Innovation is the buzzword of the moment. Countries large and small, rich and poor, international agencies, private companies even individuals are pre-occupied with finding the key to “innovation”.  What precisely is meant by “innovation” of course, varies from context to context and even within contexts it is difficult to find a hard and fast definition that goes beyond simply referring to “change” of some sort and hopefully change for the better or change that builds on what has gone on before.

That “innovation” has become such a slogan and even rallying call for such a diverse set of actors indicates the degree to which the settled structures and patterns of economies and market places have themselves changed and in many cases been significantly disrupted as a consequence of various factors but primarily the inter-twined mega disrupters of globalization and information technology and now the Internet as the necessary and all-transforming linkage between these.  Innovation as a necessary condition of modern economies is seen as a response to, perhaps the only response to globalized markets and international competition and equally to profoundly disrupted traditional business models in a increasingly wide range of sectors.

When companies everywhere have access to roughly the same amount of information and to the same infrastructure of technical support and when consumers everywhere have access to the global marketplace of goods and to new products and to the means of shopping for competitive prices, features, or styles the need to be new, first, different, is as some have argued, the only basis of a competitive edge.  And with the sources of “innovation” being attributed directly to new knowledge and intelligence, and creativity in the labour force, there is extreme pressure on governments to ensure those qualities are inculcated through the education system and nurtured in the institutions of higher learning and publicly funded research establishments in order that their populations and enterprises are able to suitably compete.

However, while this may be the most visible and the most “hyped” form of “innovation” it is not the only one.  This type of innovation might be termed “competitive innovation” since the intent is to support competitive positioning in hyper-competitive commercial marketplaces.  There is on the other hand a form of “grassroots innovation” also, understood in the context of social change where innovation is not concerned with enabling competition but rather is concerned with effective adaptation to changing circumstances.

This latter type of innovation might be characterized as “social innovation” or “community innovation” since so much of this type of innovation takes place within the context of communities either of place or of interest where trusted peers are enabled to experiment with established routines and practices to find alternative strategies for accomplishing what might otherwise be routine or conventionalized tasks.  This type of “innovation” is not concerned with ensuring opportunities for competition in globalized marketplaces but rather in enabling those involved in these communities and often grassroots communities to better undertake the tasks for which they normally have responsibility and for undertaking new tasks as they might become necessary and all within a context of shared community norms, values and goals.

Meanwhile, as governments in particular, aided and abetted by multi-lateral agencies and egged on by the corporate think tanks and corporate owned ideologues put ever increasing resources into competitive innovation and restructuring and re-designing education systems and research establishments into an ever accelerating quest for the “next big thing” community based capacity facilities to support local grassroots innovation are increasingly starved or marginalized.   And yet, of course, it is precisely that kind of innovation and adaptation at the grassroots that is needed in order to confront and overcome the various dilemmas and challenges of the 21st century. Finding ways to respond to the changes in local conditions being brought about by climate change, managing environmental degradation, finding alternative strategies for energy consumption and resource depletion are going to require concerted policy action at the national and global levels but also equivalent changes (social adaptations and innovations) at the local level to ensure effective implementation.

In this context it is important also to draw a distinction between “social innovation” and “community innovation”.  Social innovation (according to Wikipedia) is defined as

new strategies, concepts, ideas and organizations that meet social needs of all kinds — from working conditions and education to community development and health — and that extend and strengthen civil society. The term has overlapping meanings. It can be used to refer to social processes of innovation, such as open source methods and techniques. Alternatively it refers to innovations which have a social purpose — like microcredit or distance learning. The concept can also be related to social entrepreneurship (entrepreneurship is not necessarily innovative, but it can be a means of innovation) and it also overlaps with innovation in public policy and governance. Social innovation can take place within government, the for-profit sector, the nonprofit sector (also known as the third sector), or in the spaces between them

In this definition it is clear that “social innovation” refers to innovation at the social level including in areas such as policy and governance.  Interestingly, there is no counterpart definition in Wikipedia for “Community Innovation” and yet community innovation as the capacity to find ways to implement social and other innovations, would be key to the successful undertaking of social innovation both at the local level and through aggregation at a regional or national level. In fact, it was precisely this type of innovation–community innovation–that Paulo Freire was developing in his notions of conscientization — becoming conscious of one’s circumstances and developing the capacity to respond effectively — and this can initially only take place at the local and grounded level.

Many, many of the outstanding issues that need to be addressed–adaptation to climate change, the creation of meaningful work, the resolution of cultural/religious conflicts and integration of diverse populations, environmental and resource management for future generations all can only really be accomplished through “innovation” at the local level–not technical innovation, once for all globally singular innovation, but rather “innovation” as the capacity of those in local communities to find meaningful, efficient and effective ways to respond to their very local and singular challenges but also and equally are challenges which they share with multiple similar communities globally.

In practice it is possible, even desirable to take an alternative approach to “innovation”, where innovation is a change or introduction of new processes or products which are novel in the context into which they are being introduced and where such an introduction has the effect of stimulating a localized adaptation and change. In this case innovation can be seen as something which is fairly widespread in society and something which can occur under a very wide set of circumstances.  In this context innovation can be understood as having significant impacts and benefits not only through the effect of a “trickle down” from elites and high performers but also a “trickle up” from local adaptations and community based novelty and change which, because it is locally based and potentially very wide-spread, can have very significant and broadly distributed impacts and benefits.  In this latter case bottom up approach to innovation, the benefits as with the innovations themselves can be seen as being widely dispersed and contributing to general well-being directly rather than indirectly and solely through the creation of competitive advanced technologies and the participation in the benefits of this competition by a relatively limited number of individuals.

The opportunity with a Community Informatics approach is for the community to have some direction and responsibility i.e. “ownership” in the innovation and the innovation strategy.  The use of a CI technology strategy ensures that “innovation” is done by, with and in the community and not simply something that is done “to” or “for” the community.  By adopting a CI approach, there is a degree of assurance that the process of innovation will become an on-going element of community life and activity rather than a once for all investment in for example a single high profile “innovating institution”.

It is one of the crucial activities for Community Informatics to design appropriate strategies and technology supports for these processes of knowledge acquisition, assimilation and processing.  Similarly the provision of technical supports to communities in their processes of knowledge management may be one of the most significant arguments in support of community focused ICT strategies in that the fostering of innovation and innovative capacity at the local level is a major source of advance and a prime basis for economic and social development locally as well as a powerful contributor to national strategies for innovation.

This of course, represents the opportunity for community informatics as a way of feeding information into communities (the basis of innovation being in part novelty and “new” information/ideas), as a way of sharing successful “innovations” community to community and by providing an infrastructure of communications and information management as a platform on which these types of solutions can be enacted.

Thus the availability of technology supports at the local level can be seen as a significant contributor to the opportunities for local innovation and from the perspective of national governments the investment in the development of local technology infrastructures may be seen within the overall context of a contribution to a national “innovation strategy” and moreover one that is truly contributing to social change and adaptation and not simply to an endless quest for competitive advantage in constantly changing global marketplaces.

