We are anonymous, we are legion

Networks: What You Don’t See is What You (for)Get

nishant — 2014-05-28T09:30:45Z

When I start thinking about DML (digital media and learning) and other such “networks” that I am plugged into, I often get a little confused about what to call them.

The blog entry was originally published in DML Central on April 17, 2014 and mirrored in Hybrid Publishing Lab on May 13, 2014.

Are we an ensemble of actors? A cluster of friends? A conference of scholars? A committee of decision makers? An array of perspectives? A group of associates? A play-list of voices? I do not pose these questions rhetorically, though I do enjoy rhetoric. I want to look at this inability to name collectives and the confusions and ambiguity it produces as central to our conversations around digital thinking. In particular, I want to look at the notion of the network. Because, I am sure, that if we were to go for the most neutralised digital term to characterise this collection that we all weave in and out of, it would have to be the network. We are a network.[1]

But, what does it mean to say that we are a network? The network is a very strange thing. Especially within the realms of the Internet, which, in itself, purports to be a giant network, the network is self-explanatory, self-referential and completely denuded of meaning. A network is benign, and like the digital, that foregrounds the network aesthetic, the network is inscrutable. You cannot really touch a network or name it. You cannot shape it or define it. You can produce momentary snapshots of it, but you can never contain it or limit it. The network cannot be held or materially felt.

And yet, the network touches us. We live within networked societies. We engage in networking – network as a verb. We are a network – network as a noun. We belong to networks – network as a collective. In all these poetic mechanisms of network, there is perhaps the core of what we want to talk about today – the tension between the local and the global and the way in which we will understand the Internet and then the frameworks of governance and policy that surround it.

Let me begin with a genuine question. What predates the network? Because the network is a very new word. The first etymological trace of the network is in 1887, where it was used as a verb, within broadcast and communications models, to talk about an outreach. As in ‘to cover with a network.’ The idea of a network as a noun is older where in the 1550s, the idea of ‘net-like arrangements of threads, wires, etc.’ was first identified as a network. In the second half of the industrial 19th Century, the term network was used for understanding an extended, complex, interlocking system. The idea of network as a set of connected people emerged in the latter half of the 20thCentury. I am pointing at these references to remind us that the ubiquitous presence of the network, as a practice, as a collective, and as a metaphor that seeks to explain the rest of the world around us, is a relatively new phenomenon. And we need to be aware of the fact, that the network, especially as it is understood in computing and digital technologies, is a particular model through which objects, individuals and the transactions between them are imagined.

For anybody who looks at the network itself – especially the digital network that we have accepted as the basis on which everything from social relationships on Facebook to global financial arcs are defined – we know that the network is in a state of crisis.

Networks of crises: The Bangalore North East Exodus

Let me illustrate the multiple ways in which the relationship between networks and crisis has been imagined through a particular story. In August 2012, I woke up one morning to realise that I was living in a city of crisis. Bangalore, which is one of my homes, where the largest preoccupations to date have been about bad roads, stray dogs, and occasionally, the lack of a nightlife, was suddenly a space that people wanted to flee and occupy simultaneously.

Through the technology mediated gossip mill that produced rumours faster than the speed of a digital click, imagination of terror, danger, and material harm found currency. The city suddenly witnessed thousands of people running away from it, heading back to their imagined homelands. It was called the North East exodus, where, following an ethnic-religious clash between two traditionally hostile communities in Assam, there were rumours that the large North East Indian community in Bangalore was going to be attacked by certain Muslim factions at the end of Ramadan.
The media spectacle of the exodus around questions of religion, ethnicity, regionalism and belonging only emphasised the fact that there is a new way of connectedness that we live in – the network society that no longer can be controlled, contained or corrected by official authorities and their voices. Despite a barrage of messages from law enforcement and security authorities, on email, on large screens on the roads, and on our cell phones, there was a growing anxiety and a spiralling information explosion that was producing an imaginary situation of precariousness and bodily harm. For me, this event, was one of the first signalling how to imagine the network society in a crisis, especially when it came to Bangalore, which is supposed to represent the Silicon dreams of an India that is shining brightly. While there is much to be unpacked about the political motivations and the ecologies of fear that our migrant lives in global cities are enshrined in, I want to specifically focus on what the emergence of this network society means.

There is an imagination, especially in cities like Bangalore, of digital technologies as necessarily plugging in larger networks of global information consumption. The idea that technology plugs us into the transnational circuits is so huge that it only tunes us toward an idea of connectedness that is always outward looking, expanding the scope of nation, community and body.

However, the ways in which information was circulating during this phenomenon reminds us that digital networks are also embedded in local practices of living and survival. Most of the time, these networks are so natural and such an integral part of our crucial mechanics of urban life that they appear as habits, without any presence or visibility. In times of crises – perceived or otherwise – these networks make themselves visible, to show that they are also inward looking. But in this production of hyper-visible spectacles, the network works incessantly to make itself invisible.

Which is why, in the case of the North East exodus, the steps leading to the resolution of the crisis, constructed and fuelled by networks is interesting. As government and civil society efforts to control the rumours and panic reached an all-time high and people continued to flee the city, the government eventually went in to regulate the technology itself. There were expert panel discussions about whether the digital technologies are to be blamed for this rumour mill. There was a ban on mass-messaging and there was a cap on the number of messages which could be sent on a day by each mobile phone subscriber. The Information and Broadcast Ministry along with the Information Technologies cell, started monitoring and punishing people for false and inflammatory information.

Network as Crisis: The unexpected visibility of a network

What, then, was the nature of the crisis in this situation? It is a question worth exploring. We would imagine that this crisis was a crisis about the nationwide building of mega-cities filled with immigrant bodies that are not allowed their differences because they all have to be cosmopolitan and mobile bodies. The crisis could have been read as one of neo-liberal flatness in imagining the nation and its fragments, that hides the inherent and historical sites of conflict under the seductive rhetoric of economic development. And yet, when we look at the operationalization of the resolutions, it looked as if the crisis was the appearance and the visibility of the hitherto hidden local networks of information and communication.

In her analysis of networks, Brown University’s Wendy Chun posits that this is why networks are an opaque metaphor. If the function of metaphor is to explain, through familiarity, objects which are new to us, the network as an explanatory paradigm presents a new conundrum. While the network presumes and exteriority that it seeks to present, while the network allows for a subjective interiority of the actor and its decisions, while the network grants visibility and form to the everyday logic of organisation, what the network actually seeks to explain is itself. Or, in less evocative terms, the network is not only the framework through which we analyse, but it is also the object of analyses. Once the network has been deployed as a paradigm through which to understand a crisis, once the network has made itself visible, all our efforts are driven at explaining and strengthening, and almost like digital mothers, comfort the network back into its peaceful existence as infrastructure. We develop better tools to regulate the network. We define new parameters to mine the data more effectively. We develop policies to govern and govern through the network with greater transparency and ease.

Thus, in the case of the North East exodus, instead of addressing the larger issues of conservative parochialism, an increasing backlash by right-wing governments and a growing hostility that emerges from these cities that nobody possesses and nobody belongs to, the efforts were directed at blaming technology as the site where the problem is located and the network as the object that needs to be controlled. What emerged was a series of corrective mechanisms and a set of redundant regulations that controlled the number of text messages that people were able to send per day or policing the Internet for spreading rumours. The entire focus was on information management, as if the reason for the mass exodus of people from the NE Indian states and the sense of fragility that the city had been immersed in, was all due to the pervasive and ubiquitous information gadgets and their ability to proliferate in p2p (peer-to-peer) environments outside of the government’s control. This lack of exteriority to the network is something that very few critical voices have pointed out.

