[At-Large] Seeking roll back of the IGF Leadership Panel

[bzs at theworld.com]

FWIW I think Evan's comment is very well stated and if you skipped it
deserves a read.

On November 25, 2021 at 05:15 at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org (Evan Leibovitch via At-Large) wrote:
 > Disclaimer: I have been to a few regional IGFs but never the global one. I keep
 > a relationship with the Internet Governance bubble and attempt to stay
 > informed, but remain at arms length because of the general detachment of this
 > bubble from society at large. These days I only get involved when something
 > really egregious happens that directly affects the public interest, such as the
 > PIR/EthosCapital fiasco. I will try to be as brief in my point as possible, but
 > there are many premises behind these conclusions. And while I speak for myself,
 > I have had many conversations with people I trust who have come to similar
 > conclusions to mine but just don't dare to express it:
 > 
 > To those outside the bubble, IGF only had one job, but it was an important one:
 > Come up with one or more workable ideas for Internet Governance that suffer
 > neither the industry capture of ICANN and ISOC nor the state capture of ITU. At
 > this task, despite more than a decade offered, the IGF has only been notable in
 > its preference of talk over action. So if the IGF in its current form can't
 > execute the one thing it was trusted by the world to do, it is only to be
 > expected that those who created it may lose patience and seek a different
 > approach.
 > 
 > As a result ... I applaud the UNSG's exhaustion with the IGF status quo. I am
 > unsure whether his cure is worse than the disease, but there is a disease, make
 > no mistake, one whose main symptom appears to be entropy. It's been nearly 20
 > years since WSIS with no discernable public benefit yet.
 > 
 > This letter asserts that the IGF's role is not to form consensus, which
 > perfectly illustrates the entropy and justifies the UNSG action. It indicates
 > that its participants prefer IGF to forever remain an elitist talk shop among
 > self-appointed experts. That's all well and good for those inside that bubble
 > who enjoy endless bickering as an end in itself, rather than seeking action
 > that would actually improve society. But clearly the UNSG, correctly in my
 > opinion, has determined that going forward "talk" needs to eventually turn to
 > "do". The IGF either needs to (a) reform itself and its mandate into the
 > more-difficult pursuit of outcomes, or (b) go off in a virtual corner to talk
 > amongst yourselves till the end of time, finding another patron who will
 > support that kind of thing, while putting the reform that the IG world
 > desperately needs now in the hands of others ready to take on that role.
 > 
 > At very least the letter is highly ignorable in rejecting the UNSG proposal
 > without offering alternative reform. The status quo has expired. If you don't
 > provide an evolutionary path then your patron will do it for you.
 > 
 > Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
 > @evanleibovitch / @el56
 > 
 > 
 > On Wed, 24 Nov 2021 at 10:15, parminder via At-Large <
 > at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org> wrote:
 > 
 > 
 >     Dear All,
 > 
 >     Please find enclosed a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General
 >     appealing to him to roll back the decision for an IGF Leadership Panel.
 > 
 >     The letter is co-signed by Dr Milton Mueller, on behalf  of the Internet
 >     Governance Project, Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public
 >     Policy, and Parmider Jeet Singh, for IT for Change, and the Just Net
 >     Coalition.
 > 
 >     It is cc-ed to representatives of civil society and technical community
 >     groups requesting them to refrain from sending nominations for the IGF
 >     Leadership Panel, and thus legitimizing it.
 > 
 >     The letter argues how the IGF Leadership Panel militates against the basic
 >     idea, objectives and structure of the IGF, and will weaken it.
 > 
 >     Best, parminder
 > 
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-- 
        -Barry Shein

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