Such an approach to innovation is of particular value in Less Developed Countries and among marginalized populations where the capacity for change and adaptation may be stifled because of a lack of local opportunity, through lack of access to information, or through the constant draining of skilled and ambitious young people to more lucrative opportunities elsewhere. Thus the current shift of attention (and resources) towards a focus on technological entrepreneurialism, the innovator as individual cultural hero, linkages into global technology and corporate networks while not necessarily impeding local development will likely have only marginal impacts on developments in most rural and marginal communities in LDC’s.

I think along with my community informatics colleagues, that decisions should be made as close to those impacted as possible. I think that those impacted by decisions should be involved in those decisions. I think that multistakeholder processes potentially provide a means for the otherwise voiceless to have a voice in broader policy and programme decisions.

What I don’t believe in are multistakeholder processes that are surrogates for transferring additional power to self-appointed elites or insiders. What I don’t believe in are processes of decision making which are done without transparency, accountability, explicit procedures, or even-handedness in governance. What I don’t believe in is the transfer of otherwise democratic processes of decision making to multistakeholder processes because it seems easier to talk with a small group than with a larger one, to deal with one’s friends rather than with outsiders, to make decisions among those with explicit private interests rather than basing decisions on due and inclusive considerations that recognize and incorporate the public interest and the general good.

I’m currently, with others, working on behalf of the e-Africa Directorate of the African Union to find ways of further enabling the broadest base of participation in a series of multistakeholder processes which I consider to be very successful in their domain. I consider these to be successful because they are locally anchored and are re-nationalizing planning processes which had, to a considerable degree, been taken over by external donors; they have clear and transparent processes of internal operation and inclusion; they work to be representative and broadly based within contexts where this is extremely difficult do achieve.  These processes aren’t perfect by any means but they are striving towards improvement and are willing to engage in self-examination.

I think these processes are consistent with Anita Gurumurthy’s comments to the WSIS +10  Review where she said:

Multistakeholderism is a framework and means of engagement, it is not a means of legitimization. Legitimization comes from people, from work with and among people. We need to use this occasion of the WSIS plus 10 review to go back to the the touchstone of legitimacy – engage with people and communities to find out the conditions of their material reality and what seems to lie ahead in the information society. From here we need to build our perspectives and then come to multistakeholder spaces and fight and fight hard for those who cannot be present here.

Multistakeholder processes could and should enhance democracy by increasing opportunities for effective participation by those most directly impacted by decisions and particularly those at the grassroots who so often are voiceless in these processes. It should enhance democracy by ensuring that decisions made are reflective of and responsive to local concerns and to the broadest range of those who must bear the consequences. It should enhance democracy by making democratic processes more flexible and responsive, able to adjust to changing contexts circumstances, technologies, impacted populations.

To do this means shifting away from multistakeholderism as a “means of legitimation” to being one among many strategies for making democracy more workable in this era of enhanced communications, enhanced interactivity and accelerated change. But in order to do this these processes must be even more vigilant about ensuring that they operate within all of the requirements for effective democracy.  They must be representative and inclusive, they must be transparent to a fault, they must accept the highest standards of accountability. With sufficient creativity and imagination, digital and Internet based technologies I believe can provide additional means for achieving all of this even in ever larger contexts and ever more complex domains. It will take time and immense good will, but the outcome should be strengthened structures of democratic governance rather than hollowed out shells replaced by governance by self-perpetuating special interests.

]]> http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/in-defense-of-multistakeholder-processes/feed/ 0 gurstein http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/multistakeholderism-vs-democracy-my-adventures-in-stakeholderland/ http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/multistakeholderism-vs-democracy-my-adventures-in-stakeholderland/#comments Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:51:49 +0000 Michael Gurstein http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?p=710 ]]> In advanced circles discussing future forms of governance and particularly governance structures in areas impinging on or being impinged upon by the Internet, one of the most widely discussed and promoted is that of Multistakeholderism (MSism).  This is presented as the successful model on which the Internet has been built and thus the model through which the Internet should continue to be managed, and given its success in this area it is a model which is increasingly seen as being attractive and applicable in wider and wider areas including for example, environmental management, sustainable development, climate change adaptation, privacy regulation and the range of seemingly intractable issues with which the modern polity is confronted.

MSism is based on the overall notion that those most impacted by a change or an issue or a circumstance should be involved in the management and governance and ultimately the resolution of that issue or circumstance Thus for example, in the area of Internet governance the stakeholders identified as being appropriate for inclusion in associated decision making are governments, the private sector, the technical and academic community (T/A) and civil society (CS).

So far, so good, and this seems to have worked reasonably well when the issues were concerned with a start-up Internet and largely narrow technical processes and issues.  However, as these things go, and of course, as the Internet has matured technically and increased dramatically in its scope and impact; and as the associated policy issues in such areas as privacy, security, access and others have grown apace in complexity and significance there has been the inevitable trend to extend MSism as a governance model and strategy into these latter additional areas among others.

And this isn’t cream cheese.  The USA Ambassador to the recent World Conference on International Communications  in Dubai where the Internet world was seemingly edging into some sort of global policy Cold War, in his brief statement to the USA’s concluding press conference mentioned MSism 17 times while mentioning things like freedom of expression, open markets, and so on less than 5 times each. At a recent OECD meeting, in which I had the occasion to participate, the senior US spokesman indicated in his remarks that MSism was a necessary framework for the on-going conduct of the OECD’s business at hand. And as of June 2012 the US “NTIA announces the first privacy multistakeholder meeting pursuant to Obama administration privacy blueprint” and so on.

This is a very important emerging trend and one that is taking on increasing importance as a way of facilitating decision making in complex, rapidly evolving, knowledge and technology intensive processes.

So, given this importance and visibility one might expect that MSism was a clearly defined set of concepts with regularized procedures, structures of accountability, norms for internal governance and decision making, rules for transparency — the regular elements of democratic processes.

Well not so much…

Arguably, among the origins of MSism are in the overall technical management of the Internet and its recent powerful emergence into the overall lexicon of democratic governance is through Internet related matters and specifically as an outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) where the concluding document (The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society) mentioned multistakeholder processes/approaches/frameworks etc. some 18 times in among its 122 clauses.

As well, one of the recommendations of the WSIS Summit was that there be a multistakeholder examination of what was called “Enhanced Cooperation” which in UN-speak is terminology for how governments (and others) could structure themselves to proceed in global Internet and related policy areas.  The responsibility for this activity has been assigned within the UN system to the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD)  and the Chair of this Commission recently invited the WSIS defined “stakeholders”–governments, the private sector, civil society and the technical and academic community to nominate representatives from within their respective stakeholder communities to be selected by the UN to sit on a Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation.

