Re: [hrpc] ***SPAM**** Re: Censorship

[Mallory Knodel <[e-mail]>]

Bill,

Suffice to say only that in your effort to build this multi stakeholder
sanctions group and develop considered advice, purportedly to tackle thorny
political questions, you’ve not considered some obvious points that I, and
others, have raised as to the knock on effects in other more consequential
political fora.

This conversation demonstrates the lack of consensus and as well as a huge
gap in the proposed approach.

I don’t feel it’s critical to continue debating it point by point and agree
the list shouldn’t continue down this thread either.

-Mallory


On Tuesday, March 15, 2022, Bill Woodcock <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> > On Mar 15, 2022, at 3:50 PM, Mallory Knodel <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > I'll answer Bill's previous question to me about political risks. In the
> case of censoring, or boycotting through internet cutoff, the Russian
> military, you are:
> >
> >  * Provoking Russia on national security and it will have ramifications
> at the UN on the cybercrime treaty and any future hope of a cybersecurity
> treaty,
>
> You think it’s _substantially more_ prevocational to block their military
> than to block their whole country?
>
> >  * Giving Russia an excuse to continue building its own internet,
> splintering further away,
>
> First. they don’t need an excuse.  Second, can you present a rationale for
> why you believe military-only is more of an excuse than whole-country?
> That seems radically counterintuitive to me.
>
> >  * Undermining civil society's prior positioning firmly against all
> internet censorship even to advocate for carve outs in sanctions,
>
> If party A and party B are in disagreement, and party C is somewhere
> in-between, how does party C’s position “undermine” party A’s position?
> Are people not free to have disagreeing positions?
>
> >  * Normalising blocking by intermediaries that haven't the in-house
> capacity to take a political position, when instead we should be helping
> build their capacity to resist unjust blocking,
>
> How does blocking less normalize more than blocking more does?
>
> >  * Moving out of alignment what is best for the internet and what is
> best for people,
>
> How is blocking civilians “what is best for people?"
>
> >  * Making more incoherent messaging and guidance about is "right" to do,
> not less.
>
> ?  Explain?
>
> >  * Abstracting the nascent capacity to govern the internet with
> political considerations away from where those decisions should instead be
> made.
>
> Where do you think they should be made?  Governments are very clear that
> they should be made in government.
>
> If you don’t believe the governmentally-proposed solution is the right
> one, and you believe they should be made elsewhere, what’s your plan for
> doing that?
>
> > You'll never get the civil society sector to come to consensus about it
>
> Agreed.
>
> > so you can't call it that (as you do in your letter).
>
> Where do you see that?
>
> > Gentle reminder to everyone in the discussion that we are meant here to
> identify research topics related to human rights and internet protocols.
>
> I’m always happy to discuss in private email, I don’t have any burning
> desire to use public-mailing-list bandwidth.  I do want to make sure I
> fully understand all cautions, additional information, arguments against,
> etc.  So please do follow up with me if you feel like I’m not understanding
> what you’re saying (anyone, this isn’t specifically with respect to
> Mallory).
>
>                                 -Bill
>
>

-- 
Mallory Knodel
CTO, Center for Democracy and Technology
gpg fingerprint :: E3EB 63E0 65A3 B240 BCD9 B071 0C32 A271 BD3C C780