On Mon, Jan 9, 2023 at 6:14 AM Vittorio Bertola <vittorio.bertola=40open-xchange.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Il 06/01/2023 02:19 CET Mark Nottingham <mnot=40mnot.net@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ha scritto:
>
> The IETF has considerable legitimacy as not only an institution that can create useful technical documents, but also as a steward of the Internet architecture as a means to realise and maintain a global public good, even as we ourselves are an essentially private institution. In contrast, state actors are still relatively unproven in their roles as Internet regulators.
Pardon me for the thought-provoking remark, but if you were to say this to any European Commission officer or national Internet regulator, you would possibly get a diplomatic version of the following question: who are you, the IETF or your employer to judge or question what a sovereign nation of 5-10-80 million people decides for themselves through democratic processes? Who gave you this right and this role, and how is this compatible with democracy?
Having lost my citizenship as the result of a referendum where I wasn't even allowed to vote, I take a particular view on democratic control of means of communication. A view which is informed by several centuries of tradition and debate.
The question of what the state can and cannot legitimately control goes back to Roman times, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I believe that the answer lies in whose interest is being protected. I do not believe the French laws used to cover up corruption, affairs etc. of senior politicians are legitimate, those I happily ignore. But the European Union protections of personal privacy which are designed to protect the interest of those who do not make themselves public figures certainly deserve respect.
Everyone talks about freedom. In the US, the most authoritarian party platform by some distance is that of the self styled 'Libertarian' party: You are going to have the freedom we force upon you.
Very few people talk about what freedom means in concrete terms. As far as technology goes, freedom means I can buy a phone from one manufacturer and a charging cable from another and they will work and I can then go and buy a different phone from a different manufacturer and that will work with my existing charger.
Freedom in social media means that I can post to one social media provider and my friends and family who use different providers can see my posts. It also means I can talk about Mel Brook's movie 'The Producers' without being banned for 45 days for mentioning 'Springtime for Hitler' (yes really, why do you keep doing such things Mr Facebook?).
(hint: there is no such thing as "a global public good" but many different ideas of what that would be, as the definition of "good" is highly cultural and subjective, the more so on a global scale; thus, defining what the "global public good" is, for policy purposes, is not a matter of competence but of representativeness, exactly like in the "old world" offline)
I disagree. I find the notion of nation states frankly ridiculous. What people mistake for 'Western values' are in fact values which in most cases have only emerged in the West during my lifetime. Many of the countries I have visited in Europe were under a dictatorship when I first visited: Spain, East Germany, Czechoslovakia. The United States only became a democracy in the 70s as the civil rights movement finally ended segregation and there are people trying hard to return to the old status quo and of course, the people beating up cops with the poles of 'blue lives matter' flags are yelling about 'freedom'.
What we are talking about are universal values. Freedom of speech is a universal value, freedom of conscience is a universal value. Freedom of religion, sexual _expression_ etc. etc. are all universal values.
All of which is why I don't come to the IETF to be told what I am going to be allowed to do. I come to the IETF to find other people interested in building a particular view of the future. If the IETF were to decide that only futures approved by the US Congress or the EU Commission could be discussed, I would simply go somewhere else.
