[governance] ISOC-NY and the Day of Action

[Joly MacFie]

As you will hopefully be aware, today July 12 is a designated '*Internet-wide
Day of Action* <https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/>' with the main
purpose of creating sufficient ruckus to make the FCC think twice about
rescinding its *Open Internet Order
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Open_Internet_Order_2010>*

I write, personally, rather than institutionally, to clarify hopefully the
Internet Society's position on this
​,​
 which is somewhat nuanced.

​Firstly​, we welcome the day of action, and indeed any activity that
raises the awareness of the network and its governance. Secondly, we
thoroughly endorse the principles and spirit of openness that drive it.

​That said, there are certain aspects of the Net Neutrality concept and
effort ​that give us pause, the main one being the idea that central
authorities should tell people how to run their networks. The historical
reason the Internet grew, while its peers vanished, was just this lack of
control, husbanded by an ad hoc system of organization, exemplified by the
IETF, of multistakeholder collaboration. This came to be called, in fact,
'the Internet model'.

Globally as, increasingly, authoritarian impulses drive attempts to
control, or shatter the integrity of, the Internet abound, ISOC's role to
advocate against such efforts is clear. Oe of the main ways we do this, and
I recommend a viewing of* Kathy Brown's keynote
<https://youtu.be/1xfSqTUNXmc>* at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai a
couple of weeks back, is to encourage continuing local-driven growth at the
edges i.e. community networks. In that speech, Kathy strongly urges cell
carriers to support, and open their networks to, traffic from such
communities, arguing that the resulting network effects will benefit
everyone.

This, I would suggest, is where the struggle lies today, in building
sustainable modes of bottom up access to the network, rather than
campaigning against yet-to-be manifested horrors of monopolistic
manipulation. Fast lanes and slow lanes are beside the point.  The rallying
cry should be "OPEN THE PIPES!"

joly

-- 

Joly MacFie
President - Internet Society New York Chapter (ISOC-NY)
http://isoc-ny.org          218 565 9365
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20170712/92e29f22/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
To unsubscribe from this list, click here: http://lists.igcaucus.org/sympa/auto_signoff/governance/tapani.tarvainen%40effi.org