THANKS IDRC !

I just wanted to extend one great big thanks to the International Development Research Center (IDRC) for funding my attendance at this year's IGF. I had an amazing experience, made some excellent professional connections, and was lucky enough to be connected with an amazing group of young researchers, many of whom are now friends.
Special thanks go out to:
Graham
Laurent
Ben
Lucy
Maria and the rest of the IDRC team.

And thanks again to Prof. Michael Geist for letting me know about the opportunity.

Closing Statement

The conference has now come to a close. I won't dare to assemble a coherent summary until I sit down to write my research paper. I will certainly post the paper to this blog once it's completed.

The IGF was an amazing experience and I can't say enough good things about the process. Although this blog is drawing to a close, much more content can be found on the blogs of my international colleagues:

• Abdallah Diwan (Egypt)

• Laura Leon (Peru)
  

• Andrea Molinari (Argentina)
  

• Marouen Mraihi (Tunisia)
  

• Robert Sagun (Phillipines)
  

• Ula Shirt (Canada, Piikani Nation)
  

• Shamistra Soysa (Sri Lanka)
  

• Dante Villafuerte (Peru)
  

• Daniel Albahary (Canada)
  

• Cassondra Campbell (Canada, Metis Nation)
  

The Most Hated Man in Web 2.0

The closing day of the conference featured a fantastic plenary discussion entitled emerging issues. A full transcript of this far-reaching discussion is available. The highlight of the conference came with an impassioned speech by Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet CultureIs Killing Our Culture, which Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, so eloquently described as "crap." Keen controversially suggested that Web users should have to identify themselves online in order to improve the accountability and quality of user generated content.

The audience was none to impressed with privacy advocates crying foul. I certainly do give keen credit for generating an interesting debate.

The Lemos Taxonomy

The hardest part thus far has been trying to conceptualize such a vast topic. Thankfully, Ronaldo Lemos, director of iCommons [Creative Commons International] and the director of the Center for Technology & Society (CTS) at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), chaired the openess disciplinary (see images below) and open the proceedings by putting forward the three dimensions of openness:

1. Legal [copyright, liability of ISPs
   
2. political [WIPO development agenda, UNESCO diversity convention]
3. Economic [open business models, open-source software]

He went on to give three examples of concrete issues.:

1. open standards
2. open source software
3. open access [access to knowledge]

And just like that, I have a structure for my research paper. Many thanks to Prof. Lemos for pointing me in the right direction. I'll be dividing the topic by these three dimensions and then adding issues with concrete examples in each one.

Openness Plenary

Mark Kelly then spoke as an international human rights lawyer based in Dublin. He tied together many of the international efforts, led by the Council of Europe and others, currently being developed and discussed at the IGF. He concluded that the goal of openness or freedom of expression is best achieved through this multi-stakeholder process which includes members of government, civil society, and the private sector alike.

• Alexandre Jobim was the following speaker on behalf of the International Association of Broadcasters [IAB]. He summarized a joint declaration by the IAB:

1. technological communication is not an end on itself but is a means to provide information and content.
2. reedom of expression, pluralism of the media and cultural electronic media are a vital importance to the Information Societ.
3. diversity should be respected and truly promoted.
4. television and radio are key for the consistency and development of the digital world.
5. information should be accessible and available to anyone.

• On top of these most idealistic and noble principles, he added that broadcasters remain concerned about their intellectual property interests in the context of transmission and retransmission of broadcasts and suggested that this is exactly the task that Internet governance may prove useful in remedying.

• Nick Dreardren of Amnesty International also delivered a speech on the human rights angle. Nick may have been one of the busiest people in conference having spoken on at least three panels that I attended. For more on Amnesty's Internet freedom of expression campaign and to sign their petition see Repression.

