Re: [hrpc] Censorship

[Bill Woodcock <[e-mail]>]

> On Mar 11, 2022, at 9:57 AM, Vittorio Bertola <vittorio.bertola=[e-mail]> wrote:
> I think that this call for a global, multistakeholder process to block access to Russian military and news websites

I encourage you to all read it for yourselves, because, as one of the authors and one of the signatories, that’s not what we said.  We said that we believe that the multistakeholder Internet governance community has a responsibility to make its own, more humanitarian, decisions in this realm, because the decisions being made by governments and corporations are enacting collective punishment in that they principally affect civilians, rather than those who wage war.

And, Vittorio, are you saying that all news is propaganda, or that all propaganda is news?  I view both of those propositions as excessively cynical.  The paper says that military and propaganda mechanisms, unlike civilians and non-military governance, are not out-of-scope for humanitarian reasons.  There’s no mention of news.

Russia is the issue at hand today.  A lot was written, and then cut in the editing process, about how one shouldn’t necessarily expect the multistakeholder process to be able to move quickly enough to achieve consensus on the Russia/Ukraine conflict, no matter how clear-cut it might seem.  That what’s important here is that we believe that the decisions being arrived at by governments and corporations are over-broad and not based in human rights philosophy, and thus have outcomes which are unjust.  We have a responsibility to do better.

> I am worried that such a structured approach, and some names in the list of signatories, could weaponize the global Internet governance institutions and lead to the final fragmentation of the Internet.

I’m not sure where to start with this.

First, the signatories of a call for consideration of an issue are unlikely to be the same people who eventually decide, or decide not, to implement it, by and large.

Second, are you advocating for an “unstructured approach?”  Because that’s what we have right now, and it’s a humanitarian disaster, that is, to some degree, cementing domestic Russian support for the conflict.

Third, this is a single Internet governance institution, if it comes into being, not multiple.  Each internet governance institution provides governance solutions in some specific area of the Internet space.  Although this has many technical similarities with the already-well-established IG mechanisms surrounding spam, malware, phishing, and ddos mitigation, it’s clearly recognized by all as being its own, independent decision-making process, and of a radically different scale.  One incident per several years, perhaps, rather than tens of millions per day.

How does ensuring that more civilians have access to the Internet during times of conflict “lead to the final fragmentation of the Internet?”  That seems like pure hyperbole.

> I am however puzzled by how this call could be compatible with the pretty maximalistic approach to Internet censorship that this group (or PEARG, in https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-irtf-pearg-censorship) has been taking. Possibly, if we applied draft-guidelines to this proposal it would not pass the test.

Indeed, this, and most forms of sanction, certainly including all the broader Internet sanctions already in effect, which this is intended to replace, would not pass a test of not-being-censorship.  Pretty much any sanction is also censorship.  This is governance: the weighing and balancing of competing interests.  Sanctions are deescalatory, non-kinetic, punishments, intended to walk aggressors back from actions which threaten society.  If aggressors face no consequences, they’re encouraged in their transgressions.  This is all very mature governance, at a national level. Our goal here is to prevent the humanitarian crisis that’s precipitated by poor understanding of Internet technology on the part of those presently implementing sanctions.  Sanctions which are implemented from a human rights perspective, rather than an all-or-nothing retaliatory perspective, will do less harm.  Narrower sanctions have fewer unintended consequences than broader ones.  This is an effort to narrow the scope of sanctions.

> I would like to understand the line of reasoning under which an ISP blocking access to child sexual abuse material or to phishing websites is a censor, but if a soon-to-be-formed Internet institution decides to block access to Russia Today globally as part of a war, then it's all good.

Again, that’s a mischaracterization, and conflating disparate issues.

All of that is censorship.  Censorship is bad.  Murdering and raping civilians and destroying their homes and livelihoods is worse.  Governance is recognizing when a trade-off of a worse thing for a bad thing is achievable, and acting swiftly to enact it, to save lives.  Allowing people to continue dying, to preserve one’s self-image as “someone who takes a hard line against censorship” is immoral.

Sanctions are not “part of war.”  Sanctions are an alternative to war.  Military law is kind of an abomination of excuses and whitewashing, but it’s long-established, and not something any of us are going to overturn, no matter the very good work of the GCSC, etc.  Military law certainly allows the targeting of Russia Today, but that’s a military action by a military.  That’s cyber-offense.  I don’t do or support cyber-offense.

Choosing not to route packets to something is a commercial, or moral, or ideological, or governance decision.  Russia Today is not “owed anything” by ISPs of whom it is not a customer, and they’re under no obligation to spend their money supporting it.  Choosing not to spend that money to support it is not an act of war.  It’s a choice, in this case to not subsidize the propaganda effort supporting Russian militarism.

                                -Bill