RE: [soac-mapo] Incitement (#6 & #14) was Re: [] RE: List of Discussion Threads

[Milton L Mueller <mueller@xxxxxxx>]

Actually I think Konstantinos and Avri are making essentially the same point, 
i.e. they are mostly in violent agreement, but somehow couching their argument 
in a way that makes it seem like a disagreement. When Konstantinos says that 
"incitement has a very specific nature and incorporates some very basic 
criteria (e.g. Real encouragement to perform an act and not a simple statement 
or wish to perform such act)" and Avri says that the power of a word or symbol 
to incite is all "context-dependent," what they are saying is so similar in 
terms of its policy implications for gTLDs that it is pointless to carry on 
that debate. Because the clear implication of Avri's broader definition is that 
ANY word can incite and thus incitement cannot be grounds for refusing to grant 
string.

--MM

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-soac-mapo@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-soac-mapo@xxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Konstantinos Komaitis
> Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 4:10 PM
> To: Avri Doria; soac-mapo
> Subject: Re: [soac-mapo] Incitement (#6 & #14) was Re: [] RE: List of
> Discussion Threads
> 
> 
> Yes, Avri and myself come from a different angle here. For me, as a
> lawyer and considering the way the term 'incitement' is used in legal
> theory, no single gTLD can incite anyone to do anything. Criminal courts
> when determining incitement apply a variety of tests and approaches -
> for me the way 'incitement' is used within the DAG4 is over-simplistic
> and too broad. Incitement has a very specific nature and incorporates
> some very basic criteria (e.g. Real encouragement to perform an act and
> not a simple statement or wish to perform such act). I truly fail to
> understand how any gTLD will 'really encourage' people to do something.
> 
> Having said that, I am really ok with having No. 6 and 14 incorporated
> into one issue with two different strings.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> KK
> 
> 
> On 01/09/2010 20:53, "Avri Doria" <avri@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 1 Sep 2010, at 15:12, Gomes, Chuck wrote:
> >
> >> From: evanleibovitch@xxxxxxxxx
> >> Is Konstantinos'  issue of 'incitement' significantly non-redundant
> wrt #6?
> >>
> >
> >> I wondered the same thing Evan.  It is probably up to Avri to help us
> decide that because I believe she is the one that raised thread # 6.  My
> understanding is that Avri had two concerns: 1) the use of the term
> 'incitement' and the 'discrimination' criteria listed.  Is that correct
> Avri?  Do you think it would be reasonable to combine # 6 & # 14?
> >>
> >
> > #6  Incitement to discrimination criterion
> >
> > #14 I would also add the use of 'incitement' as a term for the
> determination of morality and public order. If I recall some of us,
> including myself, do not see how a simple gTLD would be able to 'incite'
> any illegal activity, not at least in the way the term is used in
> criminal law.
> 
> Well it can't be completely up to me.  Konstantinos and others would
> have something to day about it too.
> 
> I think that Konstantinos and I have somewhat different views of the
> same issue.
> 
> He, and others, indicate that a simple string cannot incite.  And they
> use the example of including a string in a email message on this list to
> prove that it does not incite. I countered that this is not a good
> example, as we are somewhat dispassionate (most of the time anyway) and
> are using the strings as conversational devices and examples.    They
> argue that it is only the content of a site that makes it an incitement
> and argue that our boundary against  including content means incitement
> is not possible.
> 
> I tend to believe a string can incite and that is does not depend on the
> content of a web cite I believe that it depends on the context and the
> timing.  .E.g. .bomb-all-mosques on the side of a NYC bus or .maim-all-
> queers on a billboard in Uganda or the simple word .lesbian (in Arabic)
> in the UAE might actually incite something to happen.  Given 63
> characters, we can produce some intense text - we have already learned
> to change the world in 140 characters - we can do it in 63 almost as
> easily.  So I believe a phrase can incite.
> 
> My issue is that I believe that despite the power of words to incite, it
> is not relevant as a criterion for judging gTLDs.  I believe any word or
> phrase in the wrong place at the wrong time can cause incitement and
> that all such incitement is contextual.  The attribute of being able to
> incite does not seem useful to me as a criterion because it is always
> contextual (even without content) and the DNS does not have a single
> context.  My point has to do with questioning what we mean by incitement
> and whether we can really judge that a string will or will not incite as
> the DNS is not contextually bound. Put another way, the DNS can be
> accessed in all times and in all places, so eventually any word will hit
> the context where it incites.
> 
> So the issues may be similar and may be in the same category.  I
> certainly have no objection to including them in the same category, but
> then we might end up arguing over whether strings can incite, and not
> over whether that matters in the least.
> 
> I am fine either way.
> 
> a.
> 
> 
>