Myth Busters

We have heard a number of objections to the principle of Core Neutrality along the way that don't quite make sense. We're listing them below, with our responses, to clarify any misunderstandings about what is at issue here.

Core Neutrality is a choice, so it's not "neutral".
Answer: This confuses process with outcome. There is indeed a choice here, and it is to define a neutral process. But the outcome will be evaluated differently by different people, and so it is impossible to define a "neutral outcome" because of the inevitably varying subjectivity of such judgments.

Having a neutral process at the core of the Internet does not prevent others further out toward the edges of the network from imposing their own local values to create what they consider to be a "neutral outcome." But it allows local communities and individuals on the network to make their own decisions without having to be oppressed by judgments of others that they disagree with.
Allowing all technically adequate gTLDs necessarily imposes potentially offensive results on the whole world.
Answer: This gets two things wrong: (a) it ignores the difference between making affirmative decisions and abstaining from decisions, and (b) it ignores the difference between central control and edge control of the Internet.

(a) If ICANN abstains from censoring the Internet, it does not prevent others from censoring the Internet. But if ICANN censors the Internet, it prevents all others from "uncensoring" the Internet. This is not a symmetrical situation.

What ICANN does not do, others may still do, but what ICANN does cannot be undone by others.

(b) ICANN is not the only place where decisions can be made and implemented to control or filter the Internet. It does, however, make policy that governs the very center (or "core") of the Internet, and so all of its affirmative actions will indeed be imposed on the whole Internet, all-or-nothing. But the whole world will never agree on what should and should not be censored. So, if we try to develop a one-size-fits-all policy, we will necessarily end up over-censoring the Internet. and oppressing people in the process.

When dealing with issues that cannot produce a global consensus, it is more appropriate to push control out to more local points in the network where consensus can more likely be found and local control will not oppress anyone.

Combining these two points:

What ICANN does not do at the center of the Internet, others may still do more locally. But, what ICANN does at the center cannot be undone locally. When ICANN abstains from censorship at the core, this does not impose lack of censorship further out toward the edges.
Core Neutrality imposes western liberal values on the rest of the world and oppresses their right to object.
Answer: No, Core Neutrality allows others to make their own choices according to their own collective or individual values. If they object, they have the power to decide how to control their own use of the Internet.

Core Neutrality prevents constrictive values from being imposed on liberal communities and individuals who would not have the power to object to these decisions to constrain expression.
If ICANN does not make these political judgments, then others will make them.
Answer: Yes! This is the whole point. Political judgments are inevitable, but ICANN is not well positioned to make decisions on policies where there is no global consensus, because its decisions are necessarily global in impact.

And even where it may be possible to find global consensus on these censorship issues, ICANN's governance structure is not adequately accountable to the full citizenry of the globe to be trusted with such decisions that ultimately impact the full citizenry of the globe. Where there are international treaties that create genuine global consensus, they should be upheld and enforced. ICANN is not well designed to create legitimate international treaties.

Where judgments are essentially political in nature and different local jurisdictions have made differing judgments, such as with censorship, the political process should be targeted to the level of local jurisdiction where there is a community of consensus. ICANN is inappropriate to be making such political judgments for the entire globe.
Core Neutrality forces local communities to censor the Internet (in this case, domain names). This would lead to more censorship of the Internet.
Answer: It makes no sense to say that a single point of global censorship is not "more" than a selected number of points of local censorship, where there may be other points without such censorship. The global point of censorship creates 100% censorship across the globe. Having local points of censorship results in less than 100% censorship. If ICANN engages in censorship, that creates the maximum amount of censorship across the globe.

The ideal, from our point of view, is that individual Internet end-users should have maximum ability to control their own personal (or family) use of the Internet. And, if there are communities that have a strong consensus on shared values, they may create systems to control their community's use of the Internet in a way that they can all agree on, but does not impose on those outside of their community.

It is unlikely (and perhaps undesirable) that there should be utterly no control over the Internet at all. The important question of policy is: who should be in control? The best answer is that the further away from the center or core of the Internet that control is located, the better. "Power to the edges."

This policy is a counterpart to the technical architecture of the Internet where there are "dumb pipes and smart edges."

It is a fact of life that there will be censorship on the Internet. It is better that any such censorship should be fragmented and distributed toward the edges of the network, rather than centrally controlled. Centrally controlled censorship would constitute more censorship than selected fragmentary censorship.
Core Neutrality would create more local points of censorship, which would lead to less dialogue across communities. The important value of the Internet is that people can start to talk to each other, and that's the only way that these varying cultures can eventually learn to understand each other.
Answer: This is also self-contradictory, because this complaint is motivated by the situation where lack of central censorship leads to too much dialogue of an offensive nature, where communities have differing values. The tension of differing value systems does not change quickly, and in order for dialogue to be productive it needs to be controlled by those participating in the dialogue, on their own terms. If ICANN forces the terms of dialogue on the participants, it distorts and impedes that dialogue from proceeding in a balanced, bottom-up manner determined by the participants.

Core Neutrality allows communities and individuals with different values to decide between themselves how much and what kind of dialogue is productive. By placing this control in the communities and individuals themselves, it allows them to avoid the tension of being forced by external powers into unwanted contact with each other, and it allows them free expression within their own communities even if that expression might offend others in other communities.

Core Neutrality encourages more productive dialogue while allowing more local control to avoid the "fireworks" of conflicting values, where that would be only disruptive. It is possible to have both too much dialogue and too little dialogue. Allowing communities and individuals to control their own dialogue with others allows the proper balance to be determined from the bottom up rather than imposed from the top down.

For additional comments in response to doubts about the Core Neutrality mission, see The Importance of Addressing Core Neutrality at ICANN.

Keep The Core Neutral

Petition to ICANN Board of Directors: