[At-Large] ICANN Board Approves Censorship Policy for Domain Names Based on Morality: 2 Board Members Speak Against It]

[Roberto Gaetano]

Trying to give my own comments, and also to reply to some other comments.

JohnL
> 
> Well, I was going to point out how utterly unconstructive it 
> is to invent bogus arguments based on hoary stereotypes of 
> national character and and use them as straw men to try to 
> discredit people with whom one disagrees, but then, what else 
> would one expect from an Italian?

;>)

And "the other Italian on the list" is going to confirm the stereotype,
inventing more bogus arguments.


> 
> If I were making a list of the 100 most important things that 
> a bunch of people who speak a language needed to create a 
> lively and effective online community, I'd put a TLD at about 
> number 97.

OK. I spare you the argument that non-English, non-ASCII-proficient
communities might have a different view, as it is probably bogus, and come
to the question. On the same scale 1 to 100, what would be the importance of
a TLD for communities who would ask for its use, in the case of, say,
".kill-all-[add your favourite minority]", ".[add your favourite
insult][append your favourite trademark]", or any other subject that might
have controversial "morality" or "public order" implications? IMHO, much
higher than 97.
So, my personal conclusion is that, in absence of other constraints, we will
see more of the latter case than of the former. More hate speech (protected
by the first amendment), than positive development of communities (protected
as well by the first amendment, but more often than not restricted by other
means).
And I might sound very old-fashioned and illiberal, but my personal opinion
is that we have more than enough hate speech given the current state of
affairs, that I don't see the need to create more ways to convey it.

On a different level, I have always stated my failure to understand the need
for a domain name (whether a SLD in past discussions, or a TLD in the
present discussion) to reaffirm freedom of speech. To me, freedom of speech
is related to motivated contents, not to slogans. And domain names only
provide slogans, without any relation to possible contents.
You might want to ask people who really suffer from free speech limitations
how they would rate, on a scale from 1 to 100, the introduction of a TLD,
and the ability to have uncensored contents on an existing, general purpose,
TLD.
The moment I will see some of the first amendments advocates operating in
countries or situations where we do *really* have risks for personal safety
in expressing ideas, I might change my mind. But for the time being, I
consider this a theoretical fight, unrelated to the real needs of the people
whom they claim to act for. In simple terms, the fight for being able to
insult a religion or a community has IMHO absolutely nothing to do, and is
often opposite, to the fight for democracy. But I am aware that different
people think in different ways, so I am sure that there are opposing
opinions.


Evan Leibovitch:
> I found it saddening and disheartening that it took 10 years 
> for ICANN to do this. Perhaps had competition been allowed 
> earlier, .com would not now be seen as a global "default" and 
> we would have had a truly competitive environment.

Absolutely agree.


> It is even more saddening and disheartening that ICANN's 
> board, with few exceptions, appears incapable of giving the 
> world new TLDs without imposing a centralized morality as a 
> pre-condition. It was fully capable
> -- and entitled by law -- to amend the GNSO recommendation 
> and approve the policy to create new TLDs _without_ the 
> offending two clauses.

Not really.
The Board could have rejected the specific recommendation, but my
understanding was that in this case it should have sent back the package to
the GNSO for reconsideration.
Furthermore, if the GNSO, who is the body who is tasked of making policy,
came to a conclusion, it would be disruptive if the Board did disagree with
a policy element.

But there are two elements that have to be taken into consideration.
The first one, which is "what is the compelling reason for opening the flood
gates", and which basically comes to what are the advantages of allowing a
broader scope vs. the problems it would create, has been discussed before.
The second one is a simple reality check. Suppose ICANN does not have
safeguards related to public order and morality in the granting of new TLDs.
This would only mean that the TLDs cannot be refused, not at all that they
would be available. Moreover, since the governments have, until proof of
contrary, jurisdiction over the country they govern, they would have the
right to impose to ISPs the filtering of the "offending" TLDs. "So what?"
you might say, "some countries already do some filtering". Well, the problem
is on the political level. Some countries do not apply democracy principles,
as they are interpreted in western democracies. In those cases, the problem
is moot: the filter what they want, and what ICANN allows in the root is
irrelevant. In other countries, the decision of imposing filtering on ISPs
is a difficult one, because it goes against the democracy principles they
share, at least in principle. What a wonderful opportunity would be to take
the case of a .nazi, to filter with some popular support, to introduce a
system by which ISPs could be furhter asked to filter more granularly other
sites? For most ISPs, the problem is the cost, not the sacred fire of
freedom of expression. Filtering does not come for free. So, if the
government has a damn good excuse to fund the filtering ("We must stop nazi
propaganda"), it might come up later with some more filtering requests,
piggybacked by the already allocated funds, for some less kosher filtering.
What do we gain from this? And what do we miss if we do not allow
"obviously" objectionable TLDs?

I do have what I believe is a flexible attitude, but also a firm "picket
fence". IMHO, the best approach for gTLDs is to have a very conservative
first round, in which all what has general consensus can go through, but in
which objectionable TLDs are not delegated. This is the same approach the
ccNSO is using for the fast track: do not stop who does not have objections
for the ones who do have objections. Then, we can analyse the situation, we
can see what TLDs have been objected, and why, and maybe loose the
constraints for further runs.

To start with a completely unrestricted situation could be, in theory, an
appealing solution, but in practice, a recepy for problems. In theory,
theory and practice are alike. However, in practice, they widely differ.

Cheers,
Roberto
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