Thank you, everyone to be here,
sorry for the improvising and
the impromptu condition
of this press conference,
as you also know,
there is very very little, if any,
representation of civil society in this eG8
In last minute on Thursday,
they threw in some foldable chairs for us,
they improvised some freedom of expression panel
just to say that our issues
were represented after all.
But what we saw yesterday
was Nicolas Sarkozy addressing
only CEOs and business actors,
telling them You are the Internet,
You are the revolution and
You are doing everything.
And you now have the responsibility
to fight the pedonazis,
the terrorists, and the copyright wars
so this is something that disturbs us,
I think, all of us, here.
Maybe each of us will make
a quick statement of 4 to 5 minutes
let's say 4 minutes if we can do it
We have fantastic people around here
from Yochai Benkler of the Berkman Center
to Jean-François Julliard of Reporters Sans Frontières
to Susan, how would you define yourself?
Susan Crawford, former ICANN board member.
Professor Lawrence Lessig who doesn't need any
introduction at all, and Jeff Jarvis.
Maybe Susan, you can begin.
The communique's already been drafted
for this g8 summit,
errr meeting, this e-g8 meeting.
It's been leaked to the NYtimes
which published this story this morning,
explaining exactly what the communique would say
The reason this press conference has been called is
that civil society groups have joined together
from around the world,
to issue a very short and simple statement
calling on the eG8 and in turn the G8
to protect the open Internet
to maintain the neutrality of the Internet,
to establish the principles that encourage
the free flow of the information
All of us sitting up here today
understand as do you out there
that an open Internet is actually the basis
for a democratic flourishing around the world
that all government policies
that hoped to encourage citizens
to flourish including education,
health, energy policy...
every variety of policy
that operates in the world today
are all encouraged by the existence of an open Internet
and that access to the Internet
is fundamental to human beings around the world
These are the most important policies
that governments should be embracing :
an open, fast and fair, and free Internet
so it's a very simple reason for this conference.
We wanna make sure that
these other voices are heard
even though the communique itself
may already have been drafted.
I call on my colleagues here,
Mr Jarvis, Mr Lessig, Mr Benkler and
Reporters Without Borders
to amplify on these remarks.
But it's really very simple :
we feel these voices aren't being heard
We really want to ensure that the voiceless,
the future that hasn't been invited to this conference,
is allowed to have its say as well.
Thank you Suzan
We have a few copies here
of the civil society statement to the eG8 and G8.
The signature list is not the latest one
You can see groups such as Access Now
who couldn't get a badge to enter here
the Association for Progressive Communications
I won’t name them all, but
there is german Digitale Gesellschaft,
the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
the European EDRI and so on and so on…
There is also this petition,
that was organized by Access Now,
that has been signed now by people
from more than nineteen countries
to reclaim exactly what was mentioned before
which is all that is not at the eG8
So, maybe we will hear now Jean-François,
because he will be leaving for a workshop later on
and yep : Reporters Without Borders.
Yeah, thank you, I’m going to speak in French,
I’m sorry for those who don’t understand French,
but I will say the same during
the next panel in a couple of minutes,
but I would like to say a few words
in French because there are many French reporters here.
I am extremely disappointed by what is said here,
in this meeting from the start
because we gathered the top people concerned with
the internet throughout the world
the CEOs of the biggest companies
those that made Internet’s
extraordinary growth possible
whereas there hasn’t been a single word
concerning those who are suffering
because of the Internet
I think of the 126 people who are now in jail,
126 bloggers NetCitizens, Internet users
who are jailed in Iran, in China, in Libya, in Vietnam
and in a whole lot of other countries,
who are jailed only because they have used Internet
I find this outrageous
that no one had a thought for them yet,
none of the leaders in the Internet sector
who talked since the beginning of the meeting
have had a thought for them
It is good to want to promote Internet,
but we should start with having a thought for those
who are suffering from this.
And I can also tell that if we need
to make only one recommendation to the G8
and the governments that compose the G8,
it would be to put the defence
of a Free internet before anything else.
There is today one person in three in the world,
one internet user in three,
who doesn’t have access to a free internet.
So before thinking of regulation,
before thinking of even defending intellectual property,
before thinking to promote
economic transactions on the Internet,
we need to focus on keeping Internet free
Focus on allowing the Internet users,
all around the world,
wherever they might be,
to keep accessing a free Internet,
and to keep accessing the same Internet.
So if we have to make only one recommendation,
it’s this one,
disregarding any other recommendation,
the G8 governments need to make the defence
of a Free internet their one absolute priority.
Thank you Jean-François.
It's very hard now to choose
who between those impressive analysts
will speak first
Shall we cast a vote ?
Professor Lessig, maybe ?
Yes, so, I just spoke and I'll be very brief.
It's surprising to come to France
and find something so deeply American going on
In the United States, for the last 30 years,
we've been trapped in an ideology
that says that we should regulate
by getting business together
and ask them what is good public policy.
We've done that in the United States
to our great detriment.
The financial crisis brought about by deregulation
pushed on the American government by
financial interests who benefited
and then brought the economy down
And in every other area of Internet policy
we see the same thing
we have no broadband
as Bankler's report for the Berkman Center demonstrates,
we have no penetration,
no effect of broadband in the United States
because of a strong policy of deregulation
that the American government bought,
and it bought because the only people
they cared to listen to were business
So to come to France,
and to see an event like this
where the presumption of the President is
« Get the biggest businesses together
and ask them what the future
of the internet should be » is astonishing
it’s just...
You know, I did a little bit of French philosophy,
but I don’t remember the French philosopher
who said : « Public policy is best devised
by asking the businesses
to draw up the public policy ».
That doesn’t sound very French to me.
So I’d love to come back to the Paris
that I loved before,
which is not the American version of Paris,
but the French version of Paris
by a reminder that they are more interests
than the interest of business.
Business is important,
and in business there is a division between
the incumbents and the innovators
and we have to keep that division alive.
But there is also the people
who built the internet.
They weren’t originally business,
it was civil society, it was ISOC,
it was ICANN... it was not ICANN, it was IETF
but it was a bunch of people who just aren’t here
so I agree with Susan,
we need to find a way to remind the people here,
that the people who are not here,
who are just as important to the story as them.
To avoid repeating
the critical change produced by
the digital network environment
is the radical decentralization
of the capacity to speak, to create,
to innovate, to see together, to socialize,
the radical distribution of the poor means
of production, computations, communications,
storage, sensing, capture, human sociality
that which gets us together
inside the experience,
being there on the ground.
That is true for the first time
since the industrial revolution,
that people can actually,
with the things they own,
capture the world and do something
that is at the very core
of the most advanced economies.
Preserving that framework,
preserving a framework that is open,
free-flowing, flexible, adaptive to change
and inviting so that one person's sacrifice
in Sidi Bouzid can then be translated
throughout the Arab world into
a moment of mobilization
That’s new, that’s what is critical.
For over fifteen years now,
we have seen two opposing camps
around the question of internet policy.
One camp is the camp of the 20th century incumbents,
who are afraid that something will change
who are afraid of the people rising to participate
afraid of the outsiders innovating,
and coming from the edges
who aren't authorized by the incumbents to innovate
who don’t have to come and say
« Will you please implement this
for me on your network? ».
These are all the companies
that we see now as great fifteen years ago
were from the outside
That’s where the source of innovation is
And the other model has been
« Let’s keep things open,
let’s keep things flexible, let’s keep things flow. »
And this opposition between those who say
« It’s going too fast, slow it down,
make it manageable, make it safe »
and those who say
« It’s extraordinary, it’s creative, let’s open this up,
because we’re in a process of
continuous experimentation,
and adaptation, and learning.»
This is an enormous learning moment.
That opposition has been there for fifteen years
and occasionally we’ve seen periods
such as in the United States twelve years ago
where the approach of shutting things down
making Internet Service Providers
have to look upon of what it is that the content
of their producers, regulating on software
regulating new services
to make sure that they don't make too much
of a threat to the incumbent industries win.
Then there was a long period of lolling
in between where we understood
the centrality of the commons
where we understood the centrality of what's open
and now what is baffling about this two days
is the seeming resurgence of what we saw
ten, twelve, fifteen years ago
as though we had learned nothing.
When people yesterday on the panel on IP
were talking about if we don't have
strong intellectual property
the Internet will be just
an empty set of tubes and boxes,
I heard that fifteen years ago, and maybe,
maybe then it was a plausible assumption.
Today, it is laughable,
except that it seems to have the ear of power.
So, I think that what's critical here,
is to understand is that there are pathways,
like the Hargreaves Report from last week
shows a pathway that says: No!
I don't have to lock things down,
I have to be very careful about
locking things down for IP
instead I need to explore ways
to open and allow flows.
That's the critical opposition.
Achieving socially desirable
and acceptable and legitimate goals
while retaining an open fluid free Internet.
Versus, being so scared of the new,
that you are willing to lock it down,
or to try to lock it down and to distort it.
That's the opposition on which we all have to be
-- whether it's about business, and innovation
about social equality and access,
or about democracy and participation
whether it's about liberty, equality or fraternity
-- we all have to be on the same side of the path
of retaining an open net
Thank you. Yes.
I find myself profoundly frightened
in these two days
I'm frightened of those who are so
frightened of change that they will try to stop it.
The Internet is not governments,
I said to President Sarkozy yesterday,
yet the government tries to act as if it is.
He said it was not clear,
he feels he has the authority to regulate it.
I tweeted this morning
that I felt rather like a native,
to be so presumptuous,
of the Americas or of Africa
when the colonist ships
would come in to civilize it
« We have nothing to fear »
As the CTO of the Verizon Administration
in America calls it,
the Internet is « The Eighth Continent ».
It is a new land;
it has not been colonized,
there is no flag from France
or the US or the UK or anyone on it.
It is ours.
So, to that extent
I don't blame President Sarkozy
and Publicis at all for convening this meeting
because they are filling a vacuum
that we the people have left.
Then I think it is incumbent upon us,
the citizens of this 8th continent,
of this new land,
to hold and convene our own meeting,
and our own discussion,
so we can invite,
we should invite, the governments,
we should invite the companies.
But I'd rather this discussion
was held at our table,
rather then at government's table,
which is what's happening here.
So what does that discussion need to entail?
I don't think that we need to have
Constitution or a set of laws on the Internet.
This... as my esteemed colleagues up here say,
it is the very architecture of the Internet,
that is its best protection
that is its very openness,
that is its best protection to stay open.
And the fact that it is distributed.
So I think that we need to have
a discussion of principles
as I say, or in... in...
it won't end in some sort of statute or constitution
because I don't think it should.
Yet I do think we need to have a discussion,
because we need principles we can point
to when we see them violated,
when we see Verizon, and Google,
right I am going to talk about Google,
I am a certified fanboy
but I am very disapointed in Google
for doing a devil's pact with Verizon
to cut up the Internet,
into the Internet and Schminternet
when you are on the wire it acts one way,
when you are out of the wire it acts another way
it's all in one Internet.
So, what are those principles?
On my blog I wrote a post
that led up to my question
to President Sarkozy yesterday
on my suggestion that he and others
take an Hippocratic Oath,
and I'm so honored to have been quoted by
Professor Lessig in a Lessig Powerpoint,
I'm sorry keynote,
I'm sorry we'll have an au revoir on this, but I...
There are many good efforts
to build Bills of Rights for the Internet,
and I have thrown out my humble suggestions,
and they weren't certainly wrong,
but I think among them
there is the right to connect,
and when someone cuts off that right
it's a violation of Human Rights.
So when Egypt cuts off the Internet connection,
the Human Rights have been violated.
That right to connect is a preamble
to the right of free speech.
And what follows the right of free speech
is the right to act and to assemble.
It was in the French constitution
that the notion of the right
to assemble was invented.
I think we need a notion that
our information of our institutions
and of our government
should be open by default,
and closed only by necessity.
We are the opposite today.
I think we have to have an understanding
of what it means to be private and to be public.
I wrote a whole book on that
- I won't bore you with that.
I think we have to respond
to the notion of net neutrality by saying that
all bits are created equal,
and that when anyone restricts a bit
for any reason, whether that it was a telco
to restrict how you watch a movie,
whether that it is China restricting you
to search for Falun Gong,
or is that Egypt cutting off the internet,
whatever the flow of the internet that is restricted,
the whole internet is restricted.
And so finally we have to hold up
to the structure of the internet
to be open and distributed
because that is its only defense.
But I would argue... I would say that...
they convened you've gone today.
It's very important and should continue
and we need to talk about these issues
at the table of the internet,
and not at this table here,
or not only at this table here.
Before we go to questions I have
comments myself on this whole « eG8 » thing.
Thank you for restating.
I think that beyond the right to connect,
it's existing fundamental rights
that are being used through the internet.
There is maybe no need to define
new freedoms because it's the existing
freedoms that are being attacked today.
So this eG8 forum,
beyond the local political whitewash
of Nicolas Sarkozy, after 4 years of pushing
for disconnecting French citizens
with the HADOPI law,
censorship of web content with the LOPPSI,
and pushing of his notion of a « civilized internet »,
he pushed up to the organization of this event.
Beyond that local political whitewash,
this eG8 forum is to me a smokescreen
to what the governments are really
doing towards the Internet.
In the last twelve months,
we witnessed an increase in the rate of
repressive measures attacking the Internet,
attacking our fundamental freedoms.
I'm thinking of the US government reaction
to Wikileaks, the US government seizure
of domain names,
the COICA PROTECT-IP act,
the conclusion of the ACTA
(Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)
that will turn internet actors into
private copyright police
the blackout of Internet in Egypt of course,
the administrative censorship of websites
in France, and other countries of Europe.
Everywhere you look,
governments are trying
to gain control of the Internet.
And what we are being sold here
is the red carpet to those, Orange,
Vivendi, Alcatel-Lucent and so on.
But if you look a little bit closer,
those very companies
are more and more basing their business models
on the restriction of fundamental freedoms.
Orange by selling this non-neutral
so-called « mobile Internet access »,
Vivendi by pushing for the tougher
copyright vision, 19th century vision
where you try to forbid copies at all costs
even if it implies to ban freedom to read,
share and access culture;
Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei are manufacturing
the devices that are being used
in authoritarian regimes to censor the Internet,
and by telecoms operators
who harm our freedom of communication
by harming net neutrality
So we, the citizens,
would expect from the governments
that they protect us from those corporations,
that they regulate the behaviours,
whether they're anti-competitive
or against our fundamental freedoms
from the corporations, but instead of that,
what we see here is the glitter and a red carpet.
Now if you have questions,
I see Jean-François has to leave,
but maybe if you're late to
that thing it will be all right.
5 minutes or something?
I mean, they're French, they will be late already.
Yes, of course but it will be another audience,
to tell the same, so I want to use
this opportunity as well
to raise this issue in a more official format as well.
You have maybe three or four minutes,
if then one has questions directed to Jean-François,
maybe first the questions directed to Jean-François ?
Or general questions ?
Ok, no questions so I'm free. Merci.
General questions ?
One here, one here and one here.
Yes, please, maybe you'd like
to speak in a microphone ?
If you want to come here,
Yes, one quick question,
I'm Eric Scherer at France Télévisions.
How do you reconcile
what you are saying,
about open Internet and freedom of expression
and the need to educate governments,
members of Parliament
and the rest of the society
about what you are just saying?
There is a big need of Internet literacy
to the governments
and to the members of Parliament.
They are totally illiterate about that.
How do you reconcile that?
Shall I take this one?
Well, that's what we are trying to do
with « La Quadrature du Net »
for more than 3 years now. And we are building,
thanks to an open internet,
a toolbox for citizens first of all
to understand what's going on,
and then to participate in the public debate.
So, we, La Quadrature du Net,
are nothing but the sum
of all supporters caring about those issues
and pushing for those issues,
to the parliament, to the elected representatives
and to all layers of civil society.
I think we have all the tools,
here on the table to do it,
it's just a matter of working towards it.
Larry ?
Yes. I think that the net
has been pretty good at educating itself
about the values of this network.
I can't speak for France or for Europe,
but I think in the United States,
we see in civil society communities
that are engaged in trying to spread
and defend what Internet is about.
The problem that I see in the United States is,
and again, I speak only of the United States:
our government is so deeply corrupted
by the dynamic that I'm talking about,
that there is a wide gap between
what the educators, the parents, the students,
everybody understands
the future policy should be,
and what our government actually hears.
So, I have shifted a bunch of my work
towards addressing that issue of
that corruption in the United States,
because I don't think we get
anything until we solve that.
But I think that we have
actually seen massive progress on this issue
over the past decade, and I'm encouraged by that,
at least in the context of what people think.
There was one question somewhere... over here ?
Ok. Jean-Jacques ?
Do you want to come to the microphone or shout ?
I can shout, if you can hear me.
Jean-Jacques, I work for European Internet Company
and I'm also Council member
of the Internet Society, ISOC.
Rather than questions, just to make a point,
this is not actually just another
of these ideas which are shared by civil society,
a lot of these ideas are also shared by
companies and actually the vast majority
of Internet companies out there.
Just yesterday, ISOC issued
a press statement which also
called for all stakeholders to be involved
in this discussion around the internet
and internet policy making.
Without all stakeholders being involved
have no point of having a discussion;
and they also called for governments
to uphold and protect the open
and decentralised nature of the Internet.
This is fundamental for all of us
in this ecosystem. It needs to happen.
This is not just about civil society.
This is about users, civil society,
technical communities and companies
and governments sitting around the table
discussing the issues.
Thank you -- I actually want to take that up
and emphasize it.
We have a long tradition
of thinking there is an opposition
between efficiency or competition
or markets, and justice and society,
and that somehow we have to trade off
between two competing goals
that aid society: growth and welfare,
and justice and redistribution.
But in fact, what has happened with the Internet,
is that growth and innovation is exactly
what democracy and justice require.
Both of them need the means of production
distributed widely in the population,
so that anyone can speak, anyone can create,
anyone can create their own innovation,
anyone can create their own business.
This age old traditional divide is a divide
of the industrial economy.
We have been able to overcome that divide
and today it's between
20th century business models,
and both innovation and growth
and civil society, democracy and justice
on the other opposing side.
In that battle between on one hand innovation,
growth, democracy and justice
and preserving revenue streams
of incumbent industries,
it is not a closed choice.
There was a question here ?
Yes, I guess this question is really
for Professor Lessig.
Very basically, why is this so hard?
You know the car came along,
we have parking tickets,
you can lose your license,
there are charges for homicide.
There is a wide range of penalties
for all violation shit.
Copyright law, as you rightly pointed out
at the debate yesterday was
the exact same one as it was in 1999.
So the Internet is not new,
copyright is not new
and I know there are obviously different
regulatory legal things around this,
but why have we seemingly made
no progress on coming up with
a very basic framework that has penalties
that fit all the different shades of violation?
I think it's actually different depending on the country.
I am struck by the debate
in France around copyright.
I was at conference at Avignon two years ago
and I felt like it was 1995 all over again.
Because as if nothing had been
ever talked about this issues,
it was the exact same framework
that we were fighting back then.
But other countries in Europe are different.
I think Germany, for example,
the green party has been pushing
what they call a « cultural flat rate »
that would be an alternative way
to raise money for artists,
that would decriminalize much of the activity
which in France people would be kicked off the internet.
And this point was made.
I want to re-emphasize,
there is something really outrageous,
this point was made on my panel,
by the French entrepreneurs.
There is something really outrageous
about the idea that the penalty
that has been discussed in France
is the idea that you disconnect yourself
from the Internet.
Only somebody seventy years old would think
- people don’t touch the internet
at seventy years old -
would think that's proportionate.
The idea that you will disconnect yourself
from the most important infrastructure
for community, and commerce,
and political activity is outrageous
and yet that is discussed here.
And in other countries, the Nordic countries
and in Germany it is a much more open debate.
In United States again,
I think it is just hide out
by this political framework
where both Democrats and Republicans
are so deeply wedded to the content industry
that you can’t even have an open debate
about this issue among politicians.
This is just not a political issue.
And I think that we need to take advantage
of places where it is a political issue.
So Brazil has been extremely important
getting people to recognize why
there is an interesting
opportunity here for development.
And we need to push in those places
to move it along.
But finally, what has been amazing
to me has been WIPO.
I was at WIPO about six years ago,
when I walked in the bulding I was the devil
and the director general wouln't talk to me
and everybody said no word.
I was just there six months ago
and the Director General is extraordinarily
innovative in his ways of thinking about
the way copyright has got to evolve.
And he's thinking exactly about
the kind of framework
for thinking about what
a future regime should look like,
and I got to address the delegates,
the delegates were encouraging
and thinking about these issues.
It was a completely different place.
And I think we have to take an advantage of that
to some point show countries like
the United States and France that 1995
thinking is so twentieth century.
If I may add something on that, though?
It's very difficult to add something
on professor Lessig.
Those companies with business models
in the XXth century
were based on controlling the channels
of distribution of copies
still have hope in managing to attain
the same objective with the Internet.
There is still a chance with the ongoing mergers
between those medias group and telcos,
with the very strong influence
they have on policy makers.
They still have a chance to turn the Internet,
the universal Internet we love and share
into a globalized distribution channel
for Vivendi, Fox and those guys.
So we're really at a turning point here:
why they are continuing like it's 1999,
it's because they probably still have a chance,
and maybe they have a greater chance
than they had in 1999 to achieve this objective
I'm sure there are tons of other questions.
Andrew Rasiej, the Personal Democracy Forum
I just want to make a point,
and you're welcome to comment on it,
that the arguments will be made now
by the government officials and by
the incumbents that the digital divide
has been bridged because
broadband distribution is available
in many places where it wasn't before.
But they are not actually focussing
on the fact there is a new digital divide
that most working class people
can’t afford the broadband that is available,
and so we need a reframing
of the term « digital divide » specifically around
this subject which is that cost has reached
beyond the point of most people
to be able to participate
in the 21th century economy.
We have to be careful that they don’t argue
against these points that you are making
today to say that we bridge the digital divide
and therefore obscure what is really going on.
Yes, just to add onto that:
to make things very simple,
we are in a moment when government
can join hands with the content industry
and with the telcos to enforce scarcity,
content controls, and lots of their desired goals,
in a sense this is feeding a revenue model
of governments and Hollywood
to constrain Internet access,
to make it much more like a 20th century
broadcast medium and our older policy makers
see the Internet as nothing more
than a one-way screen.
The rest of the world understands
that the world has been turned upside down,
anybody can be a publisher,
anybody should get access to this platform
for democracy, for speech,
for content creation, for human flourishing.
What we are witnessing today
is the joining of hands of these giants incumbents
-- and government is one of the incumbents --
to try to keep things as they were.
And many voices are being left
out of that conversation
who could add significantly.
So a purpose of this meeting here today
with all of you is to make sure that no one
walks away thinking that there is consensus.
There is no consensus on enforcing scarcity,
higher prices and constrain access
for world citizens.
The next Google could come from France,
could come from France,
should come from France
but if Internet access is constrained
and controlled, it won't.
I think this also provides an opportunity
to talk about something that we
- who come here from the US -
can learn very well from France
and perhaps that France can learn
from itself and its own experience.
In a study I did for the FCC last year,
it became very clear
that US broadband penetration,
broadband prices, broadband speeds,
relative to its performance in 2000-2001
had declined from 2002 until 2009
by comparison to European countries.
In doing a very close case study
of half the OECD countries,
what became very clear
was that on all these questions
of penetration, speed and price,
the critical intervention
that European governments undertook,
and in particular in this case
very successfully the French government
that has in France some of the lowest prices
for the highest performance in the OECD
because of this, is to force monopolists
to introduce competition.
And what we have to learn
is that we take this simple principle,
I mean understand whatever it is,
that there is a core platform
that can't be worked around,
one of the things that government can do
is to make sure that there is competition
as a way of reaching this goal
of not having people priced out
even though in theory there is a connection.
It is absolutely critical that we commit
in the US to open access
in the broadband physical layer,
it is absolutely critical that we commit
to open access higher up when
we talk about mobile wireless,
and we need to go to each country
and learn what it has done well
in its processes that have worked
and translate that both to other countries
and to other regulatory problems.
If you are looking for some more digital divides,
I can think of one.
Wouldn't there be a digital divide
between people being connected to universal,
unrestricted Internet access
and the people connected
to some kind of restricted, blocked,
throttled, prioritised network
that isn't related to the Internet?
And if we look at this divide,
maybe there are already more people
if you take into account China
and mobile Internet users,
there may be more people
on the wrong side of that
digital divide as of today.
