Re: [hrpc] Censorship

[avri <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

Speaking for myself and not any organization i might be involved with, 
&c, I find the document an intriguing idea that should get further work. 
At this point the main thing that concerns me is the basis and strength 
of its multistakeholder claims, but that is something that could be 
fixed, and is not a topic for HRPC as far as I can tell.

As for it fitting into this group, while that seems slight stretch, one 
thing that has been discussed in the group at various times is the 
question of whether the HR Considerations only pertain to protocol 
creation or whether they extend to the implementation, deployment, and 
operation of those protocols. If the group accepts that protocol 
considerations extend beyond the creation of the protocol, then 
discussion of the HR consideration aspect of this proposal would seem to 
me to be fit as a research worthy goal for the HRPC.

avri


On 3/11/2022 8:52 AM, Eliot Lear wrote:
>
>
> On 11.03.22 13:47, Bill Woodcock wrote:
>>> On Mar 11, 2022, at 1:00 PM, Eliot Lear<[e-mail]>  wrote:
>>> The reason I believe that this RG is an appropriate venue to discuss your communique is that each of the assertions you and others make seem to me closer to research questions.
>> Thank you.  If we stray outside the range of what you consider appropriate, please say so.
>
> Well, my point is that this is a RESEARCH group so we can establish 
> RESEARCH questions.  That was not the point of your communique, of 
> course, but here we are.
>
>>> My own view is that if the Internet community could effectively contribute to forcing Russia out of Ukraine, we have a moral obligation to do so.  However, I don't believe we can effectively contribute to that goal at the governance level, and maybe not at any other level.
>> Well, I think the question isn’t an absolute one… the question isn’t whether the Internet community can force Russia out of Ukraine.  The question is whether the Internet community can effect sanctions that act appropriately and effectively as sanctions in the general case where sanctions are being applied.  My suspicion is that the Internet community will be considerably more conservative about the application of sanctions than individual governments are.  But in cases of humanitarian crisis, the Internet community may also be quicker to act, or more willing to act on things that governments are hesitant to, lest they disrupt their westphalianism and open themselves to criticism as well.
>>
>> So, not “can we stop Russia” but “can we place some of the societally-shared costs of Russia’s military connectivity back in their laps, and in the laps of those who are profiting from selling them services?”  Sanctions aren’t absolute, they build friction, a little at a time.
>
> I stated my view just to expose my own biases, to be clear.
>
>>> Your assertions are:
>>>
>>>
>>>> 	• ● Disconnecting the population of a country from the Internet is a disproportionate and inappropriate sanction, since it hampers their access to the very information that might lead them to withdraw support for acts of war and leaves them with access to only the information their own government chooses to furnish.
>>> This is indeed the theory.  Nothing like a live experiment to test it.  Anyone collecting data?
>> John Kristoff is leading the team that’s instrumenting the technical effects of this particular mechanism.  But that’s a technical measurement, not a geopolitical/economic/societal measurement.  Those are more difficult to do in concrete terms, and I’m _way_ out of my depth there.  One of my weaknesses is that I often suspect most everybody else is as well, at least in quantitative terms.
>
> Figuring out what to measure here is beyond my own expertise. Popular 
> opinion before and after cutoffs might be one good measure, tho.
>
>>>> 	• ●  The effectiveness of sanctions should be evaluated relative to predefined goals. Ineffective sanctions waste effort and willpower and convey neither unity nor conviction.
>>> There's a lot of devil hidden in the detail of "predefined goals", and there is a body of research around this.
>> There was a lot of text about governments having hundreds or thousands of years of experience in enacting sanctions, and the Internet community just coming in now, and acknowledging that we have much to learn.  I don’t remember offhand how much of that is on the cutting-room floor.
>
> I'm not surprised.  Your communique wasn't meant to be a research 
> paper.  But if we look at those predefined goals, can we develop real 
> world experience in understanding whether/how they can be achieved, 