A wee bit of background… For the last several years I’ve become involved with civil society in Internet Governance related areas, mostly articulating a “community informatics“  position i.e. the need to extend access and use of the Internet to marginalized populations and communities. However, in this instance and in consultation with various parties I decided that rather than being concerned with what SHOULD take place with respect to bringing the next 4 billion or so of the world’s citizens onto the Internet, I would be concerned with what structures COULD be put in place to most effectively achieve this.  (This distinction is important as it is one between an intervention or participation which is “values based” and thus which falls directly into the area of civil society whose primary framework is the promotion of actions and activities on and with the Internet as seen primarily through a Human Rights lens;  and an intervention or participation which is knowledge or expertise based such as would be contributed by those participating from within a technical and academic community.) I would look to base my contribution in the latter on my some 20 years professional experience working with marginalized populations around the world and most particularly in consultation with my academic, research and technical community informatics colleagues actively engaged in these activities worldwide on a daily basis.

So, rather than applying to be nominated by the CS stakeholder group for the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation I decided to put on my “day job” hat and apply to the “academic” component of the T/A stakeholder group–my thinking being that if, of five T/A representatives, four were concerned with the technical “pipes” (connectivity and protocols), perhaps one should be concerned with who the “pipes” were being laid for and what was being carried along those “pipes”.

In this instance the Chair of the CSTD committee had designated a representative of the Internet Society  to be the “focal point”(in fact gatekeeper) for the T/A stakeholder group to gather the nominations and to select five names to forward to the Chair for review and ultimate selection. Asking for, but not receiving the appropriate form and requirements for application I sent along a bio, resume, indication of interest and how I thought I fit into the selection criteria identified–which included things like time availability, experience, how one would represent the T/A community that sort of thing.  In addition, I requested “endorsements” from the Community Informatics community and received a very positive and useful cross section of such endorsements including from a range of Less Developed Countries, academic (including technical) disciplines and so on and so on.

However, my application was clearly met with some consternation within the T/A focal group as I received contacts and encouragements from several sources to withdraw my application and re-submit it through Civil Society.  I respectfully declined those solicitations citing my extensive and continuing work experience in the area of enabling the extension of Internet access and use and particularly how I would look to act as a channel for making available the knowledge and experience of my professional colleagues in this area.

A first formal response from the T/A focal point then indicated that I didn’t fit within the T/A “criteria” which was identified as “the scientists who developed the Internet and the technical organizations/people who run it, and not to social scientists and the like”. Fair enough, but thinking that this was a rather restrictive (to my mind) definition and moreover one that might usefully be evolving as the Internet has grown and matured I asked to be pointed to the specific document and authoritative reference where this definition was presented (as for example by the UN itself).

I received no reply to this request but after a very lengthy delay I was informed that the “nominations” had gone forward and that mine was not recommended. I then asked for two things–an indication of the procedures that had been followed in adjudicating the applicants and the criteria which had been used in making the overall assessments.

I received back this quite astonishing response to my first question “Consultations were led (presumably “held”) and I have also talked to many individuals from Civil Society and the Business community (including their focal points)”.  In other words they, the focal point “chatted with a few of her mates and they decided amongst themselves who they would nominate”. No procedures, no formal assessment, no transparency, no accountability…

And as well I received this intriguing response to the second question concerning definitions  “My interpretation of the “technical and academic community” includes the academics who have contributed to building the Internet”.

Since I (and my colleagues) have devoted much of our working careers to “building the Internet” if one understands by building the Internet something beyond simply wires and protocols i.e. integrating users and developing uses, then it seemed that I and my colleagues would easily fit within that criteria.

I then followed up with a subsequent question asking for an indication of the actual formal procedures which went in to applying the criteria and making the assessments. At this point my previous involvements with Civil Society were evoked as determining conditions i.e. since in the past I had represented CS thus it was implied I could not at a subsequent occasion represent my technical/academic colleagues. Also, at this time the defining criteria for the T/A stakeholder groups was further refined as being “individuals who have technically built the Internet“.  When further pressed on this matter, in a widely circulated email the following and presumably considered and definitive definition was provided: The T/A stakeholder group consists of “the community of organizations and individuals who are involved in the day-to-day operational management of the Internet and who work within this community“.

Okay, so clearly I am not welcome as a member of the T/A community/stakeholder group and presumably none of my academic or research or technical colleagues who aren’t specifically involved in “the day to day technical management and operations of the Internet” aren’t either.  Fair enough, I’ve no interest in going to a party where I’m not invited.

But …What this means I think is that the prevailing and self determined definition of the T/A stakeholder group includes probably no more than 3-400 people in the entire world, all of whom have some professional association with the technical management of the Internet (the alphabet soup of technical Internet governance organizations–ICANN, the Internet Registries and a few others in standards organizations), perhaps at least 80% of whom are from developed countries and at least 80% of those being US based, at least 80% being male (it is probably much higher given the absence of women in these kinds of technical roles) and from sad experience having essentially no knowledge or interest in matters that stretch beyond their narrow highly technical realm.

It further means that the group representing the T/A stakeholder “community” is able to design its own “restrictive covenant” (define who is a member and who is not), exclude whomever it wishes on whatever basis suits it and moreover is not accountable or required to have any degree of transparency in its internal operations, decision making procedures, internal governance structures and so on. Notably, this group functions in an area of considerable and increasing public responsibility and as peers with an equivalent group representing all of the governments of the world, a second group (CS) representing all of the citizens of the world and a third group representing all of the businesses of the world..

Thus MSism in this instance is meant to be a substitute for/replacement of more formal processes of democracy which presumably are seen as being inadequate to deal with these 21st century issues and challenges. It is well to remember, that what is under discussion here would appear to include  fundamental elements in Internet and Information Society governance structures which ultimately will impact and direct the development of the Internet and through this (and likely other ways) impact on the future of us all. To say that the manner of operation of the T/A stakeholder group is an abrogation of fundamental principles of responsible, transparent and accountable democracy; and that it is astonishing and deeply disturbing is hardly sufficient.  Moreover, if we recognize that at least two of the other “stakeholder groups” involved in this process are by all accounts equally flawed as is the T/A one then what we are talking about is a fundamental challenge to what we understand as democratic governance and governing processes.

I have no idea of the degree of development of the governance structures of other multistakeholder processes and how closely they match the deeply flawed operations I have described above.  However, based on my above noted experience; that fact that the multistakeholder experience in Internet Governance is widely quoted as a model to be emulated; and the fact that in the course of the rather extensive online discussion concerning the above within the Internet Governance Caucus itself no theoretical or practical response or alternative experience was usefully provided; I can only conclude that the multistakeholder model and MSism itself may be equally deeply flawed and in no sense is ready or able to take on the massive governance responsibilities in numerous public policy areas which its proponents are attempting to enact.

Certainly there are problems and even major problems with democratic governance in the modern era and these are perhaps being made more and more acute because of the success of the Internet. And certainly the development and operations of the Internet attests to a successful set of inter-organizational, inter-individual processes which are perhaps exemplary in their management and coordination of a highly complex, global system with multiple organizational and institutional involvements and “stakeholders”. Whether or how such a model could be transferred beyond this relatively contained domain is I think something to be discussed, researched, even piloted — certainly it would need to be adapted and re-created to fit specific circumstances — whether that model could become a basic governance framework for the modern world with applications in multiple domains and as a substitute for representative democracy is I think something that should be considered extremely carefully and some specific lessons should be learned from the extremely flawed implementation in what should have been its most directly applicable sphere.

