[governance] Towards an Internet Social Forum

David Allen David_Allen_AB63 at post.harvard.edu
Sat Feb 7 09:11:11 EST 2015 

Though I am not always a fan of Lessig's "Code is law," there can be relevance here.  Standards do - unavoidably - impact, even effectively dictate, policy.  Sometimes in most pernicious ways.

David (Allen)


On Feb 7, 2015, at 2:14 AM, David Cake <dave at difference.com.au> wrote:

> The IETF is not the RIRs. The IETF develops protocols, the RIRs do policy development.
> 
> I do not, in fact, regard the level of relevant technical knowledge required to participate effectively in IETF processes to be a problem, given the IETF develops technical standards rather than addressing broader policy issues. The RIRs are a different case.
> 
> I admit to being a bit baffled as to why the various social barriers to full participation in the IETF would preclude analysis of its formal accountability mechanisms.
> 
> I agree that the IETF processes for developing technical standards can not be assumed to be good processes for policy work - but then, no one actually does assume this, the RIRs and ICANN processes are different to the IETF ones for a various good reasons. That does not mean that the IETF processes are no worth studying for anyone interested in Internet governance or multi-stakeholder policy processes. Several processes that are widely used within multi-stakeholder organisations (for example, using Nominating Committees to select members of leadership groups) seem to have come via the IETF.
> 
> Regards
> 
> 	David
> 
> On 7 Feb 2015, at 3:34 am, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> 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
>> 
>> 
>> --Apple-Mail=_4B3144BC-8AF6-42AD-8E66-8DFE7F5B84B1
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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
>>>>> PGP fingerprint: FF13 C2E9 F9C3 DF54 7C4F EAC1 F675 AAE2 D2AB 2220
>>>>> OTR
>>>>> fingerprint: 26EE FD85 3740 8228 9460 49A8 536F BCD2 536F A5BD
>>>>> 
>>>>> Learn how to encrypt your email with the Email Self Defense guide:
>>>>> https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> 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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