[ALAC] Bad Actor Admission

[Bastiaan Goslings]

> On 2 Mar 2019, at 23:42, John Laprise <jlaprise at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I do worry about that Evan but I think their control over human behavior is tenuous if not fleeting at best.


Hmmm, not sure there, but seeing e.g.:

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/02/facebook-global-lobbying-campaign-against-data-privacy-laws-investment

I do not know whether I need to be more concerned about these grand-scale lobbying efforts of private sector quasi-monopolies or by politicians being so susceptible to them

It does confirm to me there is all the more need for civil society and end-user influence and push back. I take it we all agree on that. Of course the discussion we’re having is not only about the ‘why’ but especially about the ‘how’. I do not have the answer. Although I find the almost academic discourses of some of our colleagues in this thread very interesting, I think the real challenge is to translate our concerns into practical and feasible measures which we can also clearly communicate to our constituencies in order to engage them.

-Bastiaan

> 
> IP law is a great example. Yes IP interests are striving to impose it on the Internet, and yet in those places that are bastions, we see IP ebbing. This week’s rebellion by the UC system from Elsevier for example. Additionally the US IP lobby’s unwillingness to even try for another copyright extension because of previous resistance to SOPA/PIPA suggests that IP has reached a high water mark in the US. Outside the western world, IP is just another expression of colonialism and exists only to the extent that governments feel compelled to acknowledge it; shallow roots indeed.
> 
> Private (corporate) interests are rising and they contend with governments more than with civil society. It’s a three sided struggle where western governments invited civil society into the game because they knew that despite the former’s reservations and hostility, at the end of the day civil society would be more likely to side with the West. Commercial interests are a mixed bag to the degree they are beholden to states.
> 
> I disagree that damage to trust in the DNS that has pushed people to search engines; that’s practicality. The tyranny of abundant choice drives people to search engines just as the need to limit noise drives people to use apps rather surf the net on their phones. It’s the convenience/lower cognitive load, not trust.
> 
> While we’re at it, let’s also take a moment to remember that the Internet ~50 years old and the web is about ~25 year old…in the US (which largely had earlier better access). Simultaneously, we’ve had paradigmatic (yes I used it so there!) shifts in every other related technology including storage, processing, software, bandwidth, infrastructure, and user interface. All this is to say in a deadpan Buddhist way that there is no control; just the momentary, fleeting illusion of control. Just ask AOL, MySpace, IBM PC division, Lucent, MCI, 3COM, Motorola etc.
> 
> I empathize with your frustration, Evan.
> 
> I choose to persist.
> 
> “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” ― H.L. Mencken
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> John
> 
> PS I swear that I’m going to make that Mencken quote my official sig line at ICANN.
> 
> From: Evan Leibovitch <evanleibovitch at gmail.com>
> Sent: Saturday, March 2, 2019 1:43 PM
> To: John Laprise <jlaprise at gmail.com>
> Cc: Javier Rua <javrua at gmail.com>; ICANN ALAC list <alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>; Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
> Subject: Re: [ALAC] Bad Actor Admission
> 
> I don't agree.
> 
> Completely absent from Javier's analysis - the most important factor in the negative side of the growth of the Internet - is the rise of supranational monopolies who now exercise more control over human behavior than any government outside China.
> 
> The abuse of personal data by PRIVATE interests is now proven to be a real and current threat to democracy itself, let alone personal freedom. And the inclusion of token public interest representation - be it Facebook's content moderators or ICANN At-Large or Amazon's review editors - has only served to obfuscate and provide cover for the larger harm.
> 
> Consider the speed at which private interests have worked to ensure that intellectual property law and treaty is applied to the Internet. Yet laws such as defamation and slander have moved not at all, to the clear detriment of society. The former benefits the monopolists, the latter the public interest. If anything, a strong and competent public sector - supported rather than fought by civil society - is more needed than ever to check the excesses of greed that we clearly know will not be addressed through self-governance. This is as true of ICANN as it is of Facebook.
> 
