[IRP] FW: Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet

Fri Aug 13 13:39:04 EEST 2010

Pl see comments inline.

On Friday 13 August 2010 02:59 PM, Lisa Horner wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> In terms of clarification on the comment that I myself had put in 
> tracked changes in the word doc for section 4a on "Equality before the 
> law":
>
> Point for discussion:  In classic liberal rights language, this 
> wording has been an obstacle to future possible implementation of 
> affirmative action policies compatible with the idea of equality as 
> non-exclusion of groups or non-subordination of groups. We may want to 
> be less restrictive, particularly if we think that internet is a space 
> where diversity is a value.  How do we deal with this point?
>

I dont think a mention of 'equality before law' forecloses protective 
discrimination. Indian constitution carries an article on 'equality 
before law' whereas Indian state has perhaps the highest number of 
protective discrimination laws and provisions anywhere.

However, I will quite like if we say something like, (changing a bit 
Lisa's formulation below)

'"All people are equal before the law and are entitled without any 
discrimination to equal protection of the law.  This applies to the 
Internet and other digital communication platforms as much as to 
anywhere else in the world."

We can asterisk the text at this point indicating that all subsequent 
uses of the term 'Internet' are in its broadest meaning, and include all 
similar public digital communication platforms.

This may take care of Ben's comments on this issue as well.

parminder

>  This was a point made by Roberto, the expert in Latin America.  He 
> was actually talking about "equality" being manipulated in some 
> contexts to imply that we don't need affirmative action to ensure that 
> minority groups have equal voices...ie that the private media sector 
> can regulate itself and we don't need action such as subsidised 
> community radio or public media. (Roberto -- please correct me if I'm 
> wrong!).
>
> But it's also good to continue discussion about the use of the word 
> "users".  Michael suggested we use citizens, and Parminder suggests 
> people or human beings.  I agree with the points about rights deriving 
> from our humanity and not from the technology, but the idea of the 
> Charter was to translate rights standards to apply to the internet.  
> So I think we need to reference the internet somewhere.  Maybe we need 
> something like:
>
> "All people are equal before the law and are entitled without any 
> discrimination to equal protection of the law.  This applies online as 
> well as offline."
>
> Best,
>
> Lisa
>
> *From:* irp-bounces at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org 
> [mailto:irp-bounces at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org] *On Behalf 
> Of *parminder
> *Sent:* 13 August 2010 10:12
> *To:* irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org
> *Subject:* Re: [IRP] FW: Charter of Human Rights and Principles for 
> the Internet
>
> My response to what appears to be Oliver's notes on my comments
>
>     L5. I would steer well away from anything undermining equality
>     before the law. Lack of equality brings discrimination by
>     definition. I would be interested in hearing more about your
>     question here, because I can't quite catch it.
>     That said, I'd rather have "All Internet users" instead of "All
>     Internet stakeholders".
>
>
> My objection was to saying all stakeholders - which seem to included 
> businesses - are equal before law. I dont think citizens/ people and 
> businesses are equal before law.
>
> And to that extent, your subsequent comment about using 'all internet 
> users' instead of 'all internet stakeholders' does partly address that 
> issue. Though, as I said in my last email I have issues with use of 
> 'Internet users' term as well, and would prefer 'people'
>
> A couple of reasons (and some overlap with my last email)
>
> Many parts of a charter of rights vis a vis the Internet will apply to 
> non-users as well, for instance personal information, defamation etc....
>
> also I am  never sure with the fast changing world if the user is 
> always a human being :), and hope in a few years in an era of Internet 
> of things, we would not like to give 'things' the same rights as 
> Internet users.
>
> So best to say 'all people' or 'all human beings', the traditional 
> subject of human rights.
>
> Parminder
>
>
> On Friday 13 August 2010 01:57 PM, Lisa Horner wrote:
>
> Hi all
>
> Comments on the Charter from Olivier below.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Lisa
>
>
> Commenting on your discussion-annotated document:
>
> L1: do we want to call it the Internet or use the broader term digital 
> communications
>
> I think that these principles only apply to the Internet. I just 
> cannot see corporations running their own Global Virtual Private 
> Network (VPN) abiding by this charter. What they do on their private 
> network is their own choice and a lot of  articles would therefore not 
> apply.
>
> L2: if you start referring to each regional human rights bodies, you 
> might miss some out who might take offence. Keeping "United Nations" 
> only is fine.
>
> L4: this is a charter of rights. I don't think that it should defer 
> itself for national laws.
>
> L5. I would steer well away from anything undermining equality before 
> the law. Lack of equality brings discrimination by definition. I would 
> be interested in hearing more about your question here, because I 
> can't quite catch it.
> That said, I'd rather have "All Internet users" instead of "All 
> Internet stakeholders".
> Also - replace "internet" with "Internet". The "Internet" as we know 
> it has an upper-case initial. internet with a lowercase i is any kind 
> of inter-networking which includes the use of corporate intranets & 
> private networks not connected to the Internet.
>
> L6. I think that the context of digital identity here points 
> definitely to a privacy issue. Whilst one aspect of privacy is the 
> right to keep information about oneself private, the protection of 
> digital identity deals with identity theft which, in my opinion, is 
> one of the biggest case of privacy breach.
> I also wonder whether this section should include a "right to be 
> forgotten/deleted" - ie. if you wish all information about you to be 
> deleted from your favourite social networking site, you may do so with 
> a clear, simple procedure - and will be assured that all information 
> pertaining to yourself, which you control in your social networking 
> account, will be deleted. This issue is becoming very significant with 
> young people publishing all sorts of details and possibly 
> incriminating pictures on their social networking sites, and companies 
> looking for such information prior to hiring - this is a gross privacy 
> problem.
>
> L7. I like the way the freedom from defamation is explained. It is 
> left as an open statement and I am concerned that any attempt to focus 
> it further would indeed open a can of worms. Here, I interpret the 
> statement to say: online defamation is the same as real world 
> defamation - and I think that's fine.
>
> L8. Good point - I frankly do not know how to word this to make it 
> sound right.
>
> L9. I would indeed remove "freedom of movement" from the list since 
> this is out of scope. That said, you'd also need to remove "movement" 
> from the "concerned right" column where appropriate.
>
> Point of detail: the default spell check for parts of the document is 
> English (UK) and part of it is English (United States) - I suggest 
> choosing either one or the other for the whole document.
>
> The rest of your comments notes amendments which you have made & I 
> agree with all of them.
>
> Now for comments on parts of the text itself:
>
> Preamble (Page 4)
> "The Charter is addressed to all stake-holders of internet governance"
> Suggestion to add: "The Charter is addressed to all actors and 
> stake-holders of Internet governance"
> I find stakeholders to be too restrictive - you can be an actor 
> without having a stake in the process.
>
> 14.b. (page 13)
> Sentence: "Workers and employees should have internet access at their 
> workplace."
> I have a problem with this sentence because this is impossible in an 
> industry that's totally unrelated to the Internet. I cannot imagine a 
> farm worker having the right to Internet access at their workplace, or 
> a builder, or a bus driver for example.
> I suggest removing this sentence and keeping the rest of this 
> paragraph as is.
>
> Last but not least, I'd like to really congratulate the expert group - 
> this work is breaking new ground and I am absolutely thrilled with it. 
> Well done!
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Olivier
>
>
>
> -- 
> Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond, PhD
> http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
>
>
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