Disclaimer: I work in Google's Policy Team, developing multistakeholder cooperations for internet governance & policy themes, hence I want to point out that all the opinions and ruminations on this blog are mine, not Google's.
Showing posts with label internet governance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet governance. Show all posts
When Rick Whitt and I were working on a paper on a framework for internet policy that brings together complexity theory, endogenous economics and common pool resource governance, I pondered once again about a proposal to write and promote a hippocratic oath for internet techies and policy makers in order to have them (including me) pledge to “do no harm” to this potent but also fragile ecosystem.
Below you find a code of conduct which I feel I can subscribe. However it is not and will never be final. Rather I plan to develop, add and sharpen the code further. Please send comments and suggestions as to what should be included and or put differently i.e. more precise.
Preamble
I recognize technology as a product of human effort, a product serving no other purpose than to benefit man in general, not merely some men; man in the totality of his humanity, encompassing all his manifold interests and needs, not merely some one particular concem of his. Humanistically viewed, technology is not an end in itself but a means to an end, the end being determined by man. I hence promote a humanistic conception of technology in which the desire to obtain maximum benefits is subordinated to the obligation not to injure human beings or society at large.
Therefore the following principles shall marshal my mindset, decision making and practices:
Code of Conduct
1) Do no harm:
I hold a humanistic conception of the internet and therefore will not simply compare costs and benefits of any particular code or practice, but follow a rights based approach as formulated in the 10 Internet Rights & Principles.
When assessing code, practices and policy proposals I will seek to understand the technological, economic, socio-cultural and ethical dimensions and interdependencies of the online ecosystem, always aiming not to hamper user-centered development and innovation but to further creative destruction and open competition.
2) Participate in deliberation:
Acknowledging that the internet governance must be an open multi-stakeholder process, I will participate in both internal organisational discourse as well as in public deliberation with the aim to collaboratively generate knowledge and to contribute to sound decision making.
I will take critics seriously. Governance is about constructive dialogue rather than representation.
3) Act responsibly
I will contribute to the internet governance discourse to the best of my knowledge. Should an obligation to an institution contradict my perspective I shall refrain from disagreeing publicly but will take the responsibility to argue my case internally.
Should I witness any error or misdeed (i.e. human rights violation) I shall first address and remedy it with the responsible individual or within the responsible organisation. However should it prove impossible to resolve a serious matter directly, I shall bring the case to prosecution.
4) Promote openness & contribute to the commons
Whenever possible I will contribute to the commons and the public domain. Subsequently I will always practice a strong bias towards open innovation and open standards.
I will always acknowledge from whom or what text I have learned about a certain idea or concept and if appropriate include direct links (or other relevant bibliographic references)
I will be transparent about my social networks and motivation to choose collaboration partners.
5) Respect privacy and confidentiality
I will honor the contextual agreement regarding the use and sharing of information and data that I have access to. This means that I will use and discuss information only within a given institution (confidential) or between certain individuals (private). In order to do so I shall always strive to understand the contextual agreement and make it explicit when in doubt.
Given the strong socio-political and economic benefits of information and data that is in the commons (or public domain), I will strive to make transparent and public as many of the endeavors and practices I am involved in as possible.
Acknowledegements I had been inspired to work on such a code of conduct some years back when I read the excellent article “A Humanistic Technology” (1965) Hyman Rickover. (The Preamble is a mashup from his text.) In the article he proposes that given the power technocrats and engineers have over mankind they should swear an hippocratic oath which binds them to an ethical code which is placed above the interests of their employer or their self-interest.
Back then I chaired the Internet Rights and Principles coalition and the discussions about how to transpose human rights to the net and what technical principles should be upheld was also aimed at the goal to find an agreement on which to root internet governance (policies) and hence practices. The group has since produced an excellent document “10 Internet Rights and Principles” which I naturally use as fundament of this code of conduct.
And of course I also happily followed Jeff Jarvis’ proposal to President Sarkozy (and all policy makers) to swear an hippocratic oath for the internet back at the eG8 Summit in 2011. In fact it was when I listened to his pretty good audio book “Public Parts” that I decided to take a shot at a prototype for such an oath as feels right to me as professional policy entrepreneur.
Letzten Mittwoch am 3. November 2011 war ich im Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie zusammen mit Thilo Weichert (Datenschutzbeauftragter Schleswig-Holsteins) und Olaf Keitzel (CSC) auf einem Panel um zum Thema "Dienste der Zukunft für die Gesellschaft von heute. Wie Vertrauen schaffen?" zu diskutieren. Hier einige Argumente, die ich für die Diskussion vorbereitet hatte:
Kernfrage beim Thema Einführung innovativer Dienste ist das Spannungsfeld zwischen “Innovation without permission” und Schutz der User vor böswilligen Übergriffen.
Konstruktive Kritik aus Deutschlang ist wertvoll und “Privacy made in Germany” könnte sich als ein entscheidender Marktvorteil entwickeln. Allerdings hat man manchmal den Eindruck, dass es eher dystopische Verschwörungstheorien, vielleicht auch ein übertriebenes Geltungsbewußtsein und machmal auch strategische Polemik und Spiel mit den Ängsten von Wählern sind, die den Diskurs beeinflussen.