Duncan Watts, the father of network computing, working through the logic of nodes, traffic and edges, has suggested there is a great problem in the ways in which we understand the process of network making. I am paraphrasing his complex mathematical text that explains the production of physical networks – what he calls the small worlds – and pointing out his strong critique about how the social scientists engage with networks. In the social sciences’ imagination of networks, there is a messy exteriority – fuzzy, complex and often not reducible to patterns or basic principles. The network is a distilling of the messy exteriority, a representation of the complex interplay between different objects and actors, and a visual mapping of things as they are. Which is to say, we imagine there is a material reality and the network is a tool by which this reality, or at least parts of this reality, are mapped and represented to us in patterns which can help us understand the true nature of this reality.

Drawing from practices of network modelling and building, Watts proved, that we have the equation wrong. The network is not a representation of reality but the ontology of reality. The network is not about trying to make sense of an exteriority. Instead, the network is an abstract and ideological map that constructs the reality in a particular way. In other words, the network precedes the real, and because of its ability to produce objective, empiricist and reductive principles (constantly filtering out that which is not important to the logic or the logistics of the network design), it then gives us a reality that is produced through the network principles. To make it clear, the network representation is not the derivative of the real but the blue-print of the real. And the real as we access it, through these networked tools, is not the raw and messy real but one that is constructed and shaped by the network in those ways. The network, then, needs to be understood, examined and critiqued, not as something that represents the natural, but something that shapes our understanding of the natural itself.

In the case of the Bangalore North East Exodus, the network and its visibility created a problem for us – and the problem was, that the network, which is supposed to be infrastructure, and hence, by nature invisible, had suddenly become visible. We needed to make sure that it was shamed, blamed, named and tamed so that we can go back to our everyday practices of regulation, governance and policy.

The Intersectional Network

What I want to emphasise, then, is that this binary of local versus the global, or local working in tandem with global, or the quaintly hybridised glocal are not very generative in thinking of policy and politics around the Internet. What we need is to recognise what gets hidden in this debate. What becomes visible when it is not supposed to? What remains invisible beyond all our efforts? And how do we develop a framework that actually moves beyond these binary modes of thinking, where the resolution is either to collapse them or to pretend that they do not exist in the first place? Working with frameworks like the network makes us aware of the ways in which these ideas of the global and the local are constructed and continue to remain the focus of our conversations, making invisible the real questions at hand.

Hence, we need to think of networks, not as spaces of intersection, but in need of intersections. The networks, because of their predatory, expanding nature, and the constant interaction with the edges, often appear as dynamic and inclusive. We need to now think of the networks as in need of intersections – or of intersectional networks. Developing intersections, of temporality, of geography and of contexts are great. But, we need to move one step beyond – and look at the couplings of aspiration, inspiration, autonomy, control, desire, belonging and precariousness that often mark the new digital subjects. And our policies, politics and regulations will have to be tailored to not only stop the person abandoning her life and running to a place of safety, not only stop the rumours within the Information and communication networks, not only create stop-gap measures of curbing the flows of gossip, but to actually account for the human conditions of life and living.

[1]. This post has grown from conversations across three different locations. The first draft of this talk was presented at the Habits of Living Conference, organised by the Centre for Internet & Society and Brown University, in Bangalore. A version of this talk found great inputs from the University of California Humanities Research Institute in Irvine, where I found great ways of sharpening the focus. The responses at the Milton Wolf Seminar at the America Austria Foundation, Austria, to this story, helped in making it more concrete to the challenges that the “network” throws to our digital modes of thinking. I am very glad to be able to put the talk into writing this time, and look forward to more responses.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dml-central-april-17-2014-nishant-shah-networks-what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-for-get

Networking? Not working

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T11:12:33Z

Concerns about privacy, wastage of time and trivialized communication are some reasons ‘refuseniks’ are going off sites such as Facebook and MySpace, writes Shreya Ray in Livemint.

Pune-based law student Arjun Khera, 24, broke many a Facebook stalker’s heart in April when he announced his decision to quit the network one fine afternoon on his status message. “Guys, I’m deleting my Facebook account. Please send me all your email and phone details,” he said. Almost immediately, there was an explosion of concern in his notification window. Why was the effervescent and popular part-time actor and full-time Facebook enthusiast committing Facebook suicide? “What happenedddddd?” (sic)
“Everything ok, dude?”

“It was eating into my life,” Khera says. “I was always logged on, always leaving or commenting on status messages, waiting a few minutes to see if there had been any responses to my comments, and comment some more. I didn’t go out for a walk any more, didn’t get photographs developed because I was only too busy seeing them on Facebook.” Khera signed up for his account in July 2007.

Then, it was the one platform through which he could locate and reconnect with all his long-lost friends. He loved the fact that he could have a pictorial chronicle of his life; that he could “compare friends”, find out if indeed he was a glass of wine (and not a pint of beer) and fit a Shakespearean insult to his current mood. “With time, I got tired of those lame quizzes. I got sick of what it was doing to my time. I hated how it trivialized communication,” he says.

Khera is part of a growing cult of social networking “refuseniks”. Although figures for sites such as MySpace, Orkut, Facebook and Twitter show an overall increase, some recent statistics suggest that not everyone wants to socialize this way. According to a study by TechCrunch Europe, the number of visitors to MySpace, UK, halved in just six months, from “just under 10 million at the start of the year to around 5 million as of the end of June 2010”, leading to a round of layoffs at its London office. “It would appear to show a pretty staggering decline,” says the report, released on 6 July.

The privacy factor

Environmental researcher Maddipatla Rajshekhar, 33, alumnus of the University of Sussex, UK, used Facebook to keep in touch with former classmates. On 31 May, however, along with the 30,000-odd people who had had enough of Facebook changing its privacy policies, he quit. “It was getting increasingly intrusive. Its latest feature let me see what some of my friends said on the walls of their friends—(who were) complete strangers to me,” he said.

Although the Quit Facebook group wasn’t a success in numerical terms (30,000 isn’t even close to a drop in the 450-million ocean), it successfully sent a message to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who held a press conference in the last week of May on new privacy policies and changes.

A May report brought out by the Pew Centre for Internet and American Life Project (of the Pew Research Centre, Washington, DC) finds that social media plays a “central role” in building one’s online identity. Quite naturally, privacy becomes a big issue. “Many users are learning and refining their approach as they go—changing privacy settings on profiles, customizing who can see certain updates and deleting unwanted information about them that appears online,” says the report. Interestingly, it also finds that young adults are more likely than older users to restrict what information is available and to whom, contrary to popular perception.

The next level

Privacy is not the refuseniks’ only issue, however. What social networking does to actual relationships is another, as Khera notes. Mumbai-based social worker Maya Ganesh, 35, too got tired of the constant blurring between friends and acquaintances, and having to constantly update her “limited” lists. “I regularly ignored friend requests but there were some requests not easy to ignore, especially some work connections. I also wanted a break from all the hectic ‘social activity’ that Facebook is about,” she says of her three-year-old account, which she abandoned in May.

Ganesh had reached what Sunil Abraham, executive director, Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, refers to as the end of the “hype cycle”. All technology goes through a standard process, says Abraham: People get hooked to it, then get tired of it, and it disappears. “Some tend to be sticky and last longer; the particular advantage of social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and MySpace is that they bring a critical mass of community to individual users. It’s now difficult for people to get off a network simply because all their friends are on it,” he says.

Conversely, though, he cites Harvard-based social networking researcher Danah Boyd, who says the reducing exclusivity quotient has also put many people off. “Parents getting online also... acts as a self-censorship mechanism,” Abraham adds.

Most of the people who have deleted their accounts are happy with the way their non-virtual life now takes centre stage. Khera enjoys sitting at home and doing nothing; Ganesh says she doesn’t miss being out of the loop. It may take a bit more effort to share holiday photographs or write an email every time you feel the need to connect; but as Rajshekhar says, “Anything for not losing touch, anything for richer conversations.”