I’ve been wanting an issue of JoCI on this topic for some time. My thought is that there is a potentially natural and powerful fit between Community Informatics and health.

Maintaining and improving the health of its members is one of the most important functions that a community must fulfill. As well, we know that the cost of health care is in many parts of the world becoming a huge and even unsupportable burden because of the directions in which health care has been evolving. Finally, we know that there is a strong and positive relationship between health and one’s involvement in social relationships, including those of family, friends and community. Thus exploring how Information and Communications Technologies might enable health and health services by, through and within communities would seem to be a natural focus for Community Informatics.

Interestingly enough, developing this issue using a community and ICT lens to look at issues of health and health services proved to be rather more difficult than I expected. Many, even most, of the papers we initially received did focus on ICTs and health service delivery, even health service delivery to the grassroots, but they reported almost exclusively on the ICTs and the ICT components of the service while ignoring any contribution that was or could be made in those services by or within the community.

Thus, there would appear to be large numbers of studies on telemedicine and telehealth in general but surprisingly, even astonishingly, few that recognize or incorporate how communities might be a necessary component in how these services are being or could be delivered in marginalized communities. Even where it is evident, an extensive infrastructure of local health support is not likely to be available; here, less formal structures of mutual aid and support through networks are often a means for providing services where such services are either unavailable or overly costly for individual residents. Equally, research which examines how ICTs can be used to support community processes which in turn support social inclusion and health and well-being, only appear in a few contributions to this special issue.

Perhaps not surprising, one interesting counter example of the above is the range of studies from various parts of the world specifically dealing with remote, rural and indigenous communities. In these instances, the case from Papua New Guinea in the current issue and from several parts of Canada in previous issues demonstrate once again that necessity is the mother of invention and present a number of highly innovative strategies incorporating ICTs (including mobiles) into broad community-based strategies for health maintenance and improvement.

The papers in this special issue tend to have a hardware and methodological focus perhaps because the call for papers going out to an audience unfamiliar with community informatics identified that the operative term was the more technological “informatics” rather than the “community” element. The editorial team did, however, ask authors to add this element to papers where it was missing.

While to my mind the articles in this special issue fall somewhat short of what I would consider a truly “community informatics” approach to “improving health” my hope is that we do raise some useful questions in this area and make some useful alliances among those who otherwise might not be aware of the opportunities that linking communities, ICTs and health might present.

One further observation based both on the papers in this special issue and on some as yet unreleased documents concerning ICTs and Health from the OECD, is that the model of health care being presented would appear overwhelmingly to be focused on the individual as the health care “client” and of course, medicine is overwhelmingly focused on the individual as patient. However, as we are coming to increasingly recognize in all aspects of services in society, it is oftentimes of equal or greater importance for well-being to recognize that the well-being of the individual is to a very considerable extent derived from their position in and interactions with their families, their peer groups and their larger communities. Removing individuals from these, even conceptually, does considerable damage to the reality of health and wellness.

Thus, including communities as a constituent element in ICT-based health research, planning and service delivery would appear to be a necessary addition in these areas and including in the design and deployment of ICT supports in these areas. Thus for example, designing telemedicine programs which ensure that there are trained resources at the patient end to support the service delivery, and particularly the follow-up within the community, would appear to be a necessary component of any effective telemedicine program. Equally, ensuring that the delivery of health information, as for example by means of mobiles, is not exclusively focused on the individual recipient but also takes account of the larger community environment within which the individual will be interacting would be a major contributor to the success both of programs providing health information to individuals and programs looking to receive health related information from individuals.

As well, as noted in the article on the young cancer patients in this issue, the role of electronic online communities as on-going supports for those with various types of medical conditions and disabilities is by now coming into wide recognition and is increasingly being seen as a necessary component of on-going health maintenance and support in a variety of areas.

I see this issue as the first step in what I anticipate will be an on-going dialogue between those with an interest in ICTs and health and those with an interest in ICTs and communities, both having as their overarching concern individual and community health and well-being.

My special thanks to the editors of this special issue Lareen Ann Newman and Ali Sanoussi both of whom put in major efforts in ensuring that this special issue saw the light of day.

Vol 9, No 2 (2013)

Special Issue: Community Informatics for Improving Health

Table of Contents

Editorial

Articles

Reports

Points of View

Without having very high expectations I did at least expect that there would be some attempt at a “stocktaking” — review, assessment, whatever one wants to call it of what had been accomplished since 2003 (and most importantly what had not) and what had changed for the better (and what had changed for the worse). What we are having instead is three days of “happytalk” folks talking “happy” about this that and the other not because they are particularly happy or because what they are talking about is particularly happy but rather as a strategy for not saying anything much about anything much.

And so we have Minister after Minister regaling us with tales about the wondrous progress being made in their countries as a result of their government’s ICT policies.  We have Jeff Sachs giving us a global tour of his adventures in ICTland but mostly talking about what the wondrous future with ICTs hold for the billions.  We have Workshop after Workshop presenting case study after case study of the wondrous successes being achieved by one donor or another and the momentous impacts that these will be having just over the next horizon.

Nothing particularly wrong with any of this, fairly standard stuff except that this was standard stuff ten years ago at the beginning of this process and what was standard then surely is a wee be past the expiry date 60 years on (if we use Internet standard time where one conventional year is the equivalent of 6 or so Internet years) and 1000 years on (if we use “Moore’s law” time as Sachs appeared to be suggesting that we do…

And my basic observation is that a “review” is well, shouldn’t it actually be about a “review”–not about a rehash of 10 year old PowerPoints.

Ten years (or 60 for the Netheads out there) into the Internet revolution there is actually a whole lot to review at a global level and by those responsible for public policy nationally and (hopefully) globally.  There have been some enormous, almost inconceivable changes, in the numbers of people connected (at least to some degree) through mobiles; through the transformations in the daily lives and normal practices of literally billions of Internet users and the relationships, organizations, working practices, governance structures etc.etc. that provide the basis of our/their daily lives in the 21st century. And one can burble on with happytalk about the wonders of all of this and folks particularly those on expense accounts love to do this.

But even in HappyTown (where everyone talks HappyTalk) there are those with frowns and sourpusses and more importantly with reasons for frowns and sourpusses.  There are those who for one reason or another are being left behind, who aren’t sharing in the Internet cornucopia.

There are also those being damaged by these processes from not being able to keep up with the fast kids on the block–because of poverty, or disability, or just, well, not being quite able to keep up… And there are those whose world has disappeared because of these wonders and while the race is going to the swift, (or in the current parlance the “innovative”) there is less and less means in place to cushion their losses–the massive numbers of unemployed in developed countries whose jobs or opportunities for jobs have been internetworked;  the small farmers in Africa who can’t quite fit into the emerging South – North, South – East value chains transforming their traditional plots of land into specks in some distant corporate Internet-enabled business plan; or the vast populations in slums in South Asia where mobile costs represent 20-30-40% of household incomes with not much evident return in household well-being or security; and then of course there are all those everywhere who don’t quite make it in races that are going (just) to the swift and devil take the hindmost; and over arching everything is the rapidly accelerating gap between the rich and the poor where the Internet is almost certainly playing a significant if not a central role.

