McTim" <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Michael,
>>
>> Must be brief as I am in an airport on my way to one of those 5 star
>> hotels now.
>>
>> Study the RIRs (or IETF) as models of BUTOC (bottom-up, open,
>> transparent, consensus based) MSism.
>>
>> They have 3+ decades of functioning experience to guide you.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/6/15, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hmmm...
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
>>> [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy
>>> Malcolm
>>> Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2015 4:17 PM
>>> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
>>> Subject: Re: [governance] Towards an Internet Social Forum
>>>
>>> On 5/02/2015 3:20 pm, michael gurstein wrote:
>>>> Unfortunately Jeremy, your "balanced framing" begs the most
>>>> fundamental
>>> questions, which I, at least, have been asking for some specific
>>> answer for, for some time (this is at least the 3rd time that I have
>>> presented the following questions in one or another form).
>>>
>>> Each time you've asked you've been answered, so I'm not sure that
>>> anything I could say would satisfy you, even if I had the time to
>>> reply at length which I don't. So just some quick points.
>>>
>>> [MG>] and a few in return... (and yes, each time I've been "answered"
>>> with
>>> similar statements as below i.e. statements of the "well we can't
>>> point to anything right now but come back in xxx years or so and
>>> we'll have a good set of MS models to show you...; circular and
>>> self-reflexive arguments/definitions; pointing to unpublished Ph.D.
>>> theses; that sort of thing... hardly the stuff for replacing 3000
>>> years of building popular democracy and hardly sufficient
>>> (hopefully) to persuade us to all stampede towards governance by
>>> unelected elites unless you are already committed in that
>>> direction...
>>>
>>>> Perhaps now would be a good time for you or someone to actually
>>>> give some
>>> detail on what is meant by:
>>>> a. multstakeholder models--which ones, how are they structured,
>>>> what are
>>> the internal/external accountability mechanisms etc.etc.--you know
>>> the normal things that people might expect to know if they are being
>>> asked to commit their and our futures to these "models"--or are we
>>> all now to give up these questions since the elites have decided
>>> that these matters are of interest and are seeming to be proceeding
>>> with or without the consent of the governed.
>>>
>>> Many of the fundamentals are covered in the NETmundial principles,
>>> but the operationalisation of these principles remains a work in
>>> progress.
>>> For ICANN that work has been ongoing 17 years, for the IGF it has
>>> been
>>> 10 years... but the Westminster system took about 300 years to
>>> develop to where it is, so your demand for a comprehensive blueprint
>>> now seems a bit unreasonable. Having said that, a number of us
>>> including me have put forward some quite specific proposals, which I
>>> can point you to.
>>> The NETmundial meeting itself also shows what becomes possible where
>>> the political will is there.
>>>
>>> [MG>] This is the best you can do? Describing the governance model
>>> to which you are asking the world to entrust the electronic
>>> infrastructure which increasingly underlies all aspects of daily
>>> life--as "a work in progress"; as the "work" of a thoroughly bloated
>>> out of control agency living very high off the hog on their
>>> accountable Internet tax revenue whose governance model on seems to
>>> be to spend a zillion dollars ferrying anyone who seems to have an
>>> interest to every possible exotic 5 star hotel location anywhere in
>>> the world, wining and dining this thoroughly compromised army into
>>> stupefaction and then calling that governance; as a bunch of half
>>> cooked proposals squirreled away in inaccessible jargon and
>>> inaccessible blogs; and as a one two day event organized to respond
>>> to an Internet calamity and then hijacked to support the interests
>>> of precisely those who sponsored the calamity...
>>> hmmm....
>>>
>>>> b. democratic representation--okay, now you have used the "D"
>>>> word--what
>>> exactly do you mean and how does this fit into the above "models"
>>> (and please no vague hand waving about an equally undefined
>>> "participatory democracy"
>>>
>>> There are reams of literature on this, have you read any of it? Or
>>> for an overview, see
>>>
>>> http://igfwatch.org/discussion-board/a-civil-society-agenda-for-inte
>>> rnet-
>>> gov
>>> ernance-in-2013-internet-freedom-in-a-world-of-states-part-3.
>>> For the next IGF there is a proposal (on which I'm a advisor) to
>>> hold a deliberative poll. It doesn't mean that everyone in the
>>> world has to be involved, it means that about 300 people who cover
>>> all significantly affected perspectives should be involved.
>>>
>>> [MG>] I (re)read the blog post you pointed to and what I got was a
>>> rather repetitive set of circular definitions defining MSist
>>> "democracy" as being "how MSism is currently operating". So MSism
>>> is fundamentally democratic because MSism is how democracy is
>>> defined (according to the blogpost) ...
>>> If
>>> it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck then by (my) definition
>>> it must be a dog because I want it to be...
>>>
>>>> c. "global Internet governance in which governments ... not a
>>>> priori have
>>> the lead role"--who in the absence of governments then does have the
>>> lead role, how is their role determined, who decides who has the
>>> lead role in which circumstance, how (if at all) are those
>>> alternatively in the "lead role" to be held externally accountable,
>>> what are their internal processes of accountability in these
>>> alternative modalities, how is representitivity/inclusivity
>>> maintained/ensured (or perhaps it doesn't
>>> matter?) in the absence of some form of anchored democratic processes.
>>>
>>> I posted about this yesterday in response to Parminder.
>>>
>>> [MG>] Which as I recall was less an answer than another circular
>>> argument... According to your post we resolve issues of
>>> accountability and jurisdiction as between governments and
>>> multistakeholder processes by developing additional multistakeholder
>>> processes to address these issues and presumably we resolve issues
>>> for governing those processes by developing further MS processes and
>>> turtles on turtles as far as the eye can see (with nary a reference
>>> to a democratic process or democratic accountability anywhere up or
>>> down the line...
>>>
>>> Quite frankly I'm still waiting for something on MSism with some
>>> substance and depth to discuss. One of the reasons for the
>>> degeneration in the level of debate is that the debate is so
>>> conceptually lopsided. Without something serious to discuss
>>> concerning what is meant by MSism and the MS model in broader
>>> Internet Governance all that is possible is the verbal ping pong
>>> which everyone is so bored with.
>>>
>>> M
>>> --
>>> Jeremy Malcolm
>>> Senior Global Policy Analyst
>>> Electronic Frontier Foundation
>>> https://eff.org
>>> jmalcolm at eff.org
>>>
>>> Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
>>>
>>> :: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::
>>>
>>> Public key: https://www.eff.org/files/2014/10/09/key_jmalcolm.txt
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>>> Learn how to encrypt your email with the Email Self Defense guide:
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Cheers,
>>
>> McTim
>> "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
>> route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel
>>
>
>
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