Varuni Khosla contributed to this story.

See the original article in livemint.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/networking-not-working

Networking its way to better governance

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T15:13:04Z

New policy to regulate Government presence on social media. This article by Deepa Kurup was published in the Hindu on March 28, 2011.

The official Facebook page of the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department, “DGPCIDKARNATAKA”, is a string of one-sided comments punctuated with official-ese, or newspaper links of some prominent crime or an article by the officials.

The Twitter account, also started around June 2010, has all of 38 tweets, and barely any interaction with “common” men/women. Started with much fanfare, these are among the very few State Government agencies that took to social media, but haven't taken it beyond mere formalities. On the brighter side, blogs by a few Ministers — most prominently, Higher Education Minister V.S. Acharya and Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs S. Suresh Kumar — are lively and even interactive, in spurts. A few government departments too have blogs, but none remarkable.

Though the Indian Government's tryst with social media is fairly new — it took a few Twitter controversies, courtesy former Minister @ShashiTharoor, to make the government sit up and take note — some departments such as IndiaPost, the Delhi Traffic Police, Census India and even the Planning Commission, have been able to take it beyond mere posturing and have interacted with citizens, even tried to solve problems. IndiaPost's Twitter page is a good example of how agencies can engage with stakeholders, at least to an extent.

A draft policy

Twitter recently hit headlines again when foreign secretary Nirupama Sen logged on with an official ID and interacted with Indians stranded in Libya looking to make their way back. All these examples, that have earned these departments accolades, has prompted the Indian Government to come up with a new policy for social media.

The e-governance group of the Department of Information Technology (DIT) held a meeting this week to draw up guidelines to “regulate” Government presence on social media sites.

Speaking to The Hindu, a DIT official said this had been on the Government's agenda because efforts in this direction had been all too scattered, and some of the success stories had convinced them that it could be a good platform for interaction. The official added that the feedback they got on the 12th Planning Commission's Facebook page was seen as a good example of how these tools could be leveraged.

But why regulate at all? Regulating social media use by government officials is imperative mainly to ensure that use of information or data is compliant with existing laws.

Consistency needed

Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation, points out that with no general rules in place, the use of Twitter or Facebook account varies according to the bureaucrats heading the departments. “This cannot be the case as the channel of communication has to be a continuous thing, and the data shared with citizens has to be accurate; which means the same standards need to be applied to online sharing of data as is applied to offline data handling. Departments should also be obliged to back-up online data periodically,” he says.

For instance, a traffic police department announced that citizens could share pictures of traffic rule offenders on Facebook or on its website, to facilitate tracking of offenders. “Such a move could have huge privacy implications, and may also lead to vigilante activism,” warns Mr. Abraham, adding that we need a policy so that all activity, however casual it may seem, is compliant with existing law governing data protection and privacy.

With the Government jumping on to the 2.0 bandwagon (often under pressure like in Mumbai where citizens created a Facebook page for the police forcing them to create a real one), it is time to really make it official. So, while the idea of giving a face to government agencies and pushing for transparency and greater interaction with citizens, standardisation of social media use is indeed the way forward.

Read the original article in the Hindu here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/networking-better-governance

Networked Economies and Gender Action Learning

Admin — 2018-10-02T03:10:02Z

Elonnai Hickok, Sunil Abraham and Ambika Tandon participated in a meeting organized by IDRC for grantees under their networked economies programme to discuss gender-based outputs and development outcomes in their work. The event was held in Ottawa on September 20 - 21, 2018, facilitated by Gender at Work.

Sunil Abraham, Swaraj Paul Barooah and Ambika Tandon also attended a workshop on Gender Action Learning on September 24 - 25, 2018, which discussed strategies to work on gender under a grant for Cyber Policy Centres. Other organizations present at the workshop were Research ICT Africa, Lirne Asia, and Centre Latam Digital at CIDE, Mexico. Gender at Work facilitated this workshop as well, and will be working with all the grantees over a period of 18 months.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/networked-economies-and-gender-action-learning

Network Neutrality Regulation across South Asia: A Roundtable on Aspects of Differential Pricing

praskrishna — 2016-01-17T02:41:13Z

The Centre of Internet and Society (CIS) in association with Observer Research Foundation, and IT For Change in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce a roundtable on ‘Network Neutrality Regulation Across South Asia: Aspects of Differential Pricing” that will take place on January 22, 2016 from 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. at TERI in Bangalore.

Download the Invite

The objective of this roundtable will be to look into the issue of differential pricing in light of TRAI’s recent consultation process, with the specific intention of research building. The network neutrality debate has gained significant momentum in India during the past year, with competing interests of internet service providers, OTTs and the public giving rise to important questions of ICT regulation and policy.

With Facebook looking to expand its zero rated walled garden, Free Basics, into nascent markets, differential pricing is an important point of regulatory policy not just in India, but in jurisdictions across South Asia. These countries have limited connectivity, large consumer potential and low internet penetration which bring to the fore questions of access, diversity, competition and innovation. To this end, the roundtable will seek to address the regulatory and market aspects of differential pricing as well as the impact on rights. Broadly, the roundtable will be forward looking and seek to build future research agendas.

Draft Agenda

11:00 – 11:30	Tea and Registration
11:30 – 12:30	Roundtable 1: Framing the issue: The practice of differential pricing Examples of differential pricing Stakeholder perspectives Competition and market effect of differential pricing Larger social consequences of differential pricing
12:30 – 1:00	Lunch
1:00 – 2:30	Roundtable 2: Regulatory response: Discerning governmental actions Locating public interest Moving from research to action
2:30 – 3:00	Tea
3:00 – 4:30	Roundtable 3: Impact on rights: Access Freedom of expression Privacy Equity and Social Justice
4:30 – 5:00	Discussion and research agenda building

Roundtable Questions:

Roundtable 1: FRAMING THE ISSUE:

What is differential pricing and how does it work? What are the technical components and policy components of differential pricing? What are examples of differential pricing?
What has been the response from different stakeholders to differential pricing schemes? What are the arguments for/against differential pricing?
What could be the market effect of differential pricing?
What are possible larger social impacts of differential pricing?

Roundtable 2: REGULATORY RESPONSE:

How have governments responded to differential pricing? What can these responses tell us about the position of governments?
What are the different components for consideration with developing a regulatory response? What are different forms of regulation for differential pricing?
What type of policy research around differential pricing can drive meaningful action?

Roundtable 3: IMPACT ON RIGHTS:

How does differential pricing impact the right to access, freedom of expression, privacy, and equity and social justice?
Are there ways to mitigate this impact through regulation? Market incentives? Company policy?
What are forms of redress that individuals could seek in the context of differential pricing?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/network-neutrality-regulation-across-south-asia-a-roundtable-on-aspects-of-differential-pricing

Network Disruptions Report by Global Network Initiative

akriti — 2018-06-12T01:31:40Z

Around 70% of all known shutdowns in the world took place in India in 2017. The same year Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) released the “Temporary Suspension of Internet Services” giving State and Central Government officials the power to terminate Internet services as per the guidelines.

The report by Global Network Initiative can be read here.

However S.144 of the Criminal Procedure Code as well Section 5 of the Telegraph Act are still used as legal grounds. The former targets unlawful assembly while the latter gives authorities the right to prevent transmission of messages, applicable to messages sent over the Internet as well. A case in the Gujarat High Court challenging the validity of using S.144 of the CrPC was dismissed essentially stating the Government could use the section to enforce shutdowns to maintain law and order.

The right to Internet has been accepted as a fundamental right by the United Nations and one which, cannot be disassociated from the exercise of freedom of expression and opinion and the right to peaceful assembly. These are rights guaranteed by the Constitution, affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and thus should be provided, both, online and offline. Online movements are unpredictable and dynamic making Governments fearful of their lack of control over content hosting websites. Their fear becomes their de facto perception of online services resulting in network shutdowns regardless of the reality on ground.