And that is what I wanted to hear discussed at this “review”… not more cheerleading but some analysis and statistics and some serious reflection and assessment on where we are and how far we’ve come and where we have fallen short and what about “everyone else… and most important where and how do we go from here, not as isolated individuals confronting ever increasingly wealthy and powerful corporations or their governmental side-kicks, but as collaborating citizens of an internetworked, globalized and ever more interdependent world.

Things didn’t start out that well… In the remarkably thin set of official documents pointed to for the event there was nothing about “digital inclusion (exclusion)” i.e. who isn’t being included in the current Information Society, who are they, why are they, and what, if anything is being done. And then we have the program which circa 2003 was a series of “show and tells” about this and that having to do with the Internet… little or no serious research on outcomes or effects, no serious analysis (no analysis, serious or not, in fact) and no sustained “review” of what has been accomplished in the last ten years and more importantly what has not and thus no possibility of making sufficient sense to plan a useful way forward for the broad public interest.

And finally we have the draft statement meant to be the collective output of the event–available only at the last minute and only in hard copy linking and highlighting Unesco’s central role in all this (point after point linking Unesco’s areas of responsibility — education, science, the “Knowledge Society” with a recitation of “progress”; “new horizons” and “constant expansion” here and “innovation processes” there; with this “positive trend” and that “rapid diffusion”; with this “basic paradigm” and that “rapid growth”… okay, okay, we get it… good news all round and pie and caviar for the rest in the sky when we die…

But what about unemployment in the developed countries, what about massive processes of tax avoidance, what about vast regions in Africa where there isn’t even mobile coverage let alone Internet use? What about the turning over into corporate or government hands of huge volumes of data for surveillance or for turning into marketing profiles or whatever with no effective scrutiny, accountability or the putting into place of the means for ensuring the deployment of this infinite data storehouse in any sense of public interest or public control? What about the need for broad recognition and response to the increasing brittleness and vulnerability of a modern society now become so dependent on what are ultimately rather fragile links and eminently hackable systems?

And so we have the Information Society and soon the Knowledge Society as shepherded (errr  showcased) by Unesco and what a happy place it is and perhaps not surprisingly the major corporate sponsor errrr “partner” for this event was the Disney Corporation and they and Unesco gave us the FantasyLand and the World of Tomorrow all rolled up into one happyface package as cut off from the real world as is Disneyland itself.

Ultimately of course, it isn’t good old Unesco’s fault, “they could/would/should do better if only they had the funds”; but of course, Unesco’s ultimate pay masters the Member States and particularly those most benefiting from the Internet status quo and most desirous of this status quo continuing had absolutely no interest in putting on anything but a happy face.  There are no non-happyfaces in Fantasyland and if there are any, well we just usher them off the premises so as not to frighten the children.

No need to talk anything but happytalk because if/when we do we may realize that not everything is quite what it seems and perhaps the interests of the many might be better served by having some public policies in place to ensure balanced growth; support for the non-winners; equitable distribution of opportunities, rewards and benefits; protection for our rights as citizens and consumers: and the creation of means for their effective enforcement globally, not by relying on the goodwill of strangers (or other people’s courts and legal systems).

Some of that discussion would need to go beyond happytalk and might make some of the “winner” individuals, corporations, countries a wee bit uncomfortable but this is our world as well and if you folks want to profit from us we have the right to have a say–unless in the last ten years we’ve all shifted from being citizens on Planet Earth to being subjects in the Magic Kingdom.

Anyone interested in doing a serious review of the Information Society +10, let’s get together and see what we can do.

Mike <gurstein@gmail.com>

Ministers, Director General, Mr. Chair, Distinguished Panelists, Honoured Guests

I am honoured and delighted to have the opportunity to make some brief remarks to this panel as a member of Civil Society and as an academic and researcher concerned with Information Society issues.

Many things have changed since we as a group concerned with the future of the Information Society were together at the WSIS summits in Geneva (2003) and then in Tunis (2005).  Mobile’s were only beginning to be found in the Less Developed Countries of the world and the role of mobiles as an element in overall economic and social development was still a far off dream. Broadband itself was still somewhat exotic as a source of high capacity Internet.

What is perhaps most significant however, is how over this period of time, the Internet has become normalized, a routine part of life for billions and something that is taken for granted even as it has transformatively penetrated into a vast range of actions and behaviours and even arguably (and dangerously because so much of this is privatized and corporate controlled) into the very fabric our structures of thinking, our patterns of governance, our intimate behaviours.

Concepts and movements in support of  the multiple facets of digital “openness”–open archives, open data, open access were at the time of the WSIS meetings limited to programs and strategies for software development as in Free and Open Source Software;. various forms of social networking were largely still gleams in their developer’s eyes and no one could have imagined the types of transformations which have resulted from their widespread and almost instantaneous popularity including as a platform for mobilizing and aggregating actions in support of the common good including quite notably and not without some irony in our host country for the Tunis Summit.

More negatively issues of security and privacy on the Internet and their operational evil twins censorship and surveillance did not figure so prominently in those, perhaps simpler, times. And notions of cyberwar and the threats and counter threats of a new Cold War in cyberspace were only found in the realm of science fiction. And finally the draconian and in many cases unreasonable current positioning concerning copyright were still only in their infancy.

In Geneva and Tunis and very widely elsewhere at the time there was continuing discussion and concern about the Digital Divide, its origins, its impacts and the possible means for its resolution.  Currently there is very much less discussion on the Digital Divide to the point where reputable bodies including some attending the Review are claiming that the Digital Divide and issues of Digital Inclusion have been resolved  and most notably by the mobile revolution.

But it should be noted that the promise of mobiles as a means to fully access and participate in the Information Society is still denied to many because of a lack of infrastructure (including electricity), the cost of service, the cost of devices, physical limitations in being able to use the devices and overall through the evident difficulty in linking mobiles even where there is wide accessibility and use to effective strategies supportive of broad based social and economic development.

And of course, alongside this must be placed those still very large numbers in rural areas, among indigenous peoples, among the very poor in urban areas worldwide for whom access and use of mobiles for participation in Information Society benefits is still an impossible dream. The issue is especially significant I believe for indigenous people’s because of whose relationship with the land there is often a particular set of opportunities which effective use of ICTs presents.

Even while so many are deriving such immense benefits from the Internet and the fruits of the Information Society, countries around the world including Developed Countries such as my own Canada are shamefully cutting back on support to ensure that all those who wish it can access and use the Internet. In Canada for example roughly half of the roughly 20% not currently using the Internet regularly or some 3.5 millions Canadians have indicated that they are not currently using the Internet because of the cost of service or of the access devices, or because of a lack of training and our national government has just recently cut the only program that was addressing the needs of this population.

