Interessante discussione sulla lista Internet Policy di ISOC. Riporto qui l’intervento di parminder di itforchange,net, che ha ricevuto diversi consensi. A seguire una riflessione sulla metafora del “walled-garden’ vs “colonial power”. — Beppe

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From: parminder via InternetPolicy <internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org> Subject: Re: [Internet Policy] [Chapter-delegates] What ISOC is doing Date: 13 July 2021 at 10:09:55 CEST To: internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org Reply-To: parminder <parminder.js@gmail.com>

Andrew,

Thanks for your and others' useful responses.

Before I go ahead I want to clarify two things, because misjudgements regarding them can cloud the reading of my responses.

(1) ISOC like any other organization of course has the right to define and circumscribe its mandate and activities. It cannot accommodate everyone's desires about what it should be doing, This said, the mandate definition and nature of activities that follow must be rationally defended. This is true for all public interest organization, but even more applicable to ISOC as a kind of special public interest organization -- something I will not go into elaborating here.

(2) I am glad that the Internet initially developed and grew somewhat surreptitiously, as far as big commercial and political interests are concerned, which gave it the time and space to have defined around it norms and governance structures that were informed of certain values of control at peripheries, permission-less innovation, and the such. (Will come to this again later). I fully endorse and support these, and have no doubt that the world would have been much worse off without them

Now, taking from the second point... Lets be clear that it is not something automatically and essentially technical about the Internet that is responsible for what the Internet is. Whatever this statement means. I think it is absurd, but that absurdity IMHO extends to much of ISOC's take on 'the Internet way'. What your 'Internet way' describes as the five basic properties (of an Internet we like) are all there because some people wanted it that way.. Why they wanted it that way has to do with how, where and in whose hands early Internet was born and developed. That it was a publicly funded project had as much to do with it as the fact that Internet's first use was for academic networking... Not to deny the role of all those valiant actors who personally and organizationally defended the values that got built early on into the Internet, as a cumulative result of which we are here, and not elsewhere with digital communication technologies, which would have come one way or the other ...

My point is, there is nothing essential, technical, about the Internet that had to be the way it is -- there are individual and organizational value, and shall I say, political, choices. I understand that ISOC is some way represents and embodies those early values and valiant acts behind the Internet. This is what I respect ISOC most about.

What is however unfortunate is that rather than take forward such great 'human' values and choices in a dynamic manner, ISOC wants to deify them into some technical, self-evident and natural construct of 'the Internet'. Contrary to what current ISOC may think, rather than respecting those early human choices this has the effect to denying their human-ness and social-ness. Very few things could be more disrespectful of the involved people and organizations than this.

This is what makes me -- and I suspect many others -- choke on hearing expressions like 'the Internet way' or, to quote you, 'building, promoting and defending the Internet' ... One would much rather hear you say 'promoting and defending the values that underlie the Internet'. If ISOC understands this shift much would have been achieved for a start.

The difference is not superficial -- it has a deep social and political significance, and that is my main point here. Under the technical essentialism of 'the Internet' -- as a kind of natural deity -- is buried a lot that is of a political, sociological and cultural nature. All of which is sought to be hidden through this surface technical essentialism of 'the Internet way' and 'defending the Internet'.

Coming down to more practical implications of all this; you and ISOC, if I may say so without offending, somewhat conveniently, keep switching between an ideal type of the Internet and its manifest practical aspects, as suits the purpose. Let me take two examples, one related to the nature of problems on the Internet, and another related to its governance.

You say below that "There _might_ be erosion of the critical properties due to the concentration of traffic in a particular application, but that is a separate question".

OK, fine, if you stick to this stand. But what about ISOC's advocacy on encryption employed, say, by an Instant Messaging service. ISOC indeed works a lot in this area. (Do not get me wrong. I am all for e-to-e encryption, and am part of ISOC's encryption coalition too. ).... Why that is an 'Internet' issue, but say DRM embedded in web standards (a debate ISOC passed) or Google's latest move to replace cookies in Chrome with another private system (an ongoing debate that ISOC's shows no interest in) are not 'Internet' issues?

Or, all the efforts by digital giants to keep internet traffic within their captive applications -- whether it is FB's 'Instant Article' or Google's "Accelerated Mobile Pages' -- not an Internet issue, and not a violation of the 'Internet way'?

