[CPWG] ICANN Blog: The Global Digital Compact: A Top-down Attempt to Minimize the Role of The Technical Community

Wed Aug 23 16:49:56 UTC 2023

Once again, I'm afraid I have to agree with Milton. That said, you individual governments from coalitions, whether via the UN or not.

Jonathan Zuck
Director, Future of Work Project
Innovators Network Foundation
www.InnovatorsNetwork.org

________________________________
From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces at icann.org> on behalf of David Mackey via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2023 8:29:52 AM
To: gopal <gopal at annauniv.edu>
Cc: cpwg at icann.org <cpwg at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [CPWG] ICANN Blog: The Global Digital Compact: A Top-down Attempt to Minimize the Role of The Technical Community

Thanks for the information Olivier.

I just came across an interesting response from Milton Mueller's Internet Governance Project.

The Technical Community and Internet Governance: A Response to the Costerton-Curran-Wilson letter<https://www.internetgovernance.org/2023/08/22/the-technical-community-and-internet-governance-a-response-to-the-costerton-curran-wilson-letter/?utm_source=Internet+Governance+Project&utm_campaign=4f4ed45b10-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4377131903-4f4ed45b10-288444909>

I include the last four paragraphs below ...

4. Why it is harmful to make the UN the Boogeyman

The most annoying thing about the ICANN-ARIN-APNIC missive, however, is its apparent attempt to revive the old “UN is trying to take over the Internet” meme. This boogeyman has been used by the technical community and the US government to haunt the children of the global multistakeholder community since 2002. When the threat was real, or even real but exaggerated, this was OK. But 7 years after the ICANN transition there is no excuse for it. We have already explained why the UN lacks the power to take over any key Internet governance functions. We have already noted that their only systematic attempt to do that, at WSIS in 2005, totally failed.

Reviving this threat narrative, however, does real damage to the public discourse on IG, because it diverts attention from the real threats to the multistakeholder model.

We live in a digital environment that is fragmenting along jurisdictional lines. The Europeans are pursuing Digital Sovereignty, as are the Indians and Chinese. The Americans are weaponizing semiconductors, undersea cables, investment capital in ICT, and actively considering blocking Chinese apps; the UK is considering banning end to end encryption, leading to the possible exit of key applications and services from the UK market. Tech nationalism is on the rise everywhere. What we must understand in this context is that the threats to a global Internet come from conflicts between and regulations from sovereign states, not from the UN, a weak intergovernmental institution that can only act when these states all agree.

Our advice to Costerton, Curran and Wilson: take a deep breath. Calmly consider what powers the multistakeholder community – which consists of a largely undifferentiated mass of techies, civil society, academics and business – already have in Internet governance. Try to do an accurate accounting of the threats to that governance model. Devote your attention and efforts to those threats. Don’t try to drive the community into pointless battles with ghosts.

On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 4:49 AM gopal via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org<mailto:cpwg at icann.org>> wrote:
Thank you Olivier.

Nice blog.

Separation of concerns of "Technical" and "Managerial" has been into discussions several times. There is no single formula to achieve this as of now.

I suggest reading the article titled "The Technological Sublime: Incredible, terrifying, or both?" at:

https://www.arcual.art/blog/the-technological-sublime-incredible-terrifying-or-both#:~:text=often%20conflicting%20ways.-,Much%20like%20the%20sublime%20in%20art%2C%20technology%20evokes%20both%20awe,greater%20detail%20during%20this%20article.
[https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/63eb611746544978b6a636b1/64beb61be5db7f1c4f773c02_Post-Thumb%20(12).png]<https://www.arcual.art/blog/the-technological-sublime-incredible-terrifying-or-both#:~:text=often%20conflicting%20ways.-,Much%20like%20the%20sublime%20in%20art%2C%20technology%20evokes%20both%20awe,greater%20detail%20during%20this%20article.>
The Technological Sublime: Incredible, terrifying, or both?<https://www.arcual.art/blog/the-technological-sublime-incredible-terrifying-or-both#:~:text=often%20conflicting%20ways.-,Much%20like%20the%20sublime%20in%20art%2C%20technology%20evokes%20both%20awe,greater%20detail%20during%20this%20article.>
Much like the sublime in art, technology evokes both awe and a sense of unease. Here, we deep dive further into this duality.
www.arcual.art

Sincerely,

Gopal T V
0 9840121302
https://vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in/profile/57545
https://www.facebook.com/gopal.tadepalli
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. T V Gopal
Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
College of Engineering
Anna University
Chennai - 600 025, INDIA
Ph : (Off) 22351723 Extn. 3340
       (Res) 24454753
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________________________________
From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces at icann.org<mailto:cpwg-bounces at icann.org>> on behalf of Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org<mailto:cpwg at icann.org>>
Sent: 23 August 2023 12:44
To: cpwg at icann.org<mailto:cpwg at icann.org> <cpwg at icann.org<mailto:cpwg at icann.org>>
Subject: [CPWG] ICANN Blog: The Global Digital Compact: A Top-down Attempt to Minimize the Role of The Technical Community

An interesting new ICANN blog post:

https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/the-global-digital-compact-a-top-down-attempt-to-minimize-the-role-of-the-technical-community-21-08-2023-en

This one's likely to be causing some ripples in the Internet Governance landscape.
But some are already asking why are the other RIRs and ISOC not co-signatories?
And how about the IETF & World Wide Web foundation?

Altogether, it seems like an incomplete set of I* organisations. Or was the piece perhaps meant just as an opinion piece to start a discussion?

Kindest regards,

Olivier
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