In my own area of academic and research interest, Community Informatics, we see repeated examples of technologies, and implementations of technologies and developmental programs which fail because of an unthinking approach to community needs, grassroots practices and existing community resources and a failure to engage communities and the grassroots as partners in their development and ICT implementation and use. Equally issues of linguistic diversity in the Information Society are if anything becoming more acute as insufficient attention is paid to the very real opportunities that the Internet presents for encouragement and support to minority languages and minority language speakers.

Also, it is well to reflect on the evident decline in attention being given to the Internet as a public good and the governance of the Internet in the public interest with the current triumphalism of those who wish to extend the ideology of private interests as the fundamental nature of the Internet. This is occurring even while there is an ever widening recognition of the role of the Internet as a basic and empowering platform through which the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in the Information Society of the present and the Knowledge Society of the future can be most effectively realized.

It should also be noted that many of the cross-sectoral issues such as climate change, sustainable development, environmental degradation even the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) themselves which, were discussed only in passing in the earlier WSIS have now become so prominent that attention must be paid and directly within the Information Society framework.  ICTs are becoming, in these areas as in so many others fundamental supports and enablers without which little effective action is possible including as providers of fresh opportunities and particularly when it is recognized that programmes and implementations designed around the use of ICTs at the grassroots level in these areas will strongly influence longer term success or failure.

The Internet has been a remarkable even an astonishing success and this success has provided the basis for vast and widespread evolution into an Information Society and now into the beginnings of a Knowledge Society.  With this success has come vast opportunities for gain of individual wealth, power and prestige.  Looking back, many of those in this room perhaps naively expected that the Internet because of its networked and decentralized nature, its intelligence distributed to the edges, its enabling of the peer-to-peer, would serve to resolve some of the on-going bases of social and economic inequality and unequal distribution of opportunity.

In fact, I think it is arguable and even becoming evident that the overall effect of the Internet has been quite the opposite.  The rise of the Internet not I believe coincidentally, has taken place alongside what economists are noting is the greatest increase in concentrations of wealth and power into the smallest number of hands in human history — and it seems unmistakeable that the Internet has been a significant contributor to this–with the Internet enabling in such a way as to further enrich the already wealth and to empower the already powerful.

While providing opportunities for many, those without such opportunities from the Internet have been left even further behind, and rather than widely distributing opportunities there seems to have been a hidden coding that favours the concentration — most evidently of wealth — a combination of a winner takes all and first mover advantages — operating and even extravagantly in some instances in favour of certain companies. certain individuals certain regions and certain countries.

And similarly to concentrations of wealth have come concentrations of societal and cultural influence so that certain voices (and languages, and to a degree the values which are associated with these) which in the past have been most influential have been made in the Internet enabled era even more influential.

Thus, looking forward I see that the issues of digital economic justice, digital equality and digital inequality as well as digital inclusion will develop alongside and partially displace issues of the digital divide as the primary pre-occupation to be addressed as we go forward to WSIS +10 and beyond in the task of building an Internet for all and an Internet that enables in the broadest public interest and towards the broadest possible public good.

The issues have been widely and intensely covered elsewhere but one of the most interesting continuing reverberations from the meeting and its outcome has been the introduction of the meme of the “Cold War” as identifying the two sides. One side actively was presenting itself as supporting “Internet freedom” and the other side allowing itself to be understood as supporting “state intervention” into the operations of and activity on the Internet.

A recent article by Alexander Klimburg carries the analogy of the Cold War even further, putting the overall discussion into the context of the breakdown of the WW II great alliance and the rise of the Cold War following the Yalta conference. Klimburg characterizes the two clashing Internet “sides” as the “cybersovereigntists” (Russia, China, Saudi Arabia etc.); contrasting these to the “liberal democracies” (the USA, the UK and so on)–with the “cybersovereigntists” advocating for a stronger role for the state in the governance of the Internet and the liberal democracies arguing (at least at the rhetorical level) for a “Hands off the Internet/Internet Freedom” (HOI) position.

In fact of course, the two positions are nowhere near as clear cut as Klimburg (or most of the others using this analogy) make out or as advocates at least, of the HOI position would have one believe.  In addition to the positions noted above, the cybersovereigntists include a number of those whose primary concern is that of ensuring the widest possible access to the Internet (digital inclusion) and to the economic benefits that are accruing as a result of Internet activity; and the Hands Off position of no regulation of the Internet, is notably one that also appears to support the specific interests of certain countries and corporations for whom Internet regulation might represent additional taxation, reduced profits, and a reduction in the dominance of certain nationally based Internet corporations and so on.

It appears almost certain that this division and the related “Internet Cold War” is likely to continue through the series of ITU related meetings to the 2014 Plenipotentiary conference where ITU governance issues themselves will be discussed, into the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) +10 review process and the WSIS Summit meeting itself in 2015.

This being the case and with the increased visibility and significance of Civil Society (CS) in these forums resulting from the increased support for multistakeholderism as a broad Internet governance framework–the question becomes what should be CS’s position with respect to this Cold War and the alignment of forces that it represents.

The position overall of CS in the WCIT meeting, evidently without a great deal of reflection or internal consultation, was to support the Internet Freedom/Hands off the Internet position primarily from a “free expression/free speech” position (or perhaps better, from a position rejecting those who might wish to restrict free expression on the Internet).  This of course, whether by accident or design, put CS at WCIT in direct alignment with the policy stance of the US government (and its allies) and of the US corporate-led anti-ITU–Hands off the Internet/Internet Freedom–campaigns.

This alignment as well, isn’t all that surprising as it is a reflection of the links–financial and otherwise between certain elements of digital civil society and their generational and cultural counterparts in the technical and Internet enterprise communities. That this particular US government and corporate “hands off” position is fundamentally anti-statist and libertarian in the context of the current US political cauldron might perhaps surprise certain elements of CS but is quite consistent with the quasi-libertarian Internet culture of Silicon Valley and the multiple mini-Silicon Valleys around the world.

However, now, as we are seeing the ramping up for the next two years of jousting between the Internet Cold War disputants it is time for CS to reflect on and discuss it’s position and to come up with a stance which is rather more in keeping with the fundamental role of CS in relation to the Internet which was perhaps best articulated in the CS Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society (2003).  Of course, many things have changed and evolved since 2003.  At that time there was hardly any attention paid to broadband and none to mobiles, censorship on the Internet (and the related “free expression”) was not a pressing issue and arguments concerning “openness” and “peer to peer” were largely confined to the technical community.

What hasn’t (or at least shouldn’t have) changed however, is the commitment of CS to a “people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights“.

This articulation of the CS position from the 2003 CS declaration would appear to cut across the two Internet camps–including the need both for free expression on the Internet along with an inclusive and development oriented Internet. Given that CS’s commitments would appear to cut-across and include elements of both the sovereigntists and the HOI folks it would seem that the most appropriate position for CS in the emerging “Cold War” is one of “non-alignment” where CS recognizes the validity of certain elements in the stance of both camps including support for free expression and open access on the one hand, and of digital inclusion and a fair distribution of the economic benefits of the Internet on the other; and on the other hand rejects other elements of these camps–attempts to restrict free expression on one side and an absolutist anti-statist anti-regulatory position regarding the governance of the Internet on the other.