Given the rising importance of this issue, Global Network Initiative has published a report on such Network Disruptions by Jan Rydzak . A former Google Policy fellow and now a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona, he, conducts research on the nexus between technology and protest. The report, which uses India as a case study calls for more attention on network disruptions, the 'new form of digital repression' and delves into its impact on human rights. Rydzak aims at widening the gambit of affected rights by discussing the civil and political rights of freedom of assembly, right to equality, religious belief and such. These are ramifications not widely discussed so far and helps shine a light on the collateral damage incurred due to these shutdowns. Through a multitude of interviews with various stakeholders, the author brings to forefront the human rights implications of network disruptions on different groups of individuals such as women, immigrants and certain ethnic groups. These dangers are even more when it comes to vulnerable populations and the report does a comprehensive analysis of all of the above.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/network-disruptions-report-by-global-network-initiative

NETmundial: Tracking Multistakeholder across Contributions

sumandro — 2014-04-25T09:53:37Z

This set of analysis of the contributions submitted to NETmundial 2014 is part of the effort by the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, to enable productive discussions of the critical internet governance issues at the meeting and elsewhere.

Created by Sumandro using Google Charts.
Google Terms of Use and Data Policy.
Data compiled by Sumandro and Jyoti.
Download the data .

This scatter plot shows the number of times the word *multistakeholder* (including *multi-stakeholder* and *multistakeholderism*) appears across contributions submitted to NETmundial.

X axis (horizontal) gives the serial number of contributions and Y axis (vertical) gives the number of times the word appears on a contribution.

Click on the types of organisation below the chart to highlight the corresponding organisations on the chart.

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness, and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

The visualisations are done by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, based on data compilation and analysis by Jyoti Panday, and with data entry suport from Chandrasekhar.

Built on Bootstrap by Sumandro

All code, content and data is co-owned by the author(s) and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, and shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 India license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-tracking-multi-stakeholder-across-contributions

NETmundial Roadmap: Defining the Roles of Stakeholders in Multistakeholderism

jyoti — 2014-04-28T12:51:40Z

NETmundial, one of the most anticipated events in the Internet governance calendar, will see the global community convening at Sao Paolo, with an aim to establish 'strategic guidelines related to the use and development of the Internet in the world.' This post analyses the submissions at NETmundial that focused on Roadmap, towards an understanding of stakeholder roles in relation to specific governance functions and highlighting the political, technical and architectural possibilities that lie ahead.

Introduction

A technically borderless Internet, in a world defined by national boundaries, brings many challenges in its wake. The social, ethical and legal standards of all countries are affected by technical standards and procedures, created by a few global players. This disparity in capacity and opportunities to participate and shape Internet policy, fuelled by Edward Snowden's revelations led to the development of the Global Multi-stakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance or NETmundial. Set against, an urgent need for interdisciplinary knowledge assessment towards establishing global guiding principles with respect to the technological architecture and the legal framework of the Internet–NETmundial is seen as a critical step in moving towards a global policy framework for Internet Governance (IG). As stakeholder groups from across the world come together to discuss future forms of governance, one of the most widely discussed issues will be that of Multistakeholderism (MSism).

Multistakeholderism

The governance structure of the Multistakeholder model is based on the notion, that stakeholders most impacted by decisions should be involved in the process of decision making. The collaborative multistakeholder spirit has been widely adopted within the Internet Governance fora, with proponents spread across regions and communities involved in the running, management and use of the Internet. So far, MSism has worked well in the coordination of technical networking standards and efforts to set norms and best practices in defined areas, in the realm of technical governance of the Internet. However, the extension of MSism beyond truly voluntary, decentralized and targeted contexts and expanding its applicability, to other substantive areas of Internet Governance is proving a challenge. Beyond defining how the process of policymaking should be undertaken, MSism does not provide any guidance on substantive policy issues of Internet governance. With the increasing impact of Internet technology on human lives and framed against the complexity of issues such as security, access and privacy, the consensus on MSism is further rendered unattainable.

The need for contextualizing the model aside, as with most policy negotiations certain open concepts and words have also prevented agreement and adoption of MSism as the best way forward for IG. One such open and perhaps, the most contentious issue with respect to the legitimacy of MSism in managing Internet functions is the role of stakeholders. A key element of MSism is that decisions will be made by and including all relevant stakeholders. Stakeholder groups are broadly classified to include governments, technical community and academia, private sector and civil society. With each stakeholder representing diverse and often conflicting interests, creating a consensus process that goes beyond a set of rules and practices promising a seat at the negotiation table and is supportive of broad public interest is a challenging task that needs urgent addressing.

This post aims to add to the discourse on defining the role and scope of stakeholders' decision-making powers, towards a better understanding of the term "in their respective role". Addressing the complexity of functions in managing and running the Internet and the diversity of stakeholders that are affected and hence should be included in decision making, I have limited the scope of my analysis to cover three broad internet management functions:

Technical: Issues related to infrastructure and the management of critical Internet resources
Policy: Issues relating to the developmental aspects, capacity building, bridging digital divide, human rights
Implementation: Issues relating to the use of the Internet including jurisdictional law, legislation spam, network security and cybercrime

While this may be an oversimplification of complex and interconnected layers of management and coordination, in my opinion, broad categorisation of issues is necessary, if not an ideal starting point for the purpose of this analysis. I have considered only the submissions categorised under the theme of Roadmap, seeking commonalities across stakeholder groups and regions on the role of stakeholders and their participation in the three broad functions of technology, policy and implementation.

Towards a definition of respective roles: Analysis NETmundial submissions on Roadmap

There were a total of 44 submissions specific to Roadmap with civil society (20) contributing more than any other group including academia (7), government (4), technical community (5), private sector (3) and other (5). MSism sees support across most stakeholder groups and many submissions highlight or agree on participation and inclusion in decision making processes.

Regionally, submissions from North (24) were dominated by USA (10) with contributions cutting across academia (4), civil society (2), technical community (2) and other (2). Brazil (5) contributed the most to submissions from South (15), followed by Argentina (3). The submissions were consistent with the gender disparity prevalent in the larger technology community with only 12 females contributing submissions. An overwhelming number of submissions (38), thought that the multistakeholder (MS) model needs further definition or improvements, however, suggestions on how best to achieve this varied widely across stakeholders and regional boundaries. Only 16 submissions referenced or suggested Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in its present capacity or with an expanded policy role as a mechanism of implementing MSism on the Internet.

Many submissions referred to issues related to the management of critical internet resources (CIRs), the role of ICANN and US oversight of IANA functions. A total of 11 submissions referred to or specified governance processes with respect to technical functions and issues related to critical resources with civil society (5) and academia (3) contributing the most. In an area that perhaps has the most direct relevance to their work, the technical community was conspicuous with just two submissions making any concrete recommendations. The European Commission was the only governmental organisation that addressed this issue, recommending an expansion of the role of IGF. There were no specific recommendations from the private sector.

The suggestions on oversight and decision making mechanism were most conflicted for this category of Internet functions and included:

setting up a technical advisory group, positioned within a new intergovernmental body World Internet Organization (WIO) framework;
splitting IANA functions into protocol parameters, that Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) will be responsible for and IP address-related functions retained by ICANN
expanding the role of IGF, possibly creating an IGF Secretariat
expanding the role of Government Advisory Committee (GAC) to mainstream government representatives participation within supporting organisations, in particular the Generic Name Supporting Organisation (GNRO)
expanding the role of private sector
expanding the role of ICANN with multistakeholder values
expanding the role of all stakeholders
implementing changes that do not necessarily require legislative acts or similar hard law approaches and implementation does not necessitate international treaties or intergovernmental structures
establishing a new non-profit corporation DNS Authority (DNSA) combining the IANA Functions and the Root Zone Maintainer roles in
improving transparency and accountability of current bodies managing CIRs

16 submissions referred to issues related to policy development and implementation including developmental aspects, capacity building, bridging digital divide and human rights. All submissions called for a reform or further definition of MSism and included recommendations from civil society (5), academia (4), technical community (2), governments (2), private sector (1) and Other (2). All stakeholder groups across regions, unanimously agreed that all stakeholders within their respective role should have a role in decision making and within public policy functions. There was however, no broad consensus on the best way to achieve this.