> (and we need to be honest with ourselves and recognize how powerless ALAC has been to do anything more than tweak ICANN at the edges. We have not, despite our various efforts and supposed alliances, contained any of the damage done to trust in the DNS such that the public has fled en mass to search engines... which has led to mass exploitation of internet users. This is our fault for not even trying to get ICANN to do the right thing. Either we have been window dressing, designed to fail, or incompetent.)
> 
> Framing the struggle as purely between citizens and governments is, IMO, itself a form of diversion. The old scourge will look toothless next to the new one.
> ___________________
> Evan Leibovitch, Toronto
> @evanleibovitch/@el56
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat., Mar. 2, 2019, 11:54 a.m. John Laprise, <jlaprise at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Agreed
> 
>> 
>> Sent from my Pixel 3XL
>> 
>> John Laprise, Ph.D.
>> 
>> On Sat, Mar 2, 2019, 6:30 AM Javier Rua <javrua at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The system is without doubt imperfect, but it’s a correct baby step in the right direction. The idea that a private “individual” (whether natural or juridical) could somehow be on equal footing as a “state” on any international context (let alone a policy forum) wasn’t only unthinkable until the 20th Century, it is clearly anathema to the international order that rose from the Peace of Westphalia. And this is a good thing: the state-sovereignty and supremacy based model of international governance has been, IMHO, a scourge for humanity, as humanity been unable to tame the Hobbesian state of nature that reigns there with any social-contract that can truly  tame that Leviathan.
>>> 
>>>  I think the idea of the “individual Internet-end user” as having standing and voice in an international/supranational policy context is one of the great innovations and contributions of multistakeholderism, and as such, one that must be a founding principle of any ICANN 3.0.  This, IMHO, is related to the rise of the individual person as a subject of public international law, an unthinkable idea less than century ago (generally  derived from post-WWII Universal Human Rights treaties and institutions) and part of the necessary weakening of the State-centered model.
>>> 
>>> The mutistakeholder model, ICANN,  or Internet Governance won’t solve that problem of unbound state arbitrariness and caprice, let alone illegal use of force, of course.  And these concepts and institutions are not designed nor meant to either.  But what they do is start changing the culture and practice of state-supremacy.  It’s seems clear, for example, that in ICANN’s super tiny DNS remit, states are in no way the superior beings or overlords, and that’s a good thing. I would even venture to say, that there is mounting state practice and custom piling up that suggests that states are acquiescing to this reality (I wonder if with time, if uninterrupted, maybe this could give rise to a binding international norm?)
>>> 
>>> In any case, what I think IG and multistakeholderism are doing Is transforming the  language, the change culture, to eventually change what Foucault called the “episteme”: the a priori paradigms that shape and ground our knowledge and discourse in our epoch.
>>> 
>>> IG occurs within the constant  -sometimes rhythmic, sometimes cringe-inducing - dance between multiple players, the diversity of interest groups, individuals, states and countless parties deeply interested in the operation of and access to the Internet. This is a good thing.
>>> 
>>> Because it’s a good thing is why there are always important forces objecting to the nongovernmental and privatized aspects of Internet governance, arguing and pushing towards what their episteme commands: that the only logical and legitimate place for these types of functions must be in states and their exclusive dance clubs, be the United Nations (UN), or one of its specialized agencies, such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
>>> 
>>> But we believe that the multistakehokderism is the necessary ritual to keep all forces engaged to maintain a non-fragmented Internet, as free as possible from purely regional or national considerations (whether public or private), but also duly respecting these. ICANN is perhaps the best IG dancehall yet (and hopefully the experiment will work and a new, even better club can be built in the future, with even better and more diverse music to dance to.)
>>> 
>>> Any future dance club must be fullly aware and cognizant of all these complexities and tensions to strengthen the current model. ALAC or ALAC-like structures that exist to give non-state-bound Individuals a seat at the policy table must be safeguarded and strengthened as centerpieces of multistakeholderism. We need a dancehall with more space for us. We need to keep building that.  It’s on the right side of history and I think it’s the right thing to do for humanity as a whole.
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