But particularly the CS position would be characterized by its commitment to the governance of the Internet as a global public good and to the operation of the Internet in the global public interest. In this way CS would reject support for an Internet dominated by private corporate interests as well as one supporting the interests of control oriented  governments who would use the Internet for repression and as a way to enhance internal control.

These results for my well-intentioned attempts to broaden and deepen the significance and audience for open data has generally left me feeling either frustrated or irritated or both.

And then I began to step back from the discussion and to examine it (and the overall ways in which open data is analysed and presented) in a broader and somewhat more philosophical light.

What is open data and is there more than one way to approach it?

Thus we have the definition of open data in “Open Definition”: “A piece of content or data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and/or share-alike.”

Or that :

Open data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike.

The full Open Definition gives precise details as to what this means. To summarize the most important:

• Availability and Access: the data must be available as a whole and at no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably by downloading over the internet. The data must also be available in a convenient and modifiable form.
• Reuse and Redistribution: the data must be provided under terms that permit reuse and redistribution including the intermixing with other datasets.
• Universal Participation: everyone must be able to use, reuse and redistribute – there should be no discrimination against fields of endeavour or against persons or groups. For example, ‘non-commercial’ restrictions that would prevent ‘commercial’ use, or restrictions of use for certain purposes (e.g. only in education), are not allowed.

Or we have the definition (taken at random) in this case from the City of Toronto: The City of Toronto makes data it collects available to the public via toronto.ca/open. By offering data sets for others to use, the City supports unfiltered access to its information.

If you go further down in the standard definition of “open data” this begins to become a bit clearer:

Interoperability is important because it allows for different components to work together. This ability to componentize and to ‘plug together’ components is essential to building large, complex systems. Without interoperability this becomes near impossible — as evidenced in the most famous myth of the Tower of Babel where the (in)ability to communicate (to interoperate) resulted in the complete breakdown of the tower-building effort.

We face a similar situation with regard to data. The core of a “commons” of data (or code) is that one piece of “open” material contained therein can be freely intermixed with other “open” material. This interoperability is absolutely key to realizing the main practical benefits of “openness”… (my emphasis).

That is, “open data” is a “piece of x (content, data, etc.)”,  with the attributes and capabilities of rendering of a “thing” or “object” or “product” (a data set) that in turn can be “used”, “re-used”, “distributed” etc. Or, in other words it can be seen as a “component”, as a lego like building block which can be stacked one piece on another to create further and bigger objects. Thus it is to be seen as a “products” where “products” are “bought as raw materials and sold as finished goods” in this instance, where the raw data is the input and the “open data” is the output.

As an object or thing the attributes and characteristics of the open data are more or less fixed once made available to the end user/consumer.  As well, the determination of the attributes or characteristics of the data (what the open data “is”) as seen/obtained by the end user is solely at the discretion of the producer and are uniform and stable as between end users.

But why shouldn’t we think of “open data” as a “service” where the open data rather than being characterized by its “thingness” or its unchangeable quality as a “product”, can be understood as an on-going interactive and iterative process of co-creation between the data supplier and the end-user; where the outcome is as much determined by the needs and interests of the user as by the resources and pre-existing expectations of the data provider.

We can define “service” as:

…a set of one time consumable and perishable benefits

• delivered from the accountable service provider, mostly in close coaction with his internal and external service suppliers,
• effectuated by distinct functions of technical systems and by distinct activities of individuals, respectively,
• commissioned according to the needs of his service consumers by the service customer from the accountable service provider,
• rendered individually to an authorized service consumer at his/her dedicated trigger
  

That is, redefining and re-conceptualizing open data as a “service” rather than as a “product” puts the emphasis on the “open” (and opening) as a transitive and interactive “process”, rather than as an “object”, and as an interaction and a relationship between the supplier and the end user; rather than the data (and its virtual “thingness”) as a once and for all discrete set of production and consumption activities.

Treating open data as a service rather than as a product implies a quite different approach to how open data is managed, in what form it is made available, how it is funded and what expectations are placed upon it by governments as suppliers and by end users.

Thus Open Government Data as a service:

• includes a concern for the end user and end uses in the overall planning and development
• includes those with an interest in end users and end uses in the project team
• recognizes the potential diversity and special needs of end users and their requirements for “effective use” including naive and inexperienced users–thus for example including the possibility of indigenous people, women, grassroots users, citizens and the public interest as possible end users and working interactively with these groups to make suitable provision
• applies a range of metrics to evaluation of the “success” of open government data including contributions to the public good

Why does this matter?

This matters because if one treats open data simply or exclusively as a thing or commodity then it is available solely as a product for purchase and use through the market place–where of course, market principles dominate and where for example, those with the most resources are able to command and control and thus precipitate the supply of the product i.e. the open data.  This of course, fits quite neatly into the current neo-liberal agenda of certain governments of marketizing public services by first packaging them as discrete bundles of consumer oriented “products” and then opening up the processes of producing those bundles to competitive tender (as per the links that Jo Bates makes between Open Government Data and neo-liberal developments in the UK). However, whether such an approach is in the public interest is of course currently being severely criticized by those critical of what has been termed “market fundamentalism“.

Further, in this context the criteria of success or “value” of open data is exclusively based on its success in the marketplace as determined by market value, consumer demand, return on investment and so on. If however, one looks at open data as a service then the potential value of open data can be equally measured in terms of the benefits (including or particularly non-monetary) that the service is providing to the end user and to citizens as a whole.

As well, there is the possibility, even the requirement that open data as a service is directed towards the specific requirements of a diverse group of end users (and not simply anonymous interchangeable consumers) including for example, not-for-profits, community organizations, women’s groups, trade unions, and citizens working for the public interest amongst others and also would include the variety of adaptations, supports, training and so on which would maximize the opportunities for the various types of end users to benefit from the data service.

This of course, is particularly significant if one is concerned with ensuring that open government data is not simply “open” but also “inclusive”–that data that is provided by citizens is not simply privatized and sold off to the highest bidder but is made available in a form and a context where the broadest base of benefit may be derived from the data through its effective use by marginalized groups and citizens at large along with those who may be able to take a commercial advantage from making the data more generally available.

The report has two interrelated elements:  the first, a series of somewhat useful national case studies document the current state of play at a national level for certain elements related to Freedom House’s traditional concern with “freedom of expression”; the second, and very much more problematic but which provides the basis of the headline quoted above and one expects most of the interest that underlies the huge number of Google references noted above, is an “Index of Freedom on the Net”.

Freedom on the Net aims to measure each country’s level of internet and digital media freedom. Each country receives a numerical score from 0 (the most free) to 100 (the least free), which serves as the basis for an internet freedom status designation of Free (0-30 points), Partly Free (31-60 points), or Not Free (61-100 points).

For those with an interest, it is worth taking the time to download the report (662 pages) and go to the “Methodology” section on page 640 and following.