Specific recommendations and views captured on who should be involved in policy related decision making and what possible frameworks could be developed included:

improving existing intergovernmental organizations
creating Internet Ad Hoc Group
modularization of ICANN’s functions
creating a stewardship group IETF, ICANN and the RIRs
creating an independent IANA as an International NGO with host country agreements governed by its MOUs-defined by the IANA Stewardship Group prior to the signing of MOUs with IANA Partners
creating a 'new body' to develop international level public policies in concerned areas; seek appropriate harmonization of national level policies; and facilitate required treaties, conventions and agreements
responsibility of the definition of these policies rests within the States as an inalienable right
continuity of bottom-up oversight enables a better view of an organization and thus better accountability as government oversight will destroy multistakeholder character
evolving global governance norms that separate DNS maintenance from policies on TLDs, as well as public policies that intersect with nations’ rights to make them
policy makers incrementally develop formal and informal relationships
dealing with conflict of interest and ensuring pluralism
full multi-stakeholder framework including possible establishment of Working Groups where all parties concerned are represented

18 submissions referred to issues related to the implementation of standards including issues relating to the use of the Internet including jurisdiction, law, legislation, spam, network security and cybercrime. All submissions called for a reform or further definition of MSism values and included recommendations from civil society (8), academia (3), technical community (3), governments (2), private sector (1) and other (1). Stakeholders from academia (5), civil society (3) and government (1) collectively called for the reform of ICANN guided by multistakeholder values, but did not specify how this reform would be achieved.

Specific recommendations on the improvements of institutional frameworks and arrangements for issues related to implementation of standards included:

establishment of double system of arbitrage/settlement placed under World Internet Forum (WIF) scrutiny and under the neutral oversight and arbitrage of the UN general secretariat
new legal instruments in establishing MS model need to be adopted
establishment of the Internet Technical Oversight and Advisory Board (ITOAB) replace the US government's current oversight role
multilateral frameworks with oversight role of governments

In summation, the classification of Internet functions discussed above, presents a very broad view of complex, dynamic and often, interrelated relationships amongst stakeholder groups. However, even within these very broad categories there are various interpretations of how MSism should evolve.

To come back to the very beginning of this post, NETmundial is an important step towards a global policy framework for Internet governance. This is the first meeting outside formal processes and it is difficult to know what to expect, partly as the expectations are not clear and range widely across stakeholders. Whatever the outcome, NETmundial's real contribution to Internet Governance has been sparking anew, the discourse on multistakeholderism and its application on the Internet through the creation of a spontaneous order amongst diverse actors and providing a common platform for divergent views to come together.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-roadmap-defining-roles-of-stakeholders-in-multistakeholderism

NETmundial Day 2

achal — 2014-04-25T04:58:26Z

Fadi Chehade, the ICANN boss, closed NETmundial 2014 with these words "In Africa we say if you want to go first, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together." He should have added: And if you want to go nowhere, go multi-stakeholder.

For all the talk of an inclusive global meeting, there was exactly one governmental submission from the African continent, and it was from Tunisia; and the overall rate of submissions from Africa and West Asia were generally very low.

The outcome document perfectly reflects the gloss that the "multi-stakeholder" model was designed to achieve: an outcome that is celebrated by businesses (and by all embedded institutions like ICANN) for being harmless, met with relief by governments for not upsetting the status quo, all of it lit up in the holy glow of "consensus" from civil society.

Of course there was no consensus. Civil society groups who organised on Day 0 put up their position: the shocking omission of a strong case for net neutrality, ambiguous language on surveillance, weak defences of free expression and privacy. All valid points. But it's striking that civil society takes such a pliant position towards authority: other than exactly two spirited protests (one against the data retention in Marco Civil, and the other against the NSA's mass surveillance program) there was no confrontation, no provocation, no passionate action that would give civil society the force it needs to win. If we were to compare this to other international struggles, the gay rights battle, or its successor, the AIDS medicines movement, for instance - what a difference there is. People fought to crush with powerful, forceful action. Only after huge victories with public and media sympathy, and only after turning themselves into equals of the corporations and governments they were fighting, did they allow themselves to sit down at the table and negotiate nicely. Internet governance fora are marked by politeness and passivity, and perhaps - however sad - it's no wonder that the least powerful groups in these fora always come away disappointed.

It's also surprising that there is no language in the outcome document that explicitly addresses the censorious threat posed by the global expansion of a sovereign application of copyright, as seen most vividly in the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation in the United States. The outcome document has language that seems to more or less reflect the civil society proposal, and it's possible that a generous interpretation of the language could mean that it opposes the selective, restrictive and damaging application of what the intellectual property industries want to accomplish on the Internet. But it's puzzling that the language isn't stronger or more explicit, and even more puzzling that civil society doesn't seem to want to fight for such language.

This seems like an appropriate time to end the multi-stakeholder diaries. Hasn't the word been used enough? Here is one last instalment. We thank the kind folks who gave us their time.

Q: What does "multi-stakeholder" mean? What is "multi-stakeholderism"?

A large part of the discourse prior to the NETmundial conference has been centered around the issue of what is the best structural system to regulate a global network – this has commonly been portrayed as a choice between a multistakeholder system – which broadly speaking, aims to place ‘all stakeholders’ on equal footing – against multilateralism – a recognized concept in International law / the Comity of Nation States, where a nation state is recognized as the representative of its citizens, making decisions on their behalf and in their interests.

In our opinion, the issue is not about the dichotomy between multilateralism and multistakeholderism; it is about what functions or issues can legitimately be dealt with through each of the processes in terms of adequately protecting civil liberties and other public interest principles – including the appropriate enforcement of norms. For instance, how do you deal with something like cyber warfare without the consent of states? Similarly, how do we address regulatory issues such as determining (and possibly subsidizing) costs of access, or indeed to protect a right of a country against unilateral disconnection?

.....The crux of the matter rests in deciding which is the best governance ‘basket’ to include a particular issue within – taken from both a substantive and enforcement perspective. The challenge is trying to demarcate issues to ensure that each is dealt with effectively by placing it in an appropriate bucket. (The full post can be accessed here).
Rishab Bailey from the Society for Knowledge Commons (India)

If I would have signed the campaign http://wepromise.eu as a candidate to the European Parliament I would have made it an election promise to defend "the principle of multistakeholderism".

That means that I "support free, open, bottom-up, and multi-stakeholder models of coordinating the Internet resources and standards - names, numbers, addresses etc" and that I "support measures which seek to ensure the capacity of representative civil society to participate in multi-stakeholder forums." Further, I "oppose any attempts by corporate, governmental or intergovernmental agencies to take control of Internet governance."

My very rudimentary personal view is basically that it's a bad idea to institutionalise conflicting competences.
Erik Josefsson, Adviser on Internet policies for the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament

And so it ends.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-2

NETmundial Day 1

achal — 2014-04-24T09:02:49Z

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's speech at the opening of NETmundial in São Paulo was refreshingly free of the UN-speak that characterised virtually every single other presentation this morning. The experience of sitting for five hours in a room where the word "multi-stakeholder" is repeated at the rate of five mentions per minute is not for the faint-hearted; it almost makes you wish for more of the straight-talking tough-love of people like Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

Surveillance was mentioned by a few brave souls. Two peaceful, silent - and rather effective - protests broke out during the opening speeches; one, against the data retention clause in Brazil's otherwise path-breaking and brand-new law for civil rights on the Internet, Marco Civil, and another for honouring US NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and urging action against surveillance. Sadly for Brazilian civil society, the Marco Civil protestations went unheard, and Rousseff signed the bill into law in full.

