Declaration of Internet Freedom • Hacker News Board

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#21

Post by tokenadult » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 4:27 PM UTC

This kind of effort might have been more credible from the beginning if the initial text were simultaneously composed in both Chinese and English. China leads the world in restricting the freedom of the Internet, and shows other countries by example how to do that. I MIGHT sign a thoughtfully composed statement about Internet freedom written in Chinese (which I would be able to read in Chinese), but yet another precatory statement in English mostly for the English-speaking world really doesn't motivate me to action, because it doesn't address the toughest set of problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Peop...

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA%E6%...

AFTER EDIT: Seriously, if you want to campaign for better openness and freedom on the Internet, the people to get advice from on how to write your declaration are people who are attempting to use the Internet to circumvent regimes that have never had free and fair elections and that have never tolerated a free press.

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#22

Post by hobin » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 4:30 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #15

lumberjack wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't keep ignoring politics or we'll end up with laws so invasive that not even hardware and software can overcome them. And more importantly we can't let them gain any legislative precedence. It's much easier to fight now than in five years. And further more I don't see how we have any advantages in the realms of hardware were we would afford to fight.

Normally I would agree with you, but the pace at which computers and the internet improves is now so high, and congress is so gridlocked that I do believe that we have left them behind, permantly.

I believe this is where I point out that the USA is not the only developed country in the world worth fighting for.

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#23

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 4:54 PM UTC

hobin wrote: post #22

tomjen3 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I would agree with you, but the pace at which computers and the internet improves is now so high, and congress is so gridlocked that I do believe that we have left them behind, permantly.

I believe this is where I point out that the USA is not the only developed country in the world worth fighting for.

I wouldn't fight for any other, with the possible exception of Germany, Spain or Austria.

France is too egocentrical, Britain (as much as I love the country) has a government hell-bent on recreating 1984, the Scandinavian countries are dying a slow death of too many paper-pushers and most of Eastern-Europe cannot rightly be called developed.

But none of that matters as realistically the US is the only country powerful enough to cause sufficient damaged to be worth worring about.

I should note that I am not American and so this is not a matter of nationalism.

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#24

Post by morsch » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 5:31 PM UTC

Gormo wrote: post #11

If you look at a lot of old-fashioned documents like this - statements of principle, resolutions and declarations of one sort or another - you're likely to see a list of individual points, often making demands or other calls to action. But this will invariably be preceded by a preamble that indicates (a) who the specific people making the declaration are, and what their motivations are for doing so, (b) who the inten…

Your other arguments notwithstanding: Vagueness is not a bug, it's a feature.

If you make a specific political request, only those people and groups that share precisely those values will support you. Most people -- even those who have a lot in common with your views -- will simply ignore the request.

On the other hand, if you make it somewhat vague, lots of people will feel represented by the statement. We might not agree whether taking down copyright infringement is censorship or not, but we can agree that censorship is bad.

I'm sure this is a common technique in this kind of grassroots campaigning.

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#25

Post by numeromancer » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 6:05 PM UTC

terryk88a wrote: post #19

Gormo wrote: post #11

If you look at a lot of old-fashioned documents like this - statements of principle, resolutions and declarations of one sort or another - you're likely to see a list of individual points, often making demands or other calls to action. But this will invariably be preceded by a preamble that indicates (a) who the specific people making the declaration are, and what their motivations are for doing so, (b) who the inten…

Vague indeed. For example, what does "universal access" mean? How about "free to connect"? Is this declaration demanding that access to the internet be free to all? As in no cost? The language "access" to this or that has been subverted in recent years to mean that the accessed resource should be free of charge. E.G. universal access to (free) healthcare. That is decidedly not what accessible means. So I won't be sup…

I would gladly sign a document that had an exhaustive and exclusive list of declarations of what we weren't going to allow governments to do. We implicitly give governments the rights to the use of force, and governments, like people (to whom we don't give such rights) will, in time, see any lack of interdiction as an implicit approval.