• Next up was Mr. Peter Dengate Thrush, a most eloquent british intellectual property barrister and the newly elected chairman of ICANN. Quoting directly from his speech which steered clear of ICANN politics:

  It's clear that freedom of expression is one of the most fundamentally supported views and there's been reference to it already in the Tunis declaration. There is also the fundamental freedom to enjoy the fruits of your labor and also the freedom to enjoy the undisturbed use of your property. So there is, as others have suggested, a potential conflict between those freedoms. And the Internet makes the copying of people's property so extraordinarily easy. And not only easy, but available all over the world. We have the ability now to take the images, the music, the text, and all and any combinations of the above and to use them instantly, without authority. So how do we balance those various freedoms. Well, it's important to understand that the law, as others have said, is a product of society. It's not a separate institution that lives by itself or lives by its own rules.

• Finally, Carlos Gregorio, a privacy advocate from Uruguay, spoke on the delicate balance between ensuring for privacy and supporting freedom of expression. He used the example of court records being posted online and noted that there is both a social interest in disclosing this information as well as an interest in protecting victims of crime.

The speeches were followed by commentary from a group of experts. The full text of of this dialogue can be found online.

A Unified Industry Approach

Because many local governments fail to protect FOE, the private sector has decided a unified set of principles and procedures may provide at least a baseline set of protections. A few tech companies are now moving through the process under the facilitation of the Center for Democracy & Technology. It sounds like there's a very good chance that they may not even come to agreement. Unfortunately, without actually seeing the proposal (which is confidential), there's really not much to say. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Freedom of Expression as Economic Growth

Once again, I can't possibly cover all the content from today's sessions. Panelists and delegates alike were taking advantage of Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Much was said and Google, as the unofficial ambassador of the private sector, was once again the target of criticism from freedom of expression [FOE] groups. Another angle worthy of a brief mention was offered by Robert Faris, of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and an economist by training. He is a research fellow and director of the OpenNet Initiative [cool website warning], which tracks and monitors Internet surveillance and censorship around the world. Their most recent report suggests that censorship is steadily increasing and that many countries if not most, are considering some form of filtering. Or, as Dr. Faris The economist described "a market increase in content restrictions."

Dr. Faris notes that filtering is inherently a blunt tool from the technological standpoint. In the human factors context, filtering leads to delegation which leads to discretion. In turn, the exercise of discretion (especially without transparency or accountability) is necessarily problematic.

Dr. Faris follows FOE particularly with respect to economic growth and suggests that ++ FOE --> ++ Political AND ++ Innovation. I would do a graph if Blogger had such function. I shall stop there before I totally misinterpret his position.

BUT, I wonder. The US is certainly a big fan of FOE. Just take a look at their 1st Amendment jurisprudence. It is their First amendment after all whereas its only the 19th Article on the UN Declaration.

Still, not all countries care are such big fans and this is by no means unique to the Online context. During yesterday's FOE Dynamic Coalition, one delegate suggested that the word "Online" be removed from the title of "FOE Online." But then we open a dispute that has been waging since long before I was born.

So what kind of progress can we actually make when domestic governments will inevitably filter? [that's what I call a tease...].

Changing Teams

Because we have four delegates from Canada conducting research for a IDRC, I've decided that I'll be doing my best to assume a US perspective for my research. Having US citizenship, I feel somewhat obliged to represent my alter ego. Plus, on many topics on Internet governance it seems absurd to not include US policies.

God Bless.

Freedom of Expression As a Security Issue

My first panel [workshop] discussion has now concluded. I can't say that the discussion went anywhere in particular, but they did at least lay out some of the thematic landscape, weaving together security, privacy, freedom of expression, censorship, and despotic regimes.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the attention was directed at Google [the most popular kid on the block], represented by Robert Boorstin. Having sat through about five or six presentations by Google policy personnel in the last year, I have to say that Mr. Boorstin was an interesting change of pace. I'm used to being addressed by members of the Google legal team. Mr. Boorstin, however, is pure politics and is located not in Mountain View California, but in Washington, DC as part of Google's political action committee.