The “methodology” appears to be as follows:

• A series of questions associated somehow with a very high level definition of “freedom” loosely associated with the UNDHR have somehow been formulated (the actual relationship and development process is not explained) but no evidence of pre-test or independent assessment of these questions is provided;

• These questions include multiple sub-questions — some of which are mutually exclusive and most of which require significant and in many cases somewhat technical/and or formal definitions as in almost all instances the actual determination of a result is largely based on a subjective assessment of a local set of circumstances (e.g. Do the authorities regularly monitor websites, blogs, and chat rooms, or the content of e-mail and mobile text messages, including via deep-packet inspection?);

• These “questions” are in turn given for assessment to “experts” (no justification is given for how these “experts” are chosen, what their specific area of expertise might be, their independence relative to the subject matter, their standing among their peers as for example through lists of peer reviewed publication in the field and so on, is provided);

• These “experts” in turn are required to assign a single numerical score for each question for their designated countries. These scores are then compiled on a national basis and provided to a series of meetings of Freedom House staff and a range of Freedom House selected “local experts, scholars, and civil society representatives from the countries under study” for a preliminary assignment of an “Internet Freedom” score. (No details on who these are, what the process of assessment might be, any independent i.e. non-Freedom House selected participation or review is provided.)

• A score is then assigned to each country.

• The outcome of this “comprehensive study” is then presented to Freedom House staff (who) do “a final review of all scores to ensure their comparative reliability and integrity”. And this becomes the basis for the graphs, tables, and various comparisons of this that flow from this…

Right…

Please note that there is no referencing in the methodology section (at least in the most recent report); nor is there an indication of any independent (peer) review, verification or assessment at any stage in the process.

Sadly, if not surprisingly, this “methodology” wouldn’t pass muster in any reputable Master’s (let alone Ph.D.) program that I have had any experience with and would be laughed out of the room in any peer reviewed publication or independent research funding program.

As a case study in using pseudo science as a way to manifest and justify researcher bias or as an exercise in applied ideology it might I think, be quite useful and I would recommend this to any suitable undergraduate program in social science methodology as a case in how not to do independent research.

What the index does tell us, for anyone interested is what countries the good folks at Freedom House “like” (in the Facebook sense) and who they don’t like–a good way of developing a Christmas list of those who have been naughty and nice (according to Freedom House). However, what if anything it tells us about “Freedom on the Net” or anything remotely related to that is rather more questionable.

As a research study, which this claims to be (the term “research” is used 5 time in the first three paragraphs of the acknowledgements), this should be an embarrassment to both the host organization and the funders.

In fact, the idea of establishing an index of transgressions including by governments and by the major Internet corporations against various elements of the UN Declaration on Human Rights is an excellent idea.  However, for such an index to be meaningful it would have to be developed with a degree of methodological rigour, institutional (and ideological) independence and based on as international a range of inclusion and participation as the Internet itself.

One guesses that the US with its continuing extension into ever broader areas of on-line surveillance and it’s persecution of those such as Aaron Swartz on the basis of outmoded conceptions of property rights in digitized knowledge, might not rate quite so high on such an independent and somewhat more obviously value free index. The ratings for folks in the corporate sector including the funders of the Freedom House study might be interesting to assess as well.

“Advocates of aggressive action against Google saw the computer algorithms behind search as a utility that should be heavily regulated like the gas or electricity that flows into our homes. But search engines need to make choices about what results are most relevant to a query, just as a news editor must decide which stories deserve to be on the front page. Requiring “search neutrality” would have placed the government in the business of policing the speech of the Internet’s information providers. To quote Justice Black, it would have made search engines publish those results “’which their ‘reason’ tells them should not be published.’”

And given the way in which the authors have constructed their arguments it probably is a victory for “free speech advocates” in the sense of not creating a precedent which in turn could allow for such interventions as “regulat(ing) the content of Amazon’s book recommendations, the locations on Bing’s maps, the news stories that trend on Facebook and Twitter, and many other online expressions of social and political importance”. Clearly not outcomes that follow Justice Black’s test of “editorial reasonableness”.

I’m wondering though whether the issue concerning Google is rather misplaced when included under matters concerning free speech/free expression.  The issue of whether to have a search algorithm propelling a robotic process of information selection covered by free speech “rights” is something for legal scholars to ponder at their leisure.

I’m wondering whether it wouldn’t be better to “investigate” Google for possible “freedom of thought” violations rather than issues concerning “freedom of speech”… Google has the potential for much more serious impacts on our capacity to know (or not know) certain things, than on what we can say or not say…

Think about Google’s ambition to be the cataloguer, access portal for all human knowledge–to, as they describe their mission, “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. This is not about providing information as a publisher or website developer, rather it is to provide a “means” (a lens, a framework, a methodology) through which all human knowledge/information can be accessed.

The question then is what is the status of that “means”…

Wikipedia provides a definition of “freedom of thought” as follows, “freedom of thought…is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others’ viewpoints”. Given that Google is providing the technology lens through which the vast proportion of those seeking information or knowledge online are undertaking their searches, the methodologies/algorithms employed by Google are by definition in a position to restrict (or direct) an individual’s opportunity to “consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others’ (in this case Google’s algorithm’s) viewpoints”.

In fact, Google’s algorithms have to be understood at the level of “epistemology” i.e. from the perspective of their role (in fact, intervention) in framing our underlying “knowledge, understanding, justified belief about the nature of the world”.

If we choose to accept Google’s ambition at face value; and if our information seeking behaviour is in correspondence with Google’s ambitions; then the primary lens through which we pursue our knowledge, understanding, justified belief about the nature of the world (or at least that which can be accommodated within a digitized Internet-enabled framework) is through/be means of Google’s algorithm(s).

Perhaps George Orwell’s concept of the “unperson“(from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four but subsequently applied to Soviet actions against perceived dissidents) might be revealing here…

“In the George Orwell book Nineteen Eighty-Four, an Unperson is someone who has been vaporized. Vaporization is when a person is murdered by being turned into vapors. Not only has an unperson been killed; they have also been erased from society, the present, the universe, and existence. Such a person would be taken out of books, photographs, and articles so that no trace of them is found in the present anywhere – no record of them would be found. The point of this was that such a person would be gone from all citizens’ memories, even friends and family. There is no Newspeak word for what happened to unpeople, therefore it is thoughtcrime to say an unperson’s name or think of unpeople. This is like the Stalinist Soviet Party erasing people from photographs after death; this is an example of “real” unpeople.”

Google with some 84% of the global search activity (70% in the US) can, through its algorithms “unperson” someone or an idea etc. (for example by dropping their reference down several pages in the search ranking, or (even inadvertently) “disappearing” something from the search engine completely…

Google has already indicated that they “tweak” their algorithms for a variety of purposes (including commercial).  What or who is to prevent them from, some time in the future, tweaking their results to favour one religion or another, one political or ethical stance over another, one perspective on scientific knowledge or another; and who at this point is in a position to say that they aren’t doing so already?