[Governance] 170 orgs send an open letter to UN SG to stop plans for a new High Level Multistakeholder Body

[parminder]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56701765

Jack Ma's Alibaba gets heavily fined for abusing its marker dominance
for many years. Bill Gates's Microsoft earned most of its money from its
monopoly OS and office applications, employing blatantly
anti-competitive practices in the 1990's and 2000's ...

Great that It is for Jack Ma and Mrs Gates to give us the roadmap for
global digital cooperation and (non) regulation , as they did through
the "Digital Cooperation' initiative .... It is quick shocking that the
irony of it is entirely lost on most 'civil society' here. Not sure what
is happening.

Under the new 'Digital Cooperation' rubric, being built right now, we
would of course soon have Facebook and Twitter leading policy work on
social media, and Google and Baidu  on data governance.

Already Microsoft plays the biggest part in developing outcomes from the
IGF's best Practices Forum on data and new technologies ... The new
Digital Cooperation rubric is explicitly supposed to carry forward work
from industry dominated activities in best practices forums to global
digital policy stage, stamped with the legitimacy of a 'bottom up
process' and now the authority of the new High Level Multistakeholder
Body that is being set up.

Let the people here, and those actively involved in building and
supporting this new global digital policy architecture, not deny the
responsibility when the fully grown Frankenstein is up and active among
us .... 

ON OECD's digital policy making;

This is an announcement today
https://www.oecd.org/digital/trusted-government-access-personal-data-private-sector.htm

It says " The OECD Committee on Digital Economy Policy, which has long
been at the forefront of global data governance policy work,"

So, well people can still keep denying that OECD's CDEP does 'policy
work' and further that it does 'global policy work' , and in a fully
colonial way keep working with and supporting the OECD digital policy
work, even as they oppose similar possibilities at the global level.

It further says, that the purpose is to "examine the possibility of
developing, as a matter of priority, an instrument setting out
high-level principles or policy guidance for trusted government access
to personal data held by the private sector."

Not policy work, right!

The " Committee agreed to convene a drafting group comprised of
nominated government representatives and experts, including from law
enforcement and national security agencies", for the purpose if
developing a draft instrument.

All drafting group members are gov representatives or otherwise gov
nominated ... And this is just the drafting group, the final decision
making body, the Committee itself, is of course also fully governmental .

But sure, people can keep calling OECD's digital policy work as
multistakholder, and call the same model at the UN level as
multi--lateral and gov capture of digital governance.

