[governance] [bestbits] Remarks at UNESCO Closing Ceremony of "Connecting the Dots Conference"

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On Mar 4, 2015, at 10:18 PM, Dave Burstein <daveb at dslprime.com> wrote:
> 
> Neither Richard Hill, yourself nor the U.S. government can redefine the meaning of terms like "democracy," "social rights" and "economic rights." If you think that Richard's proposals to achieve "democracy" are wrong, you're free to say so. Many of us thought the name "German Democratic Republic" absurd. East Germany was nothing like my idea of democracy. That didn't negate the meaning of the word "democracy." Just because an authoritarian state misuses the term doesn't make the idea invalid.

Well, I fully agree.  I wasn't the one who started propagating the idea that multi-stakeholderism and democracy are mutually exclusive.  I don't believe that they are; on the contrary; multi-stakeholder processes aim to deepen democracy.  In particular, contrary to JNC assertions, multi-stakeholder Internet governance is not about giving companies any additional power to write the rules by which they are governed. Companies are already doing that quite nicely, thank you (in non-multi-stakeholder fora such as TPP and many others). Rather, it's about evolving better mechanisms for incorporating the viewpoints of all affected stakeholders into the development of Internet policies in a balanced way. The biggest impact will be on those who aren't currently being heard; such as those who aren't a company's customers, shareholders or advertisers (but are affected by its decisions), those who don't vote for or lobby a government (but do feel the impacts of its laws), and those who don't otherwise have a voice on the international stage (such as border-crossing grassroots networks, and citizens of repressive states).

> There are many ways to come closer to democracy beyond the statist suggestions you attribute to the people you disagree with here. For example, Net Mundial created an initial board with 3 Africans. 3 Asians, 3 Latin Americans, 3 North Americans and Three Europeans, as well as a few self-appointed initiators.  That's far from representative democracy but it's much closer than most other groups making rules for the Internet. 

Again, I really couldn't agree more!

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://eff.org
jmalcolm at eff.org

Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161

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