> how to limit collateral damage in the instant and in the future, and 
> what we might say differently in a rev of RFC 7754 (for instance)?
>
>
>>> Also, it doesn't follow that ineffective sanctions fail to convey unity or conviction.  If the goal is to get Russia out of Ukraine and they don't leave, does that mean that the west has failed to convey conviction?
>> Effectiveness doesn’t need to be measured by results, it can be measured by conviction and intent.  This is the difference between “hopes and prayers” and action.  Action may fail, but it’s not “hopes and prayers” bullshit.
>
> Well, I think I detect some Camelism going on here. Effectiveness *is* 
> measured by results.
>
>>>> 	• ●  Sanctions should be focused and precise. They should minimize the chance of unintended consequences or collateral damage. Disproportionate or over-broad sanctions risk fundamentally alienating populations.
>>> Again, there is a body of research around this.
>> Yet it is not guiding the _current_ situation, so we hope to move in the direction of more precision and less collateral damage.
>
> I don't think one should draw that conclusion, but instead try to 
> characterize the differences.  Again, it's a question. There's no need 
> to answer it.
>
>
>>>> 	• ●  Military and propaganda agencies and their information infrastructure are potential targets of sanctions.
>>> Is this meant to be an exclusive list?
>> Remember, this is a starting-point for a conversation, not an end-point.  With 87 authors, there was a bell-curve of thinking, which the letter tries to capture.  Everyone agreed on “military and propaganda.”  There was somewhat less agreement about “dual-use” and I think that was excised entirely from the final letter.  At the other end of the spectrum, everyone agreed that civilians should never be directly targeted by Internet sanctions, and civilian connectivity should never be impeded by sanction actions.  Also, government agencies which provide civil and social services shouldn’t be targeted.  There’s a fair bit of room in-between, and an acknowledgement that sanctioned parties may well attempt to use “human shields,” and to the degree that that brings about unintended harm on civilians, that’s on the sanctioned party, not on the sanctioning party.  But I think that’s a finer level of detail than made it out in the final letter, for length reasons rather than disagreement reasons.
>
> That sort of discussion is very good to expose. And very specifically 
> to human rights, how are the human rights of people on both sides of 
> the conflict being impacted/respected/neglected/... and by whom?
>
>
>>>> 	• ●  The Internet, due to its transnational nature and consensus-driven multistakeholder system of governance, currently does not easily lend itself to the imposition of sanctions in national conflicts.
>>> I have my own view as to why this is true.  But it may be worth elaborating in detail.
>> Perhaps.  Or we can each recognize what truth we see in this, for our own reasons, and move on to the actual work.  More debate yields better outcomes, at substantially higher costs in slowness and friction and so forth.  I don’t think that’s necessarily a weakness to be addressed; just a feature of multistakeholderism.  To the degree that we can get the full benefit of it, rather than thinking of it as a weakness, I’m happy.
>
> Sure. But this is a research group.
>
>
>>>> 	• ●  It is inappropriate and counterproductive for governments to attempt to compel Internet governance mechanisms to impose sanctions outside of the community’s multistakeholder decision-making process.
>>> Yeah, this requires a discussion of supremecy and subservience.  Who is supreme and why and where are the guns to back that up?
>> Guns aren’t the only mechanisms of power.  Money, people, etc.  Which is more powerful, Trinidad & Tobago, because they can issue laws and decrees, or NTT, because they can carry traffic around the world?  Apples and oranges, not a simple comparison.  And there are positive and negative forms of power.  Power demonstrated through denying things to people is negative.  Power demonstrated through creation and generosity is positive.  My open-source, potlatch-economy stripes are showing.  I’ll shut up now.
>
> Again, this is a research group, and I would claim that we do not know 
> the full bounds of authority of multistakeholderism, nor 
> multilateralism, nor unilateralism (or other isms).  I suspect that 
> only experience provides us with answers, but this is a good time to 
> lay out what we think those limits are.
>
> Eliot
>
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