IETF made email interoperability standards, at a time of Internet's early innocence, when commercial interests were not so strong to come in its way.. By the time it was about social media and instant messaging (IM), the commercial overhang on the Internet was too heavy for IETF and ISOC to push interoperability standards? Suddenly these become non Internet issues? Of course at this stage, such was increasingly the control over the Internet of a few digital biggies that voluntary adoption would likely not go too far ... It is here when mandated interoperability comes in, when law comes in aid of the 'right' technical architecture ... But ISOC has only known that law and governments militate against Internet architecture, and cannot aid it -- a fully wrong conception - which is why it never crosses ISOC/ IETF's mind that, for instance, IM interoperability standards should be developed, and coupled with advocacy with governments for mandating interoperability (with standards development for it left to outside, IETF, like bodies ... Is this not an Internet issue - something promoting the 'Internet way'?

Doing such standards development coupled with policy advocacy would be to 'promote and defend the Internet' and to go 'the Internet way'. But as I suggested, convenient choices are made -- dictated by extraneous reasons (i can discuss them, but let me not digress). Whatever one likes is somehow fit under the 'Internet way' and the unquestionable deity of the Internet, and whatever one doesnt like gets excluded.

Meanwhile, the very exploration of what choices are made, which not, is blocked at an higher level, taking the cover of some things (arbitrarily) being essentially Internet, and others not ... That, to say the least, is very frustrating ... and to go further, if one is to be brutally frank, actually borders on deviousness,

The second example I said I will bring from the area of Internet governance:

It is very fine for ISOC to stick to some layers or aspects of Internet as its mandates, and rest not being its mandate .. But then it should also stick to commenting on, and participating in, only such governance processes that pertain to that narrow technical layer, and none lese..

Does ISOC do that? The resounding answer is, NO ... I have sat in many many UN working groups and other settings where ISOC reps thoroughly side and conspire with US and its allies to keep the global Internet essential ungoverned... I have personal knowledge of a long history of this, which I can share sometime .. But the point here is, again convenient self-serving (or big interests serving) choices are made, which contravene the otherwise narrow construction of the Internety mission that ISOC argues for itself.

That, dear Andrew, of running with the hare and hunting with the hound, is the problem. Not whether ISOC has a right or not to chose a narrow 'technical' mission.

ISOC can indeed very well choose a narrow, technical mandate, and stick to it... But when convenient back and forths are done, that too in an area of globally most intense power constestation, that would be questioned ... And the big political and economic interests that get implicated and served will be brought up ... The cover of innocence -- of some kind of essential technical nature of the Internet that alone is being defended -- will be examined, and taken apart..

regards

parminder

PS: And yes, I did go through the material on Internet way of networking. Thanks

On 11/07/21 8:15 am, Andrew Sullivan via InternetPolicy wrote:

...

Hi,

I note that some others have answered your questions, and AFAICT I agree with them. A couple more remarks below.

On Fri, Jul 09, 2021 at 07:51:04PM +0530, parminder via InternetPolicy wrote:

...

That is an interesting concept... Will like to know what 'Internet' or 'good Internet' is for you/ ISOC, against which alone any impact assessment can be marked.

Have you looked at the toolkit and the Internet Way of Networking materials? It is intended that these sorts of questions (and the others that you asked later in your mail, which I have elided from this) are answered by those materials. I would do an injustice if I tried to summarize here. But, if there is something that isn't answered for you in the materials, it would be important to know that, since additional work is happening right now.

Note that this is about _the Internet_, and not about everything vaguely related to the Internet. So, for instance, one might think that concentration of ownership is bad for society and so on, and maybe also bad for the Internet. The toolkit is intended to be useful in analyzing the extent to which such a state of affairs, or any regulatory action intended to address it, affects the Internet itself, and not all the social implications that come from that. Similarly, if there is an application (call it "Blither") where people can post their thoughts, and a particular national government has a lot of negative things to say about postings on Blither, that would _not_ be in scope for the Internet Way of Networking project, because it is but one application that happens to use the Internet. That is true even if that particular application is a very significant portion of the global Internet traffic. There _might_ be erosion of the critical properties due to the concentration of traf fic in a particular application, but that is a separate question.

...

(We all know what good environment is.)

Really? My impression is that such a definition is far from universally agreed upon. Best regards,

A

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