discussion on xxx domain? [ncsg-policy] Draft NCSG comments to GNSO Council on Rec 6

[Alex Gakuru]

Thank you Nicolas!

We may blame the Internet, its content and domain name policy but beneath it
all, the internet is just but one global mirror of the society. Merely
reflecting on who we all are, like "here are you and your issues - now deal
with them." Everything has always been since time immemorial among some most
concealed and to others most open and pick any topic besides porn, for
example religion, and sharply divergent global views emerge.

A few years ago I was an anti .xxx crusader but now I know better. The issue
about is in icann sphere is not about whatever the content but strict
organisational adherence to established procedures in regard to granting TLD
sponsorship. And I know that is its not right to venture onto another
discussant's personality in a bid to justify or advance a differing policy
point of view.

IMHO, discussions around, what is right or wrong?, can we handle the
truth?, what is truth and whose truth?, is it right to withhold truth to
those that cannot handle it? etc can all equally trigger such interesting
discussions.

Bottom line, this discussion is really helping in appreciating and learning
our different points of views. Thank you all for this rich discussion and
let is be even more enriching!!

kindly,

Alex


On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Nicolas Adam <nickolas.adam at gmail.com>wrote:

>  Post-scriptum: Guys i wish i had more time, but i have a plane to catch
> (vacation for me, 1 week, no emails ;) ). This draft is not finished (but
> was too much advanced that i would not send it), and i hope i can engage on
> it with some of you in the very near future. Sorry if it cuts short the
> whole of my thought experiment, which was to pit various tld-regulating
> scenarios against their probable porn-outcome, and thus finish with the
> practical. As is, this is merely the philosophical introduction to what i
> would have liked to say. So here goes:
>
> Dear Caroline, Nuno, all
>
> This is a surprisingly civil and engaging exchange/debate, for a subject
> that is potentially passionately felt, and i commend you both for this.
> Before engaging it, i will not hide my opinions and will say that i am in
> near-total agreement with Nuno, as well as with Andrew. But I have no wish
> to pretend that only opinions similar to these are receivable. Indeed, we
> are ourselves *and* our circumstances, and our moral sensibilities are by no
> means universal. I will engage this with complete disregard to all the very
> good arguments that can be made with regard to the deleterious effects of
> censorship, and i will thus humor only Caroline's points.
>
> But first:
> Franklin's comment about "he who sacrifice a little liberty for a little
> security deserves neither and will lose them both" has always rang true to
> my heart, and my head. Privacy is a prime example where the wisdom of this
> axiom can be understood: Privacy isn't just a liberty-type asset, it is also
> a security-type asset (lets think about it in the context of a scenario --
> our worse RFID nightmare, where everyone, police and thugs, have access to
> our whereabouts in real time -- how secure do we feel? and how free?). Hence,
> when you sacrifice a little privacy for a purported increase in your
> security, you  have not only depleted your privacy, but your liberty and
> security as well (or are on your way to).
>
> Now i'll readily grant that this is no blanket reason to adopt a hands-off
> approach with regards regulation of everything and anything.
>
> back to pornography:
> I find most pornography to be an inesthetical social phenomenon (i'm an
> unrepentant relativist, and never uses the "moral" category -- this may
> offend some of you but bear in mind that it enables me to respect your
> reasonned outrage towards this unrepentant relativism, with, perhaps, more
> open-mindedness and understanding towards your foundations than are usually
> shown mine). There is something deeply repulsive about seeing sexual labour,
> of all labour, being forced onto someone (lets face it, it is mostly women)
> by circumstances. When those circumstances are mould by shaddy characters,
> it is all the more repulsive.
>
> But if I say i find "most" pornography thus repulsive, of course, it is
> because the issue of defining pornography arises when we attempt to reason
> on the subject. I would not lump all graphic sexyness, some of which of
> definite good taste, into the "bad" bucket. Indeed, when i think about the
> history of my own little place on earth, i am able to form the opinion that,
> without a doubt (for me), one of the great gains brought about by many
> feminists battles is that my sisters, my mother and my nieces can dress
> freely, engaging in sexyness without fear if they so wish, are able to wear
> a swimsuit without generating massive droolings by men or being frowned upon
> by whole communities, and like-liberties are thus theirs. With respect to
> the contrarian opinion, i prefer my daughter to be able to express herself,
> sexualy and otherwise, freely, and I feel that one of the most important
> stepping stone of feminists gains has been that which liberated their body
> from generalized norms of righteousness that have their whole array of
