[governance] Pro-multistakeholderist versus pro-democracy viewpoints

Tue Mar 10 19:49:06 EDT 2015

On Mar 10, 2015, at 7:43 AM, Deirdre Williams <williams.deirdre at gmail.com> wrote:
> One thing that seems to be missing in everything that I have read so far is an explanation of "what is a stake"? I would add to this …… - is a stakeholder an individual or a group?

 In my view of the nature of a digital age, the only possible stakeholder is the individual, or as ICANN’s euphemism might put it, the individual end-user.  The primary challenge of the digital age is not privacy or security or even social justice.  What is at stake is the individual’s autonomy to choose how to embody his or her self in the world.  Although we are defined in social contexts, the Internet was designed to support a way of connecting in those contexts that makes the choices about connection intrinsic to the individual.  The Internet supports systems that distribute functions, not systems that centralize (globalize), or decentralize.  What I fear is any attempt to block the intention of its design.

 We now live in a world where the “100 most widely used websites are monitored by more than 1,300 firms,” tracking 50-70 “attributes,” in order to provide “programmatic buying” of the data produced by our digital lives. (Alexandra Suich. Little Brother: special report on advertising and technology. The Economist, September 13/14).  The digital simulation of my “self,” in the name of targeting my consumption is occurring in real time and I’ve agreed to it.  Suich says that I should think of my smart phone as a “mini-me.” As a taxpayer, one thing I really resent about my state secret police wanting to profile me to make my world safe for democracy is that they could already buy the profile cheaper than they could make it.

We now live in a world where no password is safe.  “The age of the password has come to an end,” and “it’s time to try something new.” (Mat Honan. Hacked. Wired, December 2012). Honan sees the new system of identification as hinging “ on who we are and what we do: where we go and when, what we have with us, how we act when we’re there.”  A multifaceted process that can best be described as an “identity ecosystem” will identify us.  It will “allow our movements and metrics to be tracked in all sorts of ways and to have those movements and metrics tied to our actual identity. “ If we deviate from the pattern expressed by the simulation of our self, then the systems we decide to have secure will sound the alarm and re-lock the door.

What is at stake is the question of who owns the digital story that my identity ecosystem tells, and the simulation of my future behaviours produced by the attributes of me that are tracked?    I have always believed that the answer to that question has to be built into the Internet protocols, not into the monitoring and authentication practices of corporations and governments.

On Mar 8, 2015, at 8:31 AM, Jean-Christophe NOTHIAS I The Global Journal <jc.nothias at theglobaljournal.net> wrote:
> Most MSists are bodyguards to the status-quo.

On Mar 8, 2015, at 12:35 AM, Jean-Christophe NOTHIAS I The Global Journal <jc.nothias at theglobaljournal.net> wrote:
> Let's get back to true CS work.

 It seems to me that, except for Milton Mueller’s “new organically developed internet institutions” that “bypass existing power structures” in “emphasizing individual rights,” all sides of this argument so far are “bodyguards of the status quo."  From my perspective, the true role of CS cannot be separated from the context of its dependent relationship with business and government.  I buy Manuel Castells’ argument that the state in the digital age “is a network state,” where corporations and governments have invented a construct called “civil society” in order to “diffuse conflict and increase legitimacy” through decentralization.  The “true CS work” involves outsourcing of the responsibilities that the other two partners don’t want.

I take it as a given that the Internet’s existence symbolizes new drivers of change that destabilize all existing systems.  That includes the way that conventional political systems address the allocation of power, whether they act on the right, the center or the left.  Beware when the left-leaning advocates of social justice set up the straw dog dichotomy of MS versus democracy.  What they are actually doing is defending the existing framing of political reality that justifies the continuation of their own existence.  The false dichotomy they are stridently defending is a reactionary tactic that uses Internet Governance as a means to other political ends.  The wonder to me is not that they would do this, but that other members of the framing it represents still rise to the bait.  For example …...

On Mar 9, 2015, at 3:44 AM, Benedek, Wolfgang (wolfgang.benedek at uni-graz.at) <wolfgang.benedek at uni-graz.at> wrote:
> We also have for many years a discussion on "democratization" of international economic organizations, which mainly means more participations of CS acting in the public interest.  This can improve the quality and the acceptance of decisions. The call for further democratization of IG in my view goes in the same direction, but much will depend on how united CS is in its demands and if partners can be convinced of the value-added of more equal participation for all.

If I am right that it’s the evolution of the identity ecosystem from the perspective of the individual that’s at stake, then Wolfgang Benedek’s re-statement of the problem, however reasonable it may be, also assumes the reality of the way that conventional political systems address the allocation of power.

On Mar 8, 2015, at 1:00 AM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
> I should say that I'm very unhappy with the state of democratic governance in my own country ……..  My choice is to redouble my efforts in trying to make democracy work better in my country.

And I too am unhappy for the disruptive drift in Canadian politics.  In the name of increased security, we are advancing rapidly towards authoritarian rule by fear.  But what I’m unhappy about is the state of “governance” itself, and I am working to make “governance” in open distributed systems work better.  Milton’s new organically developed internet institutions that bypass existing power structures in emphasizing individual rights, do so by reference to distributed systems.  In those systems, the structural rules are intrinsic to all of their individual participants, not externally imposed as the conventional political systems still assume.  In the longer run, external motivation is never effective in changing individual behaviour.  The differences that make a difference in our behaviours are intrinsic to ourselves.  So we’d better not take the question of who owns the expression of our identity lightly.

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