There were lots of speeches. Lots. If you missed them, here's a handy visualisation you can use to catch up quickly: just add some prepositions and conjunctions, and you'll have a perfectly anodyne and universally acceptable bureaucrat/politician keynote address.

The afternoon was given over to assimilating previously received comments on the outcome document and adding new ones from people in the room. Much contention, much continuity, lots of hard work, lots of nitpicking (some of it even useful) and lots of ambiguity; after more consultation - the slog goes on until tomorrow afternoon - the outcome document will be laid to rest. Lunch was excellent: there's a reason the Grand Hyatt São Paulo costs as much as it does.

Our quest to plumb the depths of multi-stakeholderism continued: we thank the kind folks who gave us their time and allowed us to record them.

Q: What does "multi-stakeholder" mean? What is "multi-stakeholderism"?

Multi-stakeholderism to me is the ability to engage with every stakeholder and have them in the room, and have them understand that it is not an equal opportunity for all. I also understand that civil society and academia will never be at the same place as business, which has far more resources, or governments, which have the sovereign right to make laws, or even the technical community, which is often missing from the policy dialogue. There are three things which are important to me: (1) Will I be able to make interventions not just in the dialogue but in the decision making process? For me, that is key. (2) Do I have recourse in a process which might be multilateral or inter-governmental - do I have recourse when international treaties are ratified or signed, because they become binding national laws? and (3) What is it that happens to dissent in a process that is not multi-stakeholder? I think even the ITU (the International Telecommunications Union) has taken cognizance of multi-stakeholderism. So it's not new, but it's also not old or accepted, which is why we contest it. We will never have equal stakeholders. And who gets to represent the stakeholder communities? I don't think power imbalances get resolved, and I think it's a deeply flawed process. It's not perfect. But what worries me is the alternative. So give me a better alternative.
Subi Chaturvedi, Media for Change/ Lady Shriram College (India)

Simply put, multi means many components, and stakeholders are people who have the stakes. So multi-stakeholder means many people who are informed to take the process forward. The process is still on: it's evolving. The idea is that everyone who has an interest should bring it forward, and the dialogue must be balanced. Proof of concept is important - it's not about taking a dogmatic position but a scientific position. Business is concerned about the justification around return on investment.
Jimson Olufuye, Africa ICT Alliance (Nigeria)

Everyone who has a stake in the use and operation of the Internet should have a stake in the way it is managed. I think we shouldn't be considering this as a power game - it's not winner takes all. Decision making should be as much as possible consensual, where no one has a veto power.
Getachew Engida, Deputy Director-General, UNESCO (France)

It is very simple. I think people are complicating matters. It's not a power game. The Internet is fundamentally a global network of interconnected computers. People have become not only consumers of information but providers of information, so the stakes in the media/ICT world are massive. Unprecedented. Therefore, around major issues confronting the Internet, decision making should be as participatory as possible.
Indrajit Banerjee, Director, UNESCO (France)

Additional Links

Watch Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's speech at the opening of NETmundial
Follow Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt on Twitter

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-1

NETmundial Day 0

achal — 2014-04-23T10:58:50Z

Day O of NETmundial began at Arena NetMundial, an alternative-ish, Brazilian counterpart to the official "multistakeholder" meeting being organised at the very expensive Grand Hyatt. Arena NETmundial began today and will extend until the last day of NETmundial; it's being organised at the very democratic Centro Cultural São Paulo - free to all, no registration required - and offers space for a whole host of organised and spontaneous activity.

Every evening is capped by a music performance, and the opening act was a stand-out two-hour visual extravaganza by Tom Zé, Tropicalia's most avant-garde exponent. Lula (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the previous President of Brazil) was supposed to join us at 7 p.m. today to discuss Marco Civil da Internet - the Brazilian bill for "civil rights" on the Internet - but was a no show.

No matter: Marco Civil was passed into law by the Senate at about 8 p.m. this evening, and President Dilma Rousseff (who reportedly willed this meeting into being) is expected to sign her assent to it tomorrow morning at the opening of NETmundial, which she is scheduled to attend. (While the global press around Marco Civil is unanimously positive and upbeat, it's worth noting that there is one problematic provision — the issue of data retention — that many folks from Brazilian civil society see as a huge loss).

A host of civil society groups spent the day at Arena NETmundial figuring out how to stage a coordinated, detailed and forceful response to what many saw as watered-down text from the NETmundial organisers. (Several corporate representatives and some academics also saw it as watered-down, but from another direction).

There are several puzzling aspects to the shape NETmundial has assumed. What began as a response to the Snowden leaks — the unprecedented scale of the US government sponsored, NSA-executed surveillance — has become a meeting that strangely doesn't have all that much to say about surveillance, perhaps thanks to the various partners roped in to manage the process. There is little that references the bitter SOPA/PIPA battles of two years ago, and not much in the NETmundial outcome document that addresses the manner in which a sovereign state has outrageously sought to export its national application of copyright onto the global Internet landscape. The civil society meeting produced language to address both these situations.

Perhaps the most confounding aspect of this meeting is the manner in which the word "multistakeholder" is thrown about by people of every political stripe. Seemingly, if there is one thing that most everyone, from governments to businesses to civil society activists at NETmundial agree on, it is that multistakeholderism has an essential place in the future of Internet governance.

That being as it is, I asked a bunch of people what their interpretation of the term was, and many agreed to be recorded. Their answers were surprising, to say the least.

This is what they said:

Q: What does "multi-stakeholder" mean? What is "multi-stakeholderism"?

I think multistakeholderism is a kind of democracy, which means, in the public policy area, other than the critical internet resources, usually only governments make public policy. They sometimes consult with other stakeholders, but it is not usually open or transparent and it is very selective. They only choose the experts they like. I think "multistakeholder" is useful in comparison with an inter-governmental or governmental process.

Byoungil Oh from the Korean Progressive Network Jinbonet

Multistakeholderism is a mechanism to ensure that people who are affected or have the potential to be affected by a policy or a technical decision get to have a say in the decision, in the process, or in coming to a decision, so that their rights — the rights of the affected people — are assured. I think there should be some sort of equity, currently the way multistakeholderism is being carried out is that certain stakeholders carry much higher weight and I think that is something that needs to be addressed.

YoungEum Lee from Korea National Open University (Korea)

If multistakeholderism is a form of institutionalising participatory democracy, then it's good. But public policy decision making is only something that the representatives of people can do. For me, that's sacrosanct. When you're taking in views, in consultation, multistakeholderism works. But public policy decision-making, at a global level, has to be a multilateral process. However, it has to be embedded into a huge amount of public consultations, transparencies, accountabilities, etc., which could be a multistakeholder system.

Parminder Jeet Singh from IT for Change (ITFC) (India)

I hate with a passion the concept of multistakeholderism. For me, how it can make sense is by recognising there are multiple stakeholders. And they’re not fixed. But issues affect different people in different ways and these people need to be involved in decision making processes. It's an approach that can potentially democratise processes by identifying who is affected by those processes and making sure they participate in them. But turning them into an -ism which is undifferentiated, which doesn't recognise conflict, power, voice, and that there are differences, makes it meaningless and also possibly dangerous.