I'm sure there are plenty of other questions.
Alex Howard, O'Reilly Media.
To what extent can people make a difference?
We've heard this communique has been leaked.
What can and should civil society
and average citizens do
to actually make a difference
to governments who are coming
together tomorrow?
As for tomorrow, we put up
-- it's more of a joyful protest
than something that may have an effect --
we launched a website called
g8internet.com on which we put a manifesto
and called people to react by creative resistance.
So there are dozens of works
that are being submitted, some very funny videos
or images, some trolls and so on.
But beyond that, I think it's about using
that freedom of expression
and freedom of communication
that we have between our hands
in an unprecedented way,
use it to make governments accountable,
use it to make our elected
representatives accountable,
and that's one key point
in the way we campaign
at La Quadrature du Net,
is to try to increase the political cost
of taking the bad decision for policy makers.
This is what we can do with our
added freedom of expression.
I just wanted to add to that
and emphasise a point that Susan has made.
I think that the biggest thing
that we can do is to negate the framing
of this conference as « everyone agrees here's
what the future of the Internet needs ».
And we negate that by first pointing out
that « the Internet was not here »
one slice of the Internet was here,
companies that can afford
the hundred thousand euros
sponsorship cost and whatever else.
They were here, that's fine,
but another huge part of the Internet is not here
and especially the innovating companies
that five years from now
will think of this equivalent of Twitter,
they were not here and so
« everybody was not here », number one;
and number two « we all don't agree
on the basic principles of what
we should be doing going forward »,
so I encourage the G8 to think about
how to open up a conversation
about what the Internet should look like.
I think Sarkozy's decision this year
to try to do that was a good one
but the question is :
« how do you do it so it really is the Internet
that we're talking about
and involve enough of the Internet
so they we can begin a conversation
towards that policy that would make sense ? »
Larry, if I may, you've just said that
you thought that it was a good idea
that Sarkozy launched this discussion
between governments.
Don't you see this also maybe
as some kind of takeover of Internet governance
by government to some extent?
Well, if the idea entails,
I think as Jeff was putting it,
the idea that we should be
taking over the Internet in some way, yes,
I don't think that's a good idea.
But I think that it is necessary
that we figure out how we preserve
this ecology of the Internet.
Like what do we do to make sure that it survives,
and we need that conversation
to include more people who say
« keep your hands off of this part;
intervene here, like Yochai was just saying
to ensure competition in access
at the physical layer ».
That's a conversation that's complicated
and important to have.
And I think that we need to have that,
and I think just right that we should have been
facilitating that more on our own.
We don't quite have the resources
that France has perhaps
to launch that conversation, but if we did,
I'd be happy to have that conversation certainly.
Yes, there's a choice between governments
only talking about this which is what the eG8 is
and a multi-stakeholders approach
which would involve civil society,
all the Internet users and the idea
that the Internet is for everyone
and not just for the large incumbents.
But I'm... I'm still scared.
And I want you to help me.
I think it's the right question:
« What the fuck do we do? »
Right? We can talk here,
we can change the framing.
But governments have the force of law
and companies have the force of the kill switch.
And so I'm not sure what it is that we,
the people of the Internet, really do.
What is the force that we are...
I'm a faux professor in journalism
so it's ballsy of me to quote Habermas.
But the counter to the weight
of government that he sought in the salons
and coffee houses, that I think is questionable,
we do have now, as a counterweight
to government and a counterweight
because Sarkozy said yesterday
that government is the only appropriate
spokesman for the people of a nation.
God forbid no!
Tell that to Wael Ghonim in Egypt.
The internet became the means
for the true voice of Egypt to come out.
And so I really ought to say
I don’t know what to do,
is there anything else we should be pointing out ?
Here is one point:
you know, we can romanticize the Internet
and I have spent many many years as a cheerleader
but the fact is, what the Internet does,
what people on the Internet do,
is more effective in some places than others
So I don't know if you saw
when the big bank bonuses were
recently announced and Goldman Sachs
-- huge bank bonuses.
In the United States there was
some frustration about it.
In Holland there was a twitter campain against,
that led to the governement
blocking bankers in Holland
from taking those bonuses,
a kind of unimaginable effectiveness
of the Internet to goverment policy
by getting involved in having
a government listen.