parminder


On 03/04/21 12:31 pm, parminder wrote:
>
> *
> *
>
> This part in addressed to others and not Milton.
>
> While I request your engagement with this debate, especially of those
> who have involved themselves with the new 'digital cooperation'
> governance models, I must clarify one thing. My use of personally
> targeted language, if any, against Milton had only and exceptionally
> to do with, and was only in response to, his habitual way of saying
> things like, as he did this time, that the other person is totally
> ignorant, and that signing organisations are some fringe
> inconsequential organisations, doing ideological name-calling, and so
> on .. Take this as a kind of 'private thing' between Milton and me,
> even as we do productively discuss very important issues, concepts and
> ideas.....
>
> Let this bilateral idiosyncrasy of ours not deter you, others, from 
> your public duty to engage in this very important debate, and, as and
> if required, respond to important issues and questions that have been
> raised here.
>
> If the global CS Internet Governance Caucus were not to be discussing
> global digital governance models at this critical juncture when one
> such model is close to being installed, I do not know what the IGC is
> doing at all.
>
> parminder
>
> *
> *
>
> On 03/04/21 12:28 pm, parminder wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 03/04/21 3:55 am, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
>>>
>>> Wow, Parminder, you’re getting wordier and wordier and I am not sure
>>> I have time to continue this, but let me provide some parting shots
>>> before we agree to disagree and go our separate ways…
>>>
>> Dear Milton, I wont wow! you .... Words are definitionally the body
>> of discursive democracy. If more were needed in this case that is for
>> reasons that you may at least equally be responsible for. This
>> discussion is about what mode of global governance is appropriate for
>> (non CIR or non tech) digital issues. It is but in order that key
>> interlocutors let know what kind of model they support and advocate
>> in this regard. You spent a few emails to reach there, but yes now
>> from your last email I get a good idea - though still quite vague. I
>> quote from your email.
>>
>> "To deal with these other problems (meaning, non CIR or non-tech
>> digital issues) we will have to come up with something new. But, like
>> ICANN, it should try to be global and rooted in private law rather
>> than in national institutions. So in my view, that means we have to
>> keep national governments at bay to buy time for organic institutions
>> to evolve."
>>
>> Very interesting! You want global digital governance to be based on
>> private law, or, I understand, institutions built on private law.
>> That is a quite clear, and also an extra-ordinarily bold, assertion.
>>   Entirely your choice to take forward or not this important
>> discussion on appropriate institutional models for global digital
>> governance, but can you please help us understand this more. (Please
>> do not ask me to read your book :) ) Maybe provide us the outline of
>> how such a thing would look in practice. It you have written about it
>> somewhere pl give us a link (again, pl not a whole book though.) That
>> would be an extremely valuable contribution to the debate, and to the
>> very cause of appropriate global digital governance. 
>>
>> You may please provide one clarification -- what or whose private law
>> should these institutions for global digital governance be based on?
>> US? Some other country? Or you have some conception of global private
>> law?
>>
>> I also understand from the above that such a private law based global
>> digital governance is in your mind an interim arrangement to 'buy
>> time for organise institutions to evolve'. I find this even more
>> interesting, and genuinely so... Again your choice to expound further
>> what you have put across somewhat cryptically, but can you tell us a
>> little more about what kind of organic institutions you have in mind
>> even as a future possibility? Are these too also be based on private
>> law? Or, is this something going towards directly elected global
>> parliament kind of things? I am very interesting in any and all such
>> democratic yearnings and projects, and we may indeed find common
>> ground here.
>>
>> You have ridiculed my asking for clear respective positions on global
>> governance models.... Well, I do not know whether you know much about
>> this area or not but such mutual accountabilities and
>> answer-abilities are at core of global and infra-global civil society
>> working and networking. IT for Change, for instance has a 'your right
>> to know' button on our website, and we promise to respond to any
>> question about us within 2 weeks... This is because we use public
>> money on public trust, and cannot refuse to answer public questions
>> about ourselves. It is in the same spirit that I ask questions from
>> you and others in this space.
>>
>> regards, parminder
>>
>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> Again, agree that this discussion is very important. I would invite
>>> others closely involved with the proposal for the new MS body for
>>> digital cooperation to please also get involved - Such important
>>> matters need to go through the test and fire of discursive democracy.
>>>
>>> Yep. Yay, discursive democracy! That’s what we’re doing here, folks.
>>>
>>> > buckets.
>>>
>>> Buckets. Not a very cyber metaphor. Packets? Photons? Anyway….
>>>
>>> >therefore you really do not approve of [OECD] You could be clearer
>>> and more upfront about such
>>>
>>> > disapproval, here
>>>
>>> And why do I need to do that, here? I see no point in denouncing
>>> them on public mailing lists. As I said, I approve of their
>>> research, it’s often useful, good economists and policy analysts
>>> live there. But I did stop participating. These advisory committees
>>> to IGOs have very little voice or power in these organizations.
>>> Essentially you’re a worker for no pay. I choose to voluntarily
>>> donate my time elsewhere.
>>>
>>> >when pushed into an argumentative corner,
>>>
>>> That, sir, is an excellent description of your tactics on these
>>> email lists. But I can’t complain, I do the same thing.
>>>
>>> >Here I will request others who actively work with the OECD model to
>>> let us know their views on  
>>>
>>> >that model, clearly and upfront.
>>>
>>> Parminder, this is a mailing list of a diverse civil society
>>> coalition, not the monthly meeting of a Trotskyite advocacy
>>> collective. Nobody has to make their views known, “clearly and
>>> upfront,” to pass your loyalty test.
>>>
>>> Let’s go back to what this disagreement was fundamentally about. You
>>> want the internet to be controlled by sovereign states, and I want
>>> it to be self-governing and independent of sovereign states, insofar
>>> as that’s possible. Those are two distinct paths for internet
>>> governance. I will fight for its autonomy, you will fight for its
>>> subordination to nation-states. We meet in this space because that
>>> is the space that was set up to have those debates.
>>>
>>> 2 The appropriate model for global digital policy making, as per
>>> you: You have earlier made a clear distinction between CIR
>>> governance (ICANN etc) and governance of other Internet/ digital
>>> issues, and rightly so. I understand that in the latter category we
>>> can include platform governance, data governance, AI governance etc.
>>> Right. I now understand, though once again you state is very mutely,
>>> that you would like to see global governance of platforms, data, AI,
>>> and other digital issues undertaken in the same way as ICANN is
>>> governed Right? You need to be clear and upfront about what is the
>>> model you propose for global governance of these non-CIR digital
>>> issues -- because that is what is at the centre of this discussion.
>>>
>>> Here you make a good point, I do need to be clear about that, as a
>>> matter of practical reality if not logical consistency. So I stated
>>> this “very mutely,” did I? LOL! OK, I will speak louder. Undertaken
>>> the same way as ICANN? Depends on what you mean. You mean, organize
>>> it under ICANN? or start with the US government and then privatize
>>> it? No. ICANN was a governance experiment that can never be
>>> repeated. To deal with these other problems we will have to come up
>>> with something new. But, like ICANN, it should try to be global and
>>> rooted in private law rather than in national institutions. So in my
>>> view, that means we have to keep national governments at bay to buy
>>> time for organic institutions to evolve.
>>>
>>> Milton, are you really saying we should be dealing with various
>>> non-CIR digital public policy issues in the same manner? Where
>>> private sector sits at the same or higher level as governments?
>>>
>>> Definitely. We need a coalition of governments, private sector and
>>> civil society to work together in nonhierarchical forms of
>>> cooperation, and we need to have governments refrain from
>>> militarizing, territorializing, surveilling, censoring and
>>> restricting cyberspace for enough time for peaceful forms of
>>> cooperation to remain possible.
>>>
>>> Well, I repeat, it is scandalous...
>>>
>>> Parminder, scandalizing you is what I live for. It’s the only reason
>>> I’m on this list.
>>>
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