Anriette Esterhuysen from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) (South Africa)

This multistakeholderism thing I think is bullshit. We now a have a clear picture of technology as a whole being turned against its users, being turned into a tool for oppression, for control. And when you look at the most important struggles of the 20th century, whether women's rights or civil rights or gay rights, it never happened with a total global consensus. This is an illusion. What we need is to affirm that we citizens have the right to decide. We are the only stakeholders here, because we are the co-owners of the Internet as a public good.

Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net (France)

Everyone has to participate, and everyone has to decide what is the future of the Internet. I think that we need to improve our networks. There is no real answer here: for me it is very difficult to think of the kind of discussion we will have, but I know that my voice is probably useful for others who are in a similar situation to me.

Pilar Saenz from the Karisma Foundation (Colombia)

Multistakeholderism means that we are going to smash the patriarchy. Ask me what the colour blue means? [Ok: What does the colour blue mean?] The colour blue means we are going to smash the patriarchy.

Jacob Appelbaum, journalist, activist and core member of the TOR Project (USA/Germany)

Ultimately rights are embedded in laws. But when it comes to an international framework, in the current Internet governance model, nothing is based in law, including the domain name system. So the whole structure of international Internet governance is divorced from international law, and that's why, when you talk of a multistakeholder model, what you are really saying is that the market will finally determine what happens. No stakeholder is going to operate against its own interest whether it be governments or corporations. We need an international legal framework, from which the powers - or rights - of Internet governance emerge. Without that you're leaving it to the market. In reality, even today, what we have is a private-sector-led multistakeholder model.

Prabir Purkayastha from Knowledge Commons and the JustNet Coalition (India)

What does multistakeholderism mean? Listen, I'm a brown person from a developing country, and I'm female.

Anonymous

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-0

NETmundial and Suggestions for IANA Administration

smarika — 2014-04-23T04:00:49Z

Following NTIA's announcement to give up control over critical Internet functions, the discussion on how that role should be filled has gathered steam across the Internet governance space.

This post maps the discussion across the NETmundial submissions and presents six emerging evolution scenarios related to the IANA functions:

Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body
Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body
No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body
No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body
Multiplication of TLD registries and root servers
Maintenance of status quo

I. Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body

The proposal under this category demands for the separation of IANA function from technical policy making, and suggests that the IANA function be transferred to an intergovernmental body.

Such proposal is listed below:

Sl.No.	Proposal No.	Name of Proposal	Organization	Sector	Region	Link
1	186	The Next Best Stage for the Future of Internet Governance is Democracy	Global Geneva	Civil Society	Geneva, Switzerland	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/the-next-best-stage-for-the-future-of-internet-governance-is-democracy/305

This proposal by Global Geneva seeks the establishment of an intergovernmental organisation called World Internet Organisation (WIO), under which IANA (which is understood to be essentially technical and concerning safety and security of the Internet would be located. WIO would additionally have a special link/status/contract with IANA to avoid unwanted interference from governments. A 75% majority at WIO would be requested to act/modify/contest an IANA decision, making it difficult for governments to go beyond reasonable and consensual demands. WIO would act in concert with World Internet Forum, under which ICANN would be located, whereby it would make policy decisions regarding gTLDs apart from its other present functions.

II. Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body

There are certain proposals whereby it is proposed that IANA function should be separated from technical policy making, or ICANN, and IANA function, which is perceived to be a purely administrative one in such submissions, should be handed over to some sort of non-multilateral organisation, which take different forms in each proposal.

Most such submissions have emerged from the civil society or the technical community.

The Internet Governance Project submission envisions the creation of a DNS Authority under whose umbrella IANA would function. The DNS Authority would be separate from ICANN. This proposal has been endorsed by the submissions of InternetNZ as well as Article 19 and Best Bits. Avri Doria’s submission, along with the submission of APC, envisions the establishment of an independent IANA, separate from the technical policy function. Such independence is sought to be preceded by a transition period by a body called IANA Stewardship Group which would be constituted mostly by members from the technical community. IANA is sought to be governed via MoUs with all stakeholders, on the same lines as the MoU between ICANN and the IETF, as described in RFC2860, RFC6220. The focus of these MoUs would not be policy but will be on performance and adherence to service level agreements.

These submissions are listed below:

Sl. No.	Proposal No.	Name of Proposal	Organisation	Sector	Region	Link
1	19	Roadmap for Globalising IANA: Four Principles and a Proposal for Reform	Internet Governance Project	Civil Society	North America	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-globalizing-iana-four-principles-and-a-proposal-for-reform-a-submission-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/96
2	26	Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem- ICANN	Article 19 and Best Bits	Civil Society	Global	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem-icann/109
3	42	Content Contribution to NetMundial on the Roadmap for the Futher Evolution of the IG Ecosystem regarding the Internationalisation of the IANA Function	InternetNZ	Technical Community	New Zealand	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/content-contribution-to-netmundial-on-the-roadmap-for-the-futher-evolution-of-the-ig-ecosystem-regarding-the-internationalisation-of-the-iana-function/130
4	60	One Possible Roadmap for IANA Evolution	Avri Doria, Independent Researcher	Other	USA	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/one-possible-roadmap-for-iana-evolution/153
5	162	APC Proposals for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem	Association for Progressive Communications (APC)	Civil Society	APC is an international organisation with its executive director's office in South Africa	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/apc-proposals-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/280

III. No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body

These submissions propose that the IANA function should come under a multilateral body. However they do not suggest the separation of IANA function from policymaking, or from ICANN; or they are at least silent on this latter issue. 2 such proposals come from the civil society and 2 from the government.

A list of these submissions is provided below:

Sl. No.	Proposal No.	Name of Proposal	Organisation	Sector	Region	Link
1	8	Roadmaps for Further Evolution of Internet Governance	Association for Proper Internet Governance	Civil Society	Switzerland	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmaps-for-further-evolution-of-internet-governance/65
2	45	Russian Parliament Submission to NET mundial	State Duma of the Russian Federation (Parliament of the Russia)	Government	Russian Federation	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/themes/133
3	121	Contribution from the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Global Multiskaeholder (sic) Meeting for the Future of the Internet, 23-24 April 2014 Sao Paulo, Brazil	Cyber Space National Center, Iran	Government	Islamic Republic of Iran	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-from-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-to-the-global-multiskaeholder-meeting-for-the-future-of-the-internet-23-24-april-2014-sao-paolo-brazil/236
4	125	Towards Reform of Global Internet Governance	The Society for Knowledge Commons	Civil Society	India and Brazil	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/towards-reform-of-global-internet-governance/240

IV. No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body

These submissions do not consider the issue of separation of IANA function from policymaking, or ICANN, or at least do not state an opinion on the separation of IANA function from ICANN. However, they do suggest that the control of IANA should be held by a non-multilateral body, and not the US Government.

Many of these submissions also suggest that the oversight of ICANN should be done by a non-multilateral body, therefore it makes sense that the IANA function is administered by a non-multilateral body, without its removal from the ICANN umbrella.