And you know,
compare that to the United States
where we just lost a battle in North Carolina,
where after the telecom companies
had succeeded into getting
the federal government to say
« No regulation of telecom companies,
not having any of your open access regulation
that Yochaim has been arguing for,
not even having any effective
network neutrality regulation.
They then went to the states,
because in the states,
you have local communities
that are building their own high-speed networks
much faster, much cheaper
than what the telecom monopolies provide.
And the telecom monopolies didn’t like that,
so what they did is they got the states
to pass laws banning
this local telecom franchises.
So here they do not want any regulation
from the federal government
but they want state regulation
to block some competition from local...
So we try to raise a campaign
around this and though we get thousands
of people calling the governor,
the governor doesn't think she needs
to pay any attention to
the internet community at all
So the difference here is not so much
the internet: the internet is the same.
The difference is the political culture
that feels that it needs to pay attention to it.
And the only way to force a political culture
to pay attention to you
is to punish them when they don't.
So in France, this three-strikes fact (Hadopi Law)
should be a source of extraordinary political
organization to punish
the French government and obviously...
It is, it is
...it is of course. It is!...
but the point is when that gets delivered
and that had a message,
when you go from a 5% return to a 20% return
then you're going to see
people recognize the internet is a force.
But we need to do that everywhere,
it is not something we can take for granted,
it is really something that's a culture
that needs to be built.
So what I hear you saying,
to oversimplify as is my want:
we're not protecting the internet,
we're protecting the speech, still.
Well, to simplify it even further,
when roles and office depend on
understanding what the internet is
and forwarding the internet's openess,
then we'll get the result we need.
If we can vote people in or out
based on their reaction to the internet.
Then we'll be going somewhere.
Governments only listen to
the people who elect them
and the businesses that fund their campaigns.
Right? So Larry is taking on the businesses
that fund their campaigns.
We, the internet people,
have to take on their election.
This has to become, as it has become in Australia
and in Canada, an issue
for the electoral politics.
Maybe we can ...
actually, we are all replying
with our own words to the great question of Jeff.
Maybe this will be used as a conclusion
I don't know, maybe there will be
some more questions but ...
There will be, there's one more question ...
In my view we have to continue
what we are doing, doing it more
and being more numerous to do it.
I've got a few examples
with our own campaigning
where we really made a difference,
whether it is with the amendment 138
in the European Parliament
that made everybody be shaking
with fear of « Internet's freedom issue »
we moved the lines in the ACTA agreement,
we directly changed some of its contents
and when we leaked that letter
from Nicolas Sarkozy to Bernard Kouchner,
who was at the time minister of foreign affairs,
who was to organise a conference
about freedom of speech on the Internet,
Sarkozy telling him
« in the balance of the freedom of speech
on the Internet, you'll put the HADOPI
and you'll put the civilized Internet »,
just leaking that letter
and organizing the leak with our Dutch friends
from Bits of Freedom made
the whole conference to be cancelled.
So we have examples already
of civil society pressures getting to a result.
I think it is the way we use our
freedoms of speech or expression.
I think it is the way we use it collectively
that makes us be citizens,
that makes us do our jobs of citizens
that makes us participate to politics
in the noble antic sense of citizens carrying
of the life of the « Cité » and this is exactly
what we have to do between two elections
and this how we win if you have
some volunteer time to contribute.
Well said
I just want to hear Yochai's answer
to Jeff's question first if you don't mind.
I don't want to take more time.
It's just, the stories you heard
tell both that we know how
and that it is very hard.
There are success stories,
there are failure stories.
But kinds of civil organisation
that were extremely difficult
and happened only in great moments of crisis
when people came out in the streets
are now more feasible
at lower levels of activation.
Whether it's free software developers
organising against software patents
at the European level,
whether it's the story you just call
about the conference on free speech,
the level of activation necessary
because the effort necessary
to participate is lower,
allows us more direct participation
but the stakes are very
very high on the other side.
If you look at the net neutrality
debates in the United States,
we did exactly that, we put it on the,
oh you, put it on the agenda.
It became a real agenda item, the only thing -
« We are unfortunatly not able
to provide you the last 3 minutes
of the Press conference.
See you on Owni.fr »