Remember when we used to believe the internet should be open and accessible to all?

Net neutrality is a pipe dream. The world has been infected by cancel culture and there isn't any line they won't cross.

First they came for the fascists with a demonstrable record of oppression, murder and war.

And frankly, I'm fine with that.

Net neutrality is a pipe dream. The rubicon has been crossed. The world is infected by an insufferable woke cancel culture disease and there isn't a line they won't cross.

Cogent pulling the plug was just the start. Never mind the fact it reduces the ability for innocent citizens of an oppressed regime to access an alternative view point. Just cancel them all.

You know that not everything you disagree with is "woke"?

And that "woke" isn't the slam dunk argument you think it is?

You know these things, right?

woke

/wəʊk/

adjectiveinformal•US

adjective: woke; comparative adjective: woker; superlative adjective: wokest

alert to injustice in society, especially racism.

Don't actually see what so bad about "woke" from the definition it seems rather laudable.

You did read the article, right? The bit about not affecting citizens, but the military and propaganda apparatus?

Aim for military resources and treat them like spam while leaving all Ivan Ivanovitch's alone. Nice idea, I like it.

I would agree that there is something to like there. On the other hand, who elected the internet governance bodies to be world rulers? If they would really go on with it, it would open the door to internet sanctions for other reasons, too, without democratic legitimacy. And there is the potential to provoke counter-attacks whose targets need not be limited to copper or fibre lines. Not to say that actual governments would necessarily act more wisely, but shouldn't such actions at least be democratically legitimised?

Nobody elected SWIFT to be a world ruler either. It isn't. (OK, there's an argument the banks are.) But they're following the actual elected leaders of many world governments.

There's no reason why internet governance bodies shouldn't do the same without being accused of usurping power. In fact, it could be argued that declining to follow suit is such a usurpation.

"shouldn't such actions at least be democratically legitimised"

Putin isn't a democrat. He is violently denying democratic self-determination to a neighbouring nation.

Democratic considerations don't apply to the enemies of democracy. As soon as the Kremlin is denazified then these measures can be reversed.

> something ought to be done.

Some of the most dangerous words in the english language. Those words are why politicians, and any one with a modicum of power, end up doing stupid things just to be seen to be doing something.

We know there are controls that could be used, but we also know that Russia (and China for that matter) have both suggested and supported the idea that each country should have it's own little internet instead of a global one.

Enacting measures like those described will hasten the balkanisation of the internet, that these two already want (and realistically, there are other nations too). It doesn't matter that the measures try to only target military/dual-use, the eventual consequences will impact civillian usage too.

Hitting Russia with economic sanctions is the right thing to do, but politicising network connectivity (no matter how just the cause) is a bad idea. We need to be using it to get more information *in* to places like Russia, not doing things that make little difference (they spread a good chunk of disinformation via social media anyway), but help them justify reducing their citizens access to sources of truth.

We also need to get information into the West, encourage critical thinking, and unbiased reporting. What we don't need is an updated UDP (Usenet Death Penalty) or new ways to implement 1984. That wasn't an RFC.

But the devil is in the detail. If this is to be democratic and neutral, then obviously Internet governance should be transferred to the UN. Members can then appoint their own delegates. Staff working for UN-ICANN or UN-IETF could enjoy being tax free, along with other perks that go with being a UN citizen. Of course there's the issue of vetoes, but could be democratic. Lobbying & influencing UN votes is just the way it works.

Or we could leave it to governments. Most already have the power to sanction, or order ISPs and telcos to take action.

But as others have said, it'd be one way to balkanise the 'net. Personally, I'm not a fan of censorship, or cancel culture. I disagree with stuff like cancelling RT because restricting the media is something we generally consider bad. I know both RT and the Bbc are biased, and knowing that, it can provide context.

But bias extends to what isn't reported. So Glen Greenwald wrote an interesting article about a Q&A session where Victoria Nuland may have Psaki'd herself answering a question from Mark Rubio. Nuland was concerned that Russia may be threatening Ukrainian biolabs. Nuland's answer seemed to imply a CBW risk, and possible threat to joint projects the US and Ukraine had been working on.

Which raise questions, especially after sponsored gain-of-function research into corona viruses that happened in Wuhan a while ago. Like what is in thoses Ukrainian labs, and how did it get there. Especially given treaties that are meant to restrict bioweapon development and proliferation.

Then again, risks could be reasonable, eg the West's shared classified intelligence to help counter Russian agents, and doesn't want Russia getting that.

There really is no technical difference between blocking a government-sponsored generator of attacks and a criminal sponsored generator of attack. Likewise for government-sponsored fake news outlets.

The only difference is in the political dimension and gaining a political consensus sanctioning such enforcement.

So provided ICAAN keeps out of the politics and simply follows recognised political decisions (eg. UN resolutions), I suggest there is little to fear; well until such time as the UN gets poisoned...

There's a huge problem with this kind of thinking with the internet. If you start down this path, other non-western/less than democratic countries will start questioning the value of being connected to "the internet" at all - is it too high risk for them? So, they'll develop their own splintered systems. Before we know it we'll not have a single internet any more, but a tangled mess of different networks disconnected from each other. It isn't just about Russia when talking about this kind of thing.

Is that what we want?

This is not far from just shutting off the electricity. It hurts Russian military forces, but it also hurts Ukrainian civilians who need all the help they can get, I'm sure cell service is gone, and the internet is probably about the only way to talk to family. There's a story on the BBC front page on how people are using emojis as a uncensored side channel to communicate.

" it also hurts Ukrainian civilians "

And it hurts Russian citizens, many thousands of whom have already risked 15 year prison sentences by protesting against the invasion. This is not Russia's war - it's Putin's war. The purposes of him and his small clique of ex-KGBeshniks are entirely divorced from those of (probably the majority of) the general public, but only the exceptionally brave dare protest visibly due to his moves at home to recreate Stalin's purge era.

> And it hurts Russian citizens, many thousands of whom have already risked 15 year prison sentences by protesting against the invasion.

Well following the findings from long-term academic research on social networks, it would seem the best way to topple Putin is not to get overly focused on Putin and his direct inner circle (his level-1 'friends') but to hit his level 3 and level 4 contacts...

I thus believe for example we shouldn't be focused on the oligarchs but on any Russian national holding more than a few million of assets in overseas banks, property etc.

"This is not far from just shutting off the electricity. It hurts Russian military forces, but it also hurts Ukrainian civilians who need all the help they can get"

Were we reading the same article? Or even the same sub-title? I actually went back to check what I'd read before. ASFAICS it says exactly the opposite.

"The former head of ICANN, two EU parliamentarians, and a handful of technical, security, and legal experts on Thursday plan to publish an open letter to the internet governance community arguing that the time has come to develop a targeted internet sanctions system."

Anyone who claims to be a technical expert who backs these measures should never be given a position where they have any authority what so ever. I am just glad that its the ex head of ICANT who is proposing this, and no someone who is currently in charge. As doing that is the fast way to break up the internet for everyone.

This sounds like an opportunity to hand back the sanctions controls to the end user, rather than centrally impose controls for everyone.

We already have block lists for adverts, through a variety of tools, and these tools often allow the end user to select which lists to use.

So if you want to impose a very coarse block, you might stop *.ru and *.su. Or, if a trusted person or organisation provides it, you could select a targetted list of military domains.