A list of such submissions is provided below:

Sl.No.	Proposal No.	Name of Proposal	Organisation	Sector	Region	Link
1	46	Norwegian Contribution to the Sao Paulo Meeting	Norwegian government	Government	Norway, Europe	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/norwegian-government/137
2	50	Contribution from the GSM Association to the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance	GSMA	Private Sector	Global	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-from-the-gsm-association-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/141
3	51	Contribution of Telefonica to NETmundial	Telefonica, S.A.	Private Sector	Spain	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-of-telefonica-to-netmundial/143
4	56	ETNO Contribution to NETmundial	ETNO [European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association]	Private Sector	Belgium	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/etno-contribution-to-netmundial/148
5	61	French Government Submission to NETmundial	French Ministry of Foreign Affairs	Government	France	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/french-government-submission-to-netmundial/154
6	63	Nominet Submission on Internet Governance Principles and the Roadmap	Nominet	Private Sector	UK	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/nominet-submission-on-internet-governance-principles-and-the-roadmap/156
7	64	Submission by AHCIET to the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance. NETmundial	AHCIET	Private Sector	Latin America	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/submission-by-ahciet-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance-netmundial/157
8	70	Spanish Government Contribution to the Global Multi-stakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance	Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, Spain	Government	Spain	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/multistakeholder-human-rights-stability-gac/165
9	80	Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem	European Commission	Government	Europe	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/177
10	94	Roadmap for the Future Development of the Internet Governance Ecosystem	Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina	Government	Argentina	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-future-development-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/196
11	97	Orange Contribution for NETmundial	Orange Group	Private Sector	Deputy to the Chief Regulatory Officer Orange Group	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/orange/199
12	106	Submission on Internet Governance Principles and Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem	Kuwait Information Technology Society	Civil Society	Kuwait	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/kuwait-information-technology-society-kits-submission-on-internet-governance-principles-and-roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/214
13	111	Content Submission by the Federal Government of Mexico	Secretara de Comunicaciones y Transportes, Mexico	Government	Mexico	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/content-submission-by-the-federal-government-of-mexico/219
14	114	Better Understanding and Co-operation for Internet Governance Principles and Its Roadmap	Japan Internet Service Providers Association	Private Sector	Japan	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/better-understanding-cooperation-for-internet-governance-principles-its-roadmap/222
15	116	Deutsche Telekom’s Contribution for to the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance	Deutsche Telekom AG	Private Sector	Germany / Europe	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/deutsche-telekom-s-contribution-for-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/225
16	148	NRO Contribution to NETmundial	NRO (for AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC, RIPE-NCC)	Technical Community	Mauritius	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/nro-contribution-to-netmundial/259
17	146	Evolution and Internationalisation of ICANN	CGI.br- Brazilian Internet Steering Committee	Other	Brazil	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/evolution-and-internationalization-of-icann/263
18	176	Addressing Three Prominent “How To” Questions on the Internet Governance Ecosystem Future	Luis Magalhes, Professor at IST of University of Lisbon, Portugal; Panelist of ICANN’s Strategy Panel on the Role in the Internet Governance System	Academia	Portugal	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/addressing-three-prominent-how-to-questions-on-the-internet-governance-ecosystem-future/294
19	183	NETmundial Content Submission- endorsed by NIC Mexico	NIC Mexico	Technical Community	Mexico	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/netmundial-content-submission-endorsed-by-nic-mexico/302

V. Multiplication of TLD registries and Root Servers

These submissions are based on the assumption that reform in the current ICANN/IANA administrative structure is impossible as the US government is unlikely to give up its oversight role over both. Instead, these submissions suggest that multiple TLD registries and root servers should be created as alternatives to today’s IANA/ICANN so that a healthy market competition can be fostered in this area, rather than fostering monopoly of IANA.

A list of such submissions is provided below:

Sl.No.	Proposal No.	Name of Proposal	Organisation	Sector	Region	Link
1	41	Internet Governance: What Next?	EUROLINC	Civil Society	France, Europe	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/internet-governance-what-next/129
2	175	The Intergovernance of the InterPLUS	INTLNET	Civil Society	France	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/the-intergovernance-of-the-interplus/293

VI. Maintenance of status quo

These submissions are based on the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle, and are of the opinion that there is no need to change the administration of IANA function as it functions efficiently in the current system.

A list of such submissions is provided below:

Sl.No.	Proposal No.	Name of Proposal	Organisation	Sector	Region	Link
1	12	United Kingdom Government Submission	Department For Culture Media and Sport, United Kingdom Government	Government	Government	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/united-kingdom-government-submission/79
2	133	Perspectives from the Domain Name Association	Domain Name Association	Private Sector	Private Sector	http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/perspectives-from-the-domain-name-association/249

Read more on ICANN/IANA: Role and Structural Considerations (PDF Document, 1215 Kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-and-suggestions-for-iana-administration

NETmundial - Word Clouds of Contributions by Types of Organisation

sumandro — 2014-04-25T09:51:51Z

Created by Sumandro using R.
Download the R code .
Download the data.

These word clouds show the hundred most frequently appearing words in the aggregated contribution text of each type of organisations.

The size of the words in these diagrams refer to their frequency of appearance. A larger size refers to higher frequency of appearance. The colour of the words have been differentiated to group the words according to their freuqency of appearance. The color hierarchy is as follows: Green, Pink, Blue, Red.

While creating these word clouds, certain common English words (like, 'the' and 'and') and obvious words for the contributions (like, 'internet' and 'governance') have been ommitted. The full list of ommitted words have been documented in the R code used to generate the diagrams.

Built on Bootstrap by Sumandro.

All code, content and data is co-owned by the author(s) and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, and shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 India license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-word-clouds-of-contributions-by-types-of-organisation

NETmundial - Which Governments Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?

sumandro — 2014-04-25T09:47:53Z

Created by Sumandro using Datamaps.

The map shows (in *green*) all the countries from where no government agency has submitted any contribution to NETmundial. Governments of the countries appearing in *white* have contributed to the NETmundial process.

Inter-governmental and international bodies that have submitted contributions to NETmundial -- such as OECD and UNESCO -- have not been considered while creating the above map.

To see the map of all the countries from where there have been no contributions (by any kinds of organisation) to NETmundial, click here.

The visualisations are done by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, based on data compilation and analysis by Jyoti Panday, and with data entry support from Chandrasekhar.

Built on Bootstrap by Sumandro.

All code, content and data is co-owned by the author(s) and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, and shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 India license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-which-governments-have-not-contributed-to-net-mundial

NETmundial - Which Countries Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?

sumandro — 2014-04-25T09:40:03Z

Created by Sumandro using Datamaps.

The map shows (in *green*) all the countries from where no contributions (by any kinds of organisation) have been submitted to NETmundial. Countries appearing in *white* are those from where contributions have been submitted.

Organisations that have indicated (in their submitted contribution) that they are either 'global' or 'international' organisations with headquarter in a specific country(ies), or a coalition of several organisations from different countries, have not been considered while making the above map. Such organisations (not considered while making this map) include African ICT/IG Stakeholders, Association for Progressive Communications, Best Bits, Just Net Coalition, OECD, etc.

To see the map of all the countries from where the respective governments have not submitted any contributions to NETmundial, click here.

The visualisations are done by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, based on data compilation and analysis by Jyoti Pandey, and with data entry suport from Chandrasekhar.

Built on Bootstrap by Sumandro

All code, content and data is co-owned by the author(s) and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, and shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 India license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-which-countries-have-not-contributed-to-net-mundial

We are anonymous, we are legion

Networks: What You Don’t See is What You (for)Get

Networks of crises: The Bangalore North East Exodus

Network as Crisis: The unexpected visibility of a network

The Intersectional Network

Networking? Not working

The privacy factor

The next level

Networking its way to better governance

Networked Economies and Gender Action Learning

Network Neutrality Regulation across South Asia: A Roundtable on Aspects of Differential Pricing

Draft Agenda

Roundtable Questions:

Network Disruptions Report by Global Network Initiative

NETmundial: Tracking *Multistakeholder* across Contributions

NETmundial Roadmap: Defining the Roles of Stakeholders in Multistakeholderism

Introduction

Multistakeholderism

Towards a definition of respective roles: Analysis NETmundial submissions on Roadmap

NETmundial Day 2

NETmundial Day 1

NETmundial Day 0

NETmundial and Suggestions for IANA Administration

I. Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body

II. Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body

III. No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body

IV. No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body

V. Multiplication of TLD registries and Root Servers

VI. Maintenance of status quo

NETmundial - Word Clouds of Contributions by Types of Organisation

NETmundial - Which Governments Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?

NETmundial - Which Countries Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?

NETmundial: Tracking Multistakeholder across Contributions