And positive rights, such as declaring that “all shall be provided, gratis, access to the internet”, have an implicit coercion in them; someone must be forced to provide it.

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#26

Post by sageikosa » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 6:18 PM UTC

morsch wrote: post #24

Gormo wrote: post #11

If you look at a lot of old-fashioned documents like this - statements of principle, resolutions and declarations of one sort or another - you're likely to see a list of individual points, often making demands or other calls to action. But this will invariably be preceded by a preamble that indicates (a) who the specific people making the declaration are, and what their motivations are for doing so, (b) who the inten…

Your other arguments notwithstanding: Vagueness is not a bug, it's a feature. If you make a specific political request, only those people and groups that share precisely those values will support you. Most people -- even those who have a lot in common with your views -- will simply ignore the request. On the other hand, if you make it somewhat vague, lots of people will feel represented by the statement. We might not…

On the other hand, if you make it somewhat vague, lots of people will feel represented by the statement.

This is how horoscopes work. That and 75% positive, 25% critical or cautionary.

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#27

Post by pjscott » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 6:33 PM UTC

Gormo wrote: post #11

If you look at a lot of old-fashioned documents like this - statements of principle, resolutions and declarations of one sort or another - you're likely to see a list of individual points, often making demands or other calls to action. But this will invariably be preceded by a preamble that indicates (a) who the specific people making the declaration are, and what their motivations are for doing so, (b) who the inten…

If you like a little more rolling thunder in your declarations, it's hard to beat John Perry Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. It's a bit dated -- it was written back in the days when people un-ironically talked about "cyberspace," and it shows -- but there's some insightful vision beneath the poetic hyperbole.

https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#28

Post by BrennanCheung » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 6:36 PM UTC

Free needs to be defined more. Obviously there are costs associated with maintaining the Internet; it can't be free. Also, open needs to be defined more. You can't be fully open and have privacy as well: privacy is a form of censorship. Also, this is one sided, and doesn't take into consideration the ISP's position as well. Too vague to mean anything.

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#29

Post by lukifer » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 6:46 PM UTC

One of the things I like about this declaration compared to other similar ones (Declaration of Independence, UDHR, Stallman) is that it makes no mention of intrinsic rights. It clearly states its objectives as goals to work towards, rather attempting to frame an imaginary natural law by which these conditions already automagically apply to the human animal.

That said, it seems to me that there is a potential conflict between #3 (Openness) and #4 (Innovation). It is the same as the conflict between capitalism and democratic socialism: if you don't allow people a certain amount of economic tyranny in exchange for their work, the work won't happen, and civilization atrophies.

This is intuitive with physical goods: people won't make shoes if someone can just take them, so we back up the concept of ownership with state violence, and that allows people to make a living cobbling. The same phenomenon happens in computing, be it through copyright, vendor lock-in, or walled gardens, and this is always going to create an incentive to block #3 (or, the lack of such incentive will inhibit #4).

While I believe copyright/patent reform is deeply necessary, including the consideration that they might stymie more innovation than they create, this zero-sum conflict should be at the heart of it, and should be kept in mind when pursuing lofty goals of digital justice.

Re: Declaration of Internet Freedom

#30

Post by joelhaus » Mon, Jul 02, 2012, 6:55 PM UTC

Appreciate the skepticism here, but this seems like an exceptionally well worded pledge. Right now, it's the usual suspects (including Y Combinator and a number of other important advocates for a better internet) that have signed on, but it's early and hopefully this will become more main-stream.

An ideal outcome would probably require this to become a political lobbying tool, similar to Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform "Taxpayer Protection Pledge". It's nearly impossible to win a Republican election these days unless you sign-on: 96% of all Republicans in Congress have signed the pledge to never increase taxes[0].

To address a few detractors in this thread, please don't be confused when the word "free" is used. It's in reference to freedom, not cost. However, cost is specifically addressed:

  Access: 
  Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Taxpay...