During his prepared timeslot, Mr. Boorstin acknowledged that his answers would be necessarily unsatisfying. He went on to present Google's three-tier policy on freedom of expression:

1. Maximize freedom of expression. This utilitarian approach concedes that on an individual basis not all expression will be supported but that these isolated exceptions are necessary in totality. Google necessarily has a bias towards freedom of expression. Their product is information, the more information put out into the world, the more that Google can sort and sell accordingly. As they see it, more information equals more choice and more power to individuals.
2. Protect users while satisfying interests. Mr. Boorstin acknowledged that freedom of expression is not without limits. Google is an American corporation through and through and this notion is grounded in US constitutional law. Therefore, Google must walk a fine line in exercising its discretion over inappropriate content. Because of this discretion, the process is necessarily imperfect [Hence the unsatisfying answers].
3. Finally, to be responsible to local and cultural conditions. Mr. Boorstin listed two examples: YouTube videos of the King of Thailand and Google's foray into censorship in China. In the Thailand scenario, Google forced to deal with cultural sensitivities. Whether or not the person who posted the videos of the right to express his brand of particularly offensive content, Mr. Boorstin merely offered that "we deal with reality." Removing some controversial content is a necessary condition to doing business abroad. The same rhetoric was used in China but he added that they had instituted a few measures particular to China. Firstly, a domain that is censored by the government will return a page identifying the government's censorship rather than simply an inaccessible page. Secondly, Google has decided not to offer their Gmail and Blogger services in order to preemptively avoid censorship. Finally, they do their best to hide the IP addresses of users.

My view is that the second two points are really just exceptions to the first. For example, maximizing freedom of expression would suggest that they provide services until censored ( Gmail and Blogger). But then again, Google lives in the real world and the unfortunate side effect would be that Google would have to disclaim quite visibly that all their services are directly supervised by the Chinese government.

Early into questions, Mr. Boorstin was attacked with several questions challenging Google's righteousness. As I mentioned above, my previous dealings with the Google legal team would have had them smile, nod, and then answer a question that was closer to their liking. Mr. Boorstin, however, was not going to have any of it. Calls for Google to make their search algorithm more transparent were certainly falling on deaf ears. He retorted that somebody had to be the gatekeeper, and who better than Google? Not exactly the answer people were looking for.

Upon further questioning, he even went so far as to break out the classic private sector remark that : "If you don't like it you can always go somewhere else." After all, "another search engine is only a click away." Feisty n'est-ce pas? Despite being confrontational, he clearly had a good grasp of the policy issues. He offered an anecdote that may summarize the entire topic when he described how the US government had removed maps detailing chemical facilities across the US after September 11, 2001. The maps were removed for security reasons. Unfortunately, they also happened to indicate escape routes for residents just in case anything went wrong. In that case, "safety" presented two angles, but the government failed to recognize both. The corollary is that expression is engaged in both sides of the security debate.

I've focused on the Google perspective only because it provided more quotable quotes. There were several European perspectives represented on the panel addressing the Council of Europe's efforts in the FOE sphere. For more on this panel, see my colleague Daniel Albahary's Blog.

Opening Ceremony

So here I sit in awe of simultaneous translation in 7 languages. Babel had nothing on the United Nations. Under Secretary general for economic and social affairs, Mr. Sha Zukang, opened the conference with a speech most uncharacteristic of the UN... he mentioned the need to address the ongoing practical organization of the IGF programme, and in particular, the need to organize funding.

He also painted a broad picture of the Internet identifying it firstly as an economic engine, but that this engine had immediate and far ranging implications in the social sphere. In particular, that an economic engine may bring about increased freedom of expression and that this year's conference would also emphasize child protection.

Mr Mangabeira Unger (Extraordinary Minister for Strategic Affairs [best title ever?]) delivered perhaps my favorite quotable quote with reference to those who are skeptical of reform with ICANN.