Wir brauchen mehr angewandte transdisziplinäre Forschung, um die emergenten Phänomene, die durch Internetdienste und -Nutzung entstehen, besser zu verstehen und unser individuelles sowie das Handeln unserer gesellschaftlichen Institutionen darauf einzustellen. Z.B. das acatech Projekt “Eine Kultur der Privatsphäre und des Vertrauens im Internet”, das vom BMWF gefördert wird und Experten von IBM, der Deutschen Post und Google mit Wissenschaftlern aus den verschiedensten Fachrichtungen zusammenbringt, birgt das potential nicht nur zu verstehen, was Unsicherheit hervorruft, sondern auch welche Funktionen und Erklärungen Vertrauen schaffen.
Das sozio-technische online Ökosystem kann als Komplex Adaptives System verstanden werden. Diesem Ansatz folgend, sollten Politik, Judikative und Exekutive in Kooperation mit den Betreibern und den Nutzern daran arbeiten, ein “dynamische Gleichgewicht” zwischen Vertrauen und Kontrolle zu gestalten. Dabei sind die traditionellen relativ starren Regelungen (Gesetze und Regulierung) ein recht unpassendes Mittel. Besser geeignet scheinen sog. Multistakeholder Governance Ansätze, bei denen alle Akteure einen kontinuierlichen Steuerungsprozess verantwortlich begleiten.
Erlaubt mir in diesem Kontext auf ein sehr gehaltvolles Paper meines Kollegen Rick Whitt hinzuweisen. Er analysiert und konstruiert Ansätze und Rahmenbedingungen für die Gestaltung von vernünftigen Internet Policies auf Basis einer komplexitätswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung. Jedem, der ernsthaft an netzpolitischen Fragen interessiert ist, sei diese 108 Seiten starke Arbeit "Adaptive Policymaking: Evolving and Applying Emergent Solutions for U.S. Communications Policy" ans Herz gelegt.
Organisationen wie z.B. die Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter e.V. (FSM) oder auf internationalem Level die Global Network Initiative - in der sich Microsoft, Yahoo, Google zusammen mit NGOs wie Human Rights Watch und wissenschaftlichen Institutionen wie Harvard’s Berkman Center gemeinsam für die Einhaltung von Datenschutz und Meinungsfreiheitsrechten im Internet einsetzen - haben die besten Chancen, die Praktiken vernünftig zu überprüfen und ein gemeinsames Vorgehen der Akteure abzustimmen. Es wäre zu wünschen, dass die Politik häufiger auf solche Lösungen setzt.
Ein Denkanstoß, der in unserer letzten Co:Lab Initiative entwickelt wurde finde ich in diesem Kontext auch spannend: Die “Beta-Phase” bei Diensteinführungen sollte standardisiert und offiziell anerkannt werden. Traditionell werden Internetdienste zunächst als “Beta” - als Testversion - gestartet. Diese Herangehensweise scheint sehr geeignet, um einerseits neophilen Nutzern Innovationen früh anzubieten und sie mit Hilfe der User zu verbessern und reif für den "Massenmarkt" zu machen. Andererseits signalisiert das Beta eher konservativen Nutzern, dass der betreffende Dienst nicht final ausgereift ist und ggf. noch technische und usability Mängel (z.B. bei der Datenverarbeitung) hat.
In the second part of the book, Postman proposes 5 narratives as possible alternatives to the current ones:
"Spaceship Earth" (the notion of humans as stewards of the planet)
"The Fallen Angel" (a view of history and the advancement of knowledge as a series of errors and corrections)
"The American Experiment" (the story of America as a great experiment and as a center of continuous argument)
"The Laws of Diversity" (the view that difference contributes to increased vitality and excellence, and, ultimately, to a sense of unity)
"The Word Weavers/The World Makers" (the understanding that the world is created through language — through definitions, questions, and metaphors)
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basically i would suggest to frame our "human rights online" story as a complementary (sub)narrative of this kind. something like "one free and fair global (online) community" what do you think?
I am happy to point you to the article i co-authored with Elena Pavan and Konstantinos Komaitis for the GIGANET Symposium 2008. It has just been published @ Fascicle I. Economics and Applied Informatics (The Annals of Dunărea de Jos University)
please reference as: Pavan, E., Senges, M., & Komaitis, K. (2009). Towards a Humanistic Conception of Cyberspace. A Twofold Challenge for Netizens Mobilizing for a Democratic Internet Governance. The Annals of “Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati. Economics and Applied Informatics, 1.
and here is the abstract and bibliography from the journal:
a multistakeholder group of privacy, internet & new media experts (including me:) are working on developing an approach to have modular human-readable privacy policies. The idea pretty much is to do what creative commons has done to copy-right -- make it possible to really easily see what is happening with your data when you sign up for a service and thereby making it a relevant business point for marketing / quality-branding / differentiator.
Please review our wiki-site, spread the word and join the team @ the privacy OS wiki!
I tried to visualize the situation:
SOOOoooooo.........ooooOOOOOoo the long term vision is to start and work with privacy - and then move to other rights like Freedom of Expression
The two papers i co-authored for this years Symposium of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) are available for download from the conference site:
An interesting article appeared on Publius Project "Essays and conversations about constitutional moments on the Net collected by the Berkman Center". The article discusses ten steps that are (in the opinion of the author) bound to hinder the creation of a good Internet Governance (IG) regime.
Very provocative and a good "checkpoint" to have in mind when shaping IG
