Re: [hrpc] Censorship

[Bill Woodcock <[e-mail]>]

> On Mar 14, 2022, at 9:53 AM, Jens Finkhaeuser <[e-mail]> wrote:
> To put it simply:
> 	1) A blocklist by itself is just data.
> 	2) A blocklist that is published with some rationale for its existence is a call for boycott.
> 	3) A blocklist implemented to defend against attacks is often necessary (and we see this mechanism in firewall rules, spam filtering, etc. everywhere), and definitely not censorship; it's self-defense.
> 	4) A blocklist that is to be applied mandatorily is censorship.

Since none of those are what Vittorio and I were discussing, I’ll add (2.5) A principles-based blocklist that is published to give network operators a compliance mechanism that is less draconian than what is otherwise required of them.

The _application_ of a sanction is _not_ self-defense, except in as much as it may also be implemented by the victim.  It is punitive and retaliatory.  In the case of kinetic warfare, and humanitarian crimes, it is also deescalatory.  It could be argued that the use of the proposed blocklist is self-defense by network operators against their regulatory agencies, but that seems to not be of interest to folks on this list.

> From what I read by everybody's contribution, nobody here is arguing that #4 is a good idea.

Correct.

> Yet much of the discussion seems to revolve around that.

Indeed, there seems to be a preference for straw men.

> Let's move on to #3 then. If we have blocklists in wide use already, who currently authors these?

I would argue that that’s immaterial.  What matters is that there is no barrier to entry.  Thus, the answer is: “whoever wants to.”  And that’s the right answer, and the answer that matters.

> They all have one characteristic: none of the authors are a multi-stakeholder organization that thinks #4 is an atrocity.

…because that would not be the defining characteristic of the multistakeholder organizations that fight spam and malware.  So that’s tautological.

> Which means, by definition, any of the plethora of blocklists already in use is more suspect than any hyopthetical blocklist being discussed here. Let's please not lose sight of that.

Uh…  I’m not sure that “more suspect” is an objective thing, but, moving forward...

> What people seem to fear - some have expressed as much - that #2 automatically will lead to #4. I can see that as well, and that is the part that worries me.

Ok, let’s first put aside the (in this context) meaningless semantics of whether a “boycott” is what you call what the private sector is required to do by “sanctions” or whether it’s “networked governance” or we just don’t want to partake of the Russian military’s services.  What matters is that governments are imposing sanctions and decreeing that network operators impose them.  The question at hand is what form the implementation takes.

If you feel like debating something else, that’s fine, but my interest, and that of my co-authors, is in minimizing the scope and humanitarian impact of the sanctions.  If you have thoughts on that matter, we would love to be educated.  That is what I’m here for.

So, we’re at (4), with a blocklist which includes a whole country, including its schoolchildren, its dissidents, and its journalists, and we’re trying to walk it back to (2.5), a blocklist of networks and domains which the multistakeholder IG community can agree represent military and propaganda agencies of the sanctioned entity, and excludes civilians.

Any worrying about (4) is pointless hand-wringing.  It was overtaken by events long ago.  The question is whether you can do anything to improve the situation, not whether deploring the status quo makes you virtuous.  That’s feckless.  (And I’m not saying that to you, Jens, I fully appreciate that that’s not where you’re at.)

> let's have this org that maintains such blocklists. Let's have a charter for them that focuses on humanitarian values, and treats access to the Internet as, essentially, a human right.

Yep.  Acknowledging that this is the Internet, and it’s governed by those who show up, and we can’t constrain future behavior in an environment free from barriers to entry.  But the above is exactly the point.

> Let's make the major factor in deciding what to add to the list whether this part of the Internet poses more of a threat to human rights than it helps promote it. For example, some aggressive nation's military sites might.

Exactly.

I expect there are valid arguments against sanctions, but the world as a whole appears to have come to the conclusion that sanctions are a reasonable thing to do in some circumstances.  _Whether or not_ sanctions are ever reasonable is not a hill I care about, and certainly not one I’m inclined to die on.  That seems to be a decided issue and I have no cause to dispute the outcome.  _How_ sanctions are effected within my community of interest, which is Internet infrastructure is, however, of great interest to me.  I signed the letter because its principles reflect my own: sanctions, when enacted, should not be over-broad; they should not effect civilians; they must be easy to roll out and easy to roll back; and there’s no point in deploying sanctions that we already know would be ineffective.

> Nobody is forced to implement these lists.

Correct.  They’re free to block more broadly.  What they are not free to do is to not block at all, because they are required to do so by their governments.  Networks outside the set which are required to block can do what they like; they’re not part of the problem we’re attempting to solve.

> It might be possible to copyleft this, in spirit as well as in fact. Publish it under a license that if you do implement the list, it cannot be a copy; it cannot be automatically extracted from the published list and applied to your part of the network. It must require manual intervention, and a published rationale for the addition that is not a mere copy of the original. Make people work for adopting it, or make them liable.

You can do that one.

I’ll put my work into the one that’s cc0.

Again, what’s critical is that this is the Internet, and there’s no barrier to entry.  You can bet on a restrictive one, I can bet on an open one, someone else can bet on a subscription one…  whatever.  As long as they’re all solving real problems, they’ll all thrive.

> Popper's paradox of tolerance

Yep.  That seems like a likely reason we’ve wound up with society generally accepting sanctions as a good response to violence.

> I think the Internet community should reserve the right to suppress that with destroys the Internet community.

It always has.  That part of the IG community works very hard.

> I fully understand people reacting with frustration and cynicism to this.

I do not, but that’s immaterial.  Anyone who wants to react with new information or philosophy not yet reflected within the proposed process is humbly and gratefully requested to do so, though.  As I said, that’s why I’m here: to further expand the base of thought on which this is being built.

> I would invite people to ask themselves what the Internet community can​ do to actively strengthen its values (however diverse, there is overlap, as evidenced by this discussion)?

Exactly.  Thank you for putting that more eloquently than I’m capable of.

                                -Bill