So the realists will ridicule this initiative. But they are the ones to sink in anti-pragmatic pragmatism...

Guess that places me either with the Unrealists or the Surrealists. Let the conference begin.

Governance a Go Go3

Governance a Go Go2

Governance a Go Go

Workshops on Openness

As part of my coverage of the "openness" topic, I'll be attending the following workshops during the course of the week:

• 'Quality' and the Internet: Using and Trusting Internet Web Content

• Freedom of Expression as a Security Issue

• Fundamental Freedoms in the Internet Governance Forum: Protecting and Promoting Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Assembly and Association, and Privacy in the Information Society - formerly Securing Human Rights Online: Protecting and Promoting Freedom

• Upholding Human Rights on the Global Internet - Toward a Unified Industry Solution

• Content regulation and the duty of States to protect fundamental rights

• Human Rights and Neutrality in the Internet

All the speakers look fantastic and I'm thrilled to attend the sessions. Following each workshop, I'll post my impressions and some of the highlights to this blog. When it comes time to write my research paper, the challenge will be weaving all of them together.

Opening Up on "Openness"

My plane leaves tomorrow and I'm turning my mind to the upcoming week. As I've mentioned below, my assignment is to research and write a substantial paper on the theme of "openness" at the IGF. So where does one even begin?

The term open certainly has a long proud history as related to technology. Open-source software[OSS] is perhaps the best-known example: part software development model, part law, and part religion. Richard Stallman and the General Public License [GPL] have even become synonymous with "openness" within the legal and technology communities.

The openness model has also given us open standards, open content, open access publishing, and even open business. These alternative paradigms have generated best-selling books (see also), countless doctoral theses, and the foundation for the much-hyped Web 2.0. I might go so far as to say that "open" is the new ".com".

But where does this leave me for my paper? What are the implications of openness for even broader social institutions including democracy, law, and the media? Rather than flail about in the sheer vastness of the topic, I've been catalyzed with a narrower question by the project leaders, quoting:

"Openness" is often cited the essential defining architectural principle but different kinds of openness prevail in each layer of the internet
stack. What does openness appear to mean for policy makers and how does it get defined by communities of the internet?

Perfect. So it looks like I'll be looking at how the term/model/ideology/theology is adapted and applied to different tiers of the Internet.

I can't write much more until I'm on the ground, but I thought that I might begin with an additional question of my own: "Is Wikipedia a truly open platform?"

Yes:
- anybody with a computer and an Internet connection can contribute
- content is available in multiple languages
- changes are transparent and can be viewed by any user
- content is licensed under the GNU Documentation License
- content is free and requires no registration
- content is hosted by a registered charity

No:
- content contributors are anonymous
- administrators protect controversial topics from editing (see e.g. Judaism)
- no accountability for misstatement or malicious conduct

My plan is to ask this question to as many participants as possible and then compare answers. Up, up, and away....

The Assignment

The Internet Governance Forum 2007 will be held November 12-15 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It will be the most recent installment of the WSIS process which I have followed from afar since 2003. The International Development Research Centre has been nice enough to send me as a reporter to the conference, an offer for which I'm most grateful.

I've been assigned to cover "openness," one of this year's themes. What better way to promote the topic itself then by blogging the proceedings as much as possible? I'll be posting throughout the conference and will do my best to summarize the debate. Moreover, I'll be adding critical commentary from the Canadian perspective.

I should begin by adding that I'm a law student and that the proceedings will inevitably be filtered through something of a legal perspective. That said, I'll do my best to accurately cover technical discussions, as the Internet is ultimately a technical platform attempting to incorporate the many variables of humanity.

I leave for Rio on November 10th. If you're looking for something to read from the Canadian perspective, Prof. Michael Geist's website is always a good bet.

Expect to hear more soon..
Your correspondent at large,
Jeremy Hessing-Lewis