NETmundial is over; here’s how it went down. Previous installments (1, 2, 3).
- The final output of the meeting is available here. It is being referred to as the Multistakeholder Statement of São Paulo. I think the name is designed to put the document in contention with the Tunis Agenda. Insofar as it displaces the Tunis Agenda, that is fine with me.
- Most of the civil society participants are not happy. Contrary to my prediction, in a terrible PR move, the US government (among others) weakened the language on surveillance. A statement on net neutrality also did not make it into the final draft. These were the top two issues for most of civil society participants.
- I of course oppose US surveillance, but I am not too upset about the watered down language since I don’t see this as an Internet governance issue. Also, unlike virtually all of the civil society people, I oppose net neutrality laws, so I’m pleased with that aspect of the document.
- What bothers me most in the final output are two statements that seem to have been snuck in at the last moment by the drafters without approval from others. These are real shenanigans. The first is on multistakeholderism. The Tunis language said that stakeholders should participate according to their “respective roles and responsibilities.” The original draft of the NETmundial document used the same language, but participants agreed to remove it, indicating that all stakeholders should participate equally and that no stakeholders were more special than others. Somehow the final document contained the sentence, “The respective roles and responsibilities of stakeholders should be interpreted in a flexible manner with reference to the issue under discussion.” I have no idea how it got in there. I was in the room when the final draft was approved, and that text was not announced.
- Similarly, language in the “roadmap” portion of the document now refers to non-state actors in the context of surveillance. “Collection and processing of personal data by state and non-state actors should be conducted in accordance with international human rights law.” The addition of non-state actors was also done without consulting anyone in the final drafting room.
- Aside from the surveillance issue, the other big mistake by the US government was their demand to weaken the provision on intermediary liability. As I understand it, their argument was that they didn’t want to consider safe harbor for intermediaries without a concomitant recognition of the role of intermediaries in self-policing, as is done through the notice-and-takedown process in the US. I would have preferred a strong, free-standing statement on intermediary liability, but instead, the text was replaced with OECD language that the US had previously agreed to.
- Overall, the meeting was highly imperfect—it was non-transparent, disorganized, inefficient in its use of time, and so on. I don’t think it was a rousing success, but it was nevertheless successful enough that the organizers were able to claim success, which I think was their original goal. Other than the two last-minute additions that I saw (I wonder if there are others), nothing in the document gives me major heartburn, so maybe that is actually a success. It will be interesting to see if the São Paulo Statement is cited in other fora, and if they decide to repeat this process again next year.
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