> social consequences. That's how i "feel it".
>
> "Now surely", Caroline may object, "i can't find anything up there that
> would warrant objecting to my proposition of forcing it all in the same
> place by law (or one of its global derivative) for the purpose of regulating
> its access, even if i grant that some freedom of sexyness is something
> important that we women should not lose". But i do. The reason for it
> basically being that it doesn't help one single bit, and mostly serves to
> throw more blame around, more blame onto some people that might not be all
> that deserving of it.
>
> For all its distastefullness, sexual exploitation is here to stay. With
> that in mind, let's split the rest of this thought experiment between two
> groups, 1) women who engage in pornography and 2) the society that receives
> pornography.
>
> 1) In the abstract, people with good intentions often end-up beaten on the
> very persons that are deemed to be the first and foremost victims. We see
> this with tough laws against prostitution, which are (re)enacted with
> complete disregard to the actual evidence that suggests that we are harming
> women even more, and not stalling the phenomenon in the least bit. It is as
> though, in effect, we are not trying to protect them at all and are more
> concerned with keeping the neibhorhood up to a certain esthetical standard.
> With respect to forcing pronography into a .xxx, i will grant that this
> objection is unwarranted. Women will probably not be worse off afterwards.
> The women that do engage in it because of circumstances (but lets also
> grant, please, that no matter how distasteful this might sound to some of
> you, some women active in the wide adult industry are very much proud of
> what they do, and if you did it, wouldn't you be?), might very well feel a
> little ostracized, but nothing huge. Will this have an impact on the
> industry, no. On the women, no. But it still serve to show that the
> principle of banning something that is here to stay, is a bad principle, in
> the abstract. e. g. I strongly believe that prostitutes would be better off
> with an accountant and a doctor than with a pimp, if we must chose. Again,
> even though you who read this may be a women, please don't ascribe to the
> women who indulge John's everywhere the incapacity to choose, as i don't
> defend the phenomenon solely on their purported capacity to chose. Let's all
> agree, please, that there is some choice and some circumstances, and the
> discussion will be enhanced.
>
> 2) I have to take issue with assertions that, in my opinion, are a bit fast
> with regards to ascribing root cause to some other phenomenon. Causality is,
> unfortunately, a bit too freely ascribed with regards to some of the worlds
> woes and problems, and similarly, some of the worlds "problems" are very
> much multi-faceted, as i tried to show briefly above.
>
> 2-a) on the impact of pornography on society:
>
> I can see very little harm *caused* to society by the presence of
> pornography (and since i have to leave this conversation early, i will wait
> for others to precise what harms are brought about by it). In short: I do
> not accept as fact that pornography is "freely accesible" to children.
> Pornography is best filtered by parents, not nations. But again, wish i had
> more time.
>
> 2-b) on how to diminish circumstances that might quite inesthetically force
> sexual labor:
>
> Attacking a phenomenon isn't the same as attacking its root causes.
> Poverty, wealth gap, drug trafficking and addiction, and many other things
> again, are amongst the causes for the most inesthetical aspects of this
> phenomenon, the aspects that go to exploitation or that see circumstances
> outweighs choices and liberty. I would dare venture, though, that the
> cultures that are the most closed to sexual expressiveness are causing
> comparatively more sexual labor than the ones that are more open. And so,
> ironically, one of the root causes of the phenomenon might well be the very
> righteous generalisations that are brought up as reasons against pornography
> (or access to).
>
> Again, as i am thin on time, i will come back to 2a and 2b if there is some
> interest to discussing this further. And i would also hope to show
>
> 3) the likely effects of various regulating scenarios (revolving around
> "forcing" pornography on a specific TLD) would have on the phenomenon.
>
>
> In the mean time, i bid you all a good week end, and i'm off to some sunny
> shores.
>
> Nicolas
>
>
>
> Dear Nuno,
>
>
>
>  Maybe not, but I do think your views that one should *not take a moral
> stand* on pornography or anything else are-
>
>  *and* *you in all honesty allude to that-  *tainted by who you are, and
> probably by the fact you're a man.
>
>
> You don't feel it* in your guts* like I may, as a woman, that it actually
> *is* a violation of the bill of rights the way women ( AND MEN actually!)
>
>  are treated and portrayed in pornographic material and the impact such
> material has on those viewing it,
>
>  especially those with psychological difficulties, not to mention kids!
>
>
>  At some point, not seeing it as a problem that this material is freely
> accessible to* anyone* in the name of ' moral neutrality' is equal to
>
>  endorsing free access to this controversial material.
>
>  > Pretending domain names do NOT have a *moral, political and
> sociological* impact is akin to digging your head in the sand.
>
>  > Pretending *education* will suffice to offset this unlimited freedom of
> publishing online material is naive.
>
>
>  Otherwise why not give us all guns to defend ourselves, just in case,
>  and just educate us all NOT to use them to kill
>
>  those we dont get along with?
>
>
>
>  I feel there *should be a .xxx extension*, and that all porn s*hould be
> made to use that* and *only that*, by law,
>
>  just the way this material is not accessible to all in the physical
> world.
>
>  Make the techies make that possible, dont let them tell us it's not "
> technically feasible" just because they dont care about
>
>  controling access to it.
>
>
>  Best'
> *
> *
> *Caroline*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  Le 14 janv. 11 à 10:49, Nuno Garcia a écrit :
>
> I hope that in the end I do not sound like a Hulstler or Playboy
> stockholder or subscriber (I am neither of these), but this is really what I
> believe in, and probably my opinion is relevant for the mailing list.
>
>  On 14 January 2011 03:00, Dwi Elfrida Martina S <
> dwi.elfrida at depkominfo.go.id> wrote:
>
>> hi rudy,
>>
>>
>>  (snipped)
>
>  I agree with you, there is no country who already TOTALLY success to do
>> process 'filter'. But, still we have to do our best to place "pornography"
>> in good order, means there is certain regulation, term & condition. so, we
>> can protect country from decreasing of morality:)
>>
>
>  As I think we have made clear from previous statements, Morality (as well
> as public order) ARE NOT an issue that concerns this constituency and these
> considerations should therefore be left out of discussion and encouraged to
> be left of all the discussions in ICANN.
>
>  (long parenthesis: I'm sure Dwi was formulating a wish for its own
> country, and it this case, it's perfectly ok to do so. I must recall the
> list that Morality is an extremelly complex issue, much more than
> paedophilia, which is generally defined as crime in most western and
> southern countries, but, in contrast, it is indulged by some other countries
> (e.g. asian), and was not at all a crime before 1950 in most of the
> countries I know. When these issues dig deep in our cultural backgrounds and
> in our religious or belief points of view, it is best to rely on the system
> of values that we know is transversal to all Mankind and are best described
> in the Charter for Human Rights, that I think best summarizes the values we
> must guide for. End of long parenthesis.)
>
>  In conclusion, and having the Charter for Human Rights as a working
> bench, I say that the arguments for discussing this or that issue (but not
> for the .XXX which is long due), should never be issues on liberty, or
> censorship, let alone competencies or policies for governments.
>
>  We, as an informed and knowledgeable community, must put forward our
> opinions having in view the larger and greater good of our fellow Internet
> users, oblivious to where they sit in working days or in holidays or in Holy
> days. All of us deserve an Internet that _does_ _not_ _limit_ our rights as
> persons and promotes the values engraved in the Charter for Human Rights.
>
>  We cannot say much regarding the different civilizational issues of
> different countries. For me, I know that in my country we still have a long
> way to go. But this is my belief, probably some of my fellow citizens do not
> agree with me, and therefore this is not an issue to discuss here.
>
>  I have the greatest of respects for all cultures, religions and
> civilizations, and I try hard to not let my personal beliefs to stand in the
> way of my professional beliefs, so I expect others to do the same.
>
>  Of course, I stand perfectly aware that, as Ortega y Gasset once said, I
> am myself and my circumstance, and thus my points of view will always be
> tainted by the fact that I was born and raised here.
>
>  So to conclude, for me the purpose of this constituency is not to place
> pornography or capitalism or comunism or _______ (fill in with you word of
> choice) into order.
>
>  It is to make sure that we provide ICANN with valueable and wise
> opinions. And we should do our best to do so. For our own good and the
> benefit of all mankind.
>
>  I leave you all with two thoughts, one from Ben Franklin who once said
> "He who gives up a liberty to achieve a temporary security deserves neither
> and will loose both" (and there are plenty of historical examples of this),
> and the other, from a greek philosopher whose name I cannot remember "the
> best way to prevent a damage to society is to educate the children".
>
>  With my personal and sincere excuses if my points of view have offended
> anyone (was not my intention), I wish you all a nice week end,
>
>  Nuno Garcia
>
>
>   *Frenchparents.net - Bilingual online community in San Francisco
>  http://www.frenchparents.net
>  <http://www.frenchparents.net>
>  InternationalParents - Social network in 30 cities worldwide
> Le premier réseau international des familles futées
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>   *
>
>
>
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