[liberationtech] Web Inventor Releases Ambitious Plan to Take Back Net

[Javier Ruiz]

Catherine

I’m afraid that’s not correct. The contract was not drafted by Access Now but through a fairly broad consultation process led by the Web Foundation, set up by Tim Berners-Lee.

Access and other groups may have inputted in some areas where they have particular interest. I know some of the actual drafters and they are independent experts contracted as consultants.

My NGO, Open Rights Group, has signed the principles set out a year ago, but we have not signed the contract because after internal deliberations we decided that we needed a detailed review. As it is so broad we cannot cover it all right now. We may still do.

Talking to many people who have signed it, their view is that the symbolic value and the shifting of mainstream discourse is worth it. Nobody has told me that they expect the web to change immediately.

I agree that ultimately you need a full democratic process and it is a shame that global governance is going backwards if anything. However, parliaments don’t conjure legislation out of thin air but from a mix of ideas from both corporate lobbyists and social reformers.

Javier

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> On Thursday, Nov 28, 2019 at 8:29 pm, Catherine Fitzpatrick <catfitz at verizon.net (mailto:catfitz at verizon.net)> wrote:
> This "contract" was likely drafted by the NGO Access Now, which has worked on this for years and is associated with this effort. Access now is led by Andrew McLaughlin, formerly of Google, and Berkman and the Obama Administration and many other things, and Brett Solomon, the other Australian, who has been promoting these fuzzy but extremist views for years with little criticism.
>
> It is not a democratic exercise by any stretch of the imagination as NGOs, however much they are needed in society, are advocacy organizations, not democratic organizations, and this is not a legislative exercise by a democratically-elected Congress in a liberal democracy under the rule of law. I would prefer Congress as a drafting body than a group of hackers who support Snowden.
>
> In that sense, it's very good it is not binding because it comes out of the Benevolent Dictatorship hacker culture and warmed-over Google opportunism.
>
> There is nothing about protecting private property and copyright which are actually what made the Internet viable, such as it is.
>
> Any effort involving "an Internet Bill of Rights" or "Guiding Principles" that sound like the UN should not succeed because it is not democratic or legitimate.
>
> Tim Berners-Lee engineered into the Internet its very flaws bothering people so much today: collectivism, lack of private property and copyright protection, "sharing of knowledge" uber alles, and
> lack of privacy.
>
> Catherine Fitzpatrick
>
> On Thursday, November 28, 2019, 12:19:55 PM EST, Thomas Delrue <thomas at epistulae.net> wrote:
>
>
> On 11/24/19 10:31 PM, Yosem Companys wrote:
> > The contract is non-binding, however. And funders and partners in the
> > endeavor include Google and Facebook, whose data-collecting business
> > models and sensation-rewarding algorithms have been blamed for
> > exacerbating online toxicity.
>
> I'm a little confused by the choice of words in the term "contract for
> the web"... Can someone explain to me what exactly a non-binding
>
> contract is?
> The first 7 words of the Wikipedia entry for 'contract' are literally "A
> contract is a legally binding agreement". How can a 'legally binding
> agreement' be non-binding?
> MW has as its first entry for 'contract' the following "a binding
> agreement between two or more persons or parties especially : one
> legally enforceable".
>
> Forgive my cynicism, but what exactly will this do or accomplish if it
> isn't binding, except to make some folks feel warm and fuzzy for signing
> something that will be forgotten in a heartbeat?
> Surely, this is nothing more than a PR stunt? It's about as vacuous as
> the statement "Don't be evil" (by google) or "We care about your
> privacy" (by facebook), no?
>
> Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that TBL has started this conversation, as
> it is one to be had. However, without the binding-ness, the good
> intentions and desires, outlined in the 'contract', will go no-where.
> Unfortunately, we don't need more conversation on this subject, we need
> actual change, and that requires enforceability.
>
> If the purpose of making it non-enforceable was to make sure entities
> like google or facebook signed as well, then I ask "why? Why do they
> have to sign as well"? Especially if they are the highest probability
> candidates to violate the intention of the document. Why would it have
> been important for them to sign something that will make no difference?
> Why not leave them excluded and let them be on display for the predatory
> entities that they are?
>
> --
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