[ICANN-EU] Re: [icann-candidates]

[Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com>]

Before I answer let me note that I believe the entire issue of content,
particularly the examination of content to see whether it meets some
community standard, is completely beyond the role of ICANN.


> after a long discussion about democracy and the dangers of political and
> industrial domination of the net, I would like to ask you a few qestions
> about internet and censorship.
> 
> 1. Do you think there should be a general censorship in the www, filtering
> certain contents ?

No - with the following comments.  I believe that there ought to be
services that people can opt-in to that will perform filtering/censoring
(let's not get into a debate on the quality of such filtering/censoring
technology. ;-)

Perhaps in some places governmental bodies might offer those
services.  Whether or not they are offered by government or private
bodies, I believe they ought to be opt-in services.

Given that DNS is becoming a primary source for "content management" (e.g.
Akamai, Digital Island, ... ) there may be some services that base this
filtering on technology that intercepts DNS queries and creates a filtered
or altered view of the internet landscape.


> 2. If so, isn`t the danger of censorship higher than any influence of
> extremist contents?

Censorship is extremist, period.

By-the-way, I resigned from the ICANN Domain Name Supporting
Organization's General Assembly because it imposed censorship - I'm
opposed to official gagging of any person, even if obnoxious to the point
of obscenity, while there exists the ability of individual recipients to
use tools like procmail and the like to cover their own ears.  I prefer
shunning by individuals to censorship by mangement or government.

I'm aware that there are strong arguments that hold that points-of-view
and some content have been so shunned and rejected by society in general
that censorship is appropriate.  That is a legitimate argument and it
reflects a belief that sometimes we establish governments to act as the
better side of our selves.  I can't answer that except to say that I don't
have a strong faith that governmental bodies are always wise and that my
own choice is not to permit that kind of power in government, or ICANN, in
the first instance.

 
> 3. Isn`t it sufficient, that the criminal law and terms of resposibility for
> web-contents of each country ensure that contents in the net follow a
> minimum standard of what we call civilization?

What you are asking is the heart of the supra-national issue of the
Internet.  What is perfectly acceptable content to me may be an affront to
the deepest religious feelings in an Islamic nation, and vice versa.

If one nation finds that the buying and selling of certain war memorabelia
on an auction site in another nation is offensive, then I really can't
object if that first country tries to impose its point of view on those
within its borders - hopefully if there is enough disagreement those
people, presumably citizens of that nation, can alter the policy.  I do
object to the extraterritorial impact that, in the end, would reduce the
content of net to the lowest common denominator.

It's a tough problem.  My view is to try to preserve local values without
the bigger/stronger "localities" disrupting the ability of other
localities to do something entirely different.  How to do that well and
fairly is something that I